Snake Bandit - YA Rockstar Read online

  Contents

  Rock on!

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Epilogue – 8 years later

  Other books in the Dirty Riches series

  Nikki’s Links

  When Dirty Riches have taught you how to rock the rest don’t stand a chance!

  Copyright © Nikki Ashton 2020 All Rights Reserved © Snake Bandit. Published by Bubble Books Ltd

  The right of Nikki Ashton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A reviewer may quote brief passages for review purposes only

  This book may not be resold or given away to other people for resale. Please purchase this book from a recognised retailer. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Snake Bandit first published June 2021 All Rights Reserved ©

  Cover design – LJ Stock of LJ Designs

  Edited by – Caroline Stainburn

  Proofed by – Anna Bloom

  Formatted by – LJ Stock of LJ Designs

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

  This book is dedicated to all my readers who fell in love with Dirty Riches way back when. If you hadn’t loved those boys and all their banter this book may never have been written.

  Thank you from the bottom of my heart

  Acknowledgments

  Firstly, thanks to Lynsey Austin-Goddard for coming up the title of the band and therefore the book. It may have been accidental but now I couldn’t imagine them being called anything else. Snake Bandit is so damn cool.

  Thank you also to my ladies, my Alpha Readers, Donna, Lynn, Sarah, Janice, Michelle and Robyn. You keep me sane and talk me down when I’m stressing out. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  Love as always to my friends and family for their continued support, particularly Mr A who puts up with my stress during release week. I love you.

  Thank you to anyone who has ever read one of my books. I appreciate you beyond words.

  Finally, thank you to the members of Ashton’s Angels, my Facebook group who initially read this book as a chapter a week. It was your Sunday treat and you loved it and so because of that here it is in print for everyone.

  Much love

  Nikki

  Chapter 1

  “Ssh, if you wake my dad, he’ll go mental.” Rocco Mahoney hastily slapped a hand over the girl’s mouth as he tried to steady himself. That last shot of Tequila had definitely taken its hold, of not only his balance, but also his brain. If his papa, the rock legend Luke Mahoney, found him sneaking yet another girl into the house, he wouldn’t be allowed out again until he was at least thirty.

  “Hey, dickhead,” a voice hissed from the darkness. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

  Rocco groaned, intermingled with a hiccup, as he moved towards the voice. “What are you doing up?”

  “You woke me when you kicked over the plant pot by the front door.” Gigi, one of Rocco’s younger sisters, moved in front of him and poked his chest. “You’re lucky that Mum and Papa sleep at the back of the house, otherwise you’d be in a whole heap of shit by now.”

  Wobbling, Rocco caught hold of Gigi’s forearm and took in a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds to quell the hiccups.

  “Ah, fuck it,” he said as he hiccupped again. “Just go back to bed, Gee.”

  “No, not until you get her out of the house.”

  Gigi nodded towards the girl that was now staring down at her phone. The screen, lighting up her face, showed that she had blonde hair and a cute nose. Rocco grinned as he remembered that she had a smoking hot body too. She and her friend had been in Ziggy’s, a local nightclub, and she had been quick to point out what she’d like from Rocco. Her friend had disappeared with Ethan, Rocco’s partner in crime, and the son of Dirty Riches drummer, and his papa’s bandmate, Skins Ballard. Rocco had been more than happy to take care of her and ensure she got home – okay, it might be via his bed, but he’d make sure she got there eventually.

  “Papa will kill you,” Gigi hissed, breaking Rocco’s thoughts. “He told you no more girls. You know the only thing half of them want is to catch him in his boxers.”

  Rocco grinned. Gigi was right, most girls did want to actually meet his father. Luke Mahoney was the lead singer of Dirty Riches, one of the biggest bands on the planet for the last few decades. Now in his fifties he was a good-looking man and still a regular in the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ polls. So, maybe at first girls did want to meet Luke, but once Rocco had shown them his own skills, his Papa was soon forgotten. Being the child of one of the most famous men in rock had its plus points; garnering the attention of girls was one of them. Not that Rocco needed his Papa’s help. At just over six feet tall, with olive skin and dark green eyes that practically screamed ‘come to bed with me’, Rocco wouldn’t have been lacking in female company even if his father hadn’t been rich and famous. The four members of Dirty Riches had produced eleven children between them, and each one of them had inherited the looks and style of their rock star fathers.

  “Rocco,” the girl whined, not looking up from her phone. “Are we staying down here all night?”

  Rocco looked over his shoulder at her and winced. He really hoped she didn’t speak much while he was having sex with her – her voice would shrivel his balls it was so high pitched and annoying.

  “No!” Gigi snapped. “You’re not, because you’re going home.”

  The girl’s head shot up and she stared, narrow eyed, at Gigi. “What’s it got to do with you?”

