Tough Love (The Nighthawks MC Book 6) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Book 6

  Recap from Eye for an Eye Book 5

  The Long Game

  Leaving Dirty Vegas

  Slopes

  Full Court Press

  Growing Pains

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Tough Love

  The Nighthawks Motorcycle Club

  Bella Knight

  Book

  6

  Edited by

  Natasha Lind

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  Contents

  1. Recap from Eye for an Eye Book 5

  2. The Long Game

  3. Leaving Dirty Vegas

  4. Slopes

  5. Full Court Press

  6. Growing Pains

  Afterword

  About the Author

  1

  Recap from Eye for an Eye Book 5

  Stupidity

  They were on a snack break, everyone having done chores and eaten breakfast, or vice versa., except for Alo, Alicia, Elu, and Yanaba, who had gone to work with Tito for the day. Henry ran the GED classes on the Pomodoro method, so they had four rounds of two, twenty-five-minute classes, with ten minutes in between. So, they had a thirty-minute break, where everyone ran around grabbing snacks and sodas, and played video games at the table. Jacy and Yas were having a “fuck you” conversation, with them saying, “Fuck you!” to each other.

  Ajai gave them a little glare; they settled down and fought in their video game. She kept an eye on Tam and Nico; they were finally eating healthy snacks, apples and nuts. They actually spoke occasionally, too, and their bruises were gone.

  Nantan heard shouting outside, and he stood up. He looked out the glass surrounding the front door, and he held his hands at his side. He touched his ring finger to his thumb, first on one hand, then the other.

  Tam and Nico went wide-eyed, stood, and ran out the back door. What the fuck?” asked Yas.

  Ajai shushed him with a glare, and hurried to the sports box as Nantan opened the door and stepped out. She grabbed two baseball bats. “Willow and Ruby, follow the boys. Guard the door.” She took out two more.

  Willow rushed to her, and took it. “The rest of you, go upstairs.” Ajai pulled out her phone, and, one-handed, typed a 911 and sent it to Henry.

  She sent a second 911 to her mothers, Herja and Rota, replying to one they sent. She didn’t know that both Wraith and Ivy were CC’d on it; it had been about a Valkyrie’s picnic.

  She nodded to Yoki, who nodded back. They stepped out on the porch, bats in hand. The arguing boys finally realized that the girls were deadly serious about something, and they looked out the window. There was a man that looked like a wider, meaner version of Nantan, standing at the bottom of the steps and screaming. He was glaring at Nantan and waving his fists, and swaying a little. He looked either drunk or high.

  “Oh, shit,” said Jacy. He pulled out his cell, and called David. “Get over to our house!” he shouted. “Really big angry guy going after Nantan.”

  “You stay put,” said David, who grabbed the gun out of the locked case in the living room.

  Henry already had the pump-action shotgun off from over the door, and was loading shells.

  “Sister,” he said, “Turn off the ovens and whatnot and get you and Sofia upstairs. Bella’s gone. Guard Inola and the baby.”

  “I’ve got them,” said David, as the lock opened. He filled the rifle with bullets.

  “Love you,” said Henry, and he was running out the door with the shotgun.

  Ivy was walking out to go to work when she got the text, and so she texted Henry. There was no reply, so she sent a text to Ace to open without her, who sent a 911 to Gregory and Tito, and went full throttle toward the farm.

  Wraith was typing up a report on one screen, and researching a nasty little gang of meth head thieves with the other. They’d killed their first cop, and the hounds of Hell were after them. Her phone beeped, and she saw the 911 from Ajai. She grabbed her jacket and was on her bike before she realized she was moving.

  Rota had much the same reaction; she was at the new house doing demo with Tito and the kids. Tito got the same text, and told the kids to literally drop what they were doing, and get in the fucking van, now. He barely remembered to lock up behind him.

  Herja finished teaching a karate class for the police department. She watched them leave, in various shades of red and pink, depending on how many times she’d thrown them, or had them in locks. Her cell phone shook, and she opened it, thinking Rota was inviting her to dinner or out. She saw the 911, and she ran out like a bat out of hell.

  “Iron Knight to me!” she yelled.

  “I’m off duty,” said Thrasher, running with her.

  “Henry’s farm. 911. My daughter.”

  “Fuck,” he said. They put on their helmets, and Thrasher had a police bike, so he opened up with the siren, and they rode like the wind.

  Nantan kept his hands by his side. The man in front of him was rock-solid. His nose had been broken several times. He was screaming in a mix of Sioux, English, and Spanish, and he kept changing speeds, from fast to slow and fast again. His pupils were dilated, and he sometimes slurred his words.

