Chapter 1
JUDE
8:56 pm.
I rolled up behind the arena on my Harley and backed into my designated spot next to one of the crew access doors. I could hear the thunder of music right through the roar of my bike from a couple of city blocks away and now I felt it pounding through the concrete.
The Players were onstage, rocking out one of their biggest hit songs, “Panic Room”. It was the final song on their set list for tonight.
Which meant Dirty would soon be taking the stage.
Almost time.
I took a gut-deep breath, grounding myself as I set my boots on the pavement, even as the anticipation started to build.
It was my greedy impatience to see her, to touch her, combined with the usual buzz of adrenaline. The one that accompanied every live event, every concert, no matter how big or small.
And this show would be huge. For many reasons.
As outwardly calm and in control as I would appear, even I couldn’t help being affected by the palpable excitement of all those people—many of them my close friends. My family.
And of course, my woman.
Roni.
As I slipped off my helmet and swiped a hand through my hair, the thrill of embarking on a new tour stirred in my blood. It would be chaos, as usual, but I was comfortable in that chaos.
It had always been chaos.
I’d devoted my life, without regret, to protecting my rock star best friends and their band. Not knowing, when we all started down this road together as little more than kids, how successful the band would become.
Nowadays, we had partners and kids and babies in the mix, but we also had more resources. More money, a bigger team.
But all that meant was the shows and the tour got bigger, too.
Tonight was the first night of the new world tour. A double bill, the Players and Dirty, rocking our home arena in Vancouver before both bands headed out on the road. I’d go wherever Dirty went, as their head of security. Wherever my best friend, lead guitarist Jesse Mayes, went, as his primary bodyguard.
That meant traveling several continents over the next year-and-a-half while Dirty rocked sold-out concerts all over the world, with the Players and with other bands.
No matter how far and wide we traveled, though, Dirty always preferred kicking off the tour as close to home as possible. The relationship they’d built with the hometown fans over the past fifteen years was sacred. It meant a lot, to all of us, to have the opportunity to keep doing what we loved with our lives. And none of us would be doing what we did without Dirty’s diehard fans perpetually clamoring for more.
So, this wasn’t just a night of music. It was a night of gratitude and celebration.
But this show meant even more to me, personally, than the first night on any given tour—and not just because it happened to be my birthday.
Tonight, we had something special planned.
The moment I swung my leg off my bike, though, I could tell that all those carefully laid plans had somehow gone to shit.
A petite woman with sleek dark hair had just slipped out the door to greet me like she knew I was coming, and when my eyes locked with hers, I saw it on her face. After working together for so many years, Maggie Omura and I had an almost disturbing ability to read and anticipate one another.
But maybe that was just because we were both so damn predictable.
“What is it,”
I said flatly.
“Happy birthday?”
she hedged.
“Don’t bother. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Maggie’s pretty face twitched in a way I didn’t like. She never beat around the bush with me. One reason we worked so well together.
My guts were dropping into free-fall already, because I fucking knew.
“I’m so sorry, Jude.”
Maggie didn’t apologize much, either. Mainly because she rarely had shit to apologize for. As co-manager of Dirty, she was reliable and professional in all things, and as wife of Dirty’s lead singer, Zane Traynor, she was majorly invested.
Her face twitched again, and I realized she was chewing the inside of her mouth.
“Jesus, Maggie. What happened?”
“I’m so sorry,”
she repeated. Then she forced it out. “We lost the signs.”
I dragged a hand over my face. This was the last thing I wanted to hear. But it was not like Maggie to fuck up. “Seriously?”
“I’m getting the crew to try to pull together some paint and plywood or something, to make new ones,”
she babbled, “but I don’t know if they can pull it off in time. Plywood might be too heavy, it could be a liability for injury, because they need to be big enough to be visible, and the paint probably won’t dry in time. We need to get everything in place before Dirty hits the stage or there’s no way we can?—”
“Breathe, Maggie.”
She blew out a breath. “I have never felt so fucking sick. I can’t believe we let you down.”
