Cruz : A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 5)

by Serena Akeroyd

  It was time I leveled with Maverick. It was just a shame that I was doing so at a moment where he'd never trusted me or had as little faith in me as he did now.

  I'd always had a knack for shit timing.

  It was almost comforting to see that hadn't changed even if the rest of my life had.

  Nineteen

  Storm

  Riding from Ohio to New Jersey in one sitting, only stopping for gas and leaks, was enough to give a man hemorrhoids, but that was the level of dedication to my brothers I had.

  When Nyx had called with the news, I'd told him I'd be there, and I’d climbed onto my bike the second I’d spoken with Keira and Cyan and had assured myself they were okay.

  Well, as okay as they could be after what they’d been through.

  While I was tucked away in another fucking state.

  I broke speed limits, laws, and pulled moves that had me crossing over farmland to cut corners on the route, because my brothers needed me. My family needed me. But as I traveled, I plotted, not just what I needed to do for the club, but for my woman and baby girl too.

  The exile in Coshocton wasn't going too terribly. It was easier because I was technically single, and didn't have to deal with the female politics, but most of the guys hadn't liked the last Prez's Old Lady so they dealt well with me. But they weren't my people.

  We were all Sinners, all brothers, but what I had with the West Orange chapter went deeper than labels.

  We were blood.

  Maybe not genetically speaking, but in the blood we'd shed for each other, with each other, over the years, tying us together in more ways than a regular family could ever imagine. But even that was nothing to the level of disconnect I felt knowing that the only women I fucking loved could have died tonight.

  The Sinners were why I got onto the bike even though I was a danger to drive. My girls were why I made the eight-hour trip in just over five.

  Rolling into town, I knew my people were at the hospital, but I needed to see what was going on at the compound.

  Though, technically, Nyx was VP and should be leading if Rex wasn't able to, Nyx had no leadership skills in him yet. He could lead us into war but when it came down to building a new clubhouse, that was more my forte.

  The guys had kept me updated and I'd read their texts while I sipped at a boiling hot coffee and had learned Bear was alive, but he'd lost an arm and a leg.

  Jesus.

  He'd never be able to ride again.

  That loss would hit him more than the physical one, I knew.

  We were born to fucking fly, and Bear had just had his wings cut off.

  Maybe with prosthetics they could reap a miracle, but as it stood, with the burn damage, I knew it would be a hard won thing to get him out of bed again, never mind on the back of a bike.

  That was how I knew I had to come. Rex needed me, because he'd be unable to function while his dad was in the early days of recovery.

  And when I saw the state of the clubhouse, I reasoned we were lucky to have lost only five of the family because the damage was extensive.

  Half of the place I'd called home was a burned-out shell. Where the bar was, all the windows had blasted inward, not just on the ground floor, but on the top floor as well as the smaller windows on the roof that let light into the attic which Maverick called home.

  As I stared at the building, squinting some at the pitch black sky, the smoke that drifted lazily off the wreckage of a place that had been my respite for more years than I could count, I tried to tell myself I wasn't crying.

  Only pussies cried.

  But fuck.

  The damage... we truly were lucky to have so few casualties.

  Though chapters often rallied around in times like these, I’d come by myself because my MC was in a state thanks to the early days of my leadership. Not because I’d fucked up, but because I’d had to demote the entirety of the council and put new guys in place.

  Guys the old council were constantly disrespecting.

  It was a mess, bar none.

  Once law enforcement had fucked off, I’d be bringing in brothers from chapters across the States to help clean this shit up. We needed all hands on deck, guys who were trained in construction who’d help bring this place back to life fast.

  When a man walked up to me, his scent that of expensive aftershave, I didn't even have to turn my head.

  Sure, brothers could wear Hugo Boss or Hermes, but without the scent of the road on their skin? No way.

  Without looking, I knew who I was talking to.

  A pig.

  "You the leader of this... group?"

  I arched a brow. "Group? Why, sir, we're just a riding club."

  I couldn't have sounded more 'Gone with the Wind' if I'd tried.

  "A riding club, my ass. Half the East Coast authorities know exactly what you are. I'm not sure how you always scrape under the radar, but it looks like someone's got to you where LEAs can't."

