Forgotten & Found: A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Boxset

by Serena Akeroyd

  Rex grumbled under his breath. “I heard Kendra stirred some shit between them.”

  I arched a brow. “Hadn’t heard that. Keira didn’t say anything to me about her, but I know a sweetbutt told her some things it’d have been kinder if she never knew.”

  “Overheard Tink and Jingles discussing it. Whatever it was, even they thought she went too far.”

  “Fucking Kendra,” I sneered. “Never did like that bitch.”

  “Can’t disagree with you. They’re all cats. I mean, Giulia and Keira are. But I fucking hate it when they turn bitchy on one another. We got enough shit going down without infighting from the bitches.”

  “If Keira had been a bit more like Giulia, she’d probably have had less trouble.”

  Rex snickered. “No one handles the clubwhores quite like Giulia.”

  “True.” I smiled.

  When Giulia had arrived two months ago, she’d caused a lot of shit by headbutting Kendra, breaking noses here and there, getting in a lot of the snatches’ faces. She hadn’t rolled over and let them kick her while she was down. Nope. She’d faced them, dealt with them, and now they were all wary as hell around her.

  “Keira’s not like that,” I pointed out. “You know that. She’s a homemaker, not a trouble starter.”

  “Why the fuck he wifed her, I don’t know.” Rex sighed. “I mean, I get it. She’s beautiful. But—”

  “He was a selfish prick. Wanting it all and hurting her in the process. And I’m the king of selfish. If I say someone’s goddamn selfish, that means they’re cunts.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” Rex countered with a laugh. “I’ll talk to Storm. See if I can help clear shit up with him.”

  “Only way you’ll do that is if you change Keira’s locks back,” I pointed out, before I slammed the rest of my tequila down.

  “Well, I ain’t going to do that, but maybe I can get the dick to wake the fuck up, see he’s only wrecking shit for himself and that little girl of his.”

  “Douche,” I muttered, semi-amused when Rex nodded his agreement. Then, sucking in a breath and drawing courage, I muttered, “I’ll go see the women now.”

  I didn’t wait for him to reply, just headed on out and down the hall to the front door. Passing JoJo on her knees slurping down Steel, I shook my head. “Idiot.” I was surrounded by them.

  He peered through slitted eyes and focused on me long enough to flip me the bird.

  Shrugging, I walked on, hoping to fuck Stone wouldn’t leave the bunkhouse where she was looking after the women and head to the compound, because she’d catch him in the goddamn corridor. That would hurt her like crazy, which was exactly why the fuckwit had done it.

  I truly was surrounded by idiots, and today had only confirmed it.

  When I was the only one who was making sense?

  The day after tomorrow, we wouldn’t be having a council meeting, it’d be Armageddon for real.

  Shaking my head at just how big of a moron Steel was, I headed out into the early evening. The compound wasn’t unattractive, it was just boring. Purpose built, it was easy to see a bunch of guys from the sixties had designed it—guys who’d just returned from ‘Nam with a hatred for the government burning in their souls.

  There was none of the flower power shit here. It was heavily utilitarian. Before Bear had retired and passed on the gavel to Rex, his only brat, the place had been painted a steel gray. I wasn’t sure which sweetbutt had sucked Rex off and asked him to repaint it a more flattering cream, but it gave off fewer prison vibes now, that was for damned sure.

  Reaching for my cell, I smiled when I saw it was Lily.

  Lily: I freaked you out, didn’t I?

  Surprised by the show of vulnerability, I froze in my tracks.

  Me: Beautiful girl like you? Went to college? Didn’t get laid? You shocked me. Not much freaks me out.

  Well, that was bullshit. I’d found my limit, and that had been discovered in Luke Lancaster’s fucking lair.

  Lily: I made arrangements with my friend. I’ll send you a link to her place. Thursday? Morning/night?

  Me: Thursday. Morning AND night.

  Lily: Oh. Okay. x

  I snickered at the ‘x’ as I had earlier.

