The Don's Baby: A Bad Boy Romance (44 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

There had to be a way to let Rafe know that they were trying to set him up, but Emma didn’t know what she could do. One thing was she was tired of being a victim. These fuck heads were going to let her go or kill her. Shit, she’d been here for over two weeks and if this was how they planned to get her to comply to their wishes, they were going to have to think again. She’d been playing nice until they talked about getting Rafe to walk into their trap. Now it’s time to lay down the law.

She walked outside to the concrete jungle that was the place everyone parked their bikes and found Fat J driving up. Emma had always thought it funny that the man who was friends with all these bikers drove a car. He was a very large man so maybe balance was an issue. Regardless of any of that she was happy to see him. She knew that he was a friend of Rafe’s even though she didn’t think that was common knowledge.

He drove up and parked near her and she walked over to the car. She stood there until he rolled down the window.

“Can I get in?” she said with a smile to his stonily straight face.

Fat J looked like he was considering his options and didn’t answer very quickly. She was beginning to think he was going to say no, but he nodded his head once. She walked to the other side of the car, opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

She turned toward him as he rolled up his window. It was freezing cold in his car but she’d have to deal with it if she wanted this conversation. “Look, I know we don’t have a lot of time but when I saw you with Rafe at the restaurant a few weeks ago it looked like you were friends. Is that true?”

His eyes squinted up just a little and she wondered if she’d gone to far. Whether she had or not he was her only chance and she was going to take it.

“If you have something to tell me then do it without qualifiers. We both have information about the other that could be detrimental to our well being. I don’t like questions like that. What do you want?”

How he could sound matter of fact without sounding rude she didn’t know, but this must be the way he spoke and he was right. They both had information that could hurt the other party so that should lead to some trust between them, but the way he talked it wasn’t likely.

“Joe has used my cell phone to text Rafe and tell him that I need help. I just wanted to have someone let him know that they are planning something for him. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about was helping me get to Rafe.”

She saw his eyes light up just a bit. This man was very hard to read but she wasn’t going to waste time thinking about why that was or why he seemed happy about what she was saying, but he turned a little more towards her. It was almost like he was getting into the conversation now.

“When you say helping you get to Rafe… what do you mean by that?” Fat J looked as if he was measuring every word and gesture like there would be a test later.

“I want to meet with him to see if he wants to get out of this town with me. We’d talked about it briefly but then we were interrupted by some of the Reaper boys so he had to leave and I was taken away and brought here.” She wasn’t getting much from him in terms of how he was responding to her questions or answers.

“What if he doesn’t want to skip town with you?”

She blew out a breath and took a second to think about it. “Then that’s unfortunate but I have to leave. If he doesn’t want to get out of town then I’ll have to leave without him. I can’t stay here like a prisoner while they wait for him to show up. It’s been over two weeks and I’m just hoping he remembers I’m here.”

“He remembers and it’s hard for him to stay away. I’ve been the one to encourage that. It’s for the safety and protection of both of you. I talked to Joe and from the way it sounds you’ve been pretty well taken care of. Would you agree with that?” Fat J’s tone had changed so he must have moved out of the interrogation mode and on to a new one.

“Have I been fed and clothed and given supplies to live? Yes, but do I have a life? No. I live like a prisoner, a well cared for prisoner, but one who has been ostracized from everything and everyone. No one talks to me and there are times some of the guys look like they want to cause me physical or sexual harm, but nothing has been done…yet.” Emma didn’t think she’d said that much in the last few weeks at one time and damn if it didn’t feel good to get what you wanted to say out into the open.

“I actually came here to see you. Most of the guys are at the shooting range but Joe asked me to see if I could get any information out of you.”

She must have looked worried because he quickly said, “Don’t worry. I was coming over here to talk to you about something else.”

The breath that blew out of her mouth was from deep within because she thought she had let her loose lips sink her ship for good.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I’ve heard what they plan to do with Rafe ,and I was going to tell him it was a set up, but I’m not sure if that’s just not what they want me to tell him. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is that Rafe wanted me to come up with a plan to get both of you out of here and with all of this going on it may just work to our favor.” Fat J was a brilliant man and she could almost see his mind working.

