The Traitor’s Baby: Reaper’s Hearts MC Read online

  But as she had gotten older and Matteo had realized she could be a key part of his business plans, all of that had changed. Kenzie had started questioning his motives when he’d insisted that she hang out with certain people at school just so Matteo could meet their parents. She’d heard the whispered rumors at school that the Labriolas were a crime family, whatever that meant. She wanted to deny all of it, but as she grew she realized there was no point. Every child eventually learns that their parents aren’t perfect, but Kenzie had to learn that even more than most.

  The ring had hung so loosely between her knuckles when her mother had given it to her that it had to stay in the little jewelry box on Kenzie’s dresser for several more years. She’d nearly forgotten about it until she was looking for a lost earring and happened to try it on back in high school. The story of her great-grandmother and everything she had endured had come flooding back instantly, helping her see that she didn’t have to be alone, not really. She always had the spirit of her great-grandmother watching over her.

  After that, she wore it all the time. It was hard to look at it sometimes and know that her mother was gone. Sometimes Kenzie was angry with her for getting into drugs, for leaving their family home when Kenzie was just twelve. While Kenzie mostly remembered Mother as being a beautiful woman who wore nice dresses to her family’s dinner parties, she hadn’t forgotten those other times. Kenzie had seen her at her worst, late at night, when her mother staggered into Kenzie’s room by mistake and collapsed onto the floor. The image of Mother in the bathtub, passed out in the cold water, refused to leave her mind. She had already been coming to know what a monster her father was, and now Mother had started turning towards the darkness to escape.

  Kenzie had caught her packing her bag and had begged her to take her along. She didn’t want to stay with Matteo, not if Mother wasn’t going to be there as well. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’ve already let you down so much. I can’t keep going on like this, but your father will take care of you. You’ll be fine.” Mother had brushed her fingertips across Kenzie’s chin and turned toward the door.

  Less than a month later, news that Mrs. Labriola had been caught in the crossfire of a gunfight reached them. There had been no hope after that. Kenzie had been left alone, with nothing but a dented ring to remind her that things would be better someday. Eventually, she would escape the life her father had forced her into.

  Shaking off the ghosts of the past, Kenzie stepped out of the kitchen to tend to the patrons at the bar.

  Chapter Five

  Xavier

  It was almost closing time, so Xavier knew he needed to get his game on. Truth be told, he was enjoying just watching her as she worked. Her breasts jiggled as she wiped down the bar, and her face seemed to change from moment to moment as different thoughts crossed her mind. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what he found so intriguing about her, but she would definitely look good between his sheets. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face between those big, beautiful tits and not come up for air.

  He stood from his chair and stretched. “Chrome, you better hustle up. I don’t think you’re the only one who wants that blonde.” He gestured across the bar to where a man was hitting on the waitress. She had her hand on the back of the diner’s chair, and she smiled enticingly.

  The skinny man drained his beer glass and held it up in the air to get her attention, and she came trotting right over.

  As much as Xavier wanted to stick around and watch Chrome practice his skills after spending a year and a half in prison, he had better things to do. He strode across the weathered wooden floor and slid easily onto an empty stool at the bar, watching her for a moment as she skillfully mixed drinks and sent them sliding to their final destinations.

  She finally looked up at him. Her eyes were full of fire and rage, but her features softened as soon as she realized who she was looking at. She stepped down the bar until she stood directly across from him, and she leaned on the wooden surface and smiled. Her teeth were white and straight, and they stood out nicely against her olive skin. “Isn’t Candy taking care of your table?”

  “She is,” Xavier replied, “but there’s something a little lacking about her service.”

  “I can get the manager for you, if you’d like. Or I can get you a beer.” She gestured behind her toward the taps.

  “No, I think you can help me. I just want conversation for right now.”

  The waitress batted her eyelashes at him, and a slight flush came to her cheeks. He had a feeling she wasn’t close to being as innocent as she looked. She must have known what she was doing to him. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “You, mostly.” Xavier could have dispensed with the talking altogether and just put her on the back of his bike, but he knew women were talkers. His looks didn’t hurt, but his tongue was what got him the most pussy. He knew how to act interested even when he wasn’t and how to say just the right things. “What’s your name?”

  “Kenzie.” She responded to a call from down the bar for another beer, grabbing a clean glass and pulling the tap. Her fingers wrapped around the knob suggestively, her manicured nails sliding up and down the handle as she gave Xavier a seductive glance. She slid the beer down the bar but returned to him immediately.

  “That’s a nice name, and unusual. I’ve been watching you while you work. Doesn’t look like you put up with shit from anybody.”

  She took it as a compliment, as he knew she would. She smiled again, rewarding him with those white teeth. “Sounds like you’ve got my number.”

