Nobody Cares Unless You're Pretty (Gator Bait MC Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Nobody Cares Unless You’re Pretty

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  WAKE & DUTCH

  Nobody Cares Unless You’re Pretty

  By Lani Lynn Vale ™

  Text copyright © 2022 Lani Lynn Vale ™

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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

  To my husband’s grandmother. You may be gone, but you’ll never be forgotten. Love you always.

  Acknowledgments

  Golden Czermak - Photographer

  My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing - My editors

  Alyssa Garcia - Cover Artist & PA

  My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million three hundred and thirty-four times.

  My betas. Y’all are so amazing. Thank you so much for what you do.

  Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale

  The Freebirds

  Boomtown

  Highway Don’t Care

  Another One Bites the Dust

  Last Day of My Life

  Texas Tornado

  I Don’t Dance

  The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC

  Lights To My Siren

  Halligan To My Axe

  Kevlar To My Vest

  Keys To My Cuffs

  Life To My Flight

  Charge To My Line

  Counter To My Intelligence

  Right To My Wrong

  Code 11- KPD SWAT

  Center Mass

  Double Tap

  Bang Switch

  Execution Style

  Charlie Foxtrot

  Kill Shot

  Coup De Grace

  The Uncertain Saints

  Whiskey Neat

  Jack & Coke

  Vodka On The Rocks

  Bad Apple

  Dirty Mother

  Rusty Nail

  The Kilgore Fire Series

  Shock Advised

  Flash Point

  Oxygen Deprived

  Controlled Burn

  Put Out

  I Like Big Dragons Series

  I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie

  Dragons Need Love, Too

  Oh, My Dragon

  The Dixie Warden Rejects

  Beard Mode

  Fear the Beard

  Son of a Beard

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  The Beard Made Me Do It

  Beard Up

  For the Love of Beard

  Law & Beard

  There’s No Crying in Baseball

  Pitch Please

  Quit Your Pitchin’

  Listen, Pitch

  The Hail Raisers

  Hail No

  Go to Hail

  Burn in Hail

  What the Hail

  The Hail You Say

  Hail Mary

  The Simple Man Series

  Kinda Don’t Care

  Maybe Don’t Wanna

  Get You Some

  Ain’t Doin’ It

  Too Bad So Sad

  Bear Bottom Guardians MC

  Mess Me Up

  Talkin’ Trash

  How About No

  My Bad

  One Chance, Fancy

  It Happens

  Keep It Classy

  Snitches Get Stitches

  F-Bomb

  The Southern Gentleman Series

  Hissy Fit

  Lord Have Mercy

  KPD Motorcycle Patrol

  Hide Your Crazy

  It Wasn’t Me

  I’d Rather Not

  Make Me

  Sinners are Winners

  If You Say So

  SWAT 2.0

  Just Kidding

  Fries Before Guys

  Maybe Swearing Will Help

  Ask Me If I Care

  May Contain Wine

  Joke’s on You

  Join the Club

  Any Day Now

  Say it Ain’t So

  Officially Over It

  Nobody Knows

  Depends Who’s Asking

  Valentine Boys

  Herd That

  Crazy Heifer

  Chute Yeah

  Get Bucked

  Souls Chapel Revenants

  Repeat Offender

  Conjugal Visits

  Jailbait

  Doin’ A Dime

  Kitty, Kitty

  Gen Pop

  Inmate of the Month

  Madd CrossFit Series

  No Rep

  Jerk It

  Chalk Dirty to Me

  Battle Crows MC

  Always Someone’s Monster

  Make Me Your Villain

  Rattle Some Cages

  Not A Role Model

  Get Tragic

  Strange and Unusual

  Never Trust The Living

  Gator Bait MC

  Nobody Cares Unless You’re Pretty

  Good Trouble

  Cute But Psycho

  Blurb

  The problem with Wake was that he was understandable. He was the type of villain that literally scared the absolute shit out of you because you knew that under the right circumstances, you could end up exactly like him.

  Which, sadly, was the case for me.

  I’d done the exact same thing as Wake, and now I was a murderer just like him.

  Did I know that I did wrong? Hell yes.

  Did I regret that? Hell no.

  Did I plan on changing a thing? Also, no.

  Was I falling in love with a man that should scare the shit out of me? A resounding hell yes.

  CHAPTER 1

  I just overheard a girl order a margarita after being told they didn’t have Diet Cokes.

  -Dutch to Tomas

  DUTCH

  “Hello, Lois,” I said to the small girl.

  Lois didn’t smile. She never did.

