Forbidden Protector Read online

  Forbidden Protector

  Natasha L. Black

  Copyright © 2019 by Natasha L. Black

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Brother’s Best Friend (Sample)

  Also By Natasha L. Black

  About the Author and Mailing List

  Introduction

  I left my badge behind and tried to forget.

  When I took a job as bouncer at a biker club, I was just an ex-cop looking for a paycheck and a chance to beat up the drunks who start bar fights.

  I never thought I’d be caught in a gang war.

  Or that my boss’s little sister Connie would be so delicious, so hard to resist.

  She’s a tough single mom, a feisty little thing who can take care of herself.

  A rival gang makes a threat, and we all go on lock-down in the Twisted Souls compound while a gang war rages.

  It’s my job to keep her safe.

  Taking a bullet for her would be the easy part.

  Letting her anywhere near my broken heart is way more dangerous.

  From the first moment I tasted her lips, to our secret trysts inside the compound, where we could be caught at any second, I knew this wildcat of a woman had gotten to me.

  Our blazing hot affair grinds to a halt when the enemy kidnaps Connie’s little girl.

  I’ll do anything to save her, to bring her back home.

  There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Connie.

  Even if it means telling her how I really feel...

  If I can save her daughter... If I live through the night.

  1

  Connie

  “Sugar man, won’t you hurry, ‘cause I’m tired of these scenes…”

  Before the singer could finish the verse, I switched off the radio. Grumble-murmurs filled the bar around me.

  “Hey - we were listening to that!” Gary declared.

  He threw his luscious Santa-bearded head back in absolute indignation. On either side of him, his younger brother Harry and his older brother Larry wore similar outraged expressions.

  Something twisted in me. I didn’t want to explain my reasoning, but I wasn’t going to get away with this on some sweetly trilled “Sorry!”

  “Tough shit,” Hayes hollered from the office. “What Connie says is law!”

  I exhaled, bit back a grin. Mental note: Buy my brother one of those weird raspberry tarts from Metro he was so crazy about.

  After only a few weeks at Twisted Souls I may have been the boys’ favorite bartender already but turning off Sixto Rodriguez was still akin to high treason.

  Over the blasted new song – Gun’s N Roses’ ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, I loudly suggested, “Another round on the Carters?”

  Cheers. Just like that, mini crisis averted.

  Really though, I shouldn’t have bothered changing the song. Even if it was that one. On the wall behind me, the gargoyle cuckoo clock had only two small black indents left before the minute hand. Two minutes to go.

  Two minutes until I’d get to rip off my itchy apron. Then it would be time to drive home as fast as I could without landing myself a speeding ticket.

  Home to her.

  What made every ache of my tired legs (this was my twelfth – or was it thirteenth? – straight day of working) worth it.

  As I poured out the last round of Heineken for the boys, the phone rang.

  “Halla dahling, how are ya?”

  I winced, still smiling. Even over the line, Loretta’s smoker’s drawl seemed to scratch my eardrums. “I’m good. How are you doing?”

  “Good, but ya know why I’m calling, don’tcha?”

  I smirked. As wild as Loretta’s dating escapades were, I did somewhat live vicariously through them. “Who is it this time?”

  “Does it matter?” She laughed so hard and scratchy she broke out coughing. “Alright, alright. It’s James. Ya know, the young guy with the comb-over who likes picnics and polos, that kind of shit.”

  I giggled. “Right, that one. Let me guess-”

  “Nah, no picnic this time- he’s taking me out in his sailboat Friday night,” Loretta said triumphantly. “Gonna have us a moonlit swim too.”

  Again, I had to smile. “Tell me you’ll wear the pink bathing suit.”

  Loretta’s giggle was gleeful. “Why d’ya think I bought it for? Anyway, don’t tell me you’re getting me all worked up for nothing. We both know your goddamn brother scheduled me a shift right smack dab on Friday – even though I’ve told him in every way I can think of that I don’t wanna work that day.”

  I chuckled knowingly. “Yeah, that sounds like Hayes. Anyway, it’s fine, I’ll take it.”

  I didn’t even need to think about it.

  Loretta hesitated. “Ya sure? I know that was your first day off in a while and-”

  “And I have bills to pay,” I finished for her. “And they aren’t paying themselves.”

  Something tapped the phone a few times on her end – probably her neon green and blue decal nails.

  “Honestly Ret, you’re doing me a favor,” I assured her. “The more hours I can get, the better. Of course, I want all the time I can get with Annie, but I have tonight off with her. Plus, Sunday.”

  “Alright, alright, ya convinced me. I’ll tell you all the juicy tidbits Monday.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Nah, it sounds fabulous. Take care of yourself dahling. Give the little one a kiss for me.”

  “Give the big boy a kiss for me.”

  We hung up giggling.

