I’d just bet he had. She had over six hundred thousand sitting on her wrist, and her granddaddy had overlooked her brother to give a girl a dude’s watch.
Her amusement faded as she stared at the watch which took up most of her wrist. “He wanted everything. That was his trouble.”
“And because he’s a Lancaster, he could afford to have most of everything anyway.”
“Exactly.” Her smile was tight. “What’s your name?”
“Didn’t you see it on my cut last night?”
“I was too nervous,” she admitted. “Scared too.”
“Why? Think we’d bite?” I bared my teeth at her, but the move had her frowning.
“Of course not. But things are finally on the right path. I didn’t want to fuck it up.”
Coming from a woman as sleek as this one, the curse word had me arching a brow. I slouched back against the fancy bench that was made of filigree wrought iron which would probably imprint itself into my ass, and after kicking out my legs, crossing them at the ankle, and slipping my arm along the back of the bench, I muttered, “Name’s Link.”
She dipped her chin. “I’m Lily. Lily Lancaster.”
“Your parents were fond of alliteration, weren’t they?” When surprise lit her eyes, smugness hit me again. “I went to school too.”
“Sorry.” She blew out a breath. “Of course, you know what alliteration is.”
I did. Not because of school, though, that had been BS. Alex Trebeck had been one of the best teachers under my roof. Learned a lot of shit from him. Some of it random, some of it useful.
Shrugging, I asked, “You bring me here for a reason? Or just to show off that watch of yours?”
“Hardly,” Lily replied dryly, then she pursed her lips and stared down at her shoes. Last night, before she’d been able to utter a word, she’d had a mini panic attack. I was used to dealing with them, and in fact, preferred to handle that than her staring at her shiny heels.
“I ain’t got all day. The guards will notice me eventually—”
She winced. “I’m sorry I requested for you to meet me here. I’m on a tight leash. All my movements are monitored, but I wanted to talk to you.”
“We got the women—”
Lily released a shaky breath. “Thank God.” Her hands moved to cover her face, but she wiped her eyes before rubbing her temples.
“One died.”
Pain flashed across her features before she dipped her chin. “That’s because it took me far too long to figure out how to talk to you.”
I didn’t trust the bitch, but she’d gone out of her way to help. I had to figure that deserved something. “You did what you could.”
“Wasn’t enough, was it?” she snapped, surprising me when her eyes flashed with anger. Which, coincidentally, made them deepen into a dark navy.
“If it’s any consolation, she’d been dead a while.” The coffin flies had been in full force and because I watched too much TV, I knew that meant she’d been dead for a week at least.
Then there were the rats…
Fuck, that was probably what was going to mess with my mind for-goddamn-ever.
Sucking in a sharp breath as the memory swamped me, I focused on the pristine lawns to my side, looked at the orderly tennis courts that belonged at Wimbledon, and the hedges around me that had probably been cut with a pair of fucking scissors.
It was hard to think that this had been Luke Lancaster’s stomping grounds. Harder still to correlate this with that shack in the woods.
“I should have killed him when I had the chance,” Lily whispered. Her profile was drawn, her features pale as she stared blankly ahead.
Her statement, however, drew my attention. “You wanted to kill him?” I kept my tone conversational in the vain hope that would make her talk.
“Of course. He was evil. Just like my father.”
Unable to stop myself, I reached forward and tapped her chin. When she turned to look at me, I reached up and gently touched her beneath her cheekbone, running the tip of my finger along the sharp jut.
“He do that to you?”
“Luke?” She shook her head. “That was Father.” Her mouth tightened.
“You want him dead too?” I joked, then out of nowhere, my cock hardened when rage had color flushing her cheeks. It wasn’t aimed at me, but at her father, and she silently gave me her answer.
For a second, she breathed hard, like she was trying to get a handle on her emotions. I had to admit, the sounds she made? They went to my cock too. She was panting like she’d run a race, and all it made me think about was how she’d look when she was coming down from an orgasm. That thought process wasn’t helping my boner disappear, but the show she put on was better than a goddamn lap dance.
She’d gone from elegant and refined to gloriously alive and vibrant with emotion in a handful of seconds. Somehow, I knew that very few people got to see that side of her.
I wasn’t sure why I’d been given that gift, but I knew it was exactly that.
“Why did you ask me to come here?” I questioned carefully, when my dick started to pound behind the cage of my fly. I needed to get shit on track before things derailed too far.
“The sheriff is on your side, but you might need to line his pockets some more. My father’s reserves are not unlimited, but where Luke’s concerned? I wouldn’t be surprised if he put himself in fiscal peril to get justice for that bastard.”
Her hatred of both men was evident, and because I knew what Lancaster Jr. had done, and as I also knew that Lancaster Sr. was willing to cover that shit up, it made me like her even more.
Which didn’t help my boner.
Not in the least.
Nor did the words ‘fiscal peril.’ That people actually talked like her blew my fucking mind.
