Page 30 of Rider Daddies (Venom Vultures MC #6)

LUCIA

I want to believe that the cops chose to dismiss the dozen-or-so bodies laid out at the motel, but it’s not protocol to ignore murder.

Not even if the people who died deserved it.

Mid-afternoons at the clubhouse are quiet. Maybe too quiet.

Eerily quiet.

Most of the bikers are out at this time doing whatever it is they do. The brothers joined them today for numbers.

Normally, I like being left alone, but whenever they’re gone I feel lonely.

The memory of them haunts me. Last night, bent over the Harley, was quite something. Having three brothers fight over me really gets my engines revving.

But it’s starting to become old news now. It’s obvious that the three of them have unfinished business from their childhoods. Parents dying can’t be easy even in adulthood, so I dread to imagine the hurt they had to endure as kids.

After tidying up the bar, I decide to slip under the curtain to take a look around the infamous ammo room.

Shiny toys are everywhere.

I pick up a few weapons, gauging their weight.

Back in Sicily, my papa owned a rifle for the rats whenever they sneaked into the garden. When his affair came to light, intrusive thoughts got stuck in my mind. The only thing that used to make me feel better about his affair was the idea of me shooting him dead with his own weapon.

What the fuck is wrong with me…?

Shouldn’t I be experiencing PTSD by now?

Instead, I lay the rifle out like it’s an extension of my own arm, reliving the moment I shot Manual Lombardi dead.

The fucker deserved it.

I see the blood pouring out of his chest again. I can almost fucking taste it.

And it tastes divine.

Even though the cops weren’t here last night to investigate murder, I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for more chaos to erupt. Last night, I had darkness and the disheveled, half-naked look on my side, but next time I might not be so lucky.

Also, fuck being caught. The longer I stay here, the harder it is to leave. Mamma keeps texting me and I don’t know what to say to her. At some point, I’m gonna have to come clean about the murder.

About the blood on my hands.

But I’ll still be lying to her.

Hell, I’m even lying to my conscious self.

Murdering Manual gives me an easy excuse to stay here…but it’s not the only reason I’m so drawn to this place. Every time I’m intimate with the brothers, the invisible force field around this place gets stronger.

It’s hard to leave.

They mixed something into that tattoo ink. It’s the only explanation.

Ever since they signed their names on my ass cheek, I feel bound to them. I feel it in my chest. They don’t even have to say anything.

The energy between us speaks for itself. It’s electric every time I’m next to them.

There’s an unspoken connection that I’ll have to ask the laws of physics to describe…I can’t define it in English, or in Italian.

I slot the rifle back into its place on the wall, dusting off my hands.

True lawyers don’t hold weapons and silently dream of murder.

What if this clubhouse was never meant to be the waiting room? What if it was always supposed to be my home?

I walk back into the main room and head toward the bar. It’s time I come clean. I can’t keep information like this from my mamma.

I’m about to grab my phone from the bench when something else grabs my attention from the window.

More cops?

I narrow my eyes and head toward the window, just as the shadow of a person passes across my frame of vision.

I lift up the window and stick my head out, prepared to be met with cop number two from last night who wants to analyze my face again.

Instead, I see thin air.

I want to breathe a sigh of relief, but can’t. Tension is lodged in my throat. I’ve been here long enough now to know that bikers park up out front and enter through the main door.

Time to investigate.

I lace up the first pair of biker boots I can find. They slope off my feet, dragging against the hardwood floor as I make my way across the veranda. But it doesn’t matter how big they are on my feet. These babies will do damage with one kick in the face.

I creep around the perimeter of the clubhouse, back pressed to the wall like I’m suddenly the main character in a spy movie.

Turning the corner to where I first saw the shadow, I prepare to start the interrogation.

But thin air smiles back at me.

First the cops, now a shadow?

Tristan nowhere to be seen?

Something about this has my crazy ex’s name written all over it.

“I missed you today.” Ryder smacks my ass to show me how much.

The tattoo is still fresh but I welcome the pain, since it’s him that’s doing the spanking.

