A Dark Place (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 5)

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  “She has Durante running all over the planet to humor her whims!”

  I sit up, running my hand through my bedhead, and blink at the nightstand covered in last night’s party favors. Solo soirees are never that fun; it’s not pretty. I dampen my finger with my tongue, swiping it over the remaining dust and jolting my tastebuds with a wake-up call.

  Get da fuq up, ya bastard.

  I peek in the coffee cup and sniff. At three-thirty in the morning, I believed coffee and whiskey could calm all the shit I had ingested the previous twenty-four. Stupid fucking mistake. I need a goddamned ice bag on my brain.

  “What do you mean?” I ask Stella.

  “Durante left me to be with your two-bit tramp,” she sasses. Iris is worth much more than two-bits, Mom. “And you need to file for divorce soon!” What? It’s way too early for this kind of talk. “I hope you made that whore sign a prenup,” she scolds as I snicker, making my way to the bathroom to take a piss. “What are you doing, son?”

  “Waking up.”

  “It’s five in the afternoon,” she informs as I flush and look in the mirror. Damn, boy. Just damn. You look bad. My eyes aren’t black yet, but if I don’t hit the brakes, I’ll be rocking the coked-up zombie look for Halloween. “You should be having dinner soon.”

  If she tells me one more thing that I should be doing, I will lose it. I light a smoke and stare at the clock—5:13. Fuck. I’ll have dinner at 2 AM after a few drinks and lines. Not right now. I pop a couple of addies and swallow them down with yesterday’s cold coffee. She keeps going on about the horrors of my marriage, which no one understands better than me, with my occasional groans and okays. I’ve pretty much got her on ignore when I sit down to check my mail.

  There is a lot of junk and two gems.

  Georgia sent pictures of the festival at the Lotus Palace from Deacon. I smile at Iris, looking beautiful as always. I save the pic, zoom in on her face, and print the picture. It’s zipping out of the color printer when I open up the second morsel of goodness from Reo Sato. He protects the Lotus, but he’s my rat. And my little informant sent me a whole slew of pictures from the cams I recommended for the Lotus security team.

  “I gotta go, Mom.”

  “Lucas…wait…”

  Hovering my fingers above the keyboard, I pause and think over the last few weeks. Our relationship has been disintegrating since I said, I do. I love Mom because she is my mom, but as a human being, she is flawed.

  Slowly, she has invited me into her world, and I have learned more about her, but in that, I realized this isn’t a woman I like. I cannot condone her actions. She is worse than Amber x10 on her worst day, and even that may be too lightweight.

  She isn’t Ma with her—all things in the interest of Deacon Cruz—mentality. Stella Raniero will never say—all things in the interest of Sal Raniero. It just won’t happen. She is selfish, self-absorbed, conceited, and fundamentally about one thing, her growth up the economic and power scale.

  There is a curious thing about falsely overvaluing one’s self-worth as the tightrope gets thinner the higher one climbs. It wouldn’t take much for her to fall asunder with her dwindling loyalties. She doesn’t have a region, and her only religion is Stella. Her inflated notions were bad when she was just my sister, but now I am involved as her son. I’ve got enough clout to put a damper or a booster on her thinning line, and I don’t have to tell you which one she wants.

  Greed and gluttony are fraternal twins from the same mothership.

  “I never thought you would marry her,” Stella said on the phone in the spring as I was headed to Tokyo to get my girl. “I always thought you had class, and Iris is nothing but an overpriced call girl.”

  Maybe her words were valid.

  But I loved Iris.

  “Just make sure you take Lotus for all you can before you ditch the bitch.”

  And on those words, I started an all-out hunt to uncover all my mother’s dirty secrets. Someone should’ve warned me I would need a freightliner. There wasn’t a closet full of broken bones, but a mass grave full of nameless souls.

  Stella was the biggest reason that RE was faltering. Cesario was listening to a moron, who was cutting good ties that we had spent decades forming, and abetting an infestation of bad.

  Bad deals. Bad money. Bad drugs. Bad guns.