“The mayor’s in his pocket,” she told me coolly, her attention reverting to the hedge opposite us when I didn’t give her much of a response. The hedge separated two tennis courts which were empty. The occupied court was farther away, and now that I was on lower ground, I couldn’t even hear the tennis ball machine anymore.
I let my gaze drift over her cheekbones, which had a gauntness to them that had me narrowing my eyes. “Knew that,” I admitted. “Glad to know the sheriff’s still got our backs. What I’d like to know is why you’re telling me this.”
“Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
That had me quirking a brow at her. “Expect me to believe that? You’re going against your daddy?”
“You’ve never met my father, have you?”
“Haven’t had the misfortune, no.”
“Lucky you.” Her smile was cold. “This isn’t the only murder in my family.”
My brows rose at that because, fuck, what with the enemy shit and talk of murder? This bitch was suddenly a lot more interesting than she had been.
“Who died?”
“My mom.”
“Who killed her?”
“My father.”
Tension filled me at the words she uttered, words that came with no intonation. She was talking like she was bitching about the weather or something. It kind of fucked with my head.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why he isn’t in jail?”
Now, there was a softness I understood, one I hated on her behalf. “I don’t need to. Your daddy’s rich as fuck. That says it all. He’s managing to twist this shit around with Giulia, making your rapist fucker of a brother look like the innocent party, like maybe my MC had some kind of bone to pick with him…” I snorted. “If he can do that, then I know he can do anything.”
“I want him dead.”
She whispered those words, softer than even Ghost had talked last night.
“We don’t do murder for hire,” I snapped, just in case that was what she was thinking.
Her nostrils flared as she turned to glower at me. “Did I make that request?”
“No. Just making sure I get that out right here, right now. Especi
ally considering this is how you fuckers tend to entrap people like me.”
Her top lip quirked in a snarl. “Yeah, well, you’ve never met anyone like me, and I don’t appreciate you thinking that I’m the same as any other—”
“Poor little rich girl?”
Outrage had her nostrils flaring. “You can say that when I just told you my father killed my mother?”
“Happens more often than it should.” I shrugged. “Doesn’t mean that it ain’t a fucking pity. It is. But a tragic past is something most of my brothers have in common with you. I ain’t about to cut you slack just because you think you deserve it.”
Her eyes were like slits as she stared at me, then, after a handful of minutes, she surprised me by smiling. Honest to fuck smiling. And shit, if the sun didn’t peek out from behind the clouds at the same time.
If a guy like me could be dazzled, then that was me. Right there. Right then.
“I like that. Most people let me get away with shit because I’m a Lancaster—”
“Well, if you like that, I have more I can give you.”
She snorted. “I’m sure you can.” She reached for her cell phone and stated, “I-I have access to funds.”
“Good for you,” I taunted.
Her eyes flashed, snapping back to anger once more. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not like my father and Luke. I don’t have access to the fortune outside of a credit card he gives me. But if Giulia needs help with legal counsel, I can figure out a way to help her.”
For a second, I wasn’t sure what to say about that, then I muttered, “She’s part of the MC. We take care of our own.”
“Well, the offer’s there.” Clearing her throat, she whispered, “I’m glad she killed Luke. He deserved to die.”
“He deserved to die after he was tortured like he tortured those women,” I said grimly, staring back at the tennis courts ahead of me so she didn’t see the torment in my eyes, a torment that was founded in what I’d seen last night. It was like a parallel universe in this place. So fucking pretty and clean while being the stomping grounds of sick bastards like the Lancasters.
And yeah, I included the daughter in that statement, considering she wanted to kill her daddy too.
My lips twitched at that and I rubbed my hand across my jaw. “What are you waiting for?”
She frowned. “With regard to what?”
“Your father.” I sniffed. “You waiting on him to change the will?”
“Of course. I won’t do anything until that happens, and not because I’m a greedy, grasping piece of shit either. That money…” She clenched her teeth. “My mom was the rich one. He took her wealth and made it his own. He was a venture capitalist back in the day, and he married her for her money. In a divorce, he’d have been entitled to half the estate, but—”
“All is better than half.” I plucked at my chin. “What you going to do with all those billions?”
“You talk like it will be easy to kill him.” Lily narrowed her eyes at me.
“Won’t it? You hate him. You want him dead. You’re just waiting on the right moment.”
She gnawed on her plump lip. “I wish it was that simple.”
“It can be,” I responded, well aware I was talking about murdering her father as easily as I would order a coffee from a diner. But then, in my world, death ran hand in hand with life. Sure, it did for every miserable human on this godforsaken planet, but for brothers in an MC, it was closer to hand than regular folk.
“I didn’t bring you here to talk about that,” she whispered a second later, and I saw the haunted shadows in her eyes, saw them and wondered if she’d somehow seen her father kill her mother.
“No, you brought me here to tell me your father had the mayor in his pocket.”
“And that he’s trying to get the sheriff on his side.”
“Knew that already. It’s why the mayor brought in some new detectives from across the county line.” I smirked at her wide eyes. “This won’t be our first rodeo, darlin’. Ain’t the first time some rich fuck wants to pin something on us.”
She gulped. “Do you know who the Five Points are?”