  Lois’s mother, Tamra, looked at me hesitantly.

  Last week, we’d spoken about Lois having a session with me without her present, to see if Lois would interact with me. It was a last-ditch effort to get her to open up.

  This morning, through a phone call with Tamra before my practice had opened, we’d talked about her being able to watch Lois through the surveillance system that I had in my personal office.

  And she’d agreed.

  But I could tell that she was still struggling. She didn’t want to leave Lois alone, because Lois freaked out when her mother strayed too far from her sight. When she’d first started coming here, it was because Lois started to throw a fit each time Lois’s father would come near her.

  And, against her husband’s wishes, she’d started bringing Lois to my office in hopes that I could help get the six-year-old talking.

  I just had to get her to open up. To do that, I was hoping that her mother being gone might get her to do that.

  “If you need me, you know where I am, right?” Tamra said to Lois.

  Lois looked up, obviously having heard her mother’s promise before they’d entered my office, and nodded her head carefully.

  Tamra closed the door quietly, and Lois looked at me expectantly.

  “That’s one of my most favorite books in the world,” I said about the book, Goodnight Moon.

  “Why?” Lois asked.

  “I have no clue,” I admitted. “I just really used to like all the colors. Green is my favorite color in the world. Like the color of a frog. And your eyes.”

  “I have hazel eyes,” she corrected me. “Mommy said so.”

  “You do,” I confirmed. “Hazel just means that your eyes change colors. Today, for instance, your eyes are green. Last week when you came in, your eyes were more gray. They matched your shirt.”

  She looked down at her dark blue shirt, then up at me. “Yeah.”

  “Would you like to talk about your new school today?” I asked. “Your mommy said that you went this week. How was that?”

  She surprised me by actually answering. “There are no boys there. I like it.”

  My b
rows rose nearly to my hairline. I quickly hid my surprise, though.

  Instead, I focused on her and what she was saying. “You didn’t like going to school with boys?”

  “No,” she said softly. “This school, there are only girls. Period. Even the teachers are girls.”

  My heart started pumping so hard I could practically hear the whoosh in my ears.

  “You don’t like being around boys?” I repeated my question.

  “No,” she whispered. “Boys become bigger boys. Daddies.”

  I felt my stomach sink. “Your daddy isn’t bad, is he?”

  She looked into my eyes, then said three words. “He’s the worst.”

  Three hours later, I waved to the police officer. The last one in my office.

  Detective Ramirez.

  He was watching me with his all-knowing cop eyes.

  “We will handle this,” he assured me.

  He might try.

  But I had a feeling that it wouldn’t matter.

  Not when Lois’s father was so high up in the government. He had friends in very high places, and I could read the indecision on the detectives’ faces that this was about to get ugly. That things weren’t going to go how I wanted them to.

  And I was right.

  Three weeks to the day that Lois had told me that her father had touched her—hurt her in the worst way possible—Detective Ramirez came by to tell me the bad news. Lois’s father, Tony Haskins, would not be facing charges for the molestation of his daughter.

  Even worse, something tragic had happened to Lois. She’d had a near drowning accident in the family’s pool, and they feared that her brain was dead.

  I knew the truth, though.

  I knew, and I would be doing what I needed to do to get that baby justice.

  Even if I had to see the inside of a jail cell in order to do it.

  CHAPTER 2

  There is no murder. Just happy little accidents.

  -Dutch’s secret thoughts

  DUTCH

  Accident, Florida resident, Wake Westfield, a graduate of West Point and an honorably discharged retired Army Officer, was charged with fourteen counts of first-degree murder. Shocking the world, the judge and jury felt that the maximum penalty for life without parole was too harsh a punishment. Afterall, murdering fourteen pedophiles, one of which was guilty of hurting your daughter, is understandably acceptable.

  The jury came back with a ten-year jail sentence. Westfield will spend the next ten years behind bars, with the possibility of parole at eight.

  Westfield is a hero among locals who, by far, rallied around him as he made their town safer.

  I read the article that was dated almost eight years ago to the day. Again. Hoping that I was doing the right thing by sending it to whom I was sending it to.

  I’d already made the move from Maine to Accident, Florida. Wake Westfield’s hometown.

  As of last night, Lois had perished.

  She had died at her father’s hands, and I knew it with such a certainty that I was prepared to do what I needed to make sure that Tony Haskins never touched another little girl again.

  I picked up my pen, stared at the blank piece of paper, then pressed it against the blank topmost left edge.

  Then I started writing.

  My name is Dutch Duvall Panchek.