Her pretty gray eyes filled with tears.
This was new.
I almost didn’t know what the fuck to do for a long-ass minute as we just stared at each other.
Then I slung an arm around her shoulders, tugging her to me for a hug. “Just stop it, okay?”
She sucked in a breath and nodded.
I didn’t want Maggie falling the fuck apart—was that even a thing?—but shit, I felt kinda sick, too.
The door opened behind her and Jesse stepped out, dressed in his stage clothes, a ripped T-shirt that was really more rip than shirt, and black leather pants. “Jude, man. Happy birthday.”
I released Maggie to accept the hug he offered. My best friend gave me a tight, sympathetic squeeze. “Zane just told me about the signs. We can figure out something else, though.”
“It’s okay. Maybe we’ll just do it another night…”
But another night wouldn’t be this night.
It wouldn’t be here, at home. It wouldn’t be the first night of the tour, it wouldn’t be my birthday, and Roni’s mom wouldn’t be here with her.
I wanted this to be as special as it could be, and tonight was the way to make that happen.
“Maybe we can play a special song instead,”
Jesse offered, as the door opened again and Brody Mason, manager of Dirty and the Players, stepped out, grave-faced.
“Happy birthday, brother.”
Brody, who was also one of my best friends, swept me into a hug, too, slapping my back. “What’s the word? Maggie said the signs are in the wind.”
“Yeah. Apparently so.”
I slapped his back and released him. Really didn’t need all this someone-just-died energy. I didn’t like being the center of attention, good or bad.
“I was just saying, we can do a song instead,”
Jesse put in, wearing the same gravely sympathetic look Brody was wearing. Maggie just looked sick. “You know, for Roni.”
“No.”
I shook my head, deciding; Dirty had a show to play and I really didn’t want my special birthday request to become a distraction. I also didn’t want Zane doing my job for me where my woman was concerned. “Thanks, but I don’t want that.”
“You sure?”
Brody raised an eyebrow. “That would be the easiest fix.”
I glanced at Maggie. “Look—no offense, Maggie—but I really don’t want a man who was once with my woman, even before she was officially my woman, serenading her on my behalf.”
Even if that man—Maggie’s husband, Zane—was one of my best friends.
“And who could blame you,”
she said dryly.
“Right.”
Jesse rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “Didn’t think of that.”
“Then we’ll find another way,”
Brody said firmly.
“I’m gonna talk to Talia again,”
Maggie said with determination. She promised me, “We’ll fix this.”
Then she got on her phone and Brody opened the door for her, patting my shoulder as I followed her into the bowels of the arena.
Talia was the assistant manager of the Players. She was also Roni’s best friend.
I trusted her and Maggie to do what they could.
But in all my envisioning of how this night would go down, I didn’t envision any backup plan. Really didn’t think I needed one, what with Maggie and Talia here to help me pull this off.
Major fucking mistake.
But maybe the whole idea was stupid anyway. Too old school.
I should’ve come up with something more high-tech yet simple. Something that didn’t rely on so many damn moving parts and so many people, many of them strangers.
“We’ll figure something out, man.”
Jesse squeezed my shoulder. “Do you want to just come onstage with me? Or I could sing her something?”
“I don’t know. Let me think on it. Maybe this was a stupid idea, anyway.”
“Brother. Don’t give up. Brody and Maggie will come up with something.”
Yeah. They usually did.
I glanced back, but Brody and Maggie had both disappeared. I could hear the Players onstage, muffled, shouting thank you’s to the roaring crowd as they ended their set.
I slapped Jesse on the back. “Let me go find Roni.”
“Sure, brother. I’m here when you need me.”
I left him and headed deeper into the arena, checking in with Ronan, the Players’ head of security. And greeting some of the guys on my crew, a mix of the clean-cut professionals we’d pulled from Ronan’s VIP security company and some patched brothers from my motorcycle club, the West Coast Kings MC.
