Bookem piper iron badges.., p.1
Book'em Piper (Iron Badges #3), page 1
Reviews are Important
Hey, don’t forget to leave a review when you’re done reading.
Here are perks exclusive to Danielle fans only, bwahaha
At 250 reviews- you get a lifetime subscription of the sugar free, knock-off version of Oreos called Whoreos. Did you read that wrong? It is Who reos, get your mind out of the gutter.
At 500 reviews- Tiny leprechauns dressed up as Thunder Down Under give live performances FREE for all of my fans.
At 1000 reviews- a unicorn jumps out of every book and lulls you to sleep with a lullaby before shanking anyone that karma forgot with its horn.
Copyright © 2019 by Danielle Norman
and F Squared, LLP
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission from either the author and or the above named publisher of this book with the exception for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction.
The name Danielle Norman® is a registered Trademark
I would like to dedicate this book to Beth, my version of the “female-wannabe-Bladder” who still wears Pink on Wednesdays.
It’s time to grow up, there is real shit happening in the world and your drama will never be on the front page of any newspaper.
The question has never been, who will let me. It has always been…
Who is going to try and stop me?
Contents
Reviews
Danielle
Prologue
1. Piper
2. Kahn
3. Piper
4. Kahn
5. Piper
6. Piper
7. Liam
8. Liam
9. Piper
10. Piper
11. Liam
12. Piper
13. Piper
14. Liam
15. Liam
16. Piper
17. Liam
18. Piper
19. Liam
20. Piper
21. Liam
Epilogue
Meet Danielle
Lets Socialize
Enough
Stetson
Getting Even
Book ‘em Sadie
Danielle’s Books
Acknowledgments
Danielle
To all of my kickass readers, bloggers, and those (lucky or unlucky) enough to end up with this book.
I beg you from the bottom of my heart to please not leave the EPIC spoiler in reviews or on social media.
It is always fun trying to figure out how to fuck with you. When I finally figured out this plot and knew it would make you scream, DAMN YOU Danielle… let’s just say, my hearth runneth over.
I love all of you for supporting me,
Dani
Prologue
Twenty-five years ago . . .
I startled awake at the clunking ring of my Mickey Mouse alarm clock. Quickly, I hit the top of it and turned it off before it woke Mommy and she yelled at me. It used to make a normal sound, but some guy threw it against the wall because it woke him up, and since then, it just made a clunk, clunk, clunk sound.
I grabbed my socks off my nightstand and slipped them on. I had taken a bath just before I went to bed, so I didn’t want to get my feets dirty on the carpet. The carpet in my bedroom was yucky, so when I walked on it barefoot, my feet turned brown.
I got out of bed and tiptoed to my closet. I pulled the laundry basket with all my clothes in it out. Miss Lolly, the lady who lived across the street, washed my clothes for me when I brought them to her. She folded them for me and had me sneak them back into my house.
I looked on the tags for the colored dots; it was a trick that Miss Lolly did. She put different colored dots on the tags of my clothes, so I just had to match the colors. When I’d first noticed them, I’d asked her, and she said it was something she used to do for her son when he was alive. I grabbed a pair of shorts with a blue dot and then a shirt with a blue dot. Like so many times before, there were new clothes hidden in the basket. Today, there were socks with bows on the ankles. I smiled at the new bundle of socks. Sometimes Miss Lolly slipped underwear and pajamas into my clothes pile.
I grabbed my jelly sandals, slipped off my socks, then slid my feet into the sticky-feeling plastic shoes.
Grabbing my backpack, I walked out of my room, trying not to make a single noise. Mommy’s room was across the hall from mine. I hated when she left her door open even just a little, like it was this morning. I didn’t want to wake her, and I definitely didn’t want to wake the man next to her. I didn’t know who he was—I never knew who they were—but he would be gone before I came home from school. Tomorrow, if there was a guy, he would be a different one.
At the subtle click from the door, I froze and waited a few seconds to make sure it didn’t wake anyone. When I heard nothing, I let go of the handle and moved to the kitchen. I pulled open the cabinet and grabbed the bread, peanut butter, box of Fruit O’s, and baggies. I set all of it on the table before pulling a knife from the drawer and tugging open the refrigerator for milk.
There was no milk. That was okay, because I liked Fruit O’s any way I could get them. I slid back a chair, then crawled up, and sat on my knees. After shoving a handful of cereal into my mouth, I opened the peanut butter. I made myself a sandwich and then shoved it into a bag. I put several handfuls of Fruit O’s into a baggie as well.
