Page 43 of Protected by the Biker (Grim Reaper MC)
“Good. Everything is going alright there?”
“Yes, daddy. Everything is fine. Is something wrong?” My mind flashed with the possibilities, and a slight panic set in my stomach. Since I was younger, I had an idea about what type of business my family was involved in. We were a large Italian family in Chicago, and while my father liked to claim that he dealt in the waste management industry, I knew that everything he did was not exactly legal. Not that he would ever actually talk to me about it unless something was terribly wrong. He and my brothers had successfully kept the wool over my eyes when it came to the family business, and in all honesty, I was fine with that. The less I knew about things going on, the better.
“Oh, no, sweetheart. I was just calling to check on you. You know, I don’t care that you are twenty-six years old, no matter what, you will always be my little princess. I just want you to know that alright?”
I eased into my car and turned the key into the ignition. As tough as my father was, I was always the little girl in his eyes. It came with the territory of being the baby girl of the family.
“Yes, daddy,” I said, letting out a breath that I was holding in.
“You doing anything tonight?”
“I am hanging out with Freya tonight. She conned me into going out with her.”
“I see. Well, you be safe out there, Carina. Papa loves you, alright?”
“I love you too, daddy.”
As I hung up the phone, I looked down at the screen and saw his picture before it faded away. His lips were pursed together as he glared right into the camera as if he was trying to shake the soul from the lens. He never smiled. His life rarely gave him the opportunities to do so. His thick eyebrows sat just above his dark brown eyes like subtraction signs with a thin hairline connecting them from the middle.
His cheeks drooped down a bit like a bulldog on his cleanly shaved face. He was built like a polar bear. Intimidating. Unmovable. Ferocious. I guess he had to be that way, though, because of his position.
Even though he and the rest of my family did their best to shield me away from the crimes that they were involved in, I knew the truth. I loved my family to death, but I wanted no part of their mob mentality. Even though they were extremely successful at what they did, I stayed out of it.
Over the years, I had successfully distanced myself from the family business. Even though I had the same last name as my father, I had convinced every employer I had since I was sixteen that I had nothing to do with infamous Dellucci family. I had created my own life and my own career. No one could ever know that I was actually the daughter of one of the fiercest mob boss’s in Chicago.
It would ruin everything.
Chapter 2
Harrison
I woke up in my high-rise apartment building near downtown Chicago. The sun found a way to slide through my blinds and shine directly in my face like a flashlight. I squinted, then buried my head beneath the pillow like trying my best to hide from the light. Minutes later, my alarm clock squealed on my nightstand. I took three swipes at it until I finally gave up and smacked it forcefully onto the ground, pulling the plug out of the wall on its way to the floor.
I exhaled as I tried to force my eyes open. This was the toughest part of waking up for me, but there was a shit load of fuckery going on in Chicago that I had to take care of, and it wasn’t going to stop just because I didn’t feel like peeling myself out of bed.
I reluctantly removed the covers and sat upright on the edge of the mattress. The dresser’s mirror was directly in front of me, reflecting the tattoos on my bare chest that scattered across my pecs and extended over my shoulder and down my arm like a sleeve. My abs were hard as I ran my hand over my buzzed haircut. I was in shape, but it wasn’t by choice. My line of work forced me to keep myself up because I never knew when I would have to use brute strength to get myself out of a fucked-up situation.
I was a detective with the Chicago Police Department, and for the past several months I had been placed on undercover operations. I was the only one left of the squad that didn’t have a wife and kids at home to take care of, which meant I was a perfect candidate to be thrown right into the line of fire.
I glanced down at the alarm clock as it laid helplessly on the floor. On my nightstand, my cell phone was dangerously close to the edge as well. I quickly removed it before it plummeted to disaster. As soon as I unlocked it, I scrolled through my emails, checking to see if Captain Mark O’Malley had sent me some briefings about any new cases this morning. My inbox populated with junk mail and other bullshit that I had no interest in, but nothing from him yet. Once I cleared everything out, I tossed my phone onto the mattress and made my way to the bathroom.
