Chapter 19

Ryder

"Let me in."

I wanted to. Something about Danielle made me want to pull back layers and layers of a fucked up life and let her see all of it. Candace had seen it all. She'd been beside me through most of it and held my hand, loving me as best she could while the world burned around me.

Some part of me knew that Danielle would be the same type of woman, only with morals.

"Can you see where he is now?" I nodded toward her phone. The disappointment on her face was barely hidden as she nodded and turned away from me.

Whatever moment we almost had was gone. Maybe it was for the better.

"He's at a hotel in Jersey. With this traffic, we'll probably get there by afternoon. Let me call someone from that local precinct to go after him."

"No. We do this ourselves. No cops."

"I am a cop, Johnny."

"No, you're just playing a part right now." I glanced over at her and forced myself not to reach for her hand. She wanted me to share my past, and I would, but until then, it was unfair for me to expect her to share her body freely with me. "You're on the force to save women from predators like Tanner, but you don't belong in that fucked up bureaucracy."

"No? Then where do I belong?"

I'd obviously hit a pain-point by the tightness in her voice.

"I have no clue, but my mother used to always tell me that when you found your place, it would fit just right." I smiled as the image of my mother cooking in the kitchen moved through my mind. "And she was right. I belong as President of the Lost Breed. I belong at the shop with Axel, fixing cars and helping people change tires. I don't need a big office or a gang of badasses to feel like me." I reached for her hand, ignoring the warning bells going off in my head. "And whether it makes sense or not, I belong with you. It feels fucking good. I don't want to act like it doesn't."

She wound her fingers around mine and leaned her head back against the seat as her eyes closed. I could tell she was fighting back the tears. "I just need to know, you know?"

"Need to know what, baby?" I pulled her hand toward my mouth and kissed each of her knuckles softly as my cock twitched in my pants. We had a million things against us, but sitting in the car next to her made it fade for a little while. That's how I knew it was where I belonged. Nothing mattered for a few minutes because she was beside me. Everyone in my life would have laughed their asses off if I told them about her only after a week or so of knowing her, but not my mother.

She believed in fate and love and crazy shit like that. I wanted to as well.

"If you had anything to do with my little sister getting kidnapped." She turned her face a little and opened her eyes. Tears dripped down her pretty face.

"Who's your sister, Dani? You wouldn't tell me her name, remember?" I put her hand on my thigh and reached over to brush the tears off her cheeks. "Tell me her name."

"Tani." She gripped my hand and pressed it to her lips. "I can't be with you or even around you if you were involved."

"I had nothing to do with any of Tanner's fucked up madness. He and I split ways a few months after his dad died. I might be a bastard, and I might have done some pretty messed up shit in my life, but I've never hurt a woman or helped Tanner King hurt one. Not ever."

She pulled away from me and bent down, pulling something out of a pocket in her uniform pants. "This is her. Just look at her and make sure, okay? I don't want to close this down until we know for sure."

I took the picture and took a quick glance. Tani. Fuck.

"I knew her." I handed the picture back to Dani. "She was a dancer at the bar we went to right out of high school. The old guy there would let us buy beer, but we weren't legal by any means. She was beautiful and so damn sad all the time."

Dani let out a soft sob. "We had a hard life after mom left."

I swallowed hard and handed the picture back. "Tanner took a liking to her and all I knew was that they went out a couple of times. I didn't get involved, and shortly after that, I walked away from him for good."

"And did you get involved with her?"

"No." I turned my attention back to the road. "I had my own problems to deal with."

"Like?" She turned in the seat. She wasn't going to let it go.

Crazy enough, I knew we'd end up spending the night in a hotel somewhere along this fucked up trip we were on. I wanted her body pressed to me, her soft lips against my neck, her sweet pussy pulling at my dick. There was no way I'd get time with her if I didn't hand over a little bit of information.

"My dad was a bastard when we were growing up. He beat all of us every chance he got and yet he was a drunk, so we made excuses." I chuckled sardonically. "Well, he beat us boys. My sisters don't know much about that shit. They were too little, or we kept them hidden from him."

"Did your mom know?"

"No, not really. I mean, if she did, she didn't do anything about it." I shrugged, trying not to let the memories take over. "He was a good guy, but the liquor made him a monster."

"I don't think anyone comes out of the womb a monster. I think that happens over time, Johnny." She reached over and ran her fingers down my thigh, squeezing softly just above my knee.

