A Secret Vow: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Romance (17 page)

I start to run in, consequences be damned. but Vince throws a hand across my chest before I can even get close.

“Don’t,” he whispers. “They’ll shoot you without blinking.”

I’m furious. I don’t give a fuck if Croak and I have been on good terms lately or not. At the end of the day, he’s still my brother and my leader, and there’s no one in this world who has the right to hit him and get away with it.

But Vince is right. Charging in blindly would only earn me a state-sanctioned bullet in the skull. That won’t help anyone. I swallow my anger and sit back.

I hear bone crunch as a tall cop brings his nightstick down hard from overhead to smash Croak’s outspread fingers. Blood is dripping down his knuckles. He can’t help but cry out in pain.

Soon, the beating subsides. Two cops wrestle Croak into handcuffs and drag his limp frame into a waiting vehicle. They toss him in the back and slam the door shut.

I see a sickeningly familiar figure leaning against the hood of one of the police cars encircling the property. Grady is looking like the cat that ate the canary. I’ve never seen a smugger bastard in all my life. My stomach curdles on sight.

He strolls towards the center of the circle. I notice that his uniform is clean now, not the filthy, raggedy mess he’d had on outside the courthouse yesterday. The hollow glare of his deadened eyes is brighter, too. He looks sharp. Dangerous. Deadly, even.

He addresses the whole club in a booming voice. “Gentlemen, I’m giving you fair warning right now. Keep your heads in the sand. Better yet, get the fuck out of town. If I or any of my men see one of you dirty cocksuckers roaming the streets, you’ll get booked and thrown into jail quicker than you can say, ‘But Officer, I wasn’t doing anything.’ I’m telling you, do. Not. Fuck with me.” He spits onto the yard, then turns and heads back to his car. The cops holding guns in our faces back out slowly, pistols raised until the last one of them has exited the property.

The police officers roar away, taking Croak with them, leaving a crowd of stunned and silent Angels in their wake.

Everyone is looking around at each other, not sure what to do or who to follow. I see Vince, eyes wide open. Steezy, Boulder, all of them—lost, confused, threatened. No one knows what to do.

There’s only me.

“Inside, now. Everyone,” I say, springing into action. We have to move quickly. There’s no way to know what Grady’s planning next. The men follow my lead as I march into the clubhouse, trailing behind like a herd of mute lemmings.

We take seats in the bar. The silence is thick enough to stop a bullet. The fear is palpable.

In the eight years since Croak, Steezy, and I came down from Houston to build the Galveston charter of the Inked Angels, there’s never once been an issue with the police. We paid them enough to keep everyone happy, and as long as the money was flowing, we didn’t have problems. They kept to their side of town and we kept to ours.

Then Grady had entered the scene.

He was just a hotshot young officer at first, one with flexible morals and a sharp eye for opportunities. No one ever trusted him completely, but cash always lays concerns like that to bed. He seemed too greedy, too hungry, too willing. There was a business to be run, though, so Croak worked with what he had on hand to keep things moving along.

The first time Grady had asked for a raise, we didn’t bat an eye. The money was piling on faster than we could count. Fuck it, right? Just pay the man! So we’d paid him and life went on.

It happened again, and maybe a few of the older men, the ones who’d been around the block before, made some noise, but we dismissed it as overcautious and just forwarded what Grady demanded. He became our exclusive contact as he rose up the ranks, blocking out all the other officers we’d ever dealt with before. Up went his rank and up went his price point, without much pause for breath between either increase.

We never realized we were creating a monster.

With business going so well, Croak dropped the ball. He picked up vices faster than I could keep track of them—drugs, liquor, women. He wasn’t a weak man by any means, but after years of busting his ass at the forefront of the Inked Angels network, not to mention the lingering aftershock of the mess with Blaze and the Diablos, he felt he’d earned the right to sit back and enjoy what he’d built. No one could blame him. Not until he started getting sloppy.

So maybe a drug deal slipped by under his nose without getting his blessing first. Perhaps Grady offered protection to another club running some girls from across the border. What’s the big deal, right? Wasn’t the pie big enough for everyone to get a taste? That’s what Croak had told me. He was the boss, so I’d just kept silent. I wasn’t the type to break rank.

But Grady wanted more than just a taste. He wanted the whole damn enchilada. Without a strong hand at the Angels wheel, Grady saw a chance to squeeze us harder than ever. Croak ignored the signs.

Then the night at the races had happened.

To be fair, I hadn’t expected any of this to occur either. I didn’t like Grady, but I thought he was just a money-grubbing son of a bitch, nothing more than that. When you think you know what a man wants, it’s easy to feel like you control him. Money wasn’t an issue for us, so we gave freely.

It wouldn’t be enough anymore.

Now, with Grady striking down on the club with everything in his arsenal, I wonder if this is my fault. It wouldn’t be hard to blame me. After all, I took his girl. I woke the sleeping dragon. Ignorance is no excuse. I knew he was a mean bastard, and yet I went after his woman anyway.

The thing is I don’t regret it. I’d do it again in the blink of an eye. My thoughts go back to the girl sitting at home waiting for me as my child takes shape inside of her. There’s not a thing under the sun I wouldn’t do to keep them safe. To keep them mine.

The time has come to figure out what that thing might be.

