Judge (Blackwings MC - Devil Springs Book 2) Read online

  Judge

  Blackwings MC - Devil Springs

  Book Two

  by

  Teagan Brooks

  Copyright © 2019 Teagan Brooks

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Adult Content Warning: This book is intended for readers 18 years and older. It contains adult language, explicit sex, and violence.

  The only legal means of acquiring this eBook is through Amazon, Amazon KU, Amazon’s lending program, or if someone gifts it to you through Amazon. If you acquire it in any other way, you have stolen it, and I hope it came with a virus.

  Acknowledgments

  Cover Design: C.T. Cover Creations

  http://www.ctcovercreations.com/

  Cover Model: Andrew England

  Cover Photographer: James Critchley Photography

  https://www.jamescritchleyphotography.com/

  Proofreading/Editing: Kathleen Martin

  Special thanks to Melissa Rivera, Tina Workman, Jennifer Ritch, and Katherine Smith.

  Dedication

  To those who’ve struggled with addiction.

  To those who’ve been affected by addiction.

  To those who’ve loved someone with an addiction.

  To those who’ve lost someone to an addiction.

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty- Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Epilogue

  Bonus Scene

  Prologue

  The day I gave birth to my daughter was the happiest day of my life.

  I sat at the breakfast table waiting for my twenty-year-old daughter to come downstairs, and I sat there until after one o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Morning, Mother,” she grumbled as she stumbled past me to the refrigerator.

  “Afternoon,” I said calmly. It was a struggle, but I forced myself to keep my voice even and soft despite how much I wanted to scream at her. “Please, sit; I want to talk to you about something.”

  With a great display of her disdain, she dropped into a chair across from me and glared. “What?”

  I wanted to ease into the conversation. I thought I would have a better chance of getting her to agree with me if I worked my way up to my point; but, after one look at her tangled hair and the day-old makeup smeared across her sallow face, I jumped in head first.

  “How long have you been using heroin?”

  For a brief moment, her eyes widened in fear, maybe shock, before she masked her expression and lied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. And forget about trying to lie your way out of this. I’ve seen the track marks on your arms, and I found used syringes in the trash. But, I think this is more than enough proof,” I said firmly and held up a little bag of whitish-brown powder. “Now, answer my question. How long have you been using heroin?”

  She swallowed thickly and stared at me in silence for long moments. Finally, she said, “A few months, I think.”

  A few months. I thought she had been using much longer than that.

  “And what were you doing before? No one just decides to start shooting up one day.”

  She shook her head and looked down at her clasped hands. “I just tried a few different things with friends. Smoked some weed, took some pills, snorted a little coke. Stuff like that.”

  “Tell me about the first time you tried this!” I screamed and shook the bag fisted in my hand. “Tell me!!”

  Tears began to slip down her cheeks, turning black as they slid through the mascara and eyeliner crusted beneath her once bright eyes. “I spent the night at a friend’s house. We’d been drinking, and she was passed out in her bed. When I got up to use the bathroom, her brother was in the living room with his best friend, his best friend’s brother, and his best friend’s dad. They had some heroin and asked me if I wanted to try it. I don’t know why I said yes,” she sobbed. “But I did, and I liked it! I loved it, Mother! I loved it!!”

  I fought to contain my rage. She didn’t say it, but I knew exactly who she was with—her cousins and her uncle were the ones at her best friend’s house. I silently fumed as I wrapped my arms around my baby and held her against my chest while she went on and on about how much she loved heroin. How it made her feel. How she only lived and breathed so she could poison herself with it. She spoke of it as though it was the key to eternal happiness.

  “Sweetheart, do you want to stop?”

  She nodded her head against me. “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll get you the help you need,” I said and continued to try to soothe her. “It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”

  Everything was not okay.

  Twelve hours before my baby girl was supposed to check in at the rehab center, she went to tell her best friend goodbye.

  Six hours later, her best friend called to tell me she had been taken to the hospital for a suspected overdose.

  She was pronounced dead at the hospital, though I later learned she had been dead for hours before anyone found her.

  The day my daughter died was the worst day of my life.

  The day I buried her was the last day of my life.

  Chapter One

  River

  Out of all the places in the United States, I had to be sent to the one place I never wanted to return to—my hometown of Devil Springs. Years ago, when I finally got away from that dreadful place, I promised myself I would never return. Unfortunately for me, I signed a contract as a traveling nurse and agreed to go wherever the agency sent me. Never in a million years did I think they would send me to Devil Springs. But they did. And I had to go unless I wanted to pay the price for breaking the contract, which was equivalent to an arm and a leg and possibly my firstborn child. Not to mention, I would likely never be able to work as a traveling nurse again
.