And now I’m unable to pour draft beer.

I stick my ass out until it reaches something hard, and continue to pour.

“Did you make up with your brothers?” I ask him once finished dealing with orders.

Ryder stands beside me at the bar, forearms rested over the bench. “Is ‘no’ the answer you’re looking for?” His silver eyes beam my way. “I know how turned on it gets you.”

I bite my lip.

It’s true, but it’s better when they’re all getting along, working in harmony to pleasure me in a multitude of ways.

“I prefer teamwork.”

“Oh yeah?”

I turn around to face him, feeling as small as a mouse, in the best way possible.

Ryder is the problem child. I should’ve known, since he’s the one with the crooked nose and scarred wrist. His aggressive side should have me running the other way.

Instead, it heats me up.

“What are you gonna do to me?” I ask him.

“There’s too many things I want.”

“You should punish me. Invite your brothers to join.”

He stiffens up. “But I want you all to myself.”

I lean back against the bar, searching his eyes. They glisten like stars in the warm bar lighting, but I’m not a fool. Behind the silver, I see something broken.

A man who’s always fighting to put himself first is a man who is lost.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he demands.

He likes to stay floating at the surface…

Maybe we’re more alike than I initially thought.

“Ryder! Get your fucking ass over here.”

I turn away from the bar to see the other two brothers at the door, doing Ryder’s job for him. Despite the intruder that has just entered, Ryder takes his sweet time and only breaks eye contact with me when he wants to.

Like we have all the time in the world…

I harden my jaw, watching from the bar.

The intruder is masked, of course. Their slim, athletic build makes it so fucking obvious. Tristan has been AWOL for far too long. I don’t know why he bothered with the mask when his evil eyes are basically burning through the latex, fixated on me.

“Time for the Scooby-Doo reveal,” I say, arms folded over my chest.

Ash removes the mask.

And there he is—my ratty ex-fiancé dressed in a three-piece.

“Welcome back,” Saint says.

An audience grows, bikers finishing their conversations to turn toward the front door.

It’s like watching a predictable TV drama.

“I’m surprised to see that you’re still functioning without your other half,” Ash says.

“Barely,” Ryder scoffs.

This is the first time I’ve seen Ash laughing at one of Ryder’s sarcastic comments.

“How was the burial?” Saint asks.

Tristan raises a sparse brow like this is light entertainment for him. “You think I care about Manual?” That question is directed at me. “Come on, darling, I told you before that this has nothing to do with him.”

Ryder twitches.

“Stop speaking in riddles and tell us what you’re doing here,” I snap. “You want me back? Guess what? You lost your chance when you stuck your tongue down Willow’s throat. I forgot to thank you for that, by the way. Imagine if you didn’t? You and Manual would be passing me around like a used toy.”

“Manual and I were never friends.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Look at this disgusting place.” Tristan extends his vision out into the main room.

“If you’re so disgusted, leave.” Ash cocks his gun, keeping it at bay by his knee. “You had your chance and you failed. Lucia belongs to us now.”

Tristan’s face turns beet red.

He looks at me differently now, his eyes glazed over with want, like I’m the center of his universe.

Flattered, I’m sure.

But it’s too late.

“I don’t understand.” I remain at the bar. “If manipulating me to the altar had nothing to do with Manual and the trafficking ring, why else did you do it?”

“Love.” He says it matter-of-factly. “Because I love you.”

“So much that you kissed Willow on our wedding day?”

“A man has needs, but they vanished the moment I touched your best friend. She wasn’t you. Nobody is you, Lucia.”

Should I be blushing?

Fucking dick.

“A man has needs,” Ash says. “But he also has respect and a duty of care to the woman he loves. May I remind you that you condoned human trafficking and locked up your so-called love in a moldy motel room.” He snorts. “Talk until your tongue runs dry, comrade. It doesn’t change anything.”

Ryder jumps forward, slipping out his gun.

The conversation must be boring him to death.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you?” Ryder says.