I kept glancing from the door to my mommy’s bedroom to the clock on the stove. I didn’t want to be late. When the clock said seven zero seven, I put everything away, hiding my bread, cereal, and peanut butter in the back of a cabinet. I didn’t like it when Mommy’s friends ate my food. Mommy didn’t buy more food until Saturday. If the man ate my food, I didn’t have anything for the rest of the week while Mommy was at work. I snagged my water bottle from my backpack and filled it before tossing it, along with my sandwich and snack, into a side pocket.
I set my backpack by my front door then rushed to the bathroom. I combed my hair, brushed my teeth, and went tinkle. Our toilet made lots of noises, so I didn’t dare flush. Mommy could flush when she woke up.
Then, when I was as ready as ready could be, I raced to my front door and waited. I was excited about going to school. I loved everything about kindergarten: my friends, my teacher… but this, what I was waiting for, was the best part of my entire day.
Liam was there, walking along the sidewalk in front of my house. I unlocked the door, grabbed my backpack, and raced outside, not caring about the world I stepped out of because I’d just stepped into his world.
“Morning, Sunshine.”
“Hi, Liam.” I smiled up at him. He was beautiful. Mommy said boys weren’t beautiful, but the way Liam’s eyes sparkled made him beautiful to me.
When the bus arrived, Liam waited for me to climb up and made sure that I was seated before he headed to the back to sit with his friends. When we arrived at school, I stayed in my seat until Liam made his way back toward the front. His hand snaked out, and I placed mine into his waiting hold.
Just like every day before, he walked me to class.
“I brought you something.” Liam held out a clementine. “A Cutie for a cutie.”
And that was when it didn’t matter about Mommy and the men. Nothing mattered when I was Liam’s sunshine.
Piper
“Keep talking there, Twinkletoes, I’ll marry your dad and make you my stepchild.” I glared at three teenage girls who were destined to grow up and be a drain on some man’s wallet as they walked past me on their way to the yellow Volkswagen Beetle.
“God, how manly.”
“I bet she’s single.”n
“Hasn’t she ever heard of makeup?”
But seriously, what was up with teenagers these days? I was a fucking deputy in a fucking uniform and they still had the audacity to give me attitude.
“If I ever say that I want to be a cop, shoot me, will you?” one of the girls asked her friends.
“They won’t have to, I’ll do it for them,” I said in a low whisper. The entire time they were cataloging my flaws and their disdain for my job, I was straddling my sheriff’s motorcycle, while parked in a convenience store’s parking lot. The owner had been having problems with teenagers coming in after school harassing his patrons. Case in point.
A loud wolf whistle pierced the air, and I turned to find a boy hanging out of a truck. I rolled my eyes as the girls started to giggle.
“Oh my god, Devin just whistled at you,” one of the girls said.
“I can’t believe it, does that mean he thinks I’m pretty?”
“Oh, Breezy, of course it does. You’re so pretty,” her friends reassured her.
“You really think so? I need to lose weight . . .”
I smiled as I watched her twirl one loose strand around a finger. The only thing missing was her blowing a giant wad of bubble gum. It was all a little too cliché for me.
The boys in the truck pulled out and the girls got into their car and chased them. In their pursuit they plowed through an intersection, igno
I rolled my eyes. Fuck.
Nothing beat the feeling of twisting the throttle, the sun beating down on my back, or the vibration between my legs. Holy shit, I couldn’t believe that I’d just thought that, but it was true. There was just something about being on a Harley, and I was one of the lucky few who got to ride to my heart’s content since I not only rode for fun, but also rode for work.
Okay, one thing beat all of that—the adrenaline rush I got every time I flipped on my lights, which I did a second before I went after the pale-yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Some days, karma was a bitch, and others she was your best friend, kind of like today. Yeah, karma and I, we go way back.
“Well, hello, ladies, it seems that you were in a hurry.” I slightly lowered my sunglasses and smirked at three stunned teenagers. “I’m going to need to see your license and registration.”
“I can’t get a ticket; I’ll be grounded from my car.”
“You probably should have thought about that before you blew through the stop sign and cut off those other vehicles.”
“But we came out of the parking lot and turned right. The stop sign is, like, right there, she already stopped and checked when she came out,” the blonde explained, obviously acting as the leader of the pack from the passenger seat.
“Number one, that doesn’t matter. You have to stop at every stop sign. Number two, you didn’t stop at the one in the parking lot either.”
“Just give me the ticket.” The driver turned to her friends. “I’ll just pay it before anyone knows.”
“I’m actually writing you two different tickets for failure to come to a complete stop as well as reckless driving since you cut off those other cars.” I glanced down at the registration I held in my hands. “Oh, this isn’t your name on the title of the car.”
“No, it’s my dad’s. He gave me the car for my birthday.”
“I’m going to have to call your parents, since it’s in his name.” I glanced down at her driver’s license and bit back a scoff. Breezy Kidd, yes, that was her fucking name, no shit.
“You can’t do that,” the girl in the passenger seat demanded. “This is harassment. You are harassing us.”
