Ride To The Edge (Lucifer's Saints MC) (Rough Riders MC Series Book 4) (3 page)

“I have suffered . . . every day I don’t get to spend time with the man I am truly in love with but I have persevered, and I have always done my job. I saved the Saints—a piece of shit fucking one percent club that should be going down with the Knights too. Through it all—through everything! The drugs, gunrunning and now fucking prostitution and human trafficking going on—”

“The girls aren’t trafficked. They sign a contract with Kitaev and he pays them.” I glanced away after I’d said my peace. For fuck’s sake, Talia and I were having a daughter and I’d die if she got caught up with what Kitaev and his Bratva were doing. Not only that but we were helping right along with him and no less culpable. We were just as guilty as him—guiltier because we knew the score, and yet we’d still made a deal with the devil.

It was Eve’s term to smirk. “Yes, I’ve seen their contracts. Or what, do you think we just pick up informants off the streets? I know what he gives them after two years of service and it’s pennies on the dollar. He does what he does not out of the goodness of his heart but because he’s in the gray area where he can’t be busted for human trafficking because, technically, these women are told about their situation ahead of time, come willingly and sell their bodies for money to take back home. I’m not a fool, Hardy.”

“Didn’t think you were.” I ached for a smoke but cleared my throat instead. “We done? I don’t want Talia to see you around.”

“Of course. Just let me know how everything goes with your little meeting with Brad. If he’s not ready to sing like a bird then he will get no immunity. Is that understood?”

“Yes, of course—”

“Oh and by the way,” she began as she started to walk away. “It’s Ms. Kerrigan to you. None of you low life pieces of shit have earned the right to address me by my Christian name. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” I murmured as I watched her walk away.

I
t was a much needed off day from performing, and when that usually happened, I spent time with the woman who was my second sister. I had to admit in times like this, Jerrica, my best friend from my former life before all the fame, glitz and glamour would never be able to understand everything I was going through.

She wouldn’t have understood being in rock band and she sure as hell wouldn’t have identified with “club life” but she was my piece of normalcy. That part of my life where I could just pretend we were just a couple of graduates from Vassar College who’d both moved out to Las Vegas and were still close enough to reveal friendly gossip.

That’s all I could truly talk to her about now that she lived the dream of art gallery owner/mom of two with a husband who happened to be our band’s manager. We were close but life happened. She had her Summerlin soccer moms and their million-dollar problems while I had a life of booze, sex, rock n’ roll and dealing with thugs on a regular basis.

However, she’d failed to tell me that she was actually hosting a cocktail party for the Summerlin Soccer Moms.

I stood out like a sore thumb and regretted getting out of bright red Range Rover; pretty much the only thing I had in common with these bitches was a six-figure car but other than that, I couldn’t relate to any of them and she knew it.

Hell, even though I’d worn designer jeans and a baby doll blouse that cost most than what the average casino worker made in a week, I paired it with stiletto Christian Louboutin boots that screamed rock n’ roll star if my tattoos hadn’t given me away first.

I wasn’t completely covered but with a half-sleeve on my right arm and various tats on my left along with tattoos on my back, a proper tramp stamp with Hardy written in cursive and my son’s name and birthdate on my ankle, I wouldn’t exactly mesh with her crowd that maybe had one “college mistake” tattoo if they were lucky, coiffed hair, botoxed faces with perfect makeup and enough name brand clothes to feed a third world country.

I tried to call her as I approached her front door but it was no use. One of the Summerlin Soccer moms had spotted me, and swung open the double doors to Jerrica’s palatial mansion like the place was on fire.

“Oh. My. God. Jerrica, is this your little college friend from school who you bragged about having the band? What are they called?”

I could only stare at the bleached blonde tart with her overly made-up face and the extensions in her hair that allowed her long flowing locks to mid-back.

A light skinned black woman and another blonde along with a brunette approached the door, staring at me as if I was specimen in the zoo.

“It’s Winter’s Regret,” the black woman responded to the bleached blonde. “My daughter and her friends attended the concert last night.”

“Wait, how old is Michaela, Sarah? You always seem so youthful—it’s hard to imagine you have a teenager,” the bleached blonde responded airily.

“Fourteen. However, Timothy and I were sixteen at the time when we had her though we did go on to finish high school and both of us graduated from Yale. Remember, he wouldn’t have been able to save poor little Madison from that awful case of the chicken pox she acquired because
you
don’t believe in vaccinations.”

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Their insipid talk of vaccinations and children and the status of their husbands—it was too much.

Regardless of being a rock n roll star, the people I loved and considered my family put their lives on the line every day to keep the community—and the world to an extent—safe. Meanwhile these bitches only cared about wealth, status and making me the butt of their jokes. I loved Jerrica with all my heart but she knew better than to invite me to a Summerlin soiree.

I turned around and walked back to my vehicle with my outrageously expensive bright red Birkin crocodile bag and climbed back into my equally gas-consuming, overpriced SUV.

I had all the same baubles and more. Hell, I probably had more money than most those women and their families who’d attended the party but showing off for the sake of showing off had never been my deal.

Jerrica ran out of the house dressed like all the other Summerlin soccer wives, and tapped on my limo-tinted driver’s side window with a perfect, French-manicured nail.

