“Yeah. Really.”
“Long time since you wanted a tattoo.” She used the eraser to scratch her chin. “Nyx started another trend, I see.”
“You know Nyx?” Lily asked, her surprise clear.
“He’s my brother. Blood brother,” Indy tacked on. “Not the MC’s kind.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Really? You’re not alike at all.”
“I have some Native American in me.” To me, she questioned, “Any preference? Location?”
“Over my shoulders.”
“Spanning your back?” She whistled. “Gonna be a big one.”
“That’s how I’m feeling.”
“You two are talking cryptically,” Lily complained. “What’s going on? Is it such a big deal that Link wants a tattoo?”
“That he’s asking for it now, at the same time you are, yeah.” Indy grinned at both of us. “You’ll see.”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s no secret.”
“Not gonna be one for long when someone sees your fucking back,” Indy replied with a snort. Then she rubbed her hands together. “Right, let me do my shit, come up with some concepts, and we’ll get things sorted.”
And that was exactly what she did.
Thirteen
Lily
My tattoo stung, but it felt good too. I’d actually liked the burn, even if it had felt really damn sore by the end, but I’d kind of managed to zen out, and ultimately, I’d been super happy with the little fox on my inner wrist. The ‘Property of Link’ part was done in a modern script, and though it was no bigger than a credit card, it felt bigger to me.
Like a brand.
Only, I didn’t mind. That tiny tattoo gave me more protection than billions in the bank ever had.
I’d admit to feeling a lot safer once I climbed on the back of Link’s bike, and when I thought about what I’d seen unfold when Link had climbed onto the bed Indy had patted for him to get onto earlier? I felt even more secure.
Surrounded by guards all my life, and followed around like I had professional stalkers, nothing made me feel like this except for my ink and Link’s, which declared that I belonged to him as much as he belonged to me.
I hadn’t expected that, and when I’d gaped at the rockabilly font, the LILY and a Japanese fox Indiana had styled for me, he’d just squeezed my hand and muttered, “No going back.”
And I got that.
I really did.
Even now, with the wind in my hair, the scent of gas in my nose, and all the stimuli that came from being on the back of his bike, I was still bowled over by what had just happened.
Throw in my dad’s call?
I was really feeling the pinch.
But I wanted this over with today. I wanted to know what he thought was so all-important before I destroyed my phone and never gave him the opportunity to talk to me again.
When we made it to my house, the guards let me in without question. Why wouldn’t they? Far as they knew, I was still Donavan’s daughter, even if I’d cut myself off from him.
When Paul appeared the second I climbed off Link’s bike, I raised a hand. “I don’t want to know, Paul.”
“Your father—”
“Isn’t her problem anymore,” Link growled. “She’s with me.”
Paul’s mouth worked. “I have my orders,” he eventually managed to sputter.
“Yeah? Well, I’ve got mine too,” I retorted, and I grabbed Link’s hand and hauled him with me. I didn’t like the way he was eying Paul, and while I didn’t doubt Link and my ex-guard could really get into it, I didn’t want any blood spilled.
Paul frowned at me, and I muttered, “With my father hopefully going to jail, we won’t be needing your company’s services.”
“Fuck that,” Paul muttered, his gaze on Link. “I’ve been your guard for years, Miss Lily. I want to make sure you’re safe.”
Despite myself, I was touched. I thought I’d always just been an open checkbook to my guards.
“I am safe,” I countered. “Very safe.”
He looked at me, then Link, and shook his head, dubious at best.
“I don’t have time for this, Paul. I need to do something.”
He shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and I tensed, half expecting him to pull out a weapon, but instead he retrieved a card.
I jolted in surprise when he shoved it at me, muttering, “If ever you need a hand.”
Link growled under his breath again. “She’s safe.”
“You’re a Sinner,” Paul spat. “There’s no safety there.”
I tightened my hand around Link’s. “I want to get this over with,” I stated. “Please don’t start something.”
Link grunted, but his eyes stayed on Paul as we moved forward. Before we reached the door, I turned back to look at my guard and mouthed, “Thank you.”
The second we were inside, I tugged Link to a halt and said, “I don’t need this,” and gave him the card.
It was a ceremonial gesture, one I figured he’d appreciate. He stared down at the card, then up at me, and frowned. I could see the desire in him, the urge riding him to grab the card and tear it in two. But he didn’t.
He blew out a breath. “It kills me, but…if anything happens to me, I’d like to know you’re safe.”
I just gaped at him, taken aback and overwhelmed and completely astonished by the notion that he was—
Fuck. He did love me.
He loved me.
I couldn’t question it, not when he was willing to put pride and ego aside for me. My brother, my father, no one I knew would have thought of protecting me in that way, but Link? He did.
I licked my lips. “I love you, Link.”
He raised our joined hands to his lips and said, “Love you too, sugar tits.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smirking at him, and a laugh escaped me, astonishing me because I didn’t want to be here. At all. Yet here he was, making me laugh, even though I felt the burden of what my father was asking of me like Atlas with the world on his shoulders.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he had stored within his lockbox, and I didn’t want to know, even if I really wanted to know too.