  With no other options, I sucked it up and headed to Devil Springs. The contract was only for three months—which happened to be the same amount of time I had left on my general contract with the agency. Three months wasn’t that long. If I only went to work and did my shopping in a neighboring town, I had a good chance of making it out of Devil Springs without running into my mother or my brother. Right?

  Despite my disdain for the place, I sagged with relief when I finally pulled into the driveway of the rental house after spending two days driving from my previous assignment. At least I had a few days to get settled before I started working in the Emergency Department at the local hospital.

  I grabbed my purse, my book bag, and my small suitcase from the car. Everything else would have to wait until after I showered and placed an order for delivery.

  I unlocked the door and pushed it open to find a quaint, but cozy, living room, with the lights and television on. I glanced from the paper in my hand to the gold number on the front door. I was in the right place. Maybe the cleaners forgot to turn everything off before leaving.

  I locked the door behind me and made a beeline for the bedrooms. I was told the place had two bedrooms with a Jack and Jill style bathroom. I entered the first door I came to, dropped my bags on the bed, and ran to the bathroom.

  I let out a contented sigh as I began what had to be the longest pee of my life. It had been hours since I stopped for a bathroom break, because I hated public restrooms with a passion and would risk permanent damage to my bladder to avoid them.

  After placing an order for delivery, I showered, dressed, and started unloading my car. I didn’t have a lot of stuff with me, so by the time my food arrived, my car was unloaded, and I was halfway through unpacking.

  I plopped down on the sofa and made a total pig of myself as I devoured every single bite of my meal. I didn’t allow myself to indulge in takeout or fast food often, so I ended up looking like someone fresh out of prison whenever I did have it.

  And then I would feel awful, consumed by feelings of guilt and shame. My rational mind knew one extra-large, grease-laden combo meal wouldn’t cause me to be overweight. But at one time, I had been overweight because I took comfort in food. I was an emotional eater, which is why I felt so guilty. I had been back in Devil Springs for all of an hour, and there I was stuffing my face like I did as a teenager.

  I shook my head and tried to clear my thoughts. I was hungry, and there wasn’t any food in the house. On that note, I cleaned up my trash and grabbed my car keys. I needed groceries and some other necessities, and I was going to drive to a store at least two towns away to avoid running into anyone I might know.

  After finding a super Walmart almost an hour away, I loaded up on as much as I could fit into my little car. I truly did not want to see anyone from my past, and the less I went out, the less chance there was of that happening.

  I pulled into the driveway of the little rental house and sat for a few minutes, trying to find the energy to deal with the groceries. I hated grocery shopping. Take it off the shelf, put it in the cart, out of the cart, into a bag, bag into the cart, bag into the car, bag out of the car and into the house, food out of the bag and into the cabinets or refrigerator. It was just monotonous and exhausting. If I ever had an excessive amount of money, I was going to pay someone to take care of the grocery shopping for me.

  Taking a deep breath, I heaved myself out of my car and started carrying load after load into the house. By the time everything was put away, it was late, and I was exhausted.

  I quickly fell into a deep sleep. So deep, that I was completely disoriented when I suddenly woke in the early morning hours. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and glanced around the room, confused as to what woke me.

  VROOOM! VROOOM! VRRRROOOOOOOOM!

  I flopped back onto my pillow and covered my eyes with my arm. Just great. It sounded like one of my new neighbors had an obnoxiously loud motorcycle. Or maybe it was just someone passing by. Hopefully, it wouldn’t matter in the future. I was going to be working the night shift at the hospital, so I normally wouldn’t be home or asleep at this time. With that thought, I rolled to my side and went back to sleep.

  Chapter Two

  River

  I was on my fourth day at the hospital, and things had been going well. I was surprised to find that I liked the people I was working with. Most of the time, agency nurses were brought in as a last resort, and the environments weren’t always pleasant to work in, which is part of why they paid us so much. However, Devil Springs truly had a minor nursing shortage and only needed a few bodies to fill positions temporarily until reliable permanent staff could be hired and trained.

  “River, can you see what’s going on with the patient that just came in? Karen said he has a blood-soaked rag held to his hand,” the charge nurse asked.

  I knocked on the door twice before entering the room. “Hello. I’m River, and I’ll be your nurse this evening,” I said as I hit the hand sanitizer and reached for a pair of gloves. “We’re still working on getting your chart created, but the receptionist said your hand was bleeding significantly. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Yeah, I cut it,” a deep male voice rumbled.

