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

by Serena Akeroyd

  With that in mind, I gave a mock salute to the Prospect manning the gate and drove around to my digs.

  Because I was, technically, a visitor, until I earned my place here, I wasn’t staying in the clubhouse proper. I preferred that though. These people weren’t my people. They were my brothers, and I’d die for them and kill for them if need be, but they weren’t family.

  I knew that wouldn’t make much sense to most folk, but only those of us in the life could understand the mentality we had. We were united against the Man, and the Man might change from time to time, but we remained as one.

  Rubbing my chin the second I was off my bike, I grabbed my shit and ducked into the bunkhouse.

  It wasn’t unlike the Sinners’ place, where there were small bunkhouses that a visiting chapter could crash in, or that unexpected guests like Giulia and her brothers who were newly patched in Prospects could stay at until they proved themselves or found some digs of their own.

  Here, it wasn’t as nice. Sure, those bunkhouses were old-fashioned and filled with shit from another era, but they were better than the row of beds that made me feel like I was staying in a POW camp, especially since shower curtains were the only partitions we had as some semblance of privacy.

  I’d been here before on a long run, and it had sucked back then, but now that I was here on a semi-permanent basis—I refused to look for extra accommodation because that would be admitting defeat—it was even worse.

  The only consolation was I slept at one end, and the only brother, a guy called Brakes, who shared with me took the opposite end.

  When I saw Brakes was absent, I strode toward my bunk and pulled out my phone.

  The scent of mildew was in the air, and it was tinged with perfume that told me Brakes had either been boning someone in here earlier, or a club snatch had been waiting on my bunk for me to return and had grown bored with my absence before fucking off.

  They didn’t get that I wasn’t interested, and the truth was, it still blew my fucking mind that I wasn’t.

  Rubbing a hand over my jaw, scratching at the stubble, I pulled out my cell and opened the message app.

  Tiff and I had been in communication since Rex had exiled me down here for my own safety, and while that made me feel like a pussy again, I’d prefer to be on Al Qaeda’s radar than Nyx’s.

  Yeah.

  Fucking Nyx.

  Good thing I loved him like a brother and understood his fury with me, or I’d have needed to shoot his brains out before he got to mine.

  With the app open, I saw Tiff had sent a few more messages since I’d taken off from Faudreaux’s place, but so had Rex, and because I knew my fate rested in whatever he had to say, I opened that one first.

  Prez: We’ll be riding in the next couple of hours.

  I fist pumped the air, knowing quite well that if Nyx was satisfied with my pedo haul, I’d be home sooner than anticipated.

  And that was a good thing, because Tiff’s final message?

  Didn’t bode well.

  Tiff: We need to talk.

  Fuck.

  Three

  Tiffany

  I stared at my cellphone, which was ringing in one hand, then switched my focus to the stick I’d peed on a few hours ago which, after dousing it in Purelle, had been sitting on my nightstand ever since.

  I still couldn’t believe what it was telling me.

  I really was pregnant.

  There’d been two sets of two different kinds of tests in the bag Lily had brought me, and because she was a thorough PITA, that made sense. I’d used them all, and not a single one of them had been negative.

  They were all different brands, too, some seeking early pregnancy—which was just stupid considering Sin had been gone eight weeks—another just a regular test, one set digital, the other not.

  Whatever the stick, it was happening.

  This was happening.

  I was going to become a mother.

  Unless I didn’t.

  Unless I—

  Could I do that?

  Rip out Sin’s baby from my womb?

  I was an advocate of pro-choice. A woman had the right to do whatever the fuck she wanted with her body, but how could I have an abortion because the timing wasn’t right?

  It was our fault. We’d fucked up by having sex bareback. Twice. Each time, I’d done the stupid thing and grabbed the morning after pill, but apparently, it hadn’t worked.

  My cell rang again, and I stared at the picture of Sin and me in bed that flashed on the screen as he called me for the third time.