I’d always been careful to make sure that the two sides of my life, the MC and the music industry, didn’t interfere with each other. They overlapped only in this way: when I hired guys from the club to work security for the bands.
Unfortunately, both sides of my life had interfered with my relationship with Roni, even when I didn’t mean for them to.
Maybe because, once upon a time, I’d chosen both of them over her, when I shouldn’t have.
I’d been so fucking stupid when we were young. Practically drove her into Zane’s arms that one time they hooked up so many years ago. Into the arms of other men, too. I’d left her to go on tour when I didn’t yet realize she was the best thing that could ever happen to me.
In truth, from the moment she crossed my path in our teens, like a black-haired Lolita sucking on her lollipop, to the first time I kissed her goodbye to leave on Dirty’s first tour…to the moment I finally swore to her, years later, “you and me, darlin’, we’re goin’ down the longest road there is,”
Veronica Webber had owned my heart.
There were many heartbreaks in between.
Many times I lost her.
Many times I fucked it all up.
Maybe that first time she came to kiss me goodbye before I left on tour, I should’ve just said Come with me, V.
How awesome would that have been?
Somehow, these days, it was hard to remember ever being here, backstage, without her.
When I finally found her backstage, just standing in one of the endless concrete corridors in the bowels of the arena, talking to her mom and one of Brody’s managerial underlings, the sight of her sucked the breath out of me like it so often did. I’d know that sexy silhouette anywhere, the thick black hair in loose waves around her face and shoulders, the confident tilt of her chin.
As a bodyguard and a biker, I’d survived more than my fair share of dangerous situations with dangerous people. But I’d never known anyone as dangerous as Veronica Webber.
Her curves were poured into sleek black leggings and a cropped black cashmere sweater, with cherry-red high heels. She didn’t wear much makeup, just a sweep of her signature black eyeliner and red lipstick to match the heels.
In skimpy lingerie or sweats, she was the sexiest woman I’d ever seen.
My woman.
The mother of my son, and if I was even luckier in the future, more children.
By the time I reached her, nodded a hello to her mom and swept her into my arms, electricity danced across my skin. When she cried, “Jude!”
like she hadn’t seen me in weeks—it had been a few hours—and pressed her lush body against me, her fingers digging into the hair at the nape of my neck, the electricity sizzled right through me.
“Gorgeous,”
I greeted her.
The faint thud of the music playing in the arena between sets and the dull roar of anticipation from the crowd underscored the fierce beating of my heart as I kissed her luscious lips, her gorgeous face, her soft neck. The last time I saw her she was in sweats, feeding our baby as she prepared to hand him off to his nanny so she could get cleaned up for work tonight. I was heading out the door, and I’d barely gotten to touch her, she’d had her hands so full.
Felt like the luckiest man in the world knowing I got to take her home tonight. And hopefully, we’d get a few sweet hours alone together while Julian was asleep.
“Happy birthday, baby,”
Roni purred in my ear, her lips brushing my skin. “I’ve got something for you.”
“Mmm,”
I growled and gently bit her neck.
She squeezed me tighter and laughed her soft, husky laugh.
I pressed my face into her neck, inhaling deep; that goddamn sex kitten smell of hers that always did me in. I closed my eyes and savored it.
Savored her.
In moments like these, just luxuriating in the feel of her, her warmth and her smell and her soft breaths against my skin, I couldn’t fucking believe she’d once been taken from me. While she was pregnant with our child.
Those torturous hours, when Roni was in danger, were the longest and the darkest of my life.
When she was kidnapped and held captive by the fucking Mafia.
When I didn’t know where she was and I couldn’t help her, couldn’t protect her, trade my life for hers, anything.
I would’ve done fucking anything to save her.
My entire MC had searched for her, with my brother, Piper, our Vice President, at the helm, and I’d never felt more helpless, more out of control.
She was back in my arms, unharmed, within twenty-four hours. And here she was, still safe in my arms almost one year later. She’d had our baby, a healthy, strong baby boy, and I’d held her like this—tight, our hearts beating as one—as often as I could, every day that I’d had her back.