“How is that?” she asked, feeling the cold but warming up from the inside because Rafe was on the same wave length as she was. He wanted them to be together and he wanted to get the hell out of this town too.

“I think if we set something up for the time that they’ve planned something we could use it to make your escape.”

“Okay. I don’t really know if that’s going to work. I may not be there and they're not telling me anything about what’s going on.” Emma wanted to give him all of the truth because she knew he was the only one who was on Team Emma & Rafe, but she wasn’t privy to much information at all.

“How much do you weigh? Not the number you tell your friends but the number that’s on the scale in the morning. This is important.”

She couldn’t see how her weight was important but she wasn’t planning on lying about it anyway. “I weigh 180 pounds give or take. I haven’t weighed myself in a while but that’s what it was last I checked and I don’t think I’ve put on or taken off much since then.”

Fat J eyed her up and down like he could get her measurements from the outline of her body through her clothes, but he didn’t say anything more about it and then nodded his head.

“I’m not going to tell you much about the plan that I’ve come up with because you can’t get caught with information if you don’t know it and although you have a big stake in this I don’t know you very well.” He watched her while he spoke like he was waiting for the fireworks, but he was right, he didn’t know her well because there would be none coming from her.

“If you have a plan and you think it will work I don’t care if you tell me or not. Thanks for your help.” She looked him in the eye and wanted him to see she was serious.

The stony faced man actually chuckled. “I can see why Rafe is so taken with you. All I want you to know is this… when you see Rafe act like you don’t know him. I know that most of the ladies have seen him before and that’s fine if you looking like you’ve seen him but try not to look joyous. If you can do that all will be well.”

“I can do that.” Emma didn’t know how she was going to make that work but if this man said it was needed then she would do it.

“Now I need to walk with you into the club and we should have lunch. The club house is wired for visual but not audio so no one can hear what you’re saying, but I’d rather not talk any more about this.”

“Not a problem. I’ve made a huge lunch for everyone, but I didn’t know there wouldn’t be anyone here. So you picked a great day for lunch.”

They exited the car and walked into the club house. Emma felt better than she had in weeks. Not only was Rafe thinking about her but he’d asked Fat J to help them escape town together. She could get all anxious and nervous for how it was going to be done but she didn’t think that would benefit her right now. Now was all she had and she’d been living moment to moment for so long she’d almost forgot what hope felt like. It was empowering, encouraging and the thought that she may even have a future that was very bright lit something deep within her. This was the Emma she knew… the one she’d thought had been lost. She was happy to welcome herself back and start thinking about her future.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

A good shower, a good shave and the busting of a quick nut was enough to get Rafe a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. He could hear people in the house rustling around and decided it was time to talk to Aaron. There were a lot of things he wanted and needed to say. The first was an apology.

It didn’t take long to find him as his boisterous laugh made it easy, but when Aaron spotted him the laughter died in his throat. The rest of the room became pretty silent as well.

“Hey, Aaron. Can I talk to you?”

One of the guys sitting on the other side of the table yelled out. “What ever you have to say you should do it in front of all of us. We’ve been fighting like dogs with the fucking Reapers for a few weeks while you were on unplanned vacation. Think you could have filled us in on what was going on fuck head?”

Aaron looked at the man with the balls to yell that out. “I will do what I see fit. Rafe is the man in charge under me and until I say otherwise he will be given the same respect as you give me.”

“I guess that’s whether that’s earned or not?” the mouthy man was new, Rafe hadn’t ever seen him before but that didn’t stop him from walking over to his chair and pushing the man out of it. As he hit the floor Rafe had his boot on the man’s chest.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are but you don’t know me and unless you are planning to meet me with my foot up your ass I suggest you settle the fuck down and shut up.” Rafe didn’t want to have to have a 'who’s dick is bigger' contest right now, he had better things to do with is time. Watching the man struggling under his boot didn’t make him feel good he just wanted to be done with this. “What’s your name, son?”

“Jimmy Dean.” The man wheezed, trying to breathe around the big boot that was pressing against his chest.

Rafe looked down at the man on the floor and tried to tell from his face if he as bullshitting him. Then he looked over at Aaron who seemed amused by this whole encounter. He nodded and tried to hide the smile on his face.