  “I’m sure you get hit on all the time.” He couldn’t blame any of the other customers for wanting to reach out and grab a little when they saw her. With that tiny skirt and tight shirt, she had all her goods on display. Xavier had a feeling, though, that she would be sexy even in sweatpants.

  “It happens.”

  An odd feeling crept down the back of Xavier’s neck. He turned to find the source of it, and his eyes locked instantly on a man at the corner table. He was familiar, and it didn’t take long to realize who he was. The goon worked for the Labriola family, and Xavier and the Reaper’s Hearts had just stolen a big chunk of business from them. If he was here to start trouble, he would regret it. Xavier had his best men here with him, and there was little chance the man would see the light of day. He shot him a dirty look before turning back around to face Kenzie. “What about the guy over there, the one who keeps staring at you? He give you any trouble?” It would have been incredibly satisfying to take the guy down for his own purposes while rescuing the damsel in distress.

  She glanced that direction and shrugged. “Nah, he’s just a regular. He’s no worse than anyone else around here.” Kenzie grabbed a broom and swiped at an invisible speck of dust.

  “Just so you know, if you need any help with any of the assholes in here, I’d be glad to give it.” He could still feel the man’s gaze on them. Even if it wasn’t bothering Kenzie, it was sure as hell bothering him. If the guy had a problem, it would have been better for him just to confront Xavier. He didn’t like to wait around for a confrontation if he didn’t have to.

  “Yeah?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “And what would you do to him?”

  “Whatever I have to do to make sure he doesn’t cause trouble for you.” And at the same time, it would keep the mafioso from causing trouble for him. It would be a pretty nice cap on the evening to deck the guy square in the jaw and then walk away with a hot lady on his arm. Fighting and fucking. It didn’t get any better than that.

  She blinked prettily, tipping her head and her body in all the right ways. Oh yes, he had her on the line. Now he just had to reel her in, and from there it would be easy to get her on the boat. “And then I suppose I would owe you?” Kenzie asked. “There would be some sort of … payment … required?”

  Hot damn she was sexy, and she was helping to create a scene in his head that he just couldn’t get rid of. Maybe he should offer to stick around after closing—to make
sure she was safe, of course—and then bend that sweet little ass of hers right over the bar. “I’m sure you could think of something. My name is Xavier, by the way.” He held out his hand.

  She hesitated for only a moment before she took it. “Another unusual name. But really, don’t worry about that guy. He’s here all the time, and he doesn’t know how to keep his eyes to himself, but he’s harmless.” When she took her hands back, she ran them over her head and down the length of her ponytail. Even tied back, her hair rested in dark waves that he wanted to run his own hands through.

  “How long have you been working here?” It didn’t matter. She could have been working at the bar for a day or a decade for all Xavier cared, he just wanted to get laid. But this was the process, and it was one he knew well. He glanced over his shoulder to see how Chrome was doing. He and the other men were still at their table. Candy was sitting on the edge of it, so that was a good start. A woman Xavier didn’t recognize had just walked in the door and was headed toward Crocodile, probably his hooker. Maybe it would be a successful night for all of them.

  Chapter Six

  Kenzie

  “Last call!”

  It made for a scramble while everyone sank down one last beer before all the lights came on and the crowd was ushered out the door, but at least it gave Kenzie a moment before she had to keep making inane conversation with this biker. She highly doubted that he really wanted to know anything about her except what she looked like naked.

  He had been right, though, when he’d pinpointed the man across the bar who was staring at her. Of course he was watching, because he was Angelo, the same man who had just yanked the starter out of her car. The asshole had decided to come in and make sure she was doing what her father had asked. She rolled her eyes when she turned away from Xavier. She didn’t need babysitting. She knew she couldn’t get away from this no matter how hard she tried.

  After she had settled the tabs with a few customers, she returned to the biker and gave him what she hoped looked like a genuine smile. After all, she was being evaluated. Angelo was probably feeding her father a play-by-play or even recording her. Kenzie was glad she wore full makeup when she worked at the bar; it made it easier to act flirtatious when she felt a little dolled up. “Sorry about that. It gets a little busy this time of night. I’ve been working here for about three years.” She carefully left out the fact that the joint belonged to her father and that she didn’t have much choice. Nobody needed to know that, even those who weren’t currently being targeted for extortion.

  “You must like it, then,” he said with a smile. He raised a thin eyebrow at her as he took a pull from his mug without breaking his gaze.

  “I like that the tips are good and that it fits around my school schedule,” she admitted. “Beyond that, it’s just a job until I graduate and get something better.”

  “What are you going to school for?”

  It was an innocent enough question and one that she had rehearsed the answer to regularly. Those who knew her at school were aware of the truth, because she couldn’t exactly pursue a degree in criminal justice without the staff and he fellow students knowing. But to anyone else who might be remotely connected to her father, she was in law school. For some reason, though, her tongue had forgotten that when she looked at Xavier. “Criminal justice.”

