Page 29 of Rider Daddies (Venom Vultures MC #6)

ASH

What is it with cops and their obsession with creating heavy workloads? They need to tone it down and learn to relax more instead of sticking their nose into business that doesn’t concern them.

I wish they’d stop fucking looking at my girl.

I step back and stand in front of her. I now have two reasons for this.

One: Only we get to see her naked.

Two: They can’t know that she’s Lucia.

“I’m sorry officers,” Ryder says in the most fake-apologetic voice known to man. “We don’t know the girl you’re looking for.”

The officer flicks his eyes from Ryder to the clubhouse behind him like he’s trying to compare the two. “Mind if we take a look around?”

Friday night.

Perfect fucking timing.

I step in. “You’ll need a search warrant if you wish to step inside.”

The officer gestures to his friend who produces a folder, flicking to the designated page.

As if to get a rise out of me even more, he clicks on a flashlight and moves it over the bold, capitalized text: SEARCH WARRANT.

Busted.

They walk over to the clubhouse and invite themselves in.

Silence among the crowd.

I turn to Ryder and Saint, our differences put aside just for now, considering we have two cops on the premises.

And that could put us in big shit.

One of the cops asks for the music to be turned down. Then, I hear the faint mention of the name Lucia Bianchi.

The room becomes even quieter.

I listen closely as two pairs of footsteps fade away. They must be checking out the rooms. As long as they don’t take down the curtain where all our firearms are stored, we’re golden.

In the meantime…

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” Ryder hisses at me.

All I can do is scoff. Ryder has been riding on his fucking high horse for far too long. “What do you think I was doing out here, making daisy chains? What’s the big deal? If the moment arose, I know you’d be selfish to get your dick out and put it in.”

“She’s not just yours.”

“Everything has to have your name marked on it, doesn’t it?” I shake my head. The man is unbelievable. “You’re acting like a child.”

“And you’re acting like a parent.”

My fingers tighten into fists. Is this Ryder’s goal tonight? Is he not already crooked-looking enough?

He notes my fist. “Go on,” he prompts. “Beat me up. That’s what you do every time I’m winning.

” He wiggles his hands. “Bring it on. Break my nose this time. Instead of aiming the gun at my wrist, shoot for my heart. You want me out of the way, don’t you?

” He arches an eyebrow. “Go on. Do it while the cops are here.”

I feel Lucia shift beside me. “You shot him?”

“He was being a pest.”

“But you’re brothers,” she says. “And you already lost your parents.”

“I wasn’t gonna kill him.”

“Are you sure about that?” There’s a dark tone to Lucia’s voice. “You want power over him.”

Using our previous conversation against me, is she?

Damn.

“Don’t worry. I don’t intend to kill my brothers.”

“Intend.” She toys with the word on her tongue. “Sometimes things don’t always pan out. Accidents happen.”

And this was a big one.

Shit.

Why did we invite Lucia into our lives so openly? It doesn’t matter how much I miss her or yearn for her touch—she puts me in my place and does the one thing I don’t allow anybody to do. Challenge me.

I also don’t appreciate the way she makes me feel. The attachment I have is starting to become a big fucking problem, especially now that we have the cops on the loose searching for her.

What if they take her away?

It might do me a favor. She needs to go before I’m down beneath my depth.

But every time I think about her leaving, it hurts.

It’s the same reason I lit up when she told me she should stay—I want her in my life, even though she’s terrible for me.

I wanted to claim her in order to keep her.

But Lucia is too fiery.

One day, she’ll get bored of this place and leave, drilling a bigger hole in my chest than the one my parents carved when they left the world.

I stand in the dark waiting for the cops to emerge. They’re taking their sweet time.

To make matters worse, my balls fucking ache. Fuck the cops. It’s Ryder and Saint who I’m the most pissed off at. They’re the biggest cockblockers this world has ever seen.

Ryder especially always gets his own fucking way. He needs to taste loss for once in his life. Sometimes, I question if his heart even broke when our parents died. Even after they were gone, he continued being his same, egotistic self that only cared about himself.

The cops reenter the night, looking even more sinister than when they first arrived on the scene and broke up…I can’t even put into words what that was.

Silent like two birds of prey, the pair step down from the veranda and walk themselves over to Lucia.

One of them takes out their phone and brings up a picture.

Lo and behold, Lucia Bianchi.

I squint my eyes, getting a better look at the photo. She looks so…different. She looks good in fancy white blouses and suit pants. Maybe too good. Her face is straight for the cameraman, depicting the seriousness that comes with working at a law firm.

The cop raises the phone in line with Lucia’s face while the second cop attempts to draw similarities.

It’s a good thing Lucia has had quite the makeover since arriving here. The professional look has long gone from her face, and I’m glad—she doesn’t look anywhere near as happy in that photo as she does here.

Praise the Lord for white tank tops and denim jeans—it seems they are the best disguise.

The second cop flicks his eyes back and forth between the photograph and Lucia’s face, eyes sinking so far into his face that in a minute, they’ll be disappearing into his cheeks.

“Sunshine Motel,” Lucia says, keeping a straight face. “I heard about that.”

“Really?” questions the first cop. “What did you hear?”

Bravo, Lucia.

“It was a murder scene, blood everywhere, but the victims went free.”

“They did.”

I frown. She’s trying to go about this in a backward way, finding out if the victims got away. But we’re skating on thin ice.

Unless she wants to reunite with her psycho pretty boy, she should keep her mouth shut and forget that she cares.

“All victims but Lucia Bianchi.”

I huff out a sigh. “Are we done here, officer?”

The cop turns to the one still holding up the photo. His face is lit up from the screen, showing a hard brow as he consults his partner. The first cop nods, so the photo-holder finally relieves himself of his duty, phone returning to pocket.

“That will be all, yes. Thank you.”

They walk together into the night, hopping into the cop car that they very strategically parked up ahead to avoid disruption.

It’s a piece of shit Ford that looks like something a grandma would drive.

When the car takes off, we all release the breath we’ve been holding.

But the tension isn’t dismissed. I feel it clutching my bones still. This isn’t over. This tug-of-war with Lucia feels never-ending.

“That was weird,” she murmurs.

“Not really,” Saint says, walking out. “Standard cop visit, really.”

“No, not that.” Lucia rubs her head. “There were bodies everywhere. Think about all those missing person cases, all of those files becoming solved when the police turned up at the motel. What about murder? It was damn obvious that all of those men laid out in the parking lot were killed. And they’re here to investigate me, the only missing victim… ”

Ryder crosses his arms over his chest. “What are you saying?”

“Murder is more of a priority than missing.”

A streak of moonlight crosses Lucia’s face. Her eyes are wide, alert.

She looks afraid.

“Why is this about a missing person instead of murder?”