“Well look here sausage boy… how about you get to know the place and find out what’s what before you start running your mouth. Don’t let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash.” Rafe took his foot off the man’s chest and gave him a few seconds to catch his breath before offering his hand and helping him up. He didn’t want to humiliate the man but if a guy didn’t put his foot down everyone would just talk to him like they didn’t give a shit.

“Thanks,” Jimmy, who would forever be known as Sausage Boy, said. Rafe thought that the man had better do something heroic soon because Sausage Boy was a hell of a name to keep in the  long run. He nodded at him to let him know his words were received.

“Aaron?” Rafe called as he walked out the door. He didn’t want to have to fuck up everyone in the place because they had a beef with him. He understood it yes, but that didn’t mean he was in the mood to deal with it. He settled for going into the office room that had mostly been where Aaron did all the figures and business deals. He found a nice seat across from the desk and sat like he was waiting for an interview.

It took a few minutes but soon Aaron came in. Rafe knew he was going to take his time because of the way he’d walked out and assumed the president would find him. Aaron looked around the room and saw the seat behind the desk was where Rafe thought he was going to sit, but he moved to a large comfortable couch that was behind Rafe’s seat.

“I take it this is business?”

“Why would you think that?” Rafe asked, wondering why Aaron would think it was any thing else.

“Well there are times you want to talk to me and you sit over here in your favorite chair and I sit in this chair but I’ve never seen you sit in the chair by my desk.”

“Times are definitely changing.”

“Come on over here and tell me what in the hell is going on… and what is your part in it. I’ve heard all kinds of outlandish stories and some don’t seem far from the mark. I can see you doing some of the things that I’ve heard but I can’t see you killing a man over a woman. That doesn’t ring true to me.”

Rafe got up and walked over to his favorite seat and looked at the man he’d known for a long time. This man had brought him into a club that was more like family than a bunch of guys trying to make a few bucks and guided him with knowledge of how to get along and make a difference. Eventually he rose up in the ranks and his intuition and sharp shooting had earned him a spot as the VP of the Mountain Tribesmen. There were those who thought he was too young but he’d earned their respect and now was just accepted as the second in charge.

“Here’s the truth… I never meant for any of this to happen, but hind sight is 20/20 and some of the things that have come from it I wouldn’t trade for anything. I did go to the first annual Night of Riley that was held over at the Reapers club house.”

“I always said you had more balls than brains, but even I can’t believe you did something like that. If you’d have been caught you’d have been carried out in a cement box they’d have buried somewhere.”

“I know but I was restless and I wanted to see the masked party everyone was talking about. I thought I could get away with it since everyone was supposed to wear a mask, so who would recognize me?” Rafe explained.

“I’m guessing someone did?” Aaron added quickly.

“No. I wasn’t found out but I met up with one of the Reaper’s club girls. Her name is Emma. She had been circling me all night and I was drawn to her. I don’t know if it was her red hair or the way she moved her ass when she walked but I started the conversation with her and led her outside. Honestly I was just going to get in her pants and that would have been the end of it, but when she took off my mask something changed. I don’t know if it was because she told me we had been with the same foster mother for a while or because her sweet ass knows how to fuck but there was something that was different about her.”

“So you did kill a man for her?” Aaron sighed as he asked like he wanted to know the truth but on the other hand maybe he was better off without it. The man liked to play it safe, which was why they were a good pair. He was the cool to Rafe’s fire and they did well running this club together.

“Hold on, man. I’m getting to that. So she gets a call the next morning and it’s a friend of hers from the club but she’s calling from the president’s phone and she was terrified. There was supposed to be some sort of meeting. Later that night she texted me later to meet her at Schaffer's Tavern, the tone of the text was frantic and I probably should have put more thought into meeting her there but I went.”

“You were supposed to meet her. with all the other Reapers there?” Aaron looked like he didn’t believe the craziness of this story but he sat there and continued to listen.

“I don’t think she was thinking right because she said she’d been given to Mark to be his old lady.”

“This is the same Mark that ended up dead, right?” Aaron confirmed. He was good at keeping up with Rafe’s stories there were times he was amazed the man was following some of the convoluted shit he got into.

“Yes.”

“The one you didn’t kill?” The man looked leery and Rafe just wanted the man to wait until he got to that part because it wasn’t as cut and dry as Aaron probably wanted it to be.