I leaned down so I was at eye level. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have to tell you.”
“Umm, actually you do. All three of you have to hand your IDs over to me.”
The girl in the back seat complied and passed hers forward, but the girl in the passenger seat was on my last nerve. “I don’t have it with me.”
“Here’s the issue. Your friend Breezy is eighteen and has committed enough traffic violations that I can write her up for illegal righthand turn, failure to yield right of way, careless driving, illegal lane change, and reckless driving, which is criminal, requires her to appear before a judge, and can cause her car to be impounded. So, either you comply with the law or the law will not be in your favor.”
Breezy jerked her head and stared at the passenger. “Hand over your license.”
“I’d listen to your friend, because if the car is impounded, I’m going to have to call a squad car to come get you until you present your ID. We need to make sure you don’t have any warrants and that you aren’t a minor.” Finally getting through to her, she grabbed her license from her bag and handed it to me. I looked at the name. Brittany. Why wasn’t I shocked? “Now I’ll start with you, give me your parents’ phone number,” I said to the driver. She called her dad and was instantly in tears. Clearly, she knew how to play him. The girl in the back seat, Mikayla, who’d been the quietest, called her mom, had tears in her eyes, and even apologized to me . . . there was hope for the future yet. Brittany called her mom, and it was clear that the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.
“Mom, Breezy got pulled over. Some female cop.” The girl paused, and it didn’t take Neil fucking Armstrong to figure out that they were bashing me. “Yeah, probably, she looks like she was probably checking us out. You’re right, that’s probably why she pulled us over. Okay. Love you, too, bye.”
When all three were done, I’d written Breezy a ticket with three different citations, and then I let them go. And whoever said that being a cop wasn’t fun?
It was close to quitting time, so I eased into traffic and headed back toward the station, but before I got far, my radio crackled with an incoming call.
“Orange County, Commercial, Signal twenty-nine, Alpha, 441 and Waterbridge.”
I wanted to get home as much as the next person, but I was only two blocks away, and as much as I hated it, this was part of my job, too.
“Thirteen-seventeen, reference signal twenty-nine commercial alpha, I’m nearby. Assign it to me.”
“Orange County copies, seventeen thirty-three. Alarm, Hampton Storage, monitoring company has tried to get in contact with the property owner. Internal motion sensor has not been triggered.”
“Ten ninety-seven.” I stopped talking after giving dispatch the code that told them I was on scene. I dismounted my bike and checked the doors to the main building, which were all locked. I pulled a card out of my pocket and stuck it through the mail slot, proof that I was here and checked. The sign said that they closed at six, and since it was ten of six, my guess was that someone cut out early today.
With nothing of note happening out front, I got back on my bike and slowly drove around toward the back. The alarm was still blaring as I rounded the corner to find the back gates wide open and two men on Harleys parked in front of a closed unit.
Even from forty yards away, I could tell that the men were wearing cuts, and not just any cuts—they were members of the Heretics. Orlando had several biker gangs, many being one-percenters. Most of them lived by the rule: leave us the fuck alone and we will leave you the fuck alone. But not the Heretics. Nope, they were the bullies. The I-want-to-start-a-fight-just-because-I-can type. The type of gang that will kick someone’s ass because they thought it made them look big. When they were done, their victims were seldom left breathing.
So, I stayed where I was and called in to dispatch.
“Thirteen-seventeen, ten fifty-six, Hampton Storage on Waterbridge, signal forty-four, expedite, multiple subjects, known signal zero.” That sounded good, I needed backup because they were people who were known to be armed and dangerous.
Retreating wasn’t an option, I was a deputy, this was my job, and the last thing I wanted was to turn my back on known killers.
At that moment, I wished for a car full of snotty teenagers over these guys; I could handle them. I said a prayer for backup to be nearby and that they would hurry, and I had just finished it about the same time the subjects turned in my direction. I could feel their eyes boring into me. Chills went down my spine, and I flipped the snap on my holster to give my fingers something to do, my heart thumping as the two riders rode over to me.
They were night and day. The one on the left looked like Hollywood’s version of scary biker dude. His cut read: Sergeant at Arms, Bladder.
Bladder?
What kind of name was Bladder? He was of medium build, had a beard that could double as a rat’s nest, chains that hung from his pockets to his belt loops, and his face was . . . well . . . all I could do was hear Ham’s voice from The Sandlot: “You know, if my dog were as ugly as you, I'd shave his butt and tell him to walk backward.”
The other guy also had a beard, but his was what they called a groomed beard—like he actually gave a damn if crumbs fell onto his face. He probably weighed two hundred pounds, and his cut read ‘Candy.’ I would never understand where bikers get their names. He was on his bike, so I had to take that into account, but I would put him at six feet, at least.