  I pulled some of that clout before “hitching up with the hooker” (another Stella term) and called Kary Vega. I had been blackmailing his ass for years, one spin to the next, but I paid that son of a bitch well for his cooperation. I wanted all his grime on my egg donor because that was really all she was. She fucked my Uncle Vinny, carried me in her womb, conceded to my adoption by her parents (my grandparents, Cesario and Lucilla Raniero), and then I was practically raised by my Nonna, Paloma Veramonte, my Dad’s mom.

  Except for Cat, I was tired of listening to my sister witches, even though they were now technically my Aunts and Mom.

  Do you see why I am fucked up?

  My whole life is a fucking lie. Those lines drawn up in white are like truth serum for my ragged soul.

  After my sister’s—Val— murder by Diablo Cruz, things got real messy. My other sister—Cat—was about the only real family I had left and stayed far removed from all of it in Texas.

  Overnight, my other sisters—Stella and Gaby—were best fucking friends, and last I heard, they were partnering up to send Luca Raniero’s crime syndicate down the river by expanding into New Jersey.

  I wanted to slap them both because the only thing that ever happened when families tried to push into Jersey was they went bankrupt within three years. Mutually beneficial agreements never happened with the Zacarro cartel—and I mean, cartel. They were exclusively into drugs supplied by none other than Montesino.

  It was an odd choice for an Italian family not to run multiple rackets, but they did, and did it well. They were untouchable. Even when Vinny worked to expand on the Eastern Seaboard, he generally avoided Jersey at all costs because he knew we would lose. The risk wasn’t worth the reward in tying the knot with SoAm in most cases. Very few could get in and stay alive long enough to thrive.

  Delarte Cristos was an exception.

  But Cristos boasts personality and charisma for days. His ability to connect on a deep level is magical and remarkable, but Muerte isn’t beyond swindling if Cristos can survive his rings of torture.

  Cristos is playing him, but I don’t know why he has such a boner for Immortal. I question my actions—why do I have such a boner for Kill Rat?

  Maybe I shouldn’t.

  Why would I give a two-bit club the golden chalice for equal terms?

  That would be dumb.

  I gotta stop fucking Rowan; she messes with my head.

  Why would the Lotus dip down and marry the Raniero son?

  I close my eyes and hear Dom’s voice, “Because you’re worth it, Boston.” I glance around the apartment at all of her things.

  “What do you want, Stella?”

  “Can you loan me some money?”

  I click the button, ending the call, and setting my phone on the counter.

  She smiles, clicking off the stove as I demand, “You have to leave.”

  “… What?” Rowan tosses a concerned gaze as she goes to plate the eggs. “You need to eat.”

  “No,” I say, taking the frying pan from her hands. “You need to get your things, your drugs, your booze, and get the fuck outta my house.”

  “Sal,” she mutters. “Did you have another nightmare?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, grabbing her shit from the living room and piling it in a chair. “And I just woke up.” I march into the bedroom amidst knocked over vials, half-emptied bottles of booze, and condom wrappers. I am many things, but contradictory to her believing I am a fucking idiot, I am not. I snatch her bag off the floor and start shoving her garbage into it as she stands shocked in the doorway. “You need to go.”

  “You need to consider what you are doing…”

 
“Do I?” I quiz, lifting a brow. “It didn’t seem all that important to consider what I was doing when I met you for lunch in Rome, and someone ended up on a three-day binger in a hotel room. Or for that matter, when you showed up at my door almost a week ago. None of that mattered.”

  “Salvatore!”

  “Clothes, coke, Rowan…gone,” I hiss, pushing her bag into her hands. “Fucking now!”

  “If you do this…”

  “If I do this, what? Are you afraid I’ll refuse to invest in your Daddy’s Kill Rat?” I harshly question, fueling off of the noticeable sting in her eyes. “I am Sal Raniero. You are Kill Rat. I ain’t dippin’ down to save your soul.”

  “Please,” she says, clutching onto my arm. “Deacon…”

  I shake her off and wrap my fingers around her throat. “Don’t you fucking play that card, cunt.”

