ROUGH RIDER (15 page)

Slowly, I took a step towards them, my hands up, nodding slowly.

“How could you?” Rizzo’s shrill voice broke through the tense silence. My eyes darted over to him, tears streaming down his face as he waved the gun at Leo, ignoring the other people in the room entirely, his focus completely on Leo.

“Rizzo, put the fucking gun down!” Leo growled again. “Now isn’t the time!”

“I don’t fucking care, Leo. I don’t care if your precious Gabriella dies. Maybe she should. Maybe she should pay for your mistakes, huh? For your savage, senseless violence? All this time, Leo. I was so loyal to you. Too fucking loyal! You deserve to die. My father didn’t.” He was shaking, his gun loose in his hand as he waved it around, his eyes wild with pain and rage.

Everyone had turned to watch, including Angelo. I turned slightly, making eye contact with Bear, and with a slight jerk of my chin, he made his move.

It was risky. He could have been shot. Gabby could have been shot. We all could have died.

But I did what any soldier would do. I assessed my situation and I used whatever tools I had at my disposal to their full capacity. My most valuable tool just happened to be covered in black fur and drooled obsessively. It was the sharp teeth that I was counting on.

Bear jumped up towards Angelo, his teeth sinking into his thick, scarred arm smoothly, the gun falling at his feet. Gabby ran towards me and I pushed her behind me quickly.

Angelo fell to the floor, flinging his arm wildly, attempting to release it from Bear’s mighty grip.

“Get him off,” he cried. As soon as his ass hit the floor, Bear jumped up on top of his chest, releasing his arm, but holding him down with the weight of his massive body, baring his teeth in his face with a savage, threatening growl.

I ran over and shoved my gun in his face.

“Don’t fuckin’ move!” I yelled, putting my boot on his chest.

The sound of a gunshot echoed through the cabin and Leo fell in a crumpled heap at Rizzo’s feet.

“Daddy!” Gabby cried, rushing to his side. Romeo grabbed Rizzo, pulling the gun from his shaking hand and pushing him away.

I looked down at Angelo, my gun resting on his forehead. His eyes were glued to Bear’s teeth that were millimeters from his nose.

“You fucked with the wrong club, asshole,” I said.

I turned to Bella on the floor to tell her to call an ambulance when my broken front door burst open once again.

“Everyone freeze!” a deep voice yelled, as dozens of cops rushed in, their guns drawn. “Hands in the air! Now!”

“Bear! Down!” I snapped my fingers, and Bear jumped off Angelo and laid at my side.

After that, everything happened so quickly.

The sound of guns hitting the floor was like a contagion. Rizzo dropped his, then Romeo, then me. Leo’s had fallen to his side when he was shot.

Gabby was crying as she tried to stop Leo’s bleeding. I watched helplessly, wanting so badly to take her into my arms, to tell her everything was going to be alright.

But I couldn’t. Because I had no idea if that was the case anymore. I didn’t believe it myself, so how could I tell her that? How could I give her some false sense of hope? I cursed myself, wishing I’d taken her far away before any of this had gone down.

I’d failed her.

The cuffs went on and I was shoved in the back of a police car. After a moment, an ambulance arrived and the paramedics loaded Leo into the back of it. I sighed with relief when I saw the cops let Gabby go with him in the ambulance and that they hadn’t cuffed her.

She looked at me one last time, her eyes full of sadness, as the paramedics closed the door behind her.

Maybe there was some hope left for her after all. She’d be alright, even without me. She’d survived this long under the protection of Leo Loprinzi. Maybe he could do a better job than I had.

The roar of approaching bikes sounded in my ear and I began laughing.

My backup had finally arrived.

Too little, too late
, I thought, as Alonso, Italo, Bats, Angry Bobby and Gio all rode up, pulling off their helmets and looking around with bewilderment as they cut off their engines.

I shook my head and shrugged.

“What happened?” I heard Angry Bobby ask Romeo. Romeo, Bella and the lady I now recognized as the reporter, were huddled together on the porch, watching Angelo and Gino get thrown in the back of another cop car.

“Shit went down,” I heard Romeo explain, “and it went down really rough.”

It could have been rougher,
I thought. At least Gabby was safe.

That was the only thing that mattered to me.

“Hey,” I yelled out to Romeo.

He ran over to me and I yelled at him through the glass.

“Give Bear a steak!” I said. “Tell him he’s a good boy.”

Romeo grinned and shook his head.

“Will do. And don’t worry, we’ll bail you out of jail as fast as we can.”