  “Hey,” Rocco soothed, taking a step towards the girl. “Let’s not argue about this. Gigi’s just a little tired, aren’t you Gee?”

  “No. And she has to go.”

  “C’mon, Gee, don’t be a brat.”

  “I’m not, you’re being a douche who only thinks about his dick—as usual.”

  Rocco snorted a drunken laugh. “Yep, but that’s normal.”

  “Seriously, Rocco. If Papa finds out you’ve sneaked another girl in, he’ll go ballistic.”

  Rocco waved a dismissive hand at his sister. “Ah, he’ll be fine. It’s not like he lived like a monk when he was my age.”

  Gigi exhaled sharply and shook her head. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what? What’s there to get? He hates me bringing girls back in case Rafa or Lessie see them. He doesn’t want
their delicate little eyes seeing things they shouldn’t. And that dear sister,” he said, pointing at her with another wobble, “is why I call them a cab after we’ve done the deadly deed.”

  Rafa and Alessandra, Luke and Martha’s youngest children, were only thirteen and eleven respectively and both hero-worshipped their elder brother and thought everything he did was ‘amazing’.

  “It’s not just that,” Gigi sighed. “You’re being disrespectful to Mum and Papa. This is their house, their sanctuary, they don’t need or want girls like her in the house taking sneaky photographs and posting them on ‘Twatface’ or whatever other social media outlet they are moronically hooked on.”

  “Oi, you. I’m not a moron.”

  Gigi rolled her eyes and turned back to her brother. “Please, Rocco. Please send her home, this isn’t fair to our family. What if Nonna gets up, you know she’s not supposed to have any stress with her heart problem.”

  The words hit Rocco straight in the chest. His beloved Nonna was everything to him and at almost eighty-six he knew that they needed to take care of her.

  “You’d better go,” Rocco said to the girl, who he couldn’t for the life of him, remember the name of.

  “But—”

  Before Rocco could argue, the hallway was flooded with light and standing halfway down the staircase, wearing just his boxers, was Luke Mahoney, the Sex God of Rock.

  “You,” he said pointing at his son, “have some damn explaining to do.”

  Chapter 2

  Rocco’s head pounded as though the whole of the British Army were marching inside it, and his father’s thunderous face wasn’t helping matters.

  “I told you no more girls, Rocco. What did you not understand about that?”

  “Please, Papa. Can we talk about this later?”

  “No, we can’t.” Luke banged his hand down on the table, making Rocco jump in his seat. “We talk about this now. You’re fucking lucky I didn’t make you talk about it at two o’clock this morning, when you had your latest one-night stand waiting with her damn tongue hanging out as though she was on heat.”

  “Luke,” Martha warned. “It’s not her fault our son doesn’t know how to do as he’s told.”

  Luke sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, you’re right.”

  “What does on heat mean, Papa?” Lessie, Martha’s ‘mini-me’ asked whilst buttering her toast.

  “You know,” Rocco scoffed. “She knows, she’s just being a brat, as usual.”

  “Babe, maybe you and Rocco should go into the study, or down to the studio,” Martha suggested, pulling her daughter’s long dark hair from her shoulders.

  “It’s okay,” Lessie said, unscrewing the jam jar. “I know he’s in trouble for being a manwhore.”

  Rocco snorted, Luke groaned, and Martha gasped.

  “Where the hell did you hear that phrase from?” Luke asked.

  Lessie turned to her father with a look of amazement. “Duh. You.”

  “What…I never…When?”

  “Don’t deny it, Luke. If I remember correctly his first words were ‘shit’ and ‘bugger’,” Martha said and pointed at Rocco, who flashed his father a grin. “This isn’t funny, Rocco.”

  “I didn’t say it was,” Rocco said, biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

  His papa’s bad language was a constant battle for his mum and Papa was forever getting a smack around the back of the head because of it.

  “I’m being serious,” Martha continued. “This is unacceptable. The girl last night was the fourth one in two weeks. Do you not care about those poor girls?”

  “Huh,” Lessie scoffed, sitting down at the table. “They’re hardly girls with a decent reputation, Mum. He only picks up ones with loose morals.”

  “Shut up, Lessie,” Rocco said, throwing his youngest sister a hard stare. “No one asked you.”

  “Hey, don’t speak to your sister like that.” Luke sighed heavily and turned to Lessie. “Go and eat your breakfast somewhere else. Maybe take it up to your brother and get him out of bed, it’s about time he surfaced.”

  Lessie copied her father’s sigh and pushed her chair out, dragging it across the tiles and making a hideous scraping noise.

  “Why do I always get shipped off to another room when things are getting interesting? ‘We’re going to talk about your sister going on the pill, so go to bed, Lessie. We need to discuss the fact that Rafa is a lazy bum who is going to end up as the dregs of society if he doesn’t start studying, so go and take a hike, Lessie, we’re going to—”

  “Alessandra,” Martha snapped. “You heard your papa, so just go.”