  She sniffles and blinks as I release her. “Get the fuck out. Stay the fuck away from Iris and Deacon, or I will be taking a massive fucking shit all over your Daddy’s legacy. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “Yes.”

  Not trusting a word from her snow-kissed lips, I follow her from room to room as she gathers her things. She is pulling her jeans on when I ask, “Who asked you to infiltrate the Unholy? Because it damn sure wasn’t Lotus.”

  “No one!”

  “Don’t lie to me, bitch. This wasn’t a coincidence. Someone sent you.”

  She tosses her bag on her shoulder and heads for the door. “You won’t believe anything I say, so what is the point, Sal?”

  “There isn’t one,” I glance up to her with the understanding that we are no longer on the same team. Even if Rowan weren’t playing for the opposition, she proves toxic for my well being. She is the crutch—of sex, drugs, and thinking about a Pixie—that I do not need. “Goodbye, Maeve.”

  We do not mix; we never will.

  I possess fire; she carries gasoline.

  We get hotter, drawn to the power one another possesses, but we endanger ourselves and others with our explosives. We’re a bomb, bound to go off, and better to kill the switch now before mass casualties occur.

  The thought sends my mind to considering Iris or Deacon as possible culprits behind her presence. Rowan is an oil spill in Iris’ ocean. Her fumes diffuse in Deacon’s gales. Neither one of them would dare cross me—not like this.

  This is a fatal betrayal, steeped for weeks in strategy, and bitter on the tongue. My skin ignites as blood runs hot through my veins.

  I have never been so pissed.

  If I were a different man—Cesario—she would be laying on the floor in a puddle of her blood. But I am not. I am giving her one chance to escape my clutches of hell and sprint ahead into the forest. Her deceit may be forgotten long before I desire her elimination. I pray she gets lost, so I don’t need to go hunting.

  Her half-year of lies to the Unholy only serves as the foreplay to making war for years to come.

  I fear the shit is about to get so deep and thick that all I see is the shuttering of my own eyes to pitch black.

  Drop the curtain and end the film for an unforgettable closure and a weary and ragged farewell.

  40

  Grey Water

  His Ride

  With every stride through the forest, I accept how profound his influence has been on my life. I am a club kid, raised on family dinners, and reared in a fighting ring. Running was something we did to avoid the police, getting shot, or avoiding an angry husband. Trodding across the lands was never meant to be enjoyable or sought out, but I find myself drawn to his ways—clearing my head and seeking solace in the transcendent.

  Sal doesn’t exist as I want, and that’s on me. I have avoided the facts for years. He’s an architect and a master of manipulation. I’ve been his right-hand man, supporting his behavior for years, and never once questioned the absolutes—the integrity of his misplaced actions. Accurately placed for him, but horribly misplaced for his target. I would never want to run into him in a dank, back alley, or a network connection.

  He will fuck a brother up.

  And he will forever remain a fucking daego.

  I never liked them much. They gathered, sticking like magnets in ways I could not understand. Bikers nod with respect as we pass. Different clubs. Different cuts. We have allies and enemies in our ruleset. Italians are sketchy. They’ll have Oysters Rockefeller with some crony one night, only to be putting a bullet in his head the next night. He says I’m Swamp, but who is really in the quagmire?

  It ain’t me, babe.

  I sprint back to the landscaped grounds of the vast Nakamura estate. I could spend the rest of my life here, drop my allegiance to Sal, and kneel before the one true Queen.

  At this stage of my life, stability matters most. I’m tired of zipping around the world at lightning speed and waiting for the next car crash. I must attend. I am his fixer—his repairman—not a rubbernecker looking to score a hit off of his flames, but a maintenance specialist of his mistakes. I may as well be blue collar to his white.

  I have tape, glue, and zip-ties along with my crowbar in my toolbox, a few loose screws, and thread for stitching shit back together.

  I am a seamstress—a spider with filament—and I craft the pieces for his assemblage.

  I am integral to Sal Raniero’s structure.

  I carry a loaded gun, knives, and weed everywhere I go. I am a reaper in the shadows, a crow on a stormy night.

