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

by Serena Akeroyd

  “You know I’m not a good man.”

  “I know how to measure ‘good,’ Link,” she rasped. “‘Good’ comes in different shapes and sizes. I’m not stupid. I’ve read up on the MC. I know you do stuff you shouldn’t. I know there are rumors. You said you’ve killed someone…or someones. But you make me feel safe. You did that night.” She burrowed her face into my throat again, and chose that moment to mumble, “Helps you’re pretty too.”

  Even as she wrecked me, she made me smile. “Pretty?” I scoffed. “I’m a dude.”

  “Dudes can be pretty,” she teased, and I was glad to hear that note in her voice because, for the first time in my life, my mind, heart, and soul were at war.

  I wanted her.

  More than I had before.

  I wanted her to attain her goal…wanted to help her do it.

  More than I had before.

  I wanted her to be mine.

  More than I had before.

  She was a survivor, a fighter, and she wanted vengeance, and I was the link in the chain who would bring all those parts together to give her what she desired.

  Maybe she’d seen that that night. Maybe she’d recognized someone who would connect the dots for her. Well, I’d do more than connect the damn dots.

  I’d resented Luke Lancaster’s death. He hadn’t died with enough pain, with enough torment. Now, however, I had Donavan Lancaster in my sights and in this instance, the sins of the son would be reaped on the father.

  And the father?

  The second he’d touched the woman who lay in my arms?

  He’d been a dead man walking.

  Eight

  Rex

  “What’s this?”

  Link peered at the letter I shoved at him, then he frowned. “Looks like a letter.” His focus returned to his meal, and he hunched his shoulders as he shoveled in some of the casserole Giulia had spent all day cooking.

  The scent of rosemary and thyme had perfumed the clubhouse since this morning, and while it wasn’t exactly the image I wanted for the Sinners, I wasn’t about to complain. Not when the meal I’d just eaten was better than some of the stuff I’d had in high class restaurants.

  “Yeah. It does. Because it is. Why am I getting letters from some Podunk town in Cincinnati?”

  He jerked his head up at that. “Cincinnati?” He grabbed the envelope from my grasp and tore into it. As he read through the contents, he grinned at me. “I found her.”

  “Who? Didn’t realize someone was lost.” I scowled at him, not appreciating being out of the loop.

  How the fuck was I supposed to keep an eye on things if I was in the dark about shit?

  He waved a hand. “Ghost gave me a mission. Find her sister—she’s in the system. Tell her that Ghost is alive.” Then he muttered, “Thought I was going to have to ride there, but figured with shit up in the air, it’d be best if I made a few calls at first. They stuck.” He fist pumped the air. “Yes!”

  “She asked you to do that?” My brow puckered once more. When I’d gone into the bunkhouse to see if Giulia was managing with all the stuff she had to do without Stone on hand, the women had flinched and turned their backs on me, like that was the only way they could escape me. Link was lighter hearted than most, but he wasn’t a fucking teddy bear.

  “Yeah.” He shrugged again. “This is the best news. It’s going to cheer her up.”

  Well, it wasn’t like it couldn’t. Fuck, that bunkhouse was the most depressing place in the whole goddamn world. People in prisons in Thailand were happier than those poor three women.

  I swear to fuck, if I could have been the one to slay Luke Lancaster, the piece of shit, I’d have made him truly fucking suffer. Of course, that was in hindsight. But from where I was standing, hindsight was the worst fucking place to be. Especially when you knew you’d come close to true evil, and that evil piece of crap hadn’t suffered for his sins.

  “How did you find her?”

  Link beamed his cheerful grin my way as he leaned up to tap his nose. “I have my ways.”

  I rolled my eyes because he wasn’t lying, but he didn’t have to be such a schmuck about it. Link had a knack for finding shit. Be it car parts or, apparently, lost kids, give him something to hunt, and he was better than a fucking bloodhound.

  Heavy steps sounded behind me, so when a hand clamped down on my shoulder, I wasn’t altogether surprised. I turned around, saw it was Nyx, and tipped my chin up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Rachel’s here.”