I thought something was abnormal about me. I feel better about myself with Tristan here. No man on this earth—unless they have some hope of winning—would look straight into the muzzle of a gun and strike a pose like this is a photoshoot.

“Unlike all of you degenerates, I have my foot in the law.”

Ryder changes the cartridge. “Not for much longer, big guy.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how friendly are you with the police?” Tristan taunts.

Son of a bitch.

“You sent them here,” I state. It’s not a question.

I fucking know.

Tristan slow claps. “Well done.” He looks past the gun to address me. “Do you really expect me to sit back and let you stay with these people? They’re abusing you, Lucia. Don’t you see?”

Cue the mind games.

And oh, he’s good.

It’s why I said yes to his proposal before he could even finish the sentence—he knows his way around the human mind.

I look into his eyes and understand why I stayed for a year. Why I was in such a rush to say “I do” and look forward to spending the rest of my life with him.

He gave me everything I wanted. The flowers, the affirmations. He treated me like a princess. Kissed my shoe like I was royalty, and he was a slave.

And I fucking lapped it up.

Because it was everything I never had from a man.

He has a magic way with words.

And if it wasn’t for the fireworks I get with my silver foxes, I’d be going back to California with Tristan.

I stare at him, my opinion of him starting to shift.

He thought he knew what was missing in my life…

But he was wrong.

Words only get you so far.

Words aren’t orgasmic.

Words don’t breathe new life into your lungs and make you feel reborn.

If Tristan couldn’t speak, he and I would’ve had nothing.

“Lucia!” His tone is sharper now. “Don’t you see what they’re doing to you? They don’t respect you or your body.”

All I can do is roll my eyes.

Ryder fixes his gun closer to Tristan’s head, but Ash subtly shakes his head.

I’m surprised, given their power complex, that Ryder obeys. He shoves the weapon back into his holster and steps back like a good boy.

Tristan’s death won’t reflect well on the clubhouse. Despite the man being a pain in my ass, he’s still senior manager at his law firm with notable clients that could get this place shut down in a heartbeat.

Tristan offers me his hand. “I’m gonna give you one more chance.”

Is that a threat?

I stick my hand on my hip, watching him.

He looks me up and down. “What have they done to you? What have they made you wear?”

Corporate uniform is so last year. Why would I waste my life away in the office developing a hunchback when I can be out here in the sun making the most of my prime years?

I don’t expect a fucker like Tristan to understand my change in lifestyle.

“It might be hard for your self-righteous brain to believe, but I’m choosing this life, Tristan.”

“That’s what they want you to believe.”

Is he too up his own ass to understand where I’m coming from?

His face turns from yearning to angry, which concerns me. He might be small and skinny, a decade younger than everybody else here, but he has his wits about him.

It’s his only weapon.

“Back off from Lucia,” Tristan says to the entire club. He seems to have developed a backbone since our breakup. “When I return tomorrow night, I want Lucia handed over to me.”

“How about a tranquilizer,” jokes Ryder. “That way, you can have what you want in your dreams .”

That rouses the audience, laughter filling the main club.

An empty glass sails through the air. Tristan sees it coming and dodges. The glass shatters against the door instead of his face, but the laughter continues all the same.

It’s a shame he has quick reaction times.

I’d like to see his reaction to bloodshed.

“If you fail to hand Lucia over to me tomorrow night, I will escalate things with the police.”

Silence has never felt so fucking quiet.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening.” Tristan turns around, managing to slip out the door before a second glass lands on his head.

Shame it didn’t crack his head open and kill him.

I watch the glass shatter against the door, my thoughts starting to wander.

Tristan can eat shit. Better yet, I’ll yank open his jaw myself and force him to eat his own feces.

That might make me sound like one of the bikers.

But I’m glad.

Glad that I’m not going back to California to live out a life I now know is based on lies.

But when I turn to the brothers and regard their cautious faces, I realize that things aren’t so simple.

If I don’t go with Tristan tomorrow night, I can wave goodbye to the Venom Vultures. To my sex life, but also to my freedom.