  Me: x

  I shoved my phone back in my pocket, ignoring the next buzz because I had to suck it up and suck it in. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the women. This was for Ghost’s sake. It was why Stone had texted Rex to get me to haul ass—I’d ignored her texts for the past few days.

  It wasn’t their fault that the second I saw them, I was transported back to that place. That time. And I figured by Tatána’s and Amara’s reactions, they associated me with that moment too. Ghost, when I eventually saw her? Not so much. She smiled at me, weakly, and without all the shit on her face and body, without the scent of death lingering in the air, I saw she was a beautiful woman.

  As were the others.

  Luke had fucking taste, that was for sure.

  But they were all brutally thin.

  They were all pasty and sickly-looking.

  And they had more wires and lines coming off them than I knew what to do with.

  The bunkhouses were for visiting chapters and other MCs to sleep in. That meant they were like mini apartments, complete with bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom. This was one of the bigger ones and it had two bedrooms.

  The bunkhouse had been turned into a mini field hospital, and I shook my head at the sight of it as I found Stone, leaning back against the kitchen counter watching me take it in. Giulia was there too, but she was seated at the kitchen table, her eyes heavily shadowed.

  I bypassed Tatána who was in a nest of blankets on the sofa, her wrists bandaged up, and who immediately flinched at the sight of me. Because I pretty much felt the same way, I did the kindest thing and ignored her, then headed for the kitchen.

  “You got everything you need?”

  Stone pulled a face. “We’re out of the woods now. We just have to build their strength up.”

  My brows rose at that. Rex—the fucker. He’d been speaking like they were dying. Shit, not that I was complaining, but he’d definitely guilt-tripped me into visiting.

  Stone yawned, breaking into my internal grousing, and I saw that her work had taken its toll on her. She looked like she needed a good sleep and, though I’d say this to no one, even more, looked like she needed Steel to hug the shit out of her.

  Preferably in a bed.

  Where they’d sleep together.

  Fuck, maybe I was Cupid?

  Grunting at the thought, I muttered, “When are you going back to the city?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “They going to be okay without you?”

  “Giulia knows what to do now. It’s not ideal,” she murmured, pulling a face. “But it’s the best I can do. I’ve already stayed on longer than I should.”

  “I can call you if there’s a problem, and it’s not like you’re far away, Stone,” Giulia replied, and the respect in her eyes stunned me because Giulia and most of the women from the club didn’t get on well.

  At first, with all the shit she’d caused with the sweetbutts, I’d figured she was one of those women who just hated other bitches. Which, in a place like the clubhouse, was a fucking nightmare just waiting to happen. But I soon realized I was wrong on that score. It took a lot to earn her respect, but when you had it? She gave her friendship too.

  I liked Giulia. She was a pain in the ass, had more attitude than sense, and made the best pasta puttanesca I’d ever fucking tasted, but more than that, she was good for Nyx. I liked her for my bro. Nyx needed something to keep him sane, and while Giulia wasn’t the ideal candidate considering she was prone to violence, it fit that she and Nyx would gel well together.

  “What are you staring at, bozo?” she mumbled, glowering at me and reminding me of the whole ‘more attitude than sense’ thing.

  “You. You look exhausted. You both do.”

 
; “I am. We are. It’s been a long couple of days, and it’s been fucking hard but we’re getting there. Aren’t we, Stone?”

  Stone’s lips twitched, and I saw from the sparkle in her eyes that Giulia had a new friend.

  God help us.

  I guessed it fit, considering they were both biker brats, but there was a distinct age gap… Apparently Giulia liked hanging around old fuckers. Nyx was a lot older than Stone even, so with Giulia, he apparently liked robbing the cradle.

  Fuck.

  Lily was about Giulia’s age.

  Shit. I was just as bad then!

  Grunting at the thought, even if I was mostly amused by the notion, I twisted around and said, “Rex said Ghost wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yeah.” Stone shook her head. “Only you’d call someone in their situation ‘Ghost.’”