  I hated that my immediate reaction to that news was to check my fucking hair in the mirror. God help me. That little bit of tail had me all worked up. Always had and probably always would.

  “She say why?” was all I said, because as far as I knew, this wasn’t a scheduled appointment and Rachel was very careful to keep things on schedule. Always. That was because she felt the livewire that burned between us and was in complete goddamn denial over it.

  Still, the MC had paid her way through law school, and now she repped us almost exclusively. Far as I knew, her practice had three clients, and we took up almost seventy percent of her work alone. I allowed her the other two clients because they were charities. We’d invested in her, just as we’d invested in Stone. That wasn’t something my daddy had done. It was something I’d implemented.

  Bear had thought a woman’s place was in the kitchen and in bed. Sometimes on the back of a hog. Me? I didn’t feel that way. Sure, clubwhores had their place, and when they were warming my cock, I was mighty appreciative, but women weren’t just holes. Back when I’d taken over, of course I’d been one of the few to believe that.

  But wasting home grown talent, people who were dedicated to the club as much as the brothers, was fucking foolish.

  Stone was a class A healer. Rachel was a shark in the courtroom, and every year spared one of the men from serving life sentences for the myriad shit we pulled. They weren’t the only ones I’d helped over my time as Prez. I was putting a few of the kids who didn’t want to become brothers through community college. By the time I was ready to be in my casket, I’d have the MC sorted for life with a team of all kinds of trades loyal to my people.

  Plumbers, electricians, lawyers, doctors…I was working on a few cops too, but that was harder. Most kids round here were raised to hate the lawmen, not respect them. Normally, I’d be happy about that, but having a pig close to hand would help us out in times like the ones we were going through now with Giulia.

  “Says it’s to do with the case.”

  Those two words might as well be capitalized.

  Rachel was working on lots of cases for us, but The Case? It was to do with the Lancaster bullshit.

  “She need Giulia around for the conversation? I can get someone else to sit with the women.”

  He shook his head. “No. Just you and me. Anyway, Maverick’s with her.”

  For a second, I wasn’t sure what the fuck to think. Mostly, I was thinking it was a goddamn miracle that Maverick had left the clubhouse to go as far as a bunkhouse to be in a sickroom of all places. But also… “That doesn’t bode well, does it? That Rachel doesn’t want her around?”

  We shared a look. “I dunno what to think anymore. She wouldn’t say shit without you present, so hustle the fuck on. I need to know what’s going on with my woman.”

  I’d have rolled my eyes at his impatience, but I understood it. Giulia wasn’t my woman, but she was a biker brat whether she hated her father or not, and I gave a shit about her on a whole other level because Nyx? As her Old Man? Fuck. I’d never seen him like this before.

  There’d always been a kind of mania about Nyx. Not that he was insane which, technically, I guessed he was. But a frenetic kind of energy that made him volatile and quick to stir. Giulia, even with all this shit they were going through, did something to him. For him. I didn’t know what, didn’t need to know, was just grateful for this new baseline that was Nyx’s current status quo.

  “Let’s go,” I said grimly
, and the pair of us stalked off, boots clomping against the ground as we passed through the kitchen into the hall and out toward my office.

  I saw Hawk, Giulia’s brother and a Prospect, sweeping up a pile of leaves in the hall and shook my head at the sight. “Do I need to ask why?”

  “Practical joke,” he muttered.

  “On who?” I grumbled.

  “Me.”

  “Oh.” My lips twitched and I shrugged. “Them’s the cards that fall.”

  He didn’t lift his head to agree or disagree, just huffed and carried on clearing shit up. Literally. Not that he’d figured that out yet.

  As we carried on past him, I kept my ear cocked until I heard it, and grinned at Nyx who, despite the fact Rachel was waiting on us, had also slowed his pace and kept on listening for Hawk’s, “Motherfuckers! Who the fuck even does that?”

  Snorting even though the hall would be stinking of dog shit for the next few hours, I remarked, “That never grows old. What did Hawk do to earn that particular punishment?”