“Alright,” I growl to the men assembled on all sides of me. I’m standing in the middle of the bar. All eyes are riveted on me. “I’m not going to waste your time or mine by saying that this is a fucked up situation. I think every man in this room is aware of that.” I turn as I talk, letting each Angel know that I am taking charge, that I can be trusted. That I will solve this mess.

“What we need are facts, not fear. We need a plan, not pussies. If anyone in here isn’t up for fighting to take back what’s ours—not just our president, but also our turf, our business, our respect—then get the fuck out right now. Door’s over there.”

No one moves.
Good
, I think. We’re going to need all the help we can get.

“The pigs left us this,” says Boulder, stomping forward to hand me a thin manila envelope. I open it up and tug out a single sheet of paper. It’s got an official Galveston police department letterhead. In the text, it says that the club is under investigation for transportation of illegal substances, human trafficking, murder, theft—the list goes on and on. It lists Croak’s official name as the primary suspect along with the indication of a warrant for his arrest.

What a bunch of bullshit. These are trumped-up charges, impossible to verify and blatantly untrue for the most part. Yeah, we’ve dabbled in helping drug shipments across the border, but this isn’t a fucking slave ring. We don’t sell people. We don’t murder civilians.

At least not yet. For Grady, I might make an exception.

I crumple the paper and throw it aside. “This is a direct assault on us, boys,” I say. “We’re past threats and warnings. No one is leaving here until we know what we’re doing next.”

* * *

I emerge from the club a few hours later to smoke and collect my thoughts. The sun is low in the afternoon decline. I wince and shield my eyes against the bright rays. I’m exhausted from hours of planning and scheming, even though nothing solid came out of it. People are confused. The cops are upsetting the balance that’s made every cop and crook in this town rich for a long time. All the rules have gone out the window. There’s uncertainty looming over every course of action.

On top of all the chaos, we can’t bail Croak out until the day after tomorrow. He’s mired in processing purgatory. It’s only supposed to take a couple hours for him to get booked and pushed through the system, but, unsurprisingly, the cops are dragging their feet, making us wait until tomorrow morning to even get the ball rolling on bail proceedings. Once we have that in place, they’ll throw every trick in the book at us to hold onto him as long as they can. It’ll add at least another few hours’ wait to the ordeal. There’s little I can do about it.

My thoughts are interrupted by the phone vibrating in my pocket. I don’t recognize the number flashing on the screen.

“Hello?” I ask as I pick up.

“Knock, knock,” responds a voice I didn’t want to hear.

“Grady, what are you doing?” I fire into the mouthpiece. “What do you want?”

“Tut, tut, that’s not how the joke goes,” he says in a baby voice. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Who’s there?’”

“Cut this shit out, Freeman,” I growl through clenched teeth.

“Well, since you won’t ask, I’ll give you the answer anyway. Do you know who’s
not
there, Mortar?  You aren’t.”

“I’m not where?”

“You’re not home. I thought I’d pay you a house visit. Guess I’ll just have to give my best to your darling wife instead.”

Through the phone, I hear the squeak of my front door. Grady is at my house. Kendra’s there, alone. I need to go. Now.

I toss my cigarette to the ground and tear off to where my bike is parked. There’s no time to waste as I throw my leg across the seat and rip down the avenue towards home.

I’m two blocks away when a patrol car screeches across the street in front of me. I swerve to a sudden halt, barely avoiding colliding with the vehicle.

“What the fuck?” I roar at the mustached cop climbing out of the car. He’s calm as hell, way too relaxed for my liking. I can’t see his eyes behind the mirrored aviators he’s wearing.

“Watch your mouth, boy. I’m an officer of the law, and you were speeding. How fast were you goin’ on that damn thing?”

“I need to go, right now,” I bark.

“Well, you’re just gonna need to hold on a minute. You’re getting a ticket for the stunt you were tryin’ to pull. Keep running your mouth and I’ll throw your ass in the back of the car here, too.” He grins. I see tobacco juice staining his teeth. “Don’t think you’d like that. Unless of course you wanna go see your friend down in lock-up?”

I bite my tongue. I can’t afford to get taken away. Not with Kendra vulnerable and Grady kicking down my front door. The cop’s partner in the front seat has his hand in his lap, no doubt holding a gun and just begging for me to do something to warrant him firing it at me. Glancing at my watch, I see that it’s already five o’clock.
Don’t let him fucking touch her
, I pray silently.
Don’t let him even get close.

The cop takes his time writing me the ticket and running my ID. I’m fortunate to have a clean background. I wonder, though, why they haven’t invented some reason to haul me away in spite of the lack of any real reason. Could this be just a delaying tactic? Does Grady
want
me to come home? My heart grows cold. I don’t know what I’ll find there. Horrific images flash through my head, each one worse than the last.

Kendra slumped over and bleeding out on the kitchen table.

Kendra, a knife slashed across her throat.

Kendra crying and screaming as Grady uses her for his own sick revenge.

But I don’t have a choice. I have to go back. Even if it’s a trap, even if it’s to make me confront some nightmarish crime scene, I have to go back.

Finally, the cop re-emerges from the car and hands me the ticket. Before he climbs back in to drive off, he tips his hat at me, smiles, and says, “The major sends his best.”