  I’d texted him earlier, needing to speak, but now? I wasn’t even sure what to say.

  Ever since he’d gone to Ohio, I’d been keeping shit from him.

  So much shit.

  I didn’t even know why.

  We’d been dating for longer than Lily and Link had, but I’d kept it a secret.

  Why had I done that?

  I felt like a real bitch, because a part of me knew I’d kept him as my dirty little secret. Almost like I was too good for him or something, but I wasn’t.

  Sin was a good man.

  Sure, he was rough and ragged around the edges, but he was good.

  Sure, he rode for an MC and he killed people and dealt drugs—

  Okay, so that made him sound bad, and I guessed he was.

  But then, what was Donavan Lancaster? What had Luke Lancaster been?

  I shivered at the last memory I had of that bastard—him laughing as he squeezed my tit to the point where it was bruised days later after I crashed my car.

  I didn’t remember how I’d crashed it, didn’t remember even scratching it. Just remembered waking up in Sin’s bed feeling like I’d been hit over the head with a sledgehammer, with memories of Luke’s hideous laughter echoing in my ear.

  Because he’d come when Luke had texted him, pretending to be me, he’d lost everything.

  His place at the MC, his home—okay, while that was still his property, he was stuck in Ohio, so it wasn’t like he could goddamn use it, was it? But he’d lost his friends and family, and even worse, he’d lost their respect.

  If there was any consolation to this mess, it was that he was keeping me a secret too.

  I’d learned that when he’d had no alternative than to ride to Ohio for the long term.

  I’d almost expected that would be the last I’d hear from him, even though he’d told me how solid we were, but when he’d arrived, he’d called me, and every day since, he’d called me.

  He texted me every morning, too, and I texted him every night before I climbed into bed.

  Fuck, I was so confused.

  Why had we been so secretive if we were starting to feel more for each other?

  None of this was turning out like it was supposed to.

  I was supposed to get married to someone from the country club, we’d have a big party full of people who we hated and who hated us, and I’d be drinking too much vodka by the time I hit thirty, my kid would have his christening pictures in the fucking papers, and at that point, my husband would have boned every secretary he’d ever had.

  Now?

  Everything was on its head.

  The phone went silent only to ring again, and when I stared at the picture of us, I saw the happiness in my face. In his too.

  It felt like a long time since I’d been like that.

  Since I’d felt that way.

  Sure, a lot of crap had gone down, but was it because he’d been ripped away from me?

  My feelings for him were complicated. He’d started off as a challenge, then as something I’d known my family wouldn’t approve of, and then…?

  Then what?

  More.

  That was the only answer I had.

  And now, somehow, he was my baby daddy. Jesus, I was turning into someone from Teen Mom. Yeah, I knew that made me sound like a snob.

  I blew out a breath, then hit connect on the phone.

  “At fucking last, Tiff. Jesus.”<
br />
  His gruff voice made me sit up higher in bed. Something about it always set my nerve endings alight. In an odd way, he reminded me of home, and it prompted me to ask, “Were you raised in New York?”

  It was definitely odd that I didn’t know that already, when I’d been ‘seeing’ the guy for over four months, but hell, there was other stuff to talk about than his accent.

  “Yeah.”

  My brow rose at his curt answer because, in his own way, he was very patient with me. “Whereabouts?”

  “Hell’s Kitchen.”

  A sigh whispered from me, one that was filled with a vague sense of homesickness. “I used to live near there.”

  “I can guarantee you didn’t live anywhere near where I was raised.”

  His dry tone had me questioning, “That bad?”

  “Yeah. No princess like you would have been allowed near that shithole.”

  If anyone else called me that, I’d have told them to fuck off. But Sin? In his own way, yet again, he treated me like a princess. Everywhere except between the sheets.

  It had been a long time since we’d fucked though, and I was getting a little tired of him treating me that way. I liked all his edges. Liked it when they bumped up against me.