  Nyx shrugged. “Miserable cunt.”

  Like those two words explained it all.

  I sighed. “Details?”

  “Nothing too bad. Just needs some happy pills. Trust me, I’d have told you if he wasn’t cut out to be a brother.” He gave me a look. “He’s wasted in the clubhouse though.”

  “Why? Where should I put him?”

  “With me.”

  I arched a brow. “You’d be willing to deal with him?”

  “My brother-in-law, ain’t he?” He was scowling as he said it.

  “Good with security?”

  “Giulia said he did some bounty hunting for a while.”

  “Really?” I pictured Nyx’s brother-in-law then shook my head. “Too pretty to be a bounty hunter.”

  That had Nyx snorting. “Well, whether he’s pretty or not, he was good at it.” He shrugged. “At least, as far as Giulia would have it.”

  “And she’s not exactly the queen of compliments,” I stated dryly, which had his lips twitching in a smirk.

  “Where I’m concerned, she is.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re the one putting her in a good mood, so I expect no less.”

  “That I can make her smile at all at the moment is a fucking miracle.”

  “Miracle dick,” I inserted with a laugh. “Your superpower. But then, with all that fucking hardware in it, it’s a miracle it doesn’t have an engine.”

  Nyx snickered as he pushed open the door, and I quieted as I saw Rachel sitting in front of the desk, reading something on her phone.

  It wasn’t the sexiest description in the world, but when I thought of Rachel, I always thought of her as being neat. Yeah, see? Not sexy. But she did it so well. All her gear was designer, all tailored, all streamlined and elegant. When I stood next to her, I looked like a filthy fucking biker, and she looked like she was one of the one percent. Ironically enough, I was the one who was rich as Croesus, and Rachel had started off as trailer trash, only making it out of there because her momma had fucked a brother, gotten pregnant, and Axel had been too doggone kind to tell her to get the hell out.

  That was how I knew Rachel.

  She’d been dragged here as a tiny nine-year-old. All skin and bone, in need of a good meal or eight. Not unsurprisingly, Rachel’s momma had run off a few years later, leaving Axel with a toddler and Rachel to raise.

  The toddler was now a senior in high school, and Rain was one of the kids I was hoping I could veer into the police academy. Rachel would like that. She’d be happier with her brother as a cop than as a brother and, God help me, I wanted Rachel to be happy.

  At the moment, Rachel was not happy. She was scowling at her screen, even if she was doing so neatly. In a navy pantsuit that was designed to augment every line of her body, in sleek court shoes that I’d give my left testicle to feel digging into my ass as I screwed her, and a hot pink blouse—the only thing truly feminine about her outfit—that was cut low in front, revealing a pair of tits I wanted to fuck, she was everything I’d ever wanted and the only woman I didn’t know if I’d ever get.

  She had dark red hair, like a fine burgundy wine, and it was cut in a pristine, longer-length bob that shivered along her shoulders when she moved her head. Her velvety brown eyes were narrowed on her cell, her coffee brown painted lips were pursed too. Everything about her screamed irritated, and hell if I didn’t want to fuck her into a good mood.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I headed around my desk and took a seat.

  Slowly enough to piss me off, she averted her attention from the screen and gave it to me. “Donavan Lancaster is driving me insane.”

  “Why?” Nyx demanded, taking a seat on the edge of my desk.

  I loved how she didn’t flinch in the face of his annoyance. Rachel had guts, and that turned me on all the more where she was concerned.

  “Why? Because he’s managing to break three sets of state laws and nobody gives a fuck about it.” Her nostrils flared, then she blew out a breath and stated grimly, “But I’ve taught him a lesson his ‘Park, Hyde, Lawrence, & Lawrence’ lawyers won’t forget in a hurry.”

  I cocked a brow—it was either that or smile at her, and I knew if I did that my left ball really would be on the fucking line. “How?”

  She curled her top lip. “You don’t need to know the intricacies of the game we’ve been playing. You pay me for results.” She jerked her chin up. “I got you them.”

  “What results?” Nyx growled. “Explain.”

