Romeo (Dark Knights MC/Blood Fury MC: Crossover)

Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six

Maddie perched on the edge of the bed and closely watched him try to hide his pain.

Damn it.

She shouldn’t feel bad for him, but she did. Her career involved helping people, not wishing for them to suffer.

She closed her eyes and breathed until she let go some of her anger and frustration at him. Not all of it, of course, because she needed to use it as fuel to keep her heart whole, but enough to hear him out and take into consideration whatever he had to say.

With clenched jaws, he adjusted his crutch, pushed off the door and hobbled closer until he stood only a couple of feet in front of where she sat.

But the closer he got, the easier it was to pick up his familiar scent and the harder her heart thumped. That unwelcome reaction made her spew, “I’m giving you fifteen minutes. Not a minute more.” She glanced at the time on her cell phone. “That starts now, so you better start talking.”

Did what she just said annoy him? Good. Since she compromised by entering his motel room, he needed to follow her rule to keep her there and listen to whatever he had to say.

She reminded him, “Time’s ticking…”

He sure was leaning heavily on that crutch. Did he purposely remain standing so she’d drum up some sympathy for him?

“You were right when you said that asshole had connections. Just ain’t the connections you thought.”

Maddie shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean?” This was not the conversation she was expecting.

“Ol’ Roger’s connected to La Cosa Nostra.”

Her head twitched. “La what?”

“The goddamn Pittsburgh Mafia.”

That unexpected answer had her eyes bugging out. “There’s Mafia in Pittsburgh?” How did she not know this? Was this common knowledge and she missed it somehow?

“Yeah, Maddie, there’s fuckin’ Mafia in Pittsburgh. Here’s the proof.” Searching where he pointed to his face, she realized it was darker than normal in some spots, like around his eyes. How had she missed that they were bruises and not a play of light and shadows. Was his nose also swollen and slightly more crooked?

She shook herself mentally to fight back the flood of sympathy. She needed to get back to the subject at hand… “How’s he connected?”

“Beats the fuck outta me…” He blew out a breath, then winced. “Actually, they did beat the fuck outta me and he seems to be a Russo in disguise.”

“A Russo?”

“Yeah, the Sicilians runnin’ the Burgh.”

“Roger is Sicilian?” None of this was adding up.

He sighed with impatience. “Woman, that part ain’t important. The important shit is his ties to that organization. They got a lotta power and a lotta soldiers doin’ their dirty work. Way more than our MC alliance.”

“So, why is his last name…” She bounced the heel of her palm off her forehead. “Holy shit. Of course! Smith is a fake name, isn’t it?”

“Gotta be.”

“But why would he need to use a fake name?”

Romeo jerked up one shoulder. “Most likely so the place where you worked wouldn’t be tied to that crime family. Could be they use that place for money launderin’. Who fuckin’ knows. Fact is, he’s got connections. Ones you don’t wanna fuck with.”

“Were his connections for the professional sports team a lie?” If she suffered working for that dickhead for a whole year and a half when it was never going to get her anywhere…

“Can’t say. But if so, it could also be why he’s usin’ Smith as a last name. Sure those teams don’t wanna be tied to anyone in the goddamn Mafia.”

She couldn’t imagine they would. Hell , she wouldn’t have worked for him if she knew that.

If all of this was true, Roger hid it well.

Or… was Romeo lying to her?

Did he really crash his sled and made up this story simply to get back in her good graces?

Would he stoop to that?

She studied the man before her. Most motorcycle crashes resulted in road rash. Romeo wouldn’t escape getting some if the crash was bad enough to cause broken bones and other bruises.

“Take your shirt off.”

His head jerked back. Most likely from not expecting that demand. “Normally, I’d be good with that. Not today. ”

Interesting. “I’ve seen you naked before.” Many times.

“Nothin’ to do with bein’ naked. Everythin’ to do with havin’ broken ribs.”

“What did they use on you?”

“Tire iron. Boots. Fists.”

She rose to her feet and stepped toe-to-toe with him. “When it’s bones versus a tire iron, bones usually break before steel does. I want to see.”

“Why? So you can’ poke me in the fuckin ribs? Make me suffer for fuckin’ up your life?”

“Tempting,” she murmured, sliding her hands under his cut, and slipping it off.

He didn’t stop her, but warned her with a, “Careful,” instead.

She raised his colors in her hand. “With this? Or with you?”

Something flashed behind his dark eyes. “Both.”

She knew how important a cut was to club members and that she needed to treat it with respect. It represented their way of life. It represented their brotherhood, their found family, their loyalty to each other. It represented their everything .