  “I didn’t know Gigi was on the pill,” Luke cried. “When the fuck did that happen?”

  “Oh, dear, Papa,” Lessie said, patting him on the back as she passed him. “Did you get sent to bed that day too.”

  “She isn’t!” Martha cried. “Lessie, out now before you cause your father to have a heart attack.”

  Rocco couldn’t help but laugh. His youngest sibling had more balls than the rest of them put together. While their parents weren’t tyrants, they weren’t soft touches either and neither he, nor his brother or sister, liked to suffer the consequences of upsetting them. Lessie though, well she was the one that pushed things—she always had to have the last word and had no fear of the punishment that might be doled out. Probably because it was usually having privileges removed for a while—no allowance, no going out, no gigs, that sort of thing, and losing those privileges didn’t bother Lessie one iota. She was hard as nails and took her punishment like a man.

  “That girl has too much attitude,” Luke groaned as Lessie disappeared.

  “Well, she might look like me, babe but she’s got your temperament, so you’ve only got yourself to blame.” Martha’s lips twitched with a smile as the look of pride on Luke’s face suddenly fell into one of despair, when he realised what that actually meant for them as parents. “Yes, exactly,” Martha continued. “So, what do we do about number one son?”

  “Ah cheers, Mum,” Rocco said with a grin. “I always knew that I was your favourite.”

  “I was referring to the fact that you’re our eldest son, because I’ll be honest with you, at this moment, you are number five on the list of my children. In fact, you might even come after my grandchildren.”

  “He definitely does,” Luke agreed, grinning at Martha.

  Martha’s eldest daughter, Betty, was married to Luke’s nephew, Noah. They had two gorgeous dark-haired daughters and Luke loved them as much as he loved Betty, the stepdaughter whom he thought of as his own. Sophia, aged eight and Luisa, aged five, were adored by the whole family and Luke often joked how he wished he could swap his unruly brood of four for his two sweet granddaughters.

  “That’s not fair,” Rocco moaned. “How can I even compete with those two? They’re too cute.”

  “Well, let that be a warning to you,” Luke said, pointing a finger inches from Rocco’s face. “Any more shit and you can go and live with Betty and Noah, and my babies can come here.”

  “I wouldn’t mind living with them,” Rocco muttered. “Noah wouldn’t cock block me and Booboo would be happy her brother was getting laid.”

  Trying to ignore his remark, Martha couldn’t help but smile at Rocco using the nickname that he’d given to Betty when he was a small child. In fact, Rocco had named all their children in some part. Luke and she had picked the names and Rocco had instantly decided on a nickname for them. Gigi was actually Giovanna, Rafa was Rafael and of course Lessie was Alessandra. As for Rocco, he refused to answer to anything other than Rocco. He especially hated Rocky, a name that the press had given to him a few years back when he’d been photographed sporting a black eye. Rumour had been rife that he’d been fighting—he had, but it had been a play fight with Lessie and she’d whacked him with a tennis ball in a sock. Lessie still called him Rocky from time to time, but usually when trying to annoy him.

  “I
think you’ll find that Betty would have just as strict rules as us,” Luke replied. “Because, son, she understands the scrutiny that we’re all under. No matter how much we try and protect you from the media, protect all of our private lives, they can’t wait to pounce on a story.”

  “You’re hardly in the papers at all now. No disrespect, Papa, but you’re getting a bit boring in your old age.”

  Luke shook his head and choosing to ignore his son’s remark continued, “I know it’s hard, but everything you do impacts on what people around the whole world will think of you. I don’t want you starting out in life with the reputation of being a, in Lessie’s words, manwhore. Someone who treats women like cheap objects. That’s not how we brought you up.”

  “But you—”

  “No,” Martha snapped, holding up her index finger. “Don’t even say it. Your father is the best man I have ever known, and he loves all of us with a passion. He would die for each and every one of us, but he will tell you how hard he’s had to work for people to realise he’s more than a man who sings for a living and has sex with random women for fun. Do you know how many stories I’ve had to read in the newspapers from women in his past, or even those trying to say he’d slept with them while we’ve been together?” Martha paused, waiting for Rocco to say something, when he didn’t, she continued, “Too many to mention. They weren’t even clever enough to check he wasn’t with me, when these assignations supposedly took place. Half the time he wasn’t even in the same country as them, but it still didn’t stop it hurting. I don’t want that for your future wife, Rocco. Your dad doesn’t want that for your future wife, because he knows how hard it’s been, and not just for me but for him too. Even though every story was implausible and impossible, and we knew the truth, everyone else judged him and judged me for standing by him.”