  By now, the clock’s fat minute hand pointed three tick’s past. Time to go.

  The only question was what would I find when I got there?

  “Annie’s sleeping, could you check on your brother for me?”

  On my way out, I stopped by Hayes’ office. It was the usual jungle of teetering paper stacks and unidentifiable boxes.

  Just visible behind his work, regally seated in the ergonomic seat Mom bought him last Christmas, was my big brother himself. King of his messy kingdom.

  “Mom wanted me to check on you,” I said.

  Hayes didn’t respond, only sighed loudly.

  “You look like shit,” I added, because, well, he looked like shit. And what else were sisters for?

  Hayes scowled, running a hand through his red bedhead, and rubbed at his ruby-rimmed eyes. He jiggled his iPhone at me as if that was supposed to help me make out the tiny print on its chipped, scratched screen. “Two weeks we dated. I try to break up with her the nice new-fashioned ‘ghosting’ way, and she threatens to disembowel me and sell my organs online.”<
br />
  My lower lip pulled down. “Jesus Hayes. What kind of girls have you been dating?”

  Hayes gave me an utterly unimpressed look. “Sorry I haven’t been picking up girls from the Miss America pageant.”

  I gave his linebacker shoulders a kindly pat. “There’s still time.”

  He grimaced as he tossed his iPhone 11 to the side.

  Fortunately, the poor phone landed on a paper pile instead of the stone floor. I resisted the urge to point out that he needed Gorilla Glass. We’d gone over it before.

  He was already on his phone again, anyway, tapping away. I peered at him, recognizing the quick-swiping motion. “Tinder?”

  My brother didn’t usually mix business and pleasure, although it had been a weird week. There’d been an event or two that had him pulling major over time. Probably contributed to him looking like shit, too.

  Rumors were swirling about something much worse, but I was pretty sure they were just that. When Hayes didn’t respond, I leaned in to see the latest candidate: some puce-haired emo chick with bulging eyes and snarling lips who looked pretty much possessed.

  Hayes swiped right, and I snorted. “And you’re surprised you’ve been ending up with crazies?”

  “Gotta get rid of this negative juju somehow,” he muttered, head down, now in full swipe-mode.

  “So, you’re allowed to date any old psycho you please, but I’m not even allowed to have a boyfriend?” I grumbled.

  Hayes paused so he could flutter his colorless eyelashes at me. “That’s not true.”

  “Every single guy I’ve introduced you to in the past year, you’ve basically conversationally dick-kicked.”

  “C’mon, that Drew guy was a shit – I was doing you a favor.”

  “Maybe, but Walker wasn’t so bad.”

  “Yeah, as long as you don’t count the fact that all he liked to do was get baked and play the guitar.”

  “There are worst vices to have.”

  “Con, he got so baked he forgot your birthday”

  I scowled.

  It sucked when Hayes did this – voiced what I knew already.

  Really, I’d known Walker was trash by date number three when he was thirty minutes late and mid-excuse, had just started laughing and pulled out a joint.

  I’d just kept him around since well, it beat dating. Meeting new people and navigating the minefield of their negotiable and non-negotiable red flags was time-consuming and exhausting and exciting, but mostly disappointing.

  But Walker was easy. He had long sleek Pocahontas hair you could run your fingers through, was decent in bed and…

  Let’s be honest here, it wasn’t like I was expecting to meet my Ace anytime soon. Not again.

  Those things didn’t happen twice; I was lucky enough I got it once.

  “C’mere.” Hayes slung a forearm around me – bear hug time. “You know I’m just looking out for you.”

  I relaxed into his hug, his woodsy scent.

  When Hayes wasn’t fighting paperwork here or powering down the highway on his Harley, he was hiking any forest trails nearby. Our parents always joked he should’ve been a ranger instead of a bar owner.

  “I know you’re just looking out for me.” I sighed, with my chin resting on my brother’s shoulder. “I don’t need it, though.”

  Hayes just laughed; a belly chuckle that made his beard tickle my forehead. “Believe me, I know. The way you reamed out that one guy last night– Bruce, was it? – I told that one to the boys the other night and they were howling. Couldn’t stop.”

  I bit back a smile. “He had it coming. Hitting on me, then Val, when she told him she had a boyfriend? When he had a girlfriend to boot? And a daughter?”

  In the end, that was what had got me – him casually mentioning his little baggy of ‘something’ we could do to end the night off with some fun, how his daughter would be asleep at his place anyway.

  What the actual fuck. Not when you have kids. No fucking way.

  Hayes mimed Bruce’s constipated-looking bulged eyes and puckered lips – his expression after I’d given his head a nice whiskey topping.

  “Speaking of,” he said, switching to a more serious tone. “You’re doing great here, no shit.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Been enjoying it more than I expected.”