“Talia, where are you going? I have been waiting for you to get here just so I can get away and we can share a few laughs and maybe a bottle of wine, or three.” She smiled and it brought out her mesmerizing blue eyes. Unlike many of the women at the party, Jerrica preferred the sun-kissed look therefore blonde strands were weaved throughout her light brown hair.

“Sorry, babe. I’d love to have a drink but . . . I’m exhausted and I thought it would just be the two of us. I can’t handle entertaining a crowd of people who look at me like I’m shit on the ground because I have a few purple streaks runnin’ through my hair and tattoos on display. I do that shit for a living. This is my down time and I just realized it’s best spent elsewhere.” I shrugged my shoulders because I truly couldn’t find any fucks to give what those bitches thought of me but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out either.

Her brows furrowed in disappointment. “Where will you go?”

“I actually have company of my own at home. Don’t worry—both women are married and are of age but they just live more like I do . . . and they get it. I’m not blamin’ you for not being able to relate. It’s just the paths we took in life and I would love to get together with you soon. Just call me up when you aren’t entertaining for the Summerlin Soccer moms. I don’t need to know their kids like my music or that I am in a little band they have a hard time thinking of the title because they’re well . . . you know, better than to listen to the trash I play. Seen it, heard it all before and know the playbook by heart.” I smiled as Jerrica’s face changed and she bit on her lower lip.

“Oh God—I feel so bad. I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be. Just go on and enjoy yourself. We’ll catch up soon, all right?”

She nodded her head, turned and walked back towards her house defeated while I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. I waited until the double doors closed before I peeled out of the driveway.

“S
he what?” Gisela wondered with an incredulous look on her face.

“Invited me over while her uptight crowd was there, and well, maybe if I looked like you, I could have passed but not in this—not looking like I’ve had two hours asleep last night because I’m freshly fucked by my equally tattooed ruffian fiancé who also happens to be in an MC. None of those bitches would understand.”

“Have a glass of wine.” Kyra offered a half wine glass of Pinot Noir. “I spoke to my doctor now that I am out of the first trimester and he said it wouldn’t hurt the baby.”

I accepted the glass from her and sipped on it before setting it on the coffee table. “Are you sure you want to take that chance? After all this time it finally took you to get pregnant with you and Trey’s first?”

“It was my fault it took so long. The doctor said I was way too wound up and concerned about getting pregnant that my body couldn’t relax enough to actually get the job done. It’s not like Gisela and I haven’t been working our asses off. The case load can be somewhat erratic at times.” Kyra sat beside me on my wrap around black suede sofa.

Now this was the life, I thought with a small smile.

Both Gisela and Kyra were attorneys, beautiful women who kept themselves in shape and were professionals but they also had tattoos and tramp stamps courtesy of their old men, both who happened to be part of the mother charter of the Saints. I could talk to them and not put on airs because they knew what I was going through. They had been through it before and then some. Neither was sheltered from the real world we lived in and that was a place of expensive clothes and cars but also oil, scarred skin, motorcycles and men who wore patches and had road names.

A world where we were old ladies, and we could be as strong as we wanted to be when we were on our own but when our men came home, not only did we defer to them but there was a sense of respect—both give and take. They were alpha males who lived hard, partied harder and enjoyed a freedom nothing could give them more than a Harley between their legs and an open road.

Those Summerlin bitches could never understand the sisterhood Gisela, Kyra and I had because we’d seen death, destruction, mayhem and the paths of vengeance they left in their wake. It wasn’t about us thinking we were better than them but we all knew our eyes were wide fuckin’ open, and we trusted one another with our secrets, our fears and our lives.

Gisela poured herself a full glass of wine since she wasn’t pregnant and had no desire to be anytime soon. She and Cillian had a set of twins that were almost a year old, and she had completed her family for the moment. I couldn’t deny I was a bit jealous of her because she
wasn’t
pregnant.

“So, why didn’t you tell me how much this shit sucks?” Kyra swigged from her wine greedily. “No Mary Jane with the hubby, no wild and outrageous sex. The only thing I enjoy now is my half a glass of wine and that’s it. How is that fucking fair?”

I smirked though I wanted to laugh out loud. “It’s never easy and if you really wanted to know how hard pregnancy is, why didn’t you ask Gisela?”

“Um, because her situation was different than mine!” Kyra calmed down, her blue eyes bright though a crimson flush went from her cheeks to mid-chest. “I’m comparing apples to apples—you were pregnant before, and how do you feel about now? I mean . . . after what happened with Caitlyn, I really
don’t
have to provide him with an heir but to know that I’m carrying our baby, I’m ecstatic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so very happy but . . . I’m tired, cranky and in a bad mood all the time. How do I come to terms with this dichotomy?”

“That, my dear is where you’re wrong.” I breathed deeply because it pained me to tell her. “The fact is that Caitlyn has nothing to do with Trey’s legacy and she sure as hell isn’t his kid. Granted he provided the man juice to knock her mother up doesn’t make him a father—it makes him a sperm donor. Nothing more and nothing less. Cillian is Caitlyn’s father, and has been from the very day she was born.”

“I know that, Talia but the fact remains—”

“—nothing so don’t try to pull that attorney bullshit on me!”

Gisela, busy watching Kyra and I like a tennis match, laughed. “Now look who’s being very cranky.”

My heart thundered in my chest as I stood and began to pace. I hadn’t told anyone about what I’d done—what Hardy and me had done. I honestly didn’t feel like I had to justify my actions after what Jaden had put me through.