  When he was angry? Jesus. The memory had me flopping back against the sheets with my eyes close to rolling back in my head. Christ, he was hot when he was angry. And angry fucks with him left me walking bowlegged the next day, but damn, it was worth it.

  I bit my lip, wishing he was here, wishing he could fuck me and help me forget about stuff, but it was time to confess.

  And not just about being pregnant.

  “Sin?”

  “Yeah, angel?”

  I was no angel, but he seemed to think I was. “I haven’t told you something.”

  His gruffness raked up against me, making me feel even guiltier. “I know you haven’t. What’s put that sadness in your voice, darlin’?”

  “D-Daddy died.” Tears bubbled up in my eyes, like they were forged from a hot spring or something. They hurt, and the sobs that longed to claw out of my throat were painful enough that my chest ached from the pressure.

  “He died? What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  His bark had me rolling onto my side. “He killed himself.”

  A sharp breath escaped him. “Oh, angel, I’m so sorry. Why did he do that?” He inhaled deeply. “When?”

  The when was harder to answer because I’d stayed silent when I should have opened up to him. “Because we’re broke,” I whispered.

  “You’re broke?” he almost shrieked that, his surprise coming down the line loud and clear.

  “Yeah.” Rolling onto my back again, I raised my arm and covered my eyes with it. “He couldn’t deal with it, so he took the easy way out.” If I sounded bitter, then that was because I was.

  Mom was many things, a pain a lot of the time, selfish at others, but hell, she hadn’t left me. She was more prideful than Daddy, and riding out the shame would devastate her, but it drove me insane to think that I didn’t know my father at all. Because if he couldn’t deal with the aftermath of his fall from grace, then he wasn’t the man I thought I knew.

  “I’m sorry, love.”

  Four letters, and they were like a warm embrace around my heart.

  I wanted him to love me, I realized, and it figured the timing was shitty for me to have that epiphany. It’d look like I only wanted that because I was carrying his baby, but the truth was, I figured I’d been wanting that from the start.

  That first night, when he’d finger fucked another woman in my presence, when he’d thought he could treat me like her? I’d seen him for the prize he was—no, I wasn’t insane in thinking he was a prize—and I’d wanted to conquer him.

  You didn’t vanquish a man like that by being a slut.

  You showed him you were different.

  And I was.

  He was too.

  Sure, he wore a cut that proclaimed him an outlaw. He rode a bike for a living and, I had to figure, they did illegal shit to pay the bills, because I’d seen him come home with blood on his hands more than once when I was staying at his place, but for all that, he was special.

  He didn’t care if I didn’t wear makeup every day, and if I wasn’t dressed up in designer gear, he didn’t even notice. If my nails weren’t manicured, he wouldn’t make a comment about me not taking care of myself. He didn’t expect me to be anything other than Tiffany, and it was weird, but I actually knew who ‘Tiffany’ was around him.

  It said a lot that the highlights of my future in my mind were becoming an alcoholic as I tied myself to a man who’d have cheated on me with every secretary in his employment.

  With him?

  I saw a different future, a future that, with Dad’s death, suddenly seemed plausible.

  He’d have made me marry up. Though he let me get my own way, and though he’d never force me down the aisle, I knew that if I wanted his approval, and I did because I was a Daddy’s girl and that was how Daddy’s girls worked, I’d have to marry someone he thought was worthy of me.

  Sure, it hurt that the man who was ‘worthy’ of me would ultimately treat me like shit, but still, that was how our world worked.

  But Sin’s world didn’t.

  And that was so incredibly freeing. I was seeing it in the flesh with Lily and Link. Being around them helped me so much without them even knowing it, because I saw what it was like to date a biker out in the open.

  Lily could swear, she could wear sweats. She didn’t have to always be pristine, and I’d even seen her sitting with her back against her chair in Link’s presence, which meant she could actually chill the fuck out with him near. I mean, I wasn’t that bad, because I hadn’t been ‘finished,’ but that Lily felt that relaxed around him? It was clear she felt no worries that he wanted her, warts and all.