  “You want to be a cop?” he asked, leaning forward a little on his stool as his grin widened.

  Kenzie almost asked him what he was talking about when she realized what she had said. Why had she gone and done something so stupid? If Angelo had heard … But there was no taking it back now. “Yeah. I figure I can get all the dirt on people while I work here, and then I can come back once the force has hired me and arrest them all.”

  He laughed, a pleasant sound that made her want to get closer to him. “A spiteful cop. I don’t think it gets any better than that.”

  She smiled even though she didn’t want to. He had a point. “What about you? What do you do?”

  He gestured to his leather vest, as though it explained everything. “I’m vice president of the Reaper’s Hearts. You might have heard of us.”

  Just as she would have guessed, he was so damn proud of the fact that he rode a bike with a bunch of other guys who also rode bikes. Like that was so special. Her father had mentioned he was a prominent member, but he somehow hadn’t included the fact that he was VP. That sounded better than just being another follower of the herd. “Oh, yeah? How did you land a gig like that?”

  “My father was in the club.” Kenzie could swear his eyes turned a different shade of green, like an old glass bottle. “He died when I was young, but I wanted to carry on his legacy. I joined as soon as I was old enough, and it’s all history after that.”

  She hated to admit she was impressed, but it was the kind of story she could never live out for herself. This man was proud of who his father was, and he wanted to be like him. She wanted to be the exact opposite of her father, and it was something that could get her injured or even killed someday. She brushed the thought aside, cleared her throat, and pushed her lips out into another smile. It was hard to keep this act up, but she knew she had to. Angelo was watching, and her father was waiting. Xavier would have been easy to talk to, though, if this had been her own idea. “That’s amazing. What, exactly, do you do?”

  “I can’t really tell you that,” he replied mysteriously. “It’s club business. You understand.”

  “Sure.” And she did. She might not have had anything to do with a biker gang before, but she imagined it wasn’t much different than growing up in the dark shadow of the mob. Her mouth went on autopilot while she asked him unimportant things like what kind of bike he had and how long he had been riding, but her mind was working quickly behind the scenes.

  Xavier was a sexy guy, there was no doubt about that. It wouldn’t be so bad to sleep with him. He also seemed to be a powerful man, one who might not be willing to give in to her father’s threats. While she had fought against everything in her blood and her heritage, he had embraced his and made something out of it.

  Kenzie wasn’t even paying attention to Angelo anymore; she didn’t need a reminder to pay attention to Xavier. The other patrons in the bar faded into the background, even the ones she was supposed to be waiting on, as she focused only on the handsome biker.

  It was finally closing time. The bikers Xavier had ridden in with were starting to filter out the door. He would be going after them if she waited any longer. She reached across the bar and touched his arm gently, noting the tattooed wings that stuck out from under the sleeves of his T-shirt. “Hey, would you be able to give me a ride home? My car’s been acting up a little this week, and I don’t want to get stranded in the dark somewhere.” It sounded so pitiful, so damsel-in-distress. She didn’t care.

  But it worked. Xavier grinned. “Sure, as long as you don’t mind being on the back of my bike.”

  She smiled back and found that she meant it this time. “No problem. I’ve just got to sweep up real quick.”

  “I’ll be waiting outside.” He slid off the stool and strode after his friends, his wide shoulders swaggering. Kenzie couldn’t help but notice the way his jeans skimmed the trim lines of his lower half.

  Candy trotted up to her as soon as the other customers were gone. “Tell me you’re going home with that hottie!”

  Kenzie flipped a chair up onto a table so she could clean the floor. “All I can really say is that he’s giving me a ride. After that, we’ll just have to see what happens.” Her heart thumped with excitement, though, and she cleaned up much faster than she normally did. Calm down, she told herself silently as she emptied the cash register into the safe. All he’s agreed to do is give you a ride home. You could just let him drop you off and claim you slept with him.

  But when she walked out the front door and saw Xavier leaning against his bike, she knew there was no turning back. The muscles of his bare arms were chiseled in the pale moonlight, and his eyes flash
ed at her. Xavier watched her walk out the front door with an unmistakable hunger. He wanted her, and just knowing that made her want him, too. He was strong and fierce. He could have waited for her near her car, snatched her up, and made her go home with him, but he had been a perfect gentleman about it. Xavier hadn’t even touched her yet, a far cry from the way the other bar patrons treated her. He was persistent, and she didn’t think he would give up until he got his way, but it was just different somehow. He threw one leg over his bike and gestured with his head for her to get on the back.

  Kenzie was used to riding in the back of luxury sedans and limousines, not vintage Harleys. Her stomach jumped as she climbed on, hoping they made it to wherever they were going in one piece. She wasn’t sure what to do with her hands.

  “Hold on tight,” Xavier warned as he fired up the engine, sending a pleasurable vibration through the bike. “This road is a little bumpy.”