“Just take care of my dog,” I insisted.

“What about Gabby?” he asked.

I watched as the ambulance disappeared from view, taking Gabby away with it.

“She can take care of herself…”

“
Y
ou be good
,” Dante said, scratching Bear’s ears before locking up the cabin. Bear had been the real MVP, and if he hadn't attacked Angelo, Dante’s life would be full of misery right now.

He’d probably be dead, actually. He didn’t just save Gabby - he saved Dante, too.

They never expected things to turn out the way they did. But for a situation that turned into a huge mess, it couldn’t have turned out much better.

Immediately after the cops busted in, Angelo and Gino were arrested, along with Dante.

Leo and Gabby were taken to the hospital and Leo was rushed into surgery.

While Leo was in surgery, the cops questioned Gabby at length, not just about the fight, but about her father’s business affairs. They tried to pry anything they could out of her. Of course, she knew nothing, and once they figured that out, they let her go.

Turns out, those two Iron Godz didn’t actually die at Otto’s. It was all a ruse concocted by the cops and the Feds.

They were being held in a private hospital under a couple of aliases, and the fucking cops staged the whole thing. They’d teamed up with the Feds, and gotten permission to trick everyone into thinking the two worst hurt guys didn’t make it.

After the fight happened at Otto’s, they’d seized the opportunity and taken the two critically injured Godz to the hospital, separated them from all the others, and made up a lie about them dying. Their motive? To get Angelo Bandini and the rest of the Godz out of hiding. They figured if the thought their men died, they’d come looking for Gabby and Dante.

Angelo had been in hiding for quite some time because he was wanted on a RICO charge. The cops had been after him for years but could never get a handle on him. They knew he wouldn’t just let two of his men die without striking out for revenge.

Once Angelo started looking for Gabby and Dante, he was easily spotted and the cops were following them the whole time.

So once they found Angelo at the cabin, the fake murder charges against Dante and Gabby were dropped.

The Feds questioned Leo for days after he got out of surgery. Rizzo’s bullet had pierced a lung and Leo had no way to avoid their questioning, stuck in the hospital for weeks.

But Loprinzi was Loprinzi. He’d always been slippery, and just like all the times before, there was nothing they could do to make any charges stick. He had the best attorneys money could buy, and as always, they had to let him go.

Leo declined to press charges against Rizzo, explaining to Gabby and Maria that he had it coming.

If it made Rizzo feel better to shoot him, then so be it. He’d spent fifteen years trying to make it up to Rizzo for killing his dad and he almost felt a little better now, as if part of his debt had been paid finally. It was insane, but so was the mob.

Before Dante left the cabin, he threw a fresh bone on Bear’s bed and watched with a smile as he dug in, his sharp teeth scraping against the bone, his tail wagging happily. He reached down, scratching his faithful companion’s ears again lovingly.

“Love you, buddy,” he said, before closing the door. He stepped outside, looking around, remembering the scene that day two weeks ago. At the time, he had no idea how everything would turn out. He had no idea if he’d ever have a chance to see Gabby again. He didn’t even know if he would ever be a free man again.

But here he was. More than free. Happy. With a spring in his step and a smile on his face.

It’d been two long weeks since the shooting and today was Gabby’s twenty-first birthday. Thoughts of her had haunted him constantly, but he had forced himself to give her space. She needed time with her family, she didn’t need some guy she barely knew getting in the way.

So, despite the urge to find her and run off to someplace far, far way with her, he’d let her be. He’d already whisked her away once and that hadn’t turned out as well as he’d hoped.

But tonight was different. She’d finally called, her voice sounding far away and shy as she invited him to her birthday party.

He’d accepted with his heart in his throat, feeling like a nervous teenager.

Dante jumped on his bike and made his way down the winding road that led to the freeway that would lead him to Gabby’s apartment in the city.

Forty-five minutes and one stop later and he was driving up to her building.

He pulled the bouquet of pink roses he’d bought along the way out of his bag and made his way up the sidewalk, ignoring the queasiness in his gut.

He knocked on the door, doing his best to man up.

Being nervous was new for him and he hated it. He hadn’t been nervous around a woman in a long time but this wasn’t just any woman.

This was Gabby. He wanted it to be perfect.

Bella flung open the door, looking him up and down with her signature smirk.

“Gabbbbbbbby,” she yelled over her shoulder. There was a huge amount of people filling the apartment behind her. “Your biker is here!”

Bella looked him up and down, her eyes raking over him slowly.