  Nantan knew who he was the minute he saw the man, and that he was looking at the boys’ father. Henry had gotten his hands on the police reports. Bodaway was not allowed to be within a thousand feet of his wife, who was dying in the hospital in a coma from her injuries. Or his kids, multiple bars, two bosses, and three ex-wives. The boys were too traumatized to see their mother, who looked nothing like the woman they knew, with the side of her face bashed in. There were no other relatives to take the boys.

  Bodaway should have been in the process of being convicted of his wife’s murder; he was definitely facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon. He’d taken a baseball bat to his wife after she’d finally gotten a backbone and attempted
to stop him from beating the kids with his fists. He’d lost a fight that night at a bar, and had gone home to “win” a fight, by beating up his wife and children.

  Nantan parsed enough of the mess the man was yelling to realize he was demanding to see his children.

  Who was a stupid enough judge to let this guy out? How did he find this place? Nantan thought.

  Their location should have been blacked out in court documents. The tribal elders were the only ones who should have been aware of where the boys were.

  “Stop,” he said in Sioux. “Why are you here?”

  The man stepped forward, his face getting stonier. “Do you have a brain of stone? You stole my sons!” he screamed.

  Behind him, Nantan heard the door open. He saw Ajai out of the corner of one eye, Yoki out of the corner of the other. Both girls were armed with baseball bats. He knew Ajai had been learning from her mother Herja, and that Yoki had played baseball for the past seven years. He actually thought of how to get out of the way if either girl started swinging. He would probably lose a kneecap.

  “I stole nothing and no one,” said Nantan.

  “You were seen! They got into your van! You are some sort of sick monster!”

  The word “pedophile” was an English one, but Nantan knew perfectly well what the man meant.

  “I do not harm people,” said Nantan. “I grow plants.”

  “Who are these? Your wives?” Bodaway said, swinging his arms. He was building himself up for a fight.

  Some people are too mean and stupid to go on, Nantan thought.

  “I am Sioux,” he said. “Not a monster.”

  Jeffrey came flying up on the big stallion, with a harness but bareback. He reined the horse in behind Bodaway. Bodaway was too stupid to realize that Jeffrey could have let the horse land, feet first, on his head.

  “You good?” asked Jeffrey.

  “So far,” said Nantan, switching to English.

  “You fucking moron,” said Bodaway, swinging an arm at the horse. Jeffrey backed the horse up perfectly.

  “I think you may be referring to yourself,” said Henry, riding up on the gorgeous gray mare. Smoke, they had rescued and was training to jump, bareback, with no reins.

  Henry held a shotgun loosely in his hands. He let go of the reins, and the horse stood, patiently. He racked the shotgun, an unmistakable sound.

  “You are not wanted here. You will leave now.”

  “Fuck you,” said Bodaway. stalking towards Nantan.

  Nantan held out his hands. He preferred no fighting to fighting. He also didn’t want Henry to have to fill out paperwork, or explain to the boys how their father had died on his doorstep.

  “You will stop,” said Nantan, in Sioux. “You will leave this place.”

  “Why the fuck would I do that?” asked Bodaway, stepping forward.

  The girls readied their bats. “He said to leave,” said Ajai. “I am not Sioux, but even I understand his words,” she said, in English. “You are the fool that drinks and injects the money into his veins and wonders why it is gone. That tries to harm others, and wonders why he has no friends. That steals and lies, and wonders why no one trusts him. That destroys a family, and wonders why they are gone. That kills, and wonders why he is in prison. Leave this place, and never return.”

  Valkyrie, thought Nantan and Henry, simultaneously.

  “Fucking bitch,” said Bodaway. “Tear your fucking arms off and beat you with them.”

  “You threatened a child,” said Nantan. “Who does that?”

  “Child?” asked Bodaway, genuinely confused.

  “This person is sixteen,” said Nantan. “You threatened a female who is sixteen.”

  “She...” Bodaway swayed.

  “Go,” said Nantan. “I do not care if you drink, or smoke, or do drugs. You can be an asshole somewhere else.”

  “Fuck you,” said Bodaway. “Worthless,” he said in Sioux.

  “Even I understand what you said,” said Ajai. “It is you who are worthless.”

  Bodaway took two steps forward, but he hadn’t seen the boys. They had filled balloons with a mixture of water and dish soap. They opened the window just above the porch. They had to be careful not to strike the roof or the horses. They knew, instinctively, that Henry would kill them if they spooked a horse. So, they both crept out onto the roof. Then, they let fly.

  The first water bomb hit Bodaway in the face. The second hit him in the shoulder. He gasped, breathed in water, and choked. Henry looked up, gave a thumbs-up, and specified with a finger. Jacy threw one more, and it hit Bodaway in the legs. The green soap stained his jeans.

  “What the fuck!” he said, screaming. He charged, but he had been blinded by the soap.