"Maybe, but we loved the old bastard anyway you looked at it." I shrugged. "He got into some stupid shit when we first got here, drugs, mafia, you name it."

"First got here?"

"My parents were from Sicily. They were poor as fuck, and we all immigrated over here. They only had me and my brother Roberto at the time, but quickly filled the house with more kids than they could feed. I got my first job at twelve delivering papers and then running dope. It was a faster buck for sure."

"Twelve?" Her voice held a note of sympathy in it.

I started to bite her fucking head off but forced myself to pause. There was no way I wanted to lash out at her. It wouldn't help anything. Least of all our relationship.

"Yeah." I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. "Tanner was a clean-cut boy from the upper side of New York. His father was a lawyer, his mother a stay at home mom that didn't care about anyone else but herself. I saved his life one day on the streets when we were kids, and he stuck beside me from then on."

"At twelve?"

I turned my attention to her for a moment, giving her a look. "Twelve in my world is eighteen in yours, Dani. It's time to grow the fuck up and do what you gotta do. It's the only way to survive. For me, that was twelve. Stop repeating me."

Fuck. I'd done the thing I didn't want to do. So fucking typical of me.

"No, I understand. Sorry. I just keep thinking about how young that is, but I get it. I'm sorry." She shifted enough to lean over and press a kiss to the side of my shoulder. "Keep going. Please?"

"Tanner was getting his ass beat in a back alley because the thugs wanted his shoes, his clothes, and his backpack. They got most of it, but I fucked them up as best I could. Having a gun helped." I shrugged, trying hard not to lay too much emphasis on me being tough. I wasn't. Scared shitless was more like it.

"Why did you help him?"

"I wanted to feel good about something." I pursed my lips and nodded toward the road. "We getting on another freeway soon?"

"Yeah. Damn. It's this one. I'm glad you said something." She moved back into her seat and pulled up her phone. "The tracker has stopped at Lucky's One Night Club."

I rolled my eyes. "This fucking kid. He’d better be with Tanner. If not, I'm going to tear his stupid ass up."

"Are you violent with him because your dad was so rough with you guys?"

"Ballsy, Dani." I chuckled sardonically and gave her a warning look. "Watch yourself, okay?"

She nodded. "I thought I could be ballsy with you. No?"

"How much farther to the hotel?" I reached up and turned the air on as my skin prickled with heat. Anger danced in the pit of my stomach, and I had to watch myself. My emotions weren't related to her or the truth of what happened or would happen, but rather about the man I could become if I weren't careful.

"Thirty minutes." She turned and looked back out the window. "My mom left when we were kids. My father got called into the ministry, and my mother couldn't handle it."

"Handle what exactly? Seems like a good notable profession."

She looked over her shoulder at me, her pretty face stealing my heart. "Being poor."

"That was common place in my neck of the woods." I winked at her. "So she just up and left you guys?"

"Yep. One morning I got up to find my father crying on the couch. Tani and I worked to rebuild a life for the three of us, but one day she disappeared too." Dani shrugged and gave me a sad smile as she shifted again in her seat. "Life doesn't seem too fair."

"Cause it's not, baby." I ran my hand down her arm and gripped the top of her hand. "Let's find Jason and get back home. I want you in my bed tonight."

"Do you?"

"I just said I did, didn't I?" I slid my fingers over hers and pressed down, locking our hands together. "I haven't stopped thinking about the last time you were there."

"Me either," she whispered softly and leaned back, closing her eyes. "I just keep waiting for the other shoe to fall."

"What shoe would that be?"

"The one where you're not who you say you are."

"I'm a criminal. A bad boy. A piece of shit that's figured out how to turn his life around. Is that the guy you thought I was?"

She laughed and smiled over at me. "Don't make me fall in love with you, Johnny Moretti."

"It's a dangerous place to be, Kitten."

"It's the only place I want to be." She ran her hand up my arm and dragged her nails back down, pressing into my skin and lighting me up.

"I need to tell you something, Dani." I took a quick breath, making a decision to be a good guy for the first time in my life. "Candace is saying she's pregnant."

"With your baby?" She held onto me, surprising me a little.

"Yeah. I need to have the paternity tests run as I know good and damn well that it's probably not my kid, but I wanna be open with you. It could be."

She nodded, surprising me a little. "Thanks for telling me."

"Yeah," I mumbled and pressed the gas. The sooner we got to the hotel and found my bastard of a nephew, the sooner I could get my girl back home and remind her why I was the man she needed in her life.