I stilled at that, interested at long last. “Do you?” I countered.
“No. I just know they’re in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“Well, I can promise you that they’re not a takeout place.” I cracked my knuckles. “Why you bring them up anyway?”
“He’s going to target them to get to you too.”
She bit her lip then surged to her feet. When I realized she was going to just stalk off, I grabbed her hand and ordered, “Don’t lose my number.”
A scowl crossed her brow. “Why shouldn’t I? I went to great lengths to get this information to you and what? It bores you?”
The shit about the Five Points didn’t.
But she didn’t have to know that.
“Don’t be a stranger,” was all I said.
“Why?” Her eyes were cold, like gemstones.
“We’re friends, aren’t we? Mutual enemies stay in touch, don’t they?”
Her jaw clenched. “If you say so.”
When she wrenched her wrist from my grip, the difficult bastard in me wanted to keep a tighter hold on her. Sure, Tink was back at the compound, her ass stuffed full of a plug that I’d put in there, but Lily Lancaster? Well, she was far more interesting.
“How come you wanted to meet here?”
She frowned. “It’s my regular stomping ground and I told my father I’d be coming here in the hope of meeting the sheriff. I’m supposed to turn him to my father’s side.”
I whistled under my breath. “You fuck with the devil, baby doll, and don’t be surprised when he fucks with you.”
“He’s already fucked with me,” she said simply. “Many, many times, but enough is enough.”
“I’m sure it is,” I murmured softly, recognizing something in her words that made me want to kill that fucker of a father myself. “But softly catchee monkey.”
Her eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
“It means that if you want the money and the man and don’t want to go to jail, then you need to watch your step.” I stared her square in the eye. “Or make sure someone has your back.”
Her mouth gaped a little at that, and I didn’t blame her. I was going off script here. Hell, the script didn’t really exist, but I knew that any extensions of help had to be offered by Rex and Rex alone. Even Storm, our VP, couldn’t make offers like this. But I knew, just fucking knew, that this would help us.
Allied with the enemy?
United to take down someone who could champion their rapist scum and twist it around so that my brother’s woman was fearing jail?
Yeah, I’d deal with the devil too…but then, I was one of Satan’s Sinners. We were buds, and I came from a family of other fuckers who’d sold our souls a long while back.
“What are you saying?” she whispered.
“I’m saying that we need to talk on my stomping ground.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. My father watches my every move through my guards—they report to him at all times.”
“Suppose getting them blistered last night didn’t go down well.”
“Yeah, you’d be right on that score.” She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, then murmured, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Do that.”
I let her go then and watched her walk away, that fine ass of hers squirming against the tight fabric of her skirt. Tipping my head to the side, I let my gaze drop down to her long legs and feet that were shod in expensive heels. Everything about her screamed class, and everything about me screamed the opposite.
“Lady and the tramp,” I muttered under my breath, my lips curving into a wide grin, one that was loaded with anticipation.
There was only one issue with my plan.
I fucking hated spaghetti and meatballs.
Five
Keira
“Cyan, please,
I need you to focus and stop fidgeting.”
My baby girl looked up at me, big green eyes that would melt the rest of the polar ice cap if given the chance. Most of the time, she melted me, and she definitely melted her damn father. And that was the trouble. She was a handful. Already higher than a lot of the percentiles in school, I knew, pretty soon, she’d be skipping grades.
Which was exactly what I didn’t need or want for her.
I’d skipped two grades, and I’d been miserable ever since. It had put me in a bad place, being with older kids when I was so young and had, undoubtedly, shoved me into a life path I’d never anticipated.
I’d thought I’d become a nurse.
Instead, I’d gotten pregnant at nineteen and had tied myself to a jackass. A jackass named Storm.
“Mommy, it’s okay. You don’t need to do this.”
My mouth tightened as I began re-pinning the dress I’d made for her a week ago for the school pageant and, because she was going through some kind of growth spurt, was about four inches too short now. Because I was used to that, I’d made a long enough hem, but it was still a pain in the ass.
“I do need to, Cyan. No way I’m having them looking down on you.” Of course, that was a pointless endeavor. They always would because she was a biker brat. Hell, back when I’d been her age, I’d looked down on the kids who attended Jackson High and were spawned by the Satan’s Sinners.
Maybe because I’d been one of those judgmental bitches, I was scared all the more for my baby girl. She handled it well, and I knew that was because she had more of her father in her than me. Well, except for the smarts.
Storm was many things, but smart wasn’t one of them.
The thought made me wince with guilt. Because, the shit, Storm, wasn’t stupid, not outside of our relationship at any rate.
As I began plucking at the hem again, trying to figure out where to let it down to, a soft starfish hand touched my shoulder. “Momma, it’s okay.”
It wasn’t.
It was the exact opposite.
I fucking hated people.
Hated. Them.
And kids?
I hated them even more.
She never complained, never said anything against anyone but damn, I knew what was what. Knew that on the days when she was quiet after school, it was when someone had insulted her.
Forgotten & Found: A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Boxset Page 36