  Nantan held out both hands, and the enraged Bodaway ran up the stairs right into Nantan’s iron grip on his shoulders. Ajai held the bat on the handle farther up, and poked him in the stomach. He attempted to double over, but Nantan’s iron grip held him. Ajai moved her hand back up the grip of the bat, and swung a golf swing in between his legs, holding back. She didn’t want to maim him, just prevent him from fighting. Nantan let him go, and Bodaway doubled over, mewling.

  Inola came up on another horse. “Stupid men, forgot the rope,” she said, and lassoed Bodaway. She went up the line right between them. Jeffrey backed up, and Inola tied the rope to her saddle.

  Henry kept the gun at his side. “Wrap him up,” he said. “The police will love seeing him.”

  Inola jerked, and Bodaway fell over on his side. Inola hopped off the horse. Henry looked up, and motioned for the boys to get back in the house. They helped each other back in the window. Ajai and Nantan walked down the stairs. Henry pointed the gun at the ground as Inola expertly hog-tied him. Bodaway tried to take a swing at Inola, although he could only move his arms up to the elbows.

  Ajai handed the bat to Nantan, and expertly grabbed the hand and twisted it in a way that made Bodaway howl.

  “Thanks, girlfriend,” said Inola, and she finished hog-tying him.

  “Jeffrey,” said Henry, “Text an all-clear to David.” The young man took out his cell and sent the code.

  Henry had no idea that Ajai had sent her own 911, and Ajai was too busy pulling back her baseball bat, considering cracking it against Bodaway’s head as he spewed a stream of curse words and invective in three languages.

  The dual sounds of the police siren and the Harleys were unmistakable. “Who called the police?” asked Henry.

  Ajai recalled her 911 text. “My moms did,” she said.

  Herja and Thrasher came running from the parking lot, Herja’s hair streaming out behind her. She took in the horses, Henry’s gun, the baseball bat in her daughter’s hand, Inola’s rope, and the hog-tied man. She motioned for Thrasher to stand down. He figured out the same thing, so he took his hand off the butt of his gun.

  “What have we here?” Thrasher said as they arrived at the porch, after stopping to draw breath.

  Herja looked at her daughter standing over the man, baseball bat in hand. She smiled with fierce pride. “My daughter, are you well?” she asked, coming to a stop near the horses so as not to spook them.

  “I am well,” said Ajai. “This man threatened me, called Nantan nasty things, threatened me, and tried to assault me and Nantan.”

  “Assault on a minor,” said Thrasher, advancing with his cuffs.

  “Trespassing, attempted murder that will be murder when his wife passes away, and violating restraining orders,” said Nantan.

  “Violating court orders,” said Henry. “He wasn’t supposed to have any idea about us.”

  The other Harleys were right behind, Rota running all-out to get to her daughter, and Ivy content to watch Thrasher leading away a cursing man. Ivy saw the collision when Rota hugged Ajai. Wraith came up, took in the scene, took off her helmet, and went at a more sedate pace towards Ajai and her mothers.

  Ivy went into the main house, and smiled at David, who was watching from the front porch,
gun in hand. “You can put that away,” she said.

  “What? Oh,” he said, and he broke the gun and took out the bullets. “Thanks,” he said.

  “They did good,” said Ivy. “You got any Coke?”

  “Yes,” said David, “but you are not supposed to be drinking it.”

  “It’s either that or the booze, and one is less bad for me than the other.”

  “Hiding behind the pies,” said David.

  “We have pie?” asked Ivy.

  “Good God, woman,” said David. “A man comes to steal our children, and you want to drink Coke and eat pie?”

  “Bad guy is in custody. Two girls on the porch with baseball bats, so if he miraculously gets out of the cuffs, he’s in for a beatdown. Jeffrey has that huge monster horse, and Henry still has a shotgun. I think we’re safe. What kind of pie?”

  “Apple, and a peanut butter pie.”

  “Good god,’ said Ivy. “Now I can get the year off my life that the kid gave me (sending me a 911), back.”

  “Smart kid,” said David. “Cut me a piece, too.”

  “Will do,” she said.

  Tito arrived then with the van, kids spilling out. He took in the man in cuffs, and Jeffrey walking the stallion back to the barn. Nantan quietly talked to Henry with a gun, and Herja, Rota, and Wraith talked to Ajai.

  Nantan waited until Bodaway was off in the parking lot until he said, quietly, “I have to tell the boys they are okay, without showing where they are.”

  “Go,” said Henry, breaking the gun and turning the horse back to the paddock.

  Nantan walked through the house, to the back, and walked out the back door. He walked over to the hydroponics house, then went in and climbed the stairs.

  He found two girls with baseball bats guarding the door. “He’s gone,” he said. “Good job.”