  That was like the third person who’d told me that. “What can I say? It fit. Her voice was so fucking quiet—”

  “Still is. Can barely hear her most of the time,” Giulia interjected with a wince.

  “I think she must have damaged her voice box,” Stone inserted, tone grim.

  We all shared a look, each of us knowing and wanting to shy away from exactly how she’d done that.

  See, we were bikers and they were biker spawn. We knew how the real world worked. We did bad shit. Nyx routinely cut up pedos, for fuck’s sake. We weren’t innocent little lambs.

  But this?

  This went to a whole other level.

  A level that messed with our comfort zones.

  Maybe it was a weird kind of logic, maybe it was fucked up to be okay with murdering some people so long as they were shitty bastards, but that was how it rolled for us.

  And I included myself in that too.

  I wasn’t a good man. If I got shot up one day, stabbed to death or whatever, I deserved it. I’d go meeting my Maker well aware I’d been a shitty human being, so coming across a shittier human being?

  Well…let’s just say it took all our breaths away.

  Wanting to avoid this conversation, and not really wanting to talk to Ghost even though it was important to her, I got to my feet and headed to the bedrooms. When I opened the door and saw Amara curled up on her side, I grunted which had her gasping and flinching back like I was going to attack her.

  “Wrong bedroom,” Stone told me dryly.

  “Could have warned me.”

  “Nope. She’s got to acclimatize to the fact there are men here. Men that look like mean motherfuckers, but are putzes where women are concerned.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re just full of fucking charm today, aren’t you?”

  Stone smirked. “You know it.”

  Shooting her the bird, I headed for the other bedroom and winced when I opened the door. Ghost was like Amara, wrapped in a cocoon of sheets and blankets, but the drips and shit around her went to a whole other level. I knew Stone had only been able to do so much to help. Shit like X-rays and scans and blood tests were beyond us, but she was training to be an ER doc for a reason. Under pressure, she worked well, and in the end, it was all that was available to these women…unless they wanted to return wherever they’d come from, and considering whoever had brought them over here had sold them to Luke fucking Lancaster, I couldn’t exactly blame them for wanting to stay under the radar.

  I didn’t believe that shit about the US being the land of the free. Not anymore. But for these women? All they’d been given was a handful of chains, not liberty.

  “Hey,” I rumbled, keeping my voice low as I didn’t want to disturb her if she was resting.

  “Link?”

  Though I’d expected it, it came as no surprise when her voice was soft and gentle to the point where it was hard to make out my own fucking name.

  I stepped into the gloomy room, which hadn’t been redecorated in way too long—while the outside was utilitarian sixties, in here, it was fucking flower power to the max—and used the faint light coming from the windows at the back of the bed to maneuver to her side.

  “Yeah. It’s me.” I dropped to a crouch beside her. “How you doing, Ghost?”

  “Everything hurts,” she admitted, but she laughed. Fucking laughed. And that broke my damn heart. “I’m getting better though.”

  “Glad to hear it, honey.” I reached over, cautious because I didn’t want her to flinch like the others had. The last thing I intended was to cause her pain or anxiety.

  “I-I’m sorry to disturb you, but you’re the only man I’ve really spoken to and I-I, the others, Stone and Giulia, they seem to like you. I feel like you might be the right person to ask—” She hesitated. “You’ve already done so much for all of us. More than we could have hoped for.”

  I reached over and squeezed her arm again. “Ask, Ghost.”

  “Please, I have a sister—”

  “Did Luke get her too?”

  “No,” she rasped, but her eyes flared wide in terror at the prospect. “Her situation is different.”

  Inwardly wincing at derailing that conversation and maybe adding to her nightmares, I muttered, “Different how?”

  “My mother left the Ukraine when I was a little girl. She came here and got married. My sister is American, but our mother died a few years after she was born, and her father passed in a car crash a year ago.”

  Jesus, how much bad luck did this girl have?

  Unaware of my thoughts, Ghost continued, “I was denied a visa so I came a different way.” Her smile was tight. “I promised her I’d be there for her, but Luke happened.”