My one-bedroom apartment was cheap, but I wanted it that way. I didn’t give a fuck about where I lived because I knew that if shit went down, I could handle myself. My assignments rarely kept me at home anyway, so now, I was all about saving money. Besides that, I had four registered pistols and two shotguns at my disposal, so I was daring anyone to try to run into my place unannounced. It would be the worst decision of their life.
As I walked into the bathroom, I removed my boxers and turned on the shower water so I could wash myself up and get ready for my day. As usual, I was just ready to get it over with. As much as I liked my job, the stress with always being undercover had started to get to me. I moved to Chicago almost four years ago. I was a part of the Miami police department for ten years until I got the opportunity here to become a detective. The transition was seamless for me because I had no problem changing my personality like a chameleon to fit whatever situation they decided to plug me into.
I’d played everything from a drug lord to a petty thief and murderer for hire. With all those faces, I’d never once been made as anything other than who I claimed to be. They said I had a gift, but to me, it was just something that came naturally. I never had to work at it, and I think it had a lot to do with how I grew up and who I grew up around. Crime was always a part of my life, dating back to my days in high school.
I never expected to end up on the right side of the law, but sometimes, shit worked out the way you never expected it to. That was life. After I finished cleaning myself up in the shower, I stepped onto the rug as the steam filled the air and fogged the mirror. With three swipes, I made a small circle so I could see my reflection clearer. My five o’clock shadow was thickening by the second on top of my high cheekbones. My blue eyes reflected the idea of a pure past life, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
The razor blade sat on the counter, waiting for me to pick it up and apply it to my cheeks, but I passed on it. I didn’t have anybody to impress, and I wasn’t looking for anyone. My type of work didn’t allow for serious relationships, and with the way things had gone in my love life, I wasn’t in a rush to go down that road again.
I slid on some jeans and canvas shoes, then put on a white tee-shirt and made my way to my car. A few of the tenants nodded their heads at me as I walked past. I hardly said much to anyone, and I wanted to keep it that way. People talked way too much, and if word got back around to what I did, my whole cover could be blown in less than a second. I didn’t want to take that risk, so I’d rather be seen as an enigma than someone who came off as being too friendly.
I arrived at the precinct nearly forty-five minutes later. “Hey, here comes this pretty boy looking mother fucker right now. Glad, you finally decided to show up, you piece of shit,” one of the officers said as soon as I walked into the office.
I removed my shades as he stood next to his buddy. The main room buzzed with police officers. I hated the stereotype that all police officers ate doughnuts, but I did see at least one or two boxes on different desks as I walked through the building.
“Fuck you, Mason,” I said as I hung my glasses on the top of my shirt. “I’ve always wondered why you were so worried about when I showed up, but now I know why. You’re just an ass.”
“Yeah, if I’m an ass, why the fuck did your mother leave my house last night claiming how much she loved me? Oh, by the way, tell her to make sure she brings some cookies next time. And not that fat-free shit, either.”
“My mother would never fuck someone with titties bigger than hers, you fat son of a bitch.”
The rest of the officers in the room laughed as we berated each other. It was always harmless between Mason and me. We had been friends for the last two years. At 27, he was three years younger than me, but he had just made it out of the academy one year ago, so he was still pretty much considered a rookie by our standard.
A trio of female officers walked past us. One of them covertly winked at me as she perused through the maze of desks in the room. I smirked as she quickly turned away from me before anybody noticed our silent interaction. Mason nudged me on the shoulder with a doughnut in his hand.
“Hey, nice work on that last assignment. I overheard the Captain talking about it the other day. You keep that up, you’re going to be a fucking legend out here in Chicago.”
I removed a cigarette from my pocket and flicked the lighter. The butt of the cigarette glowed just beyond my eyes as I inhaled and blew the smoke in the opposite direction. “I’m just doing my job. I get paid to get the fucking bad guys, so I get the fucking bad guys.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mason responded with a mouthful. Bits of his doughnut trickled from his lips like tiny sprinkles of raindrops. “You can be modest all you want, we know the truth. You are a fucking animal, man. Seriously.”
Captain O’Malley opened his door, and the men in the room hushed to a silence.
