Page 72 of Rebel

When he turned to look at me again his expression was shocked. “Lacey, you’ve changed in the time you’ve been gone from my life. You used to be quiet, submissive, and agreeable. Now, you’re acting like something spawned in the fiery pits of hell. I’m not even sure if I still want you at this point.” The tone of his voice implied he expected me to straighten right up to earn the privilege of this kidnapping. Dude was complete moron.

I pointed upwards with one finger to the sign outside his driver’s side window. “Good. I’m glad we got that cleared up. You can drop me off right here, I can call a friend for a ride home and we can forget about this whole unfortunate incident.”

His voice turned suspicious. “I don’t think so, Lacey. You’re either going to turn out to be my new life partner, or a loose end that needs to be tied up—your choice.”

This man was absolutely off his rocker. I’d thought he was a controlling prick when I worked for him, but that was apparently the getting all his little ducks in a row phase of his life. I literally watched him divorce his nice wife, never really suspecting that he intended me to be her replacement. If not stupid, I had certainly been naive.

He was right about one thing, though—I’d been timid and easily controlled back then. Moving back to my hometown and being responsible for the family business had changed me. If I was being honest, I’d admit that spending time with Zoe, Alison, and Rebel had helped me become stronger and more self-assured as well. I had a long way to go before I could claim the kind of strength of character my friends possessed, but every daythat I resisted this asshole, the closer I came to coming into my own. My fate was sealed. I needed to resist, to save myself.

It was great that I was insightful enough to drop Rebel a text about my old boss showing up at my office. The old Lacey would sit around waiting for the rescue that was sure to come, compliments of her true-blue biker with a heart of gold. But I wasn’t going to suffer the humiliation of Rebel finding me being a good little victim. No sir, I was going to fight this asshole every step of the way and in doing so, prove that I deserved the good man fate had sent my way.

Chapter 25

Rebel

As I was waiting patiently for the judge to give his decision on whether or not to drop the charges against Storm, I couldn’t help but think about the last few days with Lacey. If I wasn’t mistaken, I had gotten me an old lady. Being in a relationship had exceeded my expectations in every conceivable way. Over the course of a few months I went from being stressed, lonely, and engaging in meaningless sex with club girls to having a wonderful woman who was smart, loving and as crazy about me as I was about her. Lacey didn’t judge me for my flaws. Hell, she even saw some of them as advantages. I couldn’t have made a better choice than Lacey. God only knows why she fell for me but I’m glad she did.

This morning blew my everlovin’ mind. I know the likelihood of her being pregnant was slim, but the thought of her having my child made me giddy with excitement and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. If it turned out she wasn’t pregnant then I wondered if we should seriously think about starting a family now.

Shaking those thoughts from my head, I glanced up to find our club attorney gesturing to the judge and the prosecuting attorney objecting. It didn’t get her very far because when the judge finally ruled, it was in Storm’s favor. Celt leaned over and whispered, “I saw that comin’. That woman does not know when to give up.”

“Yeah,” I responded quietly because they were still winding down the court proceeding. “I don’t think she likes our kind.”

Celt grinned like the mad Irishman he so clearly was, “Our kind being bikers, right?”

“No,” I teased him. The ‘our kind’ I was referring to were men who risk their necks and get shit done. She probably thinks we should sit around on our asses waiting for the cops to do their damn job. If it hadn’t been for Storm, Richie would be dead, and no one would even know about that sister of his being wronged by her parents.”

“Ain’t that for damn sure. That kid’s family did them both dirty. I’d like to get my hands on his old man for a few minutes.”

A cold female voice came from nearby, “Maybe you could hold off on plotting violence long enough to make it out of the courtroom.”

We both looked up to see the prosecuting attorney standing over us. I was about to apologize when Celt did what he always does in situations like this. He got to his feet and got mouthy in the wrong way.

“Why the hell are ye over here mouthing off to us when we’re sitting here minding our own business? Is this yer idea of flirtin’ or somethin’? ‘Cause I ain’t interested, lassie,”

“What? Of course not,” she said in a shocked and angry voice. “This is me putting you on notice that if you end up engaging in any kind of violence in my county, I’m going to prosecute you to the full letter of the law.”

Celt opened his mouth to say something to her, but Storm came up from behind and cut him off. “You’ve got balls of solid brass to be harassing my club brothers the minute the judgesmacked you down for trying to charge me with shit I didn’t even do. It’s almost like you didn’t learn a thing.”

She whirled around and pointed at Storm one time, hard and fast before lowering her arm. “You should not be in our county, much less interfering in police raids.”’

“Look, I don’t have all day to argue with you about shit that the judge just declined to accept as fact. We were there to save a man’s life, and we did just that. Listen carefully, lady, you’re not in charge of anything. If we have a reason to be in this county again, you can bet your sweet ass that we’re gonna be. You can get pissed about it all day long but we both know you weren’t gonna go out to a crack house in the middle of the night to save someone from overdosing. So, maybe you need to get off our backs about the good deed we did.”

She looked like she was itching to continue the argument, but the bailiff stepped in. “I’m gonna need all of you to move along. We have another case to hear, and Judge Vega doesn’t tolerate distractions in his courtroom.”

She made a disgruntled sound, turned on her heel and stalked away, leaving us all staring behind her. This woman was a nasty piece of work that I hoped never to cross paths with again. I quickly came to my feet and all three of us silently headed for the door. When we got to the front, near the door, we approached the officer at the metal detector to retrieve our cell phones and keys.

On the way to my bike, I checked my messages and found one from Lacey that she’d sent a couple of hours ago.

Lacey: I just wanted to let you know my old boss just showed up at my office. I don’t know what hewants or even how he found me. I really don’t have time for his shit today.

I stopped in my tracks and immediately called her to check if she was okay after his visit. I saw Storm and Celt stop out of the corner of my eye and start walking back towards me.

As the phone rang out, Storm asked, “What’s going on, brother? You’re white as a sheet.”

“I hope nothing is wrong,” I told him. “Lacey sent me a text while we were in the courtroom. Her boss from LA showed up at her office and she said she doesn’t know what he wants or how he found her.”

Storm asked, “Is this the one that sent her weird messages for weeks begging her to come back?”

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