Cute But Psycho (Gator Bait MC Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cute But Psycho

  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

  Epilogue

  Etienne & Matilda

  Cute But Psycho

  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 the people that deserve a second chance.

  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 four hundred fifty-three times.

  Kendra, Lisa, Laura, Brandi, Jen, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I 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

  Annoyed At First Sight

  The Voices Are Back

  Special Kind of Twisted

  I’ll Just Date Myself

  Blurb

  Etienne LaFayette hits the ground running the moment he breathes free air after being paroled from a maximum-security prison in Texas.

  He claws his life back from his brother-in-law who’d taken over his business during the years he’d spent as an inmate at Huntsville Penitentiary. Though it is hard, he puts his life back together in Accident, Florida.

  There, he hires new employees, joins a motorcycle club, and becomes wildly successful overnight.

  Seems like the perfect life, right?

  Wrong.

  Because one of his first clients is a beautiful, curly-haired woman that reels him in from the moment he first lays eyes on her. Only, before he can work his charm, she forms an opinion of him based solely on the person that he chose to work at his side, day in and day out. That opinion? Utter disgust.

  • • •

  Matilda Deveraux has been dealt blow after blow her entire life.

  First with the death of her mom. Then living with a stepfamily that despises her.

  Her entire life she’s been known as different. The “weird girl that creeps everyone out.”

  It’s not her fault that she’s different, yet everyone, including Etienne’s assistant, treats her like she’s a menace to society. Like she would be better off in a loony bin than gracing the streets of Accident, Florida.

  After years of abuse from everyone around her, the last thing she needs is to be around a man that would have that horrible woman around him twenty-four seven.

  As a resu
lt, she forms an opinion—something that people do to her all the time—and treats him accordingly.

  Only, it turns out that Etienne isn’t who she thought he was.

  He’s much, much worse. But only in the best of ways.

  CHAPTER 1

  Silent but smiling. You might want to run.

  -Facts of life

  ETIENNE

  “Hello?” Jenna, more affectionately known as Genocide to the rest of my family, including me, grumbled into the phone.

  I grinned.

  Deep down—and I mean as far down as you could possibly get—Jenna was a good person. You just had to get past the hard, steel-infused, nearly impossible-to-penetrate outer shell.

  “I’m out.”

  Jenna paused. “That’s the only reason I answered the phone. I heard that was a possibility.”

  That was true. Jenna wasn’t going to spend money to ever answer a collect call from the prison. I was lucky she even answered this call, not knowing who was calling.

  “You just didn’t know that it was me,” I said in a sugary sweet voice, allowing my Cajun French accent to thicken to almost unintelligible in a way that I knew she would hate.

  Jenna and I were from Cajun country. We were born and raised in a white antebellum home on one of the largest plantations in the southern continental United States.

  “Don’t speak like that,” she hissed.

  I grinned at the wide-open road that I was currently walking down.

  I’d gotten out yesterday and had started walking. There was no way in hell that I was staying in that place any longer than I had to.

  Why I’d gotten out early, I had no clue. But I would fuckin’ take it.

  Even better, I would be a good little boy and no longer do bad stuff—even if it was to a bad person—just so I could make sure that I never had to go back there again.

  Well, that was kind of a lie.

  If what had happened to send me there happened again, well, there would be no way in hell that I would be controlling my anger.

  There was only so much a man could handle.

  “I’m guessing you think that I’ll come pick you up.”

  I would’ve laughed, but I knew it would only piss her off.

  A lot of things pissed my sister off.

  My laugh. My accent. My face. My existence.

  “No,” I snorted as I heard a car approaching. “I can get home on my own.”

  I’d already started on the way to my destination.

  I’d hitchhiked.

  Sure, people say that it’s dangerous, but for a six-foot-four, two-hundred-sixty-pound man? It wasn’t all that dangerous.

  “Good,” she sounded annoyed that I’d interrupted her. “Then why are you calling?”

  That was my sister.

  “Just telling you so you can tell your husband,” I warned. “I’ll be home soon to check everything over with Jeffrey. I’m giving him time to get his shit in a row. Then I’ll be relieving him of duty.”

  There was a long, silent pause. Then I felt my sister’s demeanor crack.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I told you that I was going to get out and fire his ass.”

  “You did,” she confirmed. “But I didn’t believe you.”

  “Well believe it,” I grumbled. “Just tell him I’m out. That’ll light a fire under his ass.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said. “Is this your new number?”

  “For now,” I said. “I have to get a new debit card, and then I might buy a better one.”

  I had to get a lot of new things. A new ID, because mine was expired. A new cell phone. Debit card. Clothes.

  The pants I was currently painted into no longer fit. As in, they were so damn tight that I worried for the integrity of the seams with each step that I took.

  But that was all I had when I got out, and with a small amount of cash, paired with not having anyone’s number but Jenna’s to call… I was screwed.

  The first guy that I’d hitchhiked with dropped me off at a Walmart not far from where he’d picked me up. I’d gotten a cell phone by the checkout counter, a bag of Swedish Fish, and a new shirt that wasn’t skintight. Though, the new one wasn’t much better. There was only so much to choose from at a local neighborhood Walmart, the cashier who’d checked me out told me.