“I’m getting to that part, damn Aaron I’ve never known you to be this damn impatient.” Rafe was trying to get the story out but this man just kept cutting in.

“I met her in the bathroom and she’d been worked up pretty good. There were bruises where there shouldn’t have been and I knew I wasn’t that rough with her.” Rafe paused there and looked to see how this was going over as Aaron didn’t like to hear about woman getting hurt if it was unavoidable.

“I’m sitting here patiently and now you want to lag in the story. I hear someone did the woman wrong and apparently it was in a few places that you couldn’t get to with regular contact. I’m going to assume you were up to some naughty business in the bathroom, but I don’t understand how you met her in the bathroom. They have facilities different from ours and they aren’t even that close to each other.”

Rafe wasn’t going to go into the tunnels and pathways that ran in that place because he’d already exposed that secret to one person and didn’t want to do it again.

“Just take my word that it can be done.” Rafe watched Aaron’s eyes narrow but the man knew when to leave things alone, but he didn’t doubt the man would revisit this question.

“When you’re involved anything can happen. That I can believe.” Aaron said as he nodded his head like he was thinking of all the dumb shit Rafe had pulled off while he’d known him. It was going to take him a long time if he was going to categorize everything Rafe had done in his past.

“She asked me to just talk to him and when she looked at me like I was some freaking super hero I couldn’t say no. I should have because I wasn’t thinking. What the hell would I have been able to say to that man that would make him take it easy on Emma or give her some time as she wanted?”

“Since you were all hot to climb between those thighs again you had to know there would be a problem if you were trying to stop him from getting more of her.”

Rafe looked at Aaron wondering if the man was just trying to piss him off or was he really just saying what he thought. He decided to just finish the story and tell him he was leaving the club.

“I went out to talk to the man but before I could get to him he’s calling Emma all kinds of names and telling her all of the disgusting things he was going to do to her. I was getting a bit upset but I calmed myself down to just talk to him.”

Aaron was sitting with his arms crossed like he’d heard this story already, and he wasn’t sure what version he thought he knew but he could bet it wasn’t the truth.

“Mark just pulled out a gun and said he knew what kind of conversation I wanted to have. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting that but I wasn’t. I grabbed the gun and we tussled over it for a few seconds and then it went off. I didn’t know which one of us was shot actually, but I was hoping it wasn’t me.” Rafe finished with his story and looked at Aaron to see what he was thinking of his tale and explanation of why he was away for so long.

“You’re saying this was self defense?” Aaron was wrapping his mind around this but you could tell it was something he thought was so far fetched it was almost hard to believe.

“Yes, but I didn’t stick around after I heard the police sirens because I knew that no one was going to believe that. I saw an older woman in the window with a phone in her hand. She is the only witness to what happened but she was too far away to make out faces because she was in the window and I couldn’t make out much of her appearance.” Rafe was talking so fast he was almost out of breath. He didn’t have a real father figure in his life before he’d gotten to the club but right now he felt like he was trying to explain why he’d brought the car back late on a school night.

“Damn it, Rafe. Anyone would be a bit nervous when they were going to have a talk with you. You’re one of the best sharpshooters we have and everyone knows it. Hell most people have seen it. You’ve shot the heel of people while they were running away from you.’” Aaron got up from his seat and walked over to the window. “What they are saying is true… at least partially. You did kill Mark and they are mad as hell. I don’t know what he did for them but it must have been important. They’ve been showing up almost every place we’ve been ready to screw up deals and fight. They want you bad so what are you going to do… make that, what do you want us to do?”

“It means a lot that you have my back on this.” Rafe couldn’t believe that they’d still stick by him even though he’d gone to their rivals party, fell for one of their girls and brought the wrath of the whole Headless Reapers on their heads.

“I didn’t like that you just up and left without a trace. We didn’t know what was going on with you, but I know sometimes you’ve got to do what you must. We are men and sometimes we’ve got to make the hard calls.” Aaron walked over and offered Rafe his hand. When he grabbed it he was pulled up and into a hard man hug with lots of hard pats on the back. “I’m glad your back.”

“Thanks Aaron, but I don’t think I’m going to be here long. I’m going to be leaving the club.” Rafe waited for that bomb to settle and was surprised when the man nodded.