Turning his head, he watched her place it over the single chair in the small room and return to stand before him. He stood quietly, with only a few winces, as she slowly and carefully tugged his shirt from his jeans and up his torso, cautiously working it around the cast on his arm and his crutch. Once his broad torso was bare, she tossed the T-shirt onto the bed and circled him, using both her eyes and a light touch to check every inch she could see.

His magnificent body was definitely damaged. It didn’t look anything like the last time she saw him naked.

Just the memory of the last time they had sex, made her breathing shallow and her pussy clench.

God , why did this man make her weak? Why did she keep having to remind herself what he did and what that action did to her.

She couldn’t let him off the hook easily. If at all.

She skipped over his ribs and any visible bruises, though some were harder to spot than others due to his dark skin and numerous tattoos. No road rash was found, and the visible injuries were consistent with being beaten and not crashing his sled.

He’d been truthful with her. He wasn’t only making a play to get her to forgive him. But that also meant what he was saying about Roger could be true.

Was her former boss really tied to the Mafia ? Was that from where his arrogance stemmed? Was he more of an awful person than Maddie ever realized?

Romeo said that the people who jumped him had beaten him with a freaking tire iron. She couldn’t wrap her mind around how he wasn’t worse off. Or dead. “Jesus, Rome. How didn’t they not break any more bones than they did?”

“Pretty damn confident when I say Jesus didn’t help me. Guessin’ he thought I deserved that ass kickin’ as a warnin’. If it wasn’t for Wick steppin’ out back for a smoke, it woulda been worse.”

Thank goodness for Wick! “Do you plan on retaliating?”

Romeo would never simply let what happened to him go. He’d want revenge despite his statement that La Cosa Nostra had a bigger army than the MC alliance. And between the three clubs, that combined biker brotherhood was pretty damn large and powerful.

They also had Diesel’s Shadows at their backs. Even though those six former special ops guys were getting up in age, they still were more dangerous than more than a dozen bikers.

“Can’t do shit right now.”

He didn’t say he wouldn’t eventually do it, either. But… would he try to handle it on his own? She couldn’t imagine that Trip or Zak would want to go head-to-head with the Mafia and start a huge war. Right now, things were quiet and content in their worlds. Their expanding clubs and families were safe.

“Are you worried that they’ll come after you again? I don’t know much about the Mafia except for what I learned from movies and TV. I can’t imagine that’s an accurate portrayal.”

“Pretty damn close.”

If that was true, Romeo being a target of the Mafia was more than concerning. “They could’ve killed you, Rome.” What was that mysterious sting in her eyes?

She refused to cry over the man who blew up her future. No matter how injured he was. No matter if what happened to him was some kind of karma. Karma she did not order.

She would never want him badly injured or dead. Despite what he did and how she’d suffered since.

With his good arm, he reached out, snagged her chin, and tipped her face up to his. “Would you have missed me if they did?”

“That’s not even funny, Rome.” If he wasn’t injured, she would’ve pushed him away because of his attempt to play on her emotions. Instead, she tried not to let his touch chip any more away from the steel coating her heart.

“Yeah, no shit. Wasn’t fuckin’ laughin’ when I was ambushed, but laughin’ right now would really fuckin’ suck.” He paused before saying, “They weren’t out to kill me. They were givin’ me a warnin’, makin’ a statement. They wanted me dead, wouldn’t be here right now. Easily could’ve been picked off from a distance, shanked in a crowd or run over by one of their fuckin’ garbage trucks while ridin’ my sled.”

“Romeo,” she breathed, trying not to imagine any of that.

He dropped his head even lower, locking their gazes. “Yeah, you’d miss me.”

Being beaten badly certainly didn’t curtail any of his cockiness.

She stepped back and freed herself from his grip. “You misunderstood. I don’t want anyone hurt or killed like that. Not just you.” But especially you .

“Bullshit. You know what sucks the most about all this shit?”

“The pain?”

“No. The worst part is I can’t fuck you.”

Of course. Fucking was a higher priority than even breathing for this man.

“Your injuries aren’t what’s preventing that, Rome. It takes two to tango and this woman isn’t in the mood to dance with you. You said you were going to explain why you’re in Parsington and why you tricked me to get me here. I still haven’t heard an explanation, and your fifteen minutes are about up.” She needed to hear what he had to say, this way she could leave before her resolve completely crumbled and she fell for his charm.

Or lack of charm.

“Gonna tell you ‘bout my momma.”

Well damn, that was a complete change of subject. But with the way he said it, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like this “explanation.” She once again settled on the edge of the bed.

“She’s the reason I got involved even when you told me not to. ”

“You said she was gone.”

“She is. Still miss her every fuckin’ day, too.”