But it still didn’t feel like enough.
I knew I could never make it up to her.
And I would never forgive myself.
My job was to protect those around me, and I’d failed the one person I loved most in the goddamn world. I’d failed to keep her safe. I’d failed to be her hero.
I’d failed to make it clear to her, every moment of every day, how much she meant to me.
She drew back just enough to look into my eyes and cupped my jaw with her soft hands. Her full lips quirked. “What is this sad vibe I’m getting on your birthday?”
I grunted. “I’m not sad. Just savoring.”
She smiled tentatively. “Do you want your present?”
I gave her a heated look. “Later.”
She smiled and kissed me, soft and so fucking hot, like her mom wasn’t standing right there. But Cindy was distracted, chatting up one of the young crew guys; her forte.
When Roni pulled back to study me again, like she was making sure I was okay, I put my game face on. And as I looked into those gorgeous jade eyes of hers I knew, whatever it took, I had to make this beautiful thing happen tonight.
For her.
I had to make it clear—to Roni, to her mom, to the whole damn world—that she was protected. That she was loved, deeply and forever.
That she was mine.
And, that she was an integral part of the Dirty family. So the whole world would know from this night on: you do not fucking mess with Veronica Webber.
Veronica Grayson, if I had anything to say about it.
“Um, Jude?”
Maggie tapped my shoulder, breaking the heated spell. I was about five seconds from shoving Roni back against the wall and dry-humping her against it. She smirked, because she knew.
Maggie cleared her throat. “A word?”
“Better be good,”
I growled. When I tore my eyes from Roni to glance down at Maggie, the poor woman looked flushed, like she’d been running all over the place.
Maggie wasn’t the type to break a sweat, considering she usually had all her shit under control. I almost felt guilty.
I kissed Roni’s forehead and released her. “I’ll be back, darlin’.”
“Good.”
She smiled at me, her dazzling, sexy smile, and I forced myself to follow Maggie along the corridor, into a private corner.
“Good news,”
she told me, as soon as we were out of earshot. “Talia found the signs. She’s?—”
“What’s this I hear about you calling it off?”
Talia demanded from somewhere behind me. I felt a hand grip my bicep and nails dig in.
I glanced down into the face of a very annoyed-with-me blonde.
“I’m not?—”
“You are not calling this off,”
she informed me. “This is for Roni.”
“I realize. So, let’s?—”
“She’d walk over broken glass for you, Jude Grayson. Barefoot. You don’t back out on Roni. Ever. I won’t have it.”
I let her give me shit. Actually, I smiled. Roni had been fierce in protecting this girl. Nice to see it was coming back around.
When I was sure she was done, I told her, “Wouldn’t dream of it, darlin’.”
“Hmm.”
Talia frowned. “Well, then let’s make this happen.”
She nodded at Maggie and turned on her heel. As she was walking away, she tossed back, “Oh, by the way. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.”
I watched her, amused, as she strode over to Roni, and Roni smiled at whatever Talia said.
That smile on Roni’s face made my insides warm. I fucking lived for it.
I was nothing but melted honey, gooey and sweet, in the woman’s hands.
I wondered if she really knew how bad it was.
As the controlled chaos around me built, just before Dirty finally took the stage, I stood back to absorb it all, watching my friends and colleagues do their thing. Guys came and went, checking in with me, while my eyes remained locked on Roni.
Then I watched her lead her mom up the corridor to the stairs that would take them directly backstage and then to the side of the stage, where they’d watch the show.
At the last moment, Roni’s head turned and her gaze swept the corridor behind her. Her green eyes caught mine and she hooked a questioning eyebrow at me, then lifted a finger and sassily beckoned me to follow her up the stairs.
Of course, I did.
I’d never wanted to be in the spotlight, and I didn’t think Roni particularly did, either. But tonight, I was gonna shine a light on the woman I loved with an epic surprise that the whole world would see but she wouldn’t see coming.
If all went according to plan, this birthday, my thirty-fifth, would be the best I ever had.