After all, what better way to make sure he was screwed if I had more evidence on him that would put him away from me for a lifetime?
“Where’s his room?” he demanded, breaking into my thoughts while proving we were on the same page.
“This way.”
As I guided him toward my father’s quarters, every now and then, Link would come to a halt to gawk at something.
I couldn’t blame him. Not all of the house had been decorated by the atrocious decorator my father had boned, and some of it was quite lovely, especially the ceiling wide chandelier in the lounge that was made out of thousands of tiny glass balls that looked like stars when they were illuminated and, during the day, were like a blanket of color that warmed the lounge through whenever the sunlight hit it. Aela O’Neill, the artist who’d created the masterpiece, was an exceptional genius.
“This place is fucking incredible,” he rasped when, after a while, we made it to my father’s room.
“Some of it needs demolishing. Just wait until you see the breakfast room,” I muttered, even as I moved over to the Picasso and pulled it aside to reveal a safe.
It wasn’t the first safe I’d seen of my father’s, but it was the first time I’d be opening it.
And with my mother’s birthday no less.
Bastard.
Absolute bastard.
God, I hated him.
I wanted to ask him how he dared use her birthday when he was the reason for her death, but I wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing. At. All.
My mouth was set in firm lines as I opened up the safe, and when I found nothing more than legalese and documents inside, I was almost disappointed.
“What is it?” Link inquired, even as I began to leaf through the paperwork.
“I’m not sure,” I mutt
ered, as I recognized the address of properties my father owned in and around New York.
“Your name’s here and here,” Link pointed out, as I flipped through the legalese, trying to make sense of what I was reading. Mostly, I was seeing a lot of my name too.
“Yeah, I see it,” I replied, bewildered, “but I don’t know—”
“What is it?”
“I-I think these are deeds,” I rasped.
“Deeds of property?” Link questioned, and I raised my eyes to him, then nodded.
“Yeah.”
“As in, deeds with your name on them, for properties you own?”
“Apparently.” I swallowed. “He must have put them in my name. As a safety net? Maybe?”
“How did he do that without you knowing it?”
“Fuck knows,” I replied, but I didn’t really care. Not if what I held in my hands was real, and I had no reason to doubt it wasn’t. Even if the property had been assigned to me without my wherewithal, in a court of law, they’d stand up. That was why he wanted me to go to his lawyers, and I said as much to Link. “He wants to dissolve this so he can get to his assets while he’s abroad.”
“Meaning, if you don’t, you own all this stuff and he’s penniless?”
My mouth curved in a smile. “I think so.” The MCs plan to ruin him through Lodestar wouldn’t be necessary…
Heart pounding and with little aplomb, I sank down on the ground and spread out the documents.
“This is the penthouse on Fifth Avenue. That’s for the Juniper Building just off Tribeca, and this one is for the Landis Scraper in the Upper East Side.” My eyes felt like they were bulging as I gaped at him. “Link…”
“You’re a rich woman, babe.”
I let out a happy laugh. “Without having to kill him.”
A snort escaped him. “Without even a drop of blood on your hands.” He raised his, curled it into a fist, and said, “Worthy of a fist bump.”
I knocked my knuckles into his, then went back to the papers.
Giddiness flooded me, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before I found something that burst my bubble and, unfortunately, I wasn’t wrong.
I shoved the piece of paper at Link when he was peering at a set of deeds for what looked like some estate I apparently owned in Toronto.
“What is it?”
“Marriage contract.” I shook my head. “This is going to be a problem,” I warned.
He eyed the document, then reached for my hand. As he threaded our fingers together, he twisted it around and revealed the tattoo that was covered in gauze. “There is no problem that can’t be solved.”
I bit my bottom lip. “You need to warn your brothers.”
“They’re already warned, and now that you’re mine? There’s no war we won’t enter headfirst on your behalf.”
My heart was in my throat again. “That’s why you want me to keep a hold of Paul’s number.” My eyes burned. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Link.”
“I don’t intend on going anywhere, babe, but on the off chance I do, I want to know you have someone on your side.”
Oddly enough, I figured I did have Paul on my side. Maybe Alix too. They had been my guards for years, and I had saved their jobs—even if I’d been the one to put them in jeopardy. A part of me wondered if I could trust them because they were my father’s men, but…everyone could have that taint. Only Donavan Lancaster knew how far his money had gone, and I had to put some faith somewhere, didn’t I?
But Link was right.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
I eyed him, then the marriage contract, and shook my head. “Like I was a piece of meat.”
“To him, you were.” He untangled our fingers, then reached for it and tore it in two. “Your father misjudged you though. He thought you were mindless and you’re not.”
“No. I’m not. He mustn’t have thought I’d read through these things first.”
“Seems there’s an advantage to him thinking you’re an idiot.”
His wry comment had me grinning. “You’re right.” I peered around the bedroom, with its gaudy colors and horrendous furnishings, and asked, “Link?”
“Yes, babe?”
“Do you have to live at the clubhouse?”
He arched a brow at me. “No. Most councilors with Old Ladies and kids don’t.”