Her throat tightened from the painful loss in his tone and expression on his face.

More evidence that she wasn’t going to like this story. Not at all.

“Saw what happened to you happen to her.”

What? “With her boss?”

He shook his head. “Her last man.”

Her last man. She frowned. ”Like a boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “She knew how to fuckin’ pick ‘em. Even the bastard whose nuts I spawned from. Swear she was a magnet to every fuckin’ loser and user. But that last one…” He shook his head and pulled in a breath. “With him, I watched her lose herself little by little ’til nothin’ was left but a goddamn empty shell. That motherfucker had her fuckin’ brainwashed with all that gaslightin’. Made her think things were true when they were a complete fuckin’ lie. Nothin’ I said would change her mind and all of it was hard to watch. Begged her to leave him. Tried like fuck to convince her. But his influence was helluva lot stronger. He made her think she was useless. She was a nothin’ without him. Eventually she became a shadow of the mother that I remembered. It got to a point where she couldn’t take anymore…”

When he stopped talking, she waited a bit before prodding him with, “You said she was gone.”

“Yeah.”

She debated whether to ask this—or even how to ask—but she needed to know the whole story. “Did he kill her?”

“Not by his hands.”

She blinked and let her mind sort out what he said before concluding softly, “But by her own.”

“Yeah. ”

Holy shit. “How old were you?”

“Ten.”

Holy shit! “You didn’t… find her, right?” Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.

“Asshole did. And the fuckin’ kicker was, she wrote him a goddamn note. Left nothin’ for me.”

She slapped a hand over her heart because an arrow had pierced through the steel.

The picture hanging on the wall in his place flashed through her mind… “That’s when your aunt took you in.”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s he at now?”

His chin rose and his expression turned into concrete. “Where you think?”

Of course. “I couldn’t imagine you’d let that slide.” Just like she wouldn’t expect Romeo to let what Roger and his “family” did to him slide.

“Shoulda done it sooner. She might still be here.”

Oh sure. It was perfectly normal for someone younger than ten to make his mother’s lover disappear. It wasn’t even normal for adults! “You were a child, Rome. On the other hand, your mother was an adult. She made her own decisions, whether good or bad. She stayed with him despite how he treated her.”

“Like you did?”

Her situation wasn’t quite the same as his mother’s. Roger had been her boss, not her significant other. If she had to deal with Roger twenty-four/seven… “You mean until you took my choice away from me.”

“Didn’t mean for shit to go down like it did. You came to me ‘cause of the stress that motherfucker was puttin’ you through. I saw it, woman, with my own two eyes. Can’t say I hated you slidin’ into my bed ‘cause of it but hated the reason why.”

“Are you touting yourself as a hero for getting me fired? I want to make sure I’m clear about that.”

He huffed, “Ain’t a hero. The fuck if I was gonna sit back and watch that asshole continue to do to you the same as what that motherfucker did to my momma. People are scared about gettin’ beat the fuck up physically. Bein’ beat up mentally’s just as bad, if it ain’t worse. My broken bones will heal within weeks. A broken mind can’t heal that fast. Sometimes it never recovers.”

“I’m sorry that happened to your mother. I’m sorry there are people like that in the world. I’m sorry you didn’t tell me about what happened to your mother sooner.”

His eyebrows rose. “That’ve made a difference?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I was determined to work toward my dream job, and I thought working for Roger would make that happen. But even if I was wrong and he couldn’t or wouldn’t help, without a good reference…”

“And I fucked up your good reference.”

“It wasn’t only a reference, Rome. That was only one piece of the puzzle.” She ticked off the rest one-by-one. “I needed consistent employment, the right experience, and the necessary hours to even be considered for that type of position. They were never going to look at anyone with the limited amount of time I had working with patients.”

“Not sure how to fix it.”

Holy shit , did he sound sincere? Did he really feel badly about what he did and wanted to make amends?

Could she forgive him? That remained to be seen. “I don’t think you can. I can only hope someone will give me a chance so I can rebuild my resume. But, honestly, if Roger really did have connections to those sports teams, then I’m shit out of luck in that respect. If I want to continue working toward my dream—and I do—then I might have to move to a different state with different teams. Teams Roger won’t have any influence with.”

She really didn’t want to do that, though. While she didn’t want to live with her family, or even in Manning Grove, she also didn’t want to move far enough away so it was more of a chore to visit. She was close with her family and wanted it to remain that way. Plus, she’d have no one at her back if she needed someone.

Add in the fact that Shade would not like her being so far out of reach. He never hid the fact that she, Josie, their mother, and Jude belonged to him now. They were under his protection, and he took that seriously.

If anything happened to any of them, he would leave behind nothing but scorched earth.