  She said what she wanted without fear of repercussions. Passive aggressive bullshit wasn’t a thing, because you said what you meant and that was it. No take backs or other crap.

  I’d seen that, felt that, when I was with Sin.

  And in all honesty, I wanted more.

  I wanted him.

  For real.

  The thought was a revelation, but I knew I’d treated him shittily along the way. And for all that, he considered me his princess or his angel, he’d kept me under wraps too. I didn’t think he’d been cheating on me, not even when he’d been forced to go to Ohio, but maybe I was wrong.

  Just like I was wrong about my daddy.

  “You’ve gone quiet on me, angel.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” I whispered softly, moving my arm from my eyes so I could stare up at the ceiling that had a fancy chandelier in the middle. It was beautiful, lots of spun glass that reminded me of candy in pretty wrappers twirling around a domed light.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I won’t let you break things off with me.”

  That gruff tone of his made a reappearance at that, and while my brows lowered, wonder filled me.

  He didn’t want to break up.

  Relief made me whisper, “I wasn’t even thinking of that.”

  “You weren’t? A woman texts you and tells you, ‘we need to talk,’ you have to figure she’s about to break things off.”

  I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see it. “No. That wasn’t my intention. I just have a lot to tell you is all.”

  “Like your daddy dying and you suddenly being poor?”

  “Yeah.” My bottom lip trembled at him spelling things out for me. Not because it was cruel, but because it was like reality was hitting me square in the face.

  “This why you’ve been quiet on the phone the past couple of weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  “You going to keep stuff from me in the future?” A hint of a warning appeared in his tone, cascading through the words like a promise. A promise I didn’t mind giving him
.

  I knew he was asking, without saying it, for whatever else I’d been hiding.

  I got the feeling if I told him now, there’d be no repercussions, but if I held out on him again, there would be.

  While I didn’t know what they might be, the prospect didn’t annoy me. It was only fair. I’d been stupid by keeping this from him, but in my defense, I’d been in denial.

  If he’d been here, things would have been different.

  As it was, he was in another state, far away, and I was having to deal with things all alone.

  It didn’t make up for me being secretive, but it was the only answer I had as to why I’d acted the way I had. Sure, it was shitty of me, and there was no excuse, but God, we all made mistakes that bit us in the ass later on, didn’t we?

  My throat clutched as I thought about telling him the other stuff.

  “I can hear your breathing, Tiff,” he said softly. “It sped up. What’s got you so scared, princess?”

  “Everything,” I whispered.

  A rumble escaped him. “I can feel that. I’m sorry he did that, Tiff.”

  “Me too.” I gulped. “I’ll tell you the details, I promise, just not tonight.”

  “No, I know you will.” That was him telling me I wouldn’t be able to keep stuff from him, and again, it was merited. “But what else has you nervous?”

  “Mom can’t deal with being poor, and Lily said she’ll support us—I shouldn’t let her, but what am I supposed to do? I can’t keep Mom like she’s used to being kept, and Lily said it herself. It’s terrible, but it’s true—if Mom can’t buy the random crap she wants, she’ll do what Dad did.”

  “She’s not a child, Tiff.”

  “She is!” I argued mournfully. “Daddy kept her that way. He kept her like a butterfly, always hopping around for the next flower. He wanted her like that. I don’t know why he did, maybe it made him feel needed, but she’s not going to be able to change.”

  He hummed. “She has to know what’s going on.”

  “She does. She’s having to go bankrupt too.”

  “Jesus.”

  I gulped. “Lily said that if I got a job in a diner, it would be taking money from someone who truly needed it, and I don’t because I have her. She’s right. It would, and I really don’t want to work in a diner. I know it’s bad for me to admit that, but I really don’t—”