Biker Stepbrother - Part Two Read Free Page A

home,” she said, blocking the door with her body.
    “I need to know where she is,” I argued. “It’s very important. Her life may be in danger.”
    “Rosa, who’s here this late at night?” a woman’s voice said from around the corner. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
    A woman with a face tight and smooth as glass and blonde hair dyed an expensive shade emerged from behind the Hispanic woman. Her lithe body was wrapped in a satin robe and her face fell the moment she saw me, like she was looking at a ghost.
    “Tammy-Dawn,” I said.
    “Gray.” Her hand flew to her chest, but she didn’t seem happy to see me. She turned to her employee. “Rosa, it’s okay. Go back to your quarters please.”
    To my surprise, she let me in and led me to the kitchen table. She took a seat next to me and cupped her head on her hand as she stared long and hard.
    “You look just like your father,” she said. Although her voice was the same, her words were different. She sounded like she came from money and privilege. It was all an act.
    “You look nice, Tammy-Dawn,” I said.
    “It’s Tamara,” she corrected me. “Tamara Chadwick. I haven’t been Tammy-Dawn since I don’t know when.”
    “Since the night you left,” I said.
    She placed her hand over mine. “Thank you, Gray. Thank you for telling me what you did, when you did. Who knows where we’d have ended up. What horrible things would’ve happened to my Eve.”
    I nodded.
    “I try not to think about that life,” she admitted, keeping her voice low as her eyes danced around the room to make sure we were alone. “I get so angry at myself for putting me and my daughter in that situation.”
    “Looks like you’ve more than made up for that.”
    She smiled as she ran her manicured fingers along the polished wood of the mahogany table. “I’ve worked hard to get us this life.”
    Hard on her back.
    “I’ll do anything to keep it,” she added, her eyes squaring with mine and her face hardening. “You can’t be around us, Gray. We don’t associate with our former lives.”
    Her words cut through my chest like a jagged knife, and my jaw clenched in response.
    “Your daughter’s in danger,” I said.
    Her eyebrows rose. “How so?”
    “That Holden is a psychopath,” I said. “He kidnapped me.”
    A boisterous laugh flew from her lips and she slapped her knee. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in my life. Holden’s an angel. A fine young man. That’s why he’s marrying her.”
    I didn’t have time to argue with an idiot. “She doesn’t want to marry him.”
    “Don’t you think I know that? A mother always knows her daughter’s heart.”
    “It’s not your decision to make. It’s hers. Shame on you for guilting her into anything she don’t want to do.”
    Tamara rolled her eyes. “You can say all you want. You can lay the guilt on me as thick as you possibly can. It won’t change a damn thing. She’s marrying Holden. That’s all there is to it. Now, if you could kindly leave.”

FOUR – EVERLY
     
    “It’s been over an hour,” I said to Alfonso. “He said he’d been here in twenty minutes.”
    Alfonso peered out the curtains of Holden’s living room windows and looked down toward the street.
    “I don’t think he’s coming,” I said.
    “Try calling him again.”
    I dialed his number. No answer.
    “Something’s going on,” I said, fearing the worst. Holden was a very jealous man and I could only imagine the extremes he would go to to secure the thing he wanted the most: me. “I have to get Sterling involved. He’s the only one who can talk some sense into Holden.”
    Alfonso and I headed towards the mansion in Brentwood, and my stomach dropped the second I saw Dalton’s gray Range Rover in the driveway.
    “He’s here,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt and slowly climbing out. I tried asking myself why he’d have run to Sterling before coming to me. Nothing was adding up. Nothing made sense.
    Unless Sterling