  Yet I am…running.

  If I apply the template of things a former Reckless Rebellion MC President is supposed to run from, one is applicable.

  I am running from an angry husband, my own.

  Legal documents are for shits and gigs; I don’t need or want a fucking piece of paper to be committed to this man. But I get it—the yearning of a romance and the binding arbitration that occurs with that pulp and ink—and I fully support it. Whatever makes people happy.

  We’re a decade into our love affair, and I have fully embraced the challenges of loving a man like Sal. I also adore his girl. And I believed I would be okay standing off to the side, but what am I missing? I am in subservience to two—him and her—but there can only be one when they divide.

  Whose side am I on?

  I don’t fucking know.

  I am passionate about both of them, but I must make a vocal decision because of her deception. I don’t have the privilege of being the cheating wife or the scorned husband. I am stuck in the fucking middle, like a child torn between two parents…the analogy is a little off, but the feeling is quite similar.

  I hate it.

  I hate what she did and his reaction to it.

  But there is a third option, in tiny print, at the bottom of the page—quit to end your adventure and abandon the post—seek shelter elsewhere before the apocalypse of the Raniero-Nakamura war leaves me in the wreckage. I’ll be standing in a motorcycle graveyard; broken-down engines, shredded rubber, and rusted chrome with no place else to go.

  These are the facts I am looking at.

  This is the barrel pointing at my head.

  What the fuck do I do?

  So I run. I run to clear my head. I run to think about things. I run because right now, it is all I can do in the state of our mission. Iris is guiding Lotus to new heights with Masa by her side. Sal is serving Sanctum. I am ousted, dazed over the decade when we fell in love.

  Where did the fucking time go?

  I inherited the treasury of Sanctum. I am a Saint, a biker by birthright, and intrigued by men, including the one I pass by in the shed. I haven’t talked to Sato since the night of the festival where one ‘Hello’ and a few drinks turned into my asking, “You want to suck my dick?”

  He eagerly nodded in affirmation without another word as we made ourselves scarce at the party. With all eyes on Iris, an escape was elementary. I didn’t bother with any romantic notions, kissing or whispering sweet nothings. My fly dropped, and so did Sato—to his knees.

  He sheathed me quick
ly, and his hand gripped underneath my sack, guiding my dick into an orifice that may as well have been a black hole. I was lost and needed relief, an infusion of oxygen in a suffocating climate.

  Strange how things fall into our lives when we need them the most.

  I came like a rocket, shooting every last drop with a violent buck and a silent moan. We said nothing. I pocketed the used condom, zipped my fly, and returned to the party with a smile.

  What bothered me the most wasn’t the fact that I cheated, but how affable and subservient Sato was. He didn’t want to play the ringmaster as we reversed the roles. And I had spent years being fine with that quality in Sal. He was the Master who liked being beneath me. He controlled every move I made. I was the bottom, topping a Dominant on his command, and it was good…until Sato.

  Until I didn’t have to play the bitch with the boner instructed what to do with it. I got to shake my dick, swing it like a helicopter, and swagger about like my nuts were the size of boulders.

  And that may be our biggest downfall.

  I ramble into the shed, and Sato pitches me a towel. I shut the enormous, swinging doors, ceasing the sunlight. He is standing by the bench without a shirt. His sparse ink displays colorful patches and tribal pieces, a mishmash of unique, contained chaos on his pristine canvas.

  He walks to the mini-fridge as I stalk closer. He is unaware of my presence directly behind him when he straightens and spins right into me. Opening the bottle, he hands the dewy container to me and asks, “Good run?”

  “Awesome,” I dryly reply, taking a sip of the water as I glance up to him. He’s taller than me by a few inches. “What are we doing?”

  “I don’t know, but if you want to go for a ride later,” he suggests, nodding at the new sport bikes near the other door of the shed. “Those two babes were just delivered today.”

  I cock a brow, confused by the presence of the two matching Kawasaki Versys-X. “… Who?”

  “I assume, Iris.”

  I sneer, “I’ll be back.”