  I’m thirty years old, and I need to know how to kill a man and get away with it.

  I had to bribe a guard, who happens to be a very good friend, to get this to you. I know it’s a bit ‘weird’ but if anyone would understand, I knew you would.

  A year ago, a little girl started to come to my practice. She was scared shitless of damn near everything, and any time her mother left her even to grab a tissue from across the room, the girl would freak out.

  And by freak out, I mean, scream and cry in terror, freak out.

  It took me a year to get her to talk. And when she did, I learned that her father, a member of our government, had been hurting her in the most disgusting of ways.

  As of last week, the little girl, Lois, perished in a drowning ‘accident.’ Two days after that, her mother, Tamra, took her life by ‘overdosing’ on pills.

  However, I know that Tamra wouldn’t do that. After learning of what her little girl went through, I’d seen fire in her eyes. Retribution. I know that Tamra, even after losing her daughter, wouldn’t make that decision. She was too angry. That anger would’ve kept her on this earth long enough to take her husband out with her.

  And now, both witnesses to the hideous act are dead.

  Leaving me alone to live with what that man’s done.

  Which is why I’m writing you. I will not let him live his life as if he isn’t the vilest creature on this Earth.

  He will pay for what he’s done, and that’s where you come in.

  I want you to help me get away with murder.

  Sincerely, Dutch Panchek.

  After making sure that the letter was sealed, I walked it up to my brother, who was a corrections officer at the same prison that housed Wake Westfield—life was grand, how it worked out like that. What were the odds that my brother would be working the same prison?

  It was a happy coincidence, one that I planned on capitalizing on handsomely.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked, looking at the letter as if it was going to grow teeth and bite him.

  “I’ve never been more sure about something in my life,” I admitted. “Take it to him. Bring me back his reply.”

  As far as my brother knew, I was writing an inmate to research my upcoming book that I’d made up just for a ‘cover.’

  Though, now that I’d been thinking about it for so long, I might very well write it. The psyches of inmates were definitely an interesting thing. Some inmates were apologetic about the reason they’d been imprisoned, while others were straight-up uncaring. I loved the dynamic of the ones that knew they’d done something bad, yet couldn’t give a single fuck.

  “Do you think that you can get me a meeting with him next week?” I asked, blinking big blue eyes in his direction.

  My brother, who was a redhead just like me, stared at me with the same blue eyes. Only, they weren’t nearly as ‘sweet.’

  At least, I hoped mine appeared sweet.

  “You’re so full of shit,” Tomas grumbled. “I’m doing this only because I know that you’re going to find a way to get it done on your own. And don’t try that same bullshit you tried the first time.”

  “You mean, don’t try to talk to the inmate?” I asked. “Without first getting your approval?”

  The thing was, being a psychologist, I was put in front of a lot of criminals that needed to be diagnosed. I spent a lot of time at the prison talking to them about decisions that got them into their predicament in the first place.

  The one Tomas was talking about in particular was actually a man that’d killed his wife while he was having flashbacks of war. The man had thrown a punch in his sleep, knocked the wife backward, and she’d fallen and hit her head on the corner of the nightstand. She’d suffered a brain aneurysm.

  When I’d gone to visit and talk with the man, he’d had another flashback, and had tried to take me out like he’d once taken his enemies out.

  I’d left that day with a bruised ego and a bruised tailbone from throwing myself backward.

  Tomas had gone out of his way to make sure to vet the guys I saw beforehand and make sure they were restrained if need be.

  “I do what I want,” I told my brother. “You know that.”

  “I do,” he grumbled. “Just promise that you’ll let me talk to him, feel him out, before you go about trying to meet him, okay? It’s gonna take me a few days.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You have one.”

  He sighed and left with my letter in his hand.

  I felt the nervous butterflies that felt more like a swarming flock of birds take flight in my stomach.

  Would he freak out and tell someone? Or would he keep my secret?

  Well, soon I’d know the answer.

  I just wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

  CHAPTER 3

  I suffer from ‘CHS.’ Can’t hear shit.

  -Wake to Davis

  WAKE

  “You’re what?” I asked as I leaned back in my bunk, my overly long hair partially hiding my eyes as I tried to sleep despite the lights still being on.

  “I’m getting out soon,” the man on my left, Kyle Davis, better known by his last name only, said. “They told me last week that I was getting a court date.”

  I grinned. “That’s good news, man. You sure you’re ready for that?”

  Davis said a few choice words and then, “I’m ready for some pussy. I’ll figure the rest out after.”

  I snorted out a laugh.