  “Well, I have been giving you the least shit shifts.” Hayes’ hazel eyes lifted magnanimously as he smirked. “When you get in Connie Mode, drink-pouring and MC-chatting and counter-cleaning, my oh my, if it isn’t a sight to see.”

  I grinned. “I try.”

  “At this rate, you’ll have your own place, five years max.”

  I tried to match my brother’s easy smile.

  Part of me wished I’d kept it to myself. My big dream.

  Right now, it seemed so big – too big, more than a bit ridiculous.

  Opening my own swanky bar-restaurant would take oodles of cash, experience and grit – and right now I was just barely making ends meet. But Mom and Dad had had their own successful place – a family-friendly diner years ago – so it wasn’t like it didn’t run in the family.

  Anyway, my priority would be Annie, always. I needed enough money to make sure she’d get the best of everything, then I could start worrying about making my dream restaurant a reality.

  “Speaking of, it’s time to get home to Annie.” I gave Hayes a wave as I left. “See ya.”

  “Hold up,” Hayes called after me. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  I turned to see that his face and voice were suddenly serious.

  My thumb nail picked at the skin beside my pinky nail. “What is it?”

  There had been something going on, I knew that already. The boys’ laughs had been cut short and alcohol sales were up. Nobody could put words to it, not yet. Right now, it was still just a feeling.

  But now Hayes…

  He cracked a grin, waggled his brows. “Tell Annie Uncle Hayes has a surprise for her!”

  I nearly fell over I was so surprised. “You’re shitting me.”

  Hayes just laughed, jabbing his finger my way. “Your face!”

  “Ok, it’s on, big brother.”

  I twisted away, upsetting a pile of papers as I did so.

  “Hey, don’t be like that!” Hayes protested. “I was only joking – kinda. I do have a surprise for Annie, I just thought it’d be funny to-”

  “Give me a heart attack?” I demanded, although I was smiling.

  My heart rate was finally falling back to normal.

  “Next shift I’ll bring in some of Mom’s jam,” he offered. “And I was serious about the surprise part, she’s gonna go bonkers when she sees it!”

  “Fine, fine,” I said. “Anyway, I really do have to go. See ya!”

  As I left, I was smiling, despite myself.

  Hayes’ ‘surprises’ usually consisted of such mundane things as an eraser with a happy face drawn on, a paper clip bent into a penguin. But he had a way of talking, a way of introducing the thing, that was so exciting, it got Annie as excited as any toy I’d bought her.

  Now finally done with everything, I wasted no time.

  I grabbed my cross-body bag from behind the bar, stashed my mini-purse in it, waved to the boys, and was off. Luckily, traffic seemed to be on my side too – there was none, and I pulled up in my parent’s cobblestone driveway in record time.

  As I hurried to the door, I couldn’t help but notice how catalogue-worthy everything looked. Dad had snipped the achingly green grass just so, while Mom had trimmed and watered and positioned the alternating red and yellow begonias to perfection.

  My finger pressed on the doorbell with a mix of stress and relief. Soon, I would see Annie and there’d be no time to reflect on how my place (and life) was a mess in comparison to here – dishes from the past few days stacked in the sink, my lawn direly needing a trim.

  Barely audible foot pounding from inside sounded and the door flung open.

  “MOMMY!” Annie
launched herself into me, throwing her arms around me.

  She smelled as sweet as fresh apples as always, with something unfamiliar thrown in the mix, too. Some chemically vanilla scent I sensed.

  Mom appeared in the doorway, a few steps away. “I bathed her.”

  Mom’s sleek silver hair was tied back with a gingham ribbon, and her crystalline blue gaze was amused, reproving, with what she wouldn’t say, thankfully.

  But then a gap-toothed smile cracked her rosebud lips, and I knew she was fighting it.

  Annie.

  What my daughter did to people, what her pure goofy joy brought out in them; the best, and nothing less.

  I picked up Annie and spun her around. “I missed you!”

  “I missed you!”

  “No, I missed you!”

  “No, I missed YOU!”

  We both cackled like madwomen as I spun her round and round.

  That was our thing, saying “I miss you” every day, no matter the occasion or separation. It was ridiculous, no matter how many times we said it, no matter how randomly Annie declared it, like once after I stepped out of her room to get a library book I’d left in the kitchen, she’d declared, in all solemnity “I missed you”. We both always really meant it.

  I swooped Annie down a little, so my fingers could burrow into her armpit. “Tickle monster!”

  “No!” Annie laugh-cried, tearing away. I caught up to her in seconds, lifted her to the couch, tickling away. Mom joined in as Annie twisted back and forth, shrieking with laughter.

  Minutes later, we were all plopped on the old mustard corduroy couch in the basement – Mom, Dad, Annie, me, and a fresh batch of extra butter Orville Redenbacher, watching Jumanji.