  I patted her hand. “You have some details for her? I’ll find a way to get in touch.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Thank you, Link,” she whispered. “I truly appreciate this as well as everything else you’ve done for me.”

  “Done nothing more than another human being should do for another. Just because you’ve been exposed to the worst out there, don’t forget, for most people, decency isn’t a curse word.”

  Look at me go—preaching like I was a decent person.

  If I went into church, I was the kind of guy who would cause the holy water to start bubbling and boiling. Nothing about me was decent in the eyes of the world. But… Sometimes, you just had to compare yourself to the worst cunt out there to realize you weren’t that fucking bad.

  I got up from my crouch and murmured, “Tatána and Amara are scared of me. Why aren’t you?”

  Her features were delicate from how much weight she’d lost, and her skin had a strange translucency I didn’t understand but fuck, after I’d been in a cage underground for however long, I hoped I’d look as good as she did. Her elfin features were only enhanced by a pixie cut, something I had to assume was a medical decision considering the others all sported the same style when they’d had long hair back in those cages, and her smile, delicate but beautiful, burrowed into me, making me grateful I hadn’t ignored Lily, that we hadn’t given up on finding these women, innocents who’d been dragged into a world they didn’t deserve.

  “You saved us. You went into that basement. You helped us out of those cages. They are silly to be frightened of you. You’re our saviors.”

  My nose crinkled at that. “I’m not a good man.”

  “But you’re a decent one.”

  “Not really—”

  She smiled. “I choose to believe what I choose to believe.”

  That had me sighing and, determined to change the subject, I asked, “Where was your sister last?”

  “St. Jude’s Orphanage in Cincinnati.”

  I dipped my chin. “I’ll find a way to get you in touch with one another.”

  “Thank you, Link,” she whispered, this time, her tone so soft, I only heard my name as I headed out the door.

  Before I left, though, I muttered, “Concentrate on getting better, Ghost. You hear me?”

  “Yes, I hear you, Link.”

  “Good.”

  The Next Day

 
; “Declan?”

  “Link? What the fuck do you want?”

  My lips twitched. “Wonderful to hear your voice too, Dec.”

  A grunt sounded down the line. “If you say so. There a reason for this call, or you just blowing smoke up my ass?”

  “If that’s what gets you hot under the collar—”

  “Okay, fucker,” the Five Pointer growled. “Let’s get shit on the road. Don’t need you talking sweet nothings in my ear. What do you want?”

  “Got a few questions about a guy called Donavan Lancaster. You heard of him?”

  “Can’t not know who that bastard is.” Another grunt, then I heard a scrawl like he was making notes. I didn’t think it was about this conversation because he sounded absentminded, like he wasn’t focusing on what we were discussing. “He built Landis Scraper and has a few other projects that got Finn all riled up when the plans were revealed.”

  Because I wasn’t a total heathen, the name prompted me to inquire, “How is Finn, by the way?”

  “Taken to fatherhood like a charm. It’s fucking sickening.”

  My lips curved at that because, even though he sounded partially disgusted, I heard something I didn’t think he realized he’d revealed—yearning.

  I got it. For the first time in my life, I fucking got it. Which kind of blew my mind.

  Declan was about my age, after all. When a man passed thirty, he started questioning shit. Shit he probably shouldn’t question but did anyway. And when forty was on the horizon? Fuck.

  “Glad to hear it.” I cleared my throat with the niceties out of the way. “Any reason Donavan Lancaster would know we were working together?”

  “We as in the Five Points and the MC?” He hummed under his breath. “Not as far as I know.” Another hum. “Wait. Lancaster? Isn’t that the fucker Nyx’s girl took out?”

  “Yeah. His son. Daddy is causing shit for us.”

  “I’ll bet. That fucker was his blue-eyed boy. Saw him around most of the party spots. Even went to a few of our clubs. Didn’t like him. Got called in once to deal with him. He’d beaten the fuck out of a girl he’d been trying to pick up. Didn’t like it when she said no.”

  “Why didn’t you report it?”