  My head shot up, and I blinked in surprise. Holy shit! I was pretty sure Jonah Jackson was sitting in front of me, and damn, he looked good. Too good. The cute boy who was once friends with my brother—that I may or may not have had a tiny crush on years ago—had been replaced by one hell of a man with broad shoulders, messy, dark hair, and a chiseled jaw covered with just the slightest bit of scruff. His eyes were the same though—sparkling blue with a hint of mischief.

  Fuck me. The tattoos covering his arms, as well as the nose ring he was sporting, completed the I-will-need-to-buy-new-batteries-before-morning look.

  I snapped out of my daze when he cleared his throat. Shit. Had I been staring? I needed to focus on the task at hand and pretend like I didn’t know him so I could get out of there before he recognized me. I was not going to get sucked back into the pit of Devil Springs because of a hot guy, no matter how fuckable he was.

  I grabbed some gauze and stepped closer. “Can I take a look at it, Mr…?”

  “Jackson,” he said, confirming my suspicions, “but most people call me Judge.”

  “Well, I’ll be calling you Mr. Jackson,” I informed him.

  He grinned, and a dimple popped up along his jawline. “That works, too.”

  I picked up a stack of gauze pads and reached for his hand. “What happened?”

  “Box cutter slipped and stabbed my hand. I’d just put a new blade in, and it sank into the skin like a hot knife through butter,” he explained. I started to remove whatever he had wrapped around it, but he pulled his hand back. “Fair warning, when you take this off, it’s going to spray you.”

  I highly doubted that. He would have had to hit something significant for it to be spraying blood and, judging by his calm demeanor, that wasn’t the case. “Noted,” I acknowledged and reached for his makeshift bandage.

  “Oh! You weren’t lying!” I shrieked when blood started to shoot up from his skin. I quickly pressed his bandage back down and held pressure to it. With my foot outstretched, I kicked the door open wider and shouted, “Dr. Daniels! I need you in room seven, stat!”

  Jonah laughed. “Told ya.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, you did.”

  Dr. Daniels entered the room moments later. “What’s going on in here, River?”

  “Mr. Jackson has a small, but deep, laceration on his palm. I believe he may have nicked an artery.”

  Dr. Daniels chuckled. “What’d you do this time, Judge?”

  “Box cutter slipped while I was opening some new equipment for an install.”

  “All right, let’s have a look,” Dr. Daniels said and moved her body to the side. She carefully lifted the bandage and just as quickly pressed it back down. “I do believe you’re correct, River. Will you draw up some lidocaine for me and the
n get a laceration kit?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said and left the room as she started explaining what was going to happen to Jonah.

  When I returned to the room, the two were chatting and laughing like old friends. I drew up the lidocaine and handed the syringe to Dr. Daniels.

  “River, could you go over and hold Judge’s hand?” Dr. Daniels asked. I found the request odd, but didn’t argue and reached to steady my patient’s injured hand.

  Dr. Daniels laughed and said, “I meant the other one. This big galoot doesn’t like needles, and I don’t want him to punch me again.”

  “That only happened one time, Doc, and I was five years old,” Jonah retorted.

  Dr. Daniels continued to guffaw. “Yeah, but you sure threw one hell of a punch. I couldn’t believe it. Just an average sized five-year-old, and he blacked my eye and damn near broke my cheekbone.”

  Judge laughed. “I bet my ass hurt worse than your face after my daddy spanked the daylights out of me.”

  Dr. Daniels patted Jonah’s thigh. “I’m sure it did, sweetie.” I wasn’t sure what, but something in the atmosphere changed at the mention of Jonah’s father. “All right, this is going to sting,” Dr. Daniels announced and proceeded to numb Jonah’s hand before cleaning the wound and closing it with sutures.

  “All finished. Same aftercare as usual, except I want to leave those sutures in for fourteen days since it’s so deep.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  “Give me just a few minutes, and I’ll be right back with your discharge papers,” I told him.

  When I returned with his discharge instructions, he was standing by the door, clearly ready to go. I went over the necessities, had him sign on the dotted line, and then he was gone, leaving me to wonder when Jonah started going by Judge and why I was disappointed that he didn’t recognize me.

  That was my last twelve-hour shift for the week, and I was ready to crash. As I was walking out, the charge nurse, Kennedy, sidled up next to me and asked if I had any plans for the weekend.