  With the remaining thirty dollars in my pocket, I’d caught a ride from a trucker to the county line of my destination—Accident, Florida. Which led me to now, walking down a two-lane road, with the smell of salty water getting closer and closer the more steps I took in the town’s direction.

  The smell of the water, no matter that it was in a different state, brought back memories of home.

  In New Orleans, where we’d spent our childhood in the bayous and the Pontchartrain, we’d run wild through the Gulf of Mexico. Hell, at one point in time, I’d head to all three all in one day.

  So hell yes, just the smell of the salt brine in the air was enough to soothe something in my soul I hadn’t realized I was missing.

  Tomorrow, or as soon as I could arrange it, I would get my company back—once I had wheels and an ID preferably—and everything would be golden.

  “Well good luck with that,” she muttered darkly. “And also, know that my husband is not going to give the company up easily.”

  I didn’t think he would. He’d been drooling over our father’s company for forever. I had no doubt in my mind that was the only reason that he’d given up the ghost and married Jenna.

  But that would be my company. It would be led by a LaFayette. The only question was… did my crews want to follow me back, or be fired? Because I didn’t give one less of a fuck who had to be kicked out of my life. I was moving the company to Accident, Florida. They could come with me, or I could find a new crew down here.

  The most loyal would come. It was only about four hours from headquarters—that I would also be keeping stationed exactly where it was and have Jenna continue to run it.

  Though, she and her husband really had nothing to do with each other. And the real reason I had her husband running it instead of Jenna, was that Jenna didn’t give a silent, or loud, fuck about the company. That was why I’d had it in the first place.

  The only reason she kept anything to do with it at all was because she liked the dividends it cushioned her bank account with, and not a single thing more.

  “All right. See you soon,” I finished.

  “Bye.” Then she was gone, and the sound of the car I’d heard earlier got closer.

  And closer, and closer.

  I turned and made sure it wasn’t a cop before I stuck my hand out and raised my thumb.

  The woman in the shiny silver van slowed, stopped, and barely rolled down the window before she said, “I’m not picking you up.”

  I grinned. “Then why did you stop?”

  She looked at me, studying me hard, before saying, “That kitten on your shoulder.”

  The kitten. Of course, that was why.

  “It’s my kitten,” I said. “What were you going to do, ask if you could have it?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “Those kittens aren’t just found outside. And you don’t look equipped to handle it right now. It’s a hairless cat. And it’s cold as fuck out. I was going to offer to take it to my house and warm it up for you. You can pick it up at the university once you get back in town,” she suggested.

  I snorted. “Hairy is good. We’re almost to town.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Hairless cats lose heat easily. I’m sure that you’re aware of that. But it’s irresponsible to have him out in this cold.”

  “How do you know it’s a him?” I asked, loving the way she was getting riled.

  Damn, she was cute.

  Although I could only see the top half of her, I somehow knew that she was perfect.

  Black curly hair that was chin length and swirled animatedly around her face as she spoke. Brown eyes. Tan complexion.
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  She was wearing a black t-shirt like mine that fit her as tight as mine fit me. Though she didn’t have any tits to speak of, I was sure that she’d make up for it in other areas.

  “If you can’t tell it’s a him,” she drawled, “then there’s something seriously wrong with you.”

  I grinned. “I know it’s a him. And he’s warm. I promise. So unless you want to give me a ride…”

  I’d found the little guy in the gutter off the highway about an hour ago. He’d obviously, at one point, been someone’s pet. I wasn’t sure if anyone was looking for him or not, but finders keepers.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll give you a ride, but the kitten rides inside.”

  I rolled my eyes. “No. There is only about another half a mile to where I’m going. Thanks anyway.”

  She flipped me off, then stomped on the gas pedal.

  I looked at the back of her van and noted the plates—I’d have Wake, a buddy of mine, look her up—and also spotted the university tag on her back glass.

  Hey, at least she wasn’t lying about the ‘picking him up at the school’ thing.

  CHAPTER 2

  Keep my name out of your low-budget conversations.

  -t-shirt

  MATILDA

  “Matilda Jane,” I heard my father roar over the phone. “Why is your bank account overdrawn again?”

  Was it? Interesting. I hadn’t noticed.

  “I don’t know,” I said instead of the ‘I hadn’t noticed’ part.

  “Well, maybe you should pay more attention, so I don’t have to keep paying these overdraft fees,” he growled.

  Okay, so I did this a lot.

  As in, at least once a month.

  But it wasn’t my fault that his wife was a cow and pulled money out of my account, while he was the sweetest thing on earth and put money in. I knew that he knew his wife was doing it, yet he always called and yelled at me like I had any control over it.

  I had my own account that I did, indeed, keep money in to ensure that I had money. But it was only a small amount in the grand scheme of things. So, unfortunately, I had to work like a dog at a low-wage job, while also going to school full time to become a veterinarian.

  Something else that my stepmother hated.

  She was disgusted by my choice in ‘working profession’ and never let me hear the end of it that a Deveraux didn’t work.