“You clean up pretty good, Dante. And you brought roses, too?” Bella nodded. “Classy move.”

“Hello to you too, Bella,” Dante said, just as Gabby rounded the corner, her curves accentuated by the tight black dress she was wearing. Bella walked away, disappearing into the crowd.

“You look amazing,” he said, handing Gabby the roses.

Dante swallowed hard, resisting the urge to scoop her up into his arms and carry her off to her bedroom. He wasn’t used to this dating shit. He wasn’t used to waiting. He certainly wasn’t used to hanging out with a crowd full of strangers.

“They’re beautiful!” Gabby leaned forward, inhaling their fresh scent. “Thank you,” she said, looking at him shyly.

“Happy birthday,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” she said, “would you like to come in?”

“Do I have to?” he asked, looking past her at the crowd.

She giggled and nodded.

“C’mon, we’ll go to my room,” she replied, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside. She led him down a hallway past the gawking crowd and into her room.

They sat down on the bed and he turned to her, so stoked to finally be in her presence again.

“Have you been okay?” he asked, thankful that they were alone. Her room was feminine and frilly and he felt completely out of place in his leather cut, but he didn’t care. It smelled exactly like Gabby and he loved it.

“Yes,” she replied, nodding. “You?” she asked with a smile.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied.

They sat in awkward silence, and once again, he felt like a schoolboy again. He looked at her, drinking in her beauty, completely at a loss for what to do. He sighed, shaking away his uncertainty.

This was absurd,
he thought.
I’m fucking Dante Santoro. I’m a fucking man, and that’s how I should act.

“I’ve missed you,” he said gruffly, before pulling Gabby into his arms, his mouth coming down hard on hers. She kissed him back, returning his passion two-fold, having missed his touch as much as he missed hers.

She pulled away after a moment, looking up into his familiar eyes, the smoldering hunger she saw there shooting right through her.

“I owe you everything,” she whispered.

“No, you don’t. You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart,” he replied.

“…and Bear,” she murmured, staring up into his eyes.

“Bear loved every minute of it,” he shrugged. “He’s got a hero complex.”

“And you?” she asked quietly. “Did you love it?”

“Yeah,” he replied, his voice thick with emotion. “I loved it. Most of it.”

“Dante…” she hesitated.

“Yes?”

“What do we do now?” she asked. “This was all so weird. Everything happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to think.”

“What do you want to happen?” he asked.

“I guess I’d like to start over.”

“I don’t know if we can do that, Gabby. We can’t change the past. What happened, happened. And there’s one thing that I can’t start over.”

“What?” she asked.

“I love you, Gabby,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I’ve loved you for a long time. At first, it was just a fantasy. A boy’s childhood obsession. But then you came back. And now here you are. You’re not just a fantasy. You’re real. And I fuckin’ love you, Gabby. I need you in my life, I need you to be mine. I can’t just start all over. A love like this can’t just be turned off and on.”

“Dante, I —,” she began to reply, but his kiss silenced her. She melted into him, loving him back, needing him just as much as he needed her. His kiss transported her, lifting her heart with joy and sending sparks of electric desire through her limbs, just as it had before.

She knew she could be in for a rough ride with Dante. She barely knew him, but she did sense that he was a lot like her father.

Stubborn. Prideful. Mysterious.

But there was more to him than that. He was gentle but he knew when to be assertive, he was tough as nails but he wasn’t afraid to show her his vulnerable side, he was a good man that had put his own life on the line to save hers.

When life throws someone like that in your path over and over, eventually you listen. You stop fighting.

His kiss woke something inside of her that she’d tucked away for the last few weeks. She’d been worried sick about her father and was so happy that he’d been released from the hospital.

But today was her birthday. And she was ready to celebrate.

And Dante was her present.

Right here in her bedroom.

In the flesh. Safe. In one piece. Wrapped up in leather, tattoos, and delicious rugged masculinity.

They weren’t hiding. They weren’t on the run. They weren’t in danger.

That was all in the past. That was all over.

Now they were just two normal people, enjoying a nice, normal kiss, with their entire lives spread out before them.

Gabby tore her mouth from his and walked over to her bedroom door. She turned the lock with a slow smile, her stomach quivering with happiness.

She turned around, her eyes colliding with Dante’s.

He opened his welcoming arms with a lustful grin, and she walked right into her future.

T
he End
, but don’t stop now! Just for my loyal Kindle Nikki Wild readers, I’ve included a few special bonus novels! Turn the page to read PROTECT AND SERVE!

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hope
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ikki
Wild