  “The detectives Lancaster ‘brought’ in to investigate, every single piece of evidence they’ve hauled in, can no longer be used in court.”

  My eyes widened at that and I jerked forward in my seat. “You’re shitting me.”

  “No. I’m not. They were out of their jurisdiction, which we already knew. I thought maybe they were working on the fact the bar is close to the county line, but nope. He just brought them in like they were private fucking detectives. How?”

  “How?” I repeated, knowing that was what she wanted from me.

  “Because he twisted the mayor’s arm.” She smirked. “Guess what’s happening within the next three months? All because of little old me.”

  My lips twisted. “Please tell me he’s been tossed out and there’s going to be an election?”

  She grinned. “Yeah. Damn straight.” Her phone buzzed and she gave it a quick glance. “Election year wasn’t until next year, but did you still want the plans we had arranged put into place?”

  “What plans?” Nyx questioned, shooting me a look.

  “I want James Lacey for mayor.”

  Nyx scowled. “Lacey? He’s a fucking ass-licking schmuck.”

  Rachel snorted. “Ass-licking is the word. He’s worse than our Link.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She opened her phone up, did some tapping, then passed the cell over to Nyx. When he saw the images Rachel’s team had worked hard to attain, he let out a laugh. “He’s into transsexuals?”

  “Yup. Can’t see that going down well with the sticklers around here, can you?” Rachel retorted, a sniff in her voice because she didn’t approve of homophobia. Her two best friends were gay, and she’d been at their side in high school when most of the fascists in her year gave them hell.

  “Not at all,” Nyx crowed as he tossed the phone back to her. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

  “I have a couple of million I’m willing to donate to his electoral campaign,” I told him.

  “A couple of million?” Rachel scoffed. “For a penny-ante campaign?”

  I shrugged. “You never know what can turn up. We got those pictures, only God knows who else did.”

  “You’re giving them as anonymous donations, right?” Nyx demanded.

  “‘Course I am. What the fuck do you take me for? They’re going through dummy corporations. When he’s elected, then he’ll find out who his Daddy Warbucks is.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “You
should have been governor.”

  I knew she was being sarcastic, but also knew she meant it. She insisted I was wasting my life here, and maybe I was, but it was my life to waste, wasn’t it?

  I caught her eye and didn’t stop holding her gaze until her mouth firmed and she ducked down to look at her phone—likely story. She never could out stare me.

  “So, what does this mean for Giulia?” Nyx pressed, his attention twitching between me and her. He knew how I felt about her. Knew it and hadn’t understood it before. I had to wonder if now, after Giulia, he got it.

  The need to care for someone so much that you purposely took a backseat in shit, letting them do what they wanted so they’d be happy.

  I’d always been a selfish man, but with Rachel? I was like a fucking saint.

  “It’s good and it’s bad. They’ll be reopening the investigation, which means she’ll have to be reinterviewed. But the investigation will be under the sheriff’s jurisdiction, and he’s on our payroll.”

  “Link told me the Lancasters are trying to bring him to their side.”

  I studied Nyx. “When did he tell you that?”

  “He’s…” His brow puckered. “Well, I’m not entirely sure what the fuck he’s doing with Lancaster’s daughter. Link just said that Lily was supposed to bring him onto their team.”

  I rubbed my jaw. “Are they dating?”

  “Link? Dating?” Rachel snorted. “Have pigs started flying?”

  “Maybe. Over West Orange, at any rate,” Nyx said dryly. “Haven’t you noticed, Rex? He goes out at all hours to meet up with her. She’s under lock and key pretty much.”

  “He’s pulling his weight at the garage, right?”

  “Of course,” Nyx scoffed. “Hell, Link is as dedicated to the MC as any of the council.”

  Worse still, though a lot didn’t see it, Link had a good fucking heart. I thought back to our earlier conversation about Ghost and her sister, and how he’d gone out of his way to find the kid for her. I thought about how Keira, Storm’s Old Lady, confided in him about Storm, and how Link knew almost everyone’s business in the MC, and concern flittered through me.