“Nyx and Giulia do,” I pointed out.
“Nyx is a control freak. If he isn’t on hand twenty-four seven, he feels like he’s letting the club down.”
I pondered that for a second, then figured I’d go for broke. “Fancy moving in here?” I peered up at him from under my lashes. “I mean, the bunkhouse is nice and all—”
“But it isn’t a mega mansion.” He snickered. “I think I could deal with this kinda crib.” He rubbed his chin. “In fact, I think I could more than deal with it.”
I beamed at him. “Want to help me trash this room?”
“That’s a Picasso, babe. I ain’t trashing that. I ain’t that much of a sinner.”
“We can keep that safe. I want everything else destroyed.”
He winked at me. “I’m down for that.” He gathered all the papers together, then reached for my hand and hauled me to my feet. “You got what you wanted, sugar tits. The money and the freedom—”
“I got more than what I wanted, Link. I got you.” I reached up and pressed a kiss to his lips. There were so many things I wanted to do, so many ways I wanted to tarnish this room… But I wasn’t about to waste a kiss from Link. So I gave him all my focus, imbued the meeting of our mouths with all the love I felt for him, and let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was as much mine as I was his.
When his hands came to my ass, I didn’t tense, couldn’t. In this room, that kind of touch held bad memories. But this was Link.
I was his.
He was mine.
When he pulled away, pushed his forehead against mine, our breaths mingled.
“You sure about this, sugar tits?”
I frowned. “Sure about what?”
Uncertainty appeared in his eyes, a vulnerability that I hadn’t anticipated. It melted me. Turned me into a woman-shaped vat of mush that wanted nothing more than to be in his arms.
“Never question this.” I reached up on tiptoe, then gently pecked his mouth. “Mine.”
His smile made an appearance at my declaration, only this time, there was a cockiness to it that had me melting some more.
“Well?” he rumbled, prompting me to arch a brow at him. “What are you waiting for? Bring on the destruction.”
With a hoot, and needing no more encouragement, I darted off. Adrenaline buzzed through my bloodstream as I grabbed one of the fancy lamps that graced my father’s nightstand and hurled it into the wall of mirrors that lined the panels opposite the bed.
As the glass smashed, spraying in an arc of destruction, I let loose a holler. One that turned into a scream loaded with the freedom I felt as I reached for the cell my father had contacted me on and sent it flying into the window.
Liberty came in many guises, and my shackles?
They were no more.
Tiffany
“Babe, you gotta be shitting me?”
A snort sounded down the line, making me shake my head. “I’m not shitting you. Anyway, it wasn’t me doing the shitting. You found out on the news.”
I rolled my eyes. “Exactly. You should have told me first!” I was actually a bit pissed off at that. Pissed off and hurt. Lily was my best friend, and I was hearing this shit about her dad from the TV? What the fuck was that about?
“I didn’t know,” she admitted softly. “I didn’t realize something was being released so soon.” She sighed. “Not to the news anyway.”
“It’s not true, is it?” I whispered, my eyes on the screen. “I mean, it can’t be. Can it?”
I’d known Donavan Lancaster since I was a little girl. He wasn’t the warmest of fathers, in fact, he’d always given me the creeps
, but creeps and this? They were two different things, right?
Believing someone to be a little odd and then finding out they had women captive in the forest? Women they…what? Tortured?
My stomach churned.
This had to be a joke.
I mean, we’d had the Lancasters over for dinner. I’d eaten bouillabaisse with Luke and Donavan while I’d been texting under the table with Lily…
“Lily,” I whispered, “please. Tell me this is some kind of dream.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, love. It isn’t.”
There was something in her voice, something that put me on red alert. “You knew?”
“About the women?” She cleared her throat. “I’m the one who found the evidence to give to the police.”
A sharp gasp escaped me. “Oh my God, how the hell did you find that?”
“I snooped around on Luke’s computer. He was a sick bastard, Tiffany. I can’t even tell you what he did to them. Not without wanting to throw up.”
The trace notes of a quiver in her voice made my eyes well with tears. “Did Luke hurt you?”
“In ways no one can ever understand,” she rasped. “But I don’t want to think about that now. I don’t have to.”
I shook my head like I’d just climbed out of the pool and was trying to get water out of my ears. I’d always known things with Lily’s family were odd, but this went to another level that was just beyond the extreme.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be.” She blew out a breath. “I’m going to go, love. I have things to sort out.”
I could only imagine. “Keep in touch.”
“Are you sure you want to? Now that you know?”
Anger washed through me. “Lilian Maria Lancaster! How dare you? I stood by you through the Mohawk Disaster of 2015 and the Cheerleading Charade of 2016. You aren’t getting rid of me, even if your family is starting to look like it belongs on an episode of Mindhunter.”
“Mindhunter?” She snorted. “I don’t want to know.”
I rolled my eyes. “I swear, how is it you know none of the shows on Netflix?”
“We don’t all have a cinema in our pool house,” she teased, and I pulled a face at said cinema as I slouched back on my favorite armchair in the room.
Forgotten & Found: A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Boxset Page 54