  "Is that approval I hear?" I countered, only now turning my head to take in the bastard who was smirking at my family's misfortune.

  "Maybe. Sometimes, to take down a rabid pit-bull, you have to set a rabid pit-bull on it."

  My mouth twisted into a snarl, but I kept my shit together because the last thing the MC needed was my ass locked up in jail.

  I could break the bastard's nose, and I'd take great satisfaction in doing so, or I could see this through, get the pigs off our property, and start rebuilding the place that housed way too many of my brothers.

  More importantly, I knew we had a corpse melting into goo at the Fridge. I really didn’t need the Feds to find either the body or our torture chamber.

  Running a hand over my head, I was about to tell the fucker where to go, when I heard a, "Goddamnit, sir, you can't go in there."

  My brow puckered as I twisted around, trying to see what was going down, who was trying to go into the clubhouse. Not seeing anything, I moved around, rushing to the side entrance, and when I saw Maverick wheeling down the corridor to Rex's office, which I had to hope one of my brothers had the wherewithal to trash before the emergency services got here, I called out, "Mav, you fucking idiot. Get your ass out of there."

  He waved a hand at me, carried on rolling down the corridor toward only fuck knew where.

  The basement was where he could catch the elevator to the top floor, his quarters, but surely he wasn't thinking about trying to use that now. Christ, hadn't they turned off the electricity? Something was firing the spotlights that made the place look like it was cast in daylight, but it was dark in the corridor Mav was traversing. As he rolled past Rex's door, I was pretty sure the basement was his destination, then he made a sharp turn and headed inside the office.

  Angry with him for being such a fucking dipshit, I made after him. One of the arson investigators grabbed my arm, and I snarled, "I'm just going to get him.” The guy tried to hold me back, and I blamed it on the fact that before the five-hour drive to West Orange, I'd been on a sixteen-hour run for my chapter. Fatigue, it had to be, that was why when he shoved me back, instead of being able to get into his face, smack the fuck outta him, I toppled onto my ass.

  As I collided with the ground, sinking onto a patch that was lawn, another patch that was dirt, and another that was stone, my already aching butt hurt twice as hard.

  But that was nothing to the quake it felt like my fall triggered.

  A shout went down from the front, one that slipped into my ears and out again as I tried and failed to process what the team had said, but before my eyes, what was left of the clubhouse seemed to fall down like a house of cards. Snapping into a million tiny pieces as the upper floors gave way once the lower supporting walls cascaded like so much dust to the ground.

  As my dazed mind registered that, I screamed, “Maverick!" Desperate, I hollered his name again, louder until my voice sounded like I’d been swallowing chalk for fun.

  The fucker couldn't have survived two wars, only God knew how many battl
es, to die in the aftermath of a fire.

  I leaped to my feet, and in the aftermath of the house settling down, the clouds of dust ceasing to boom around like noxious gas, I dove amid the rubble.

  Bits of brick, snapped wood, electrical wires that sparked, pipes that spurted water, all of it bowed down to the weight of my drive.

  I didn't stop until I was dashing over a cluster of particle board that snapped under my feet.

  Finding stillness so that I didn't cause more wreckage, I heard the faintest of moans.

  "He's over here! He's alive!" I screamed, unable to think of my brother being buried among this goddamn crap, not after the last bomb he'd been involved in had done pretty much the same thing.

  Almost buried him alive.

  If he stayed like this for much longer, I wasn't even sure if he'd survive mentally, never mind physically.

  I could still remember the screams that escaped him as he roared out his terror in the middle of the night when he'd first come home.

  It had scared the clubwhores shitless.

  With dust flying, bits of ash floating and sticking to my sweaty face, and my boots slipping beneath the uneven ground that was made up of the debris of my home, I dragged shit off him. Firefighters surrounded me, working hard to free him, and even though it was barely five minutes between Maverick entering and the final crash of the clubhouse, it felt like a lifetime too long.

  As we tore him out of the cocoon the drywall had buried him in, I saw the blood on his head, took note of his closed eyes, and prayed to fuck that he wasn't dead.

  In the distance, I heard more sirens, and knew an ambulance was on its way.

  "Why was he in a wheelchair?" someone asked as we struggled to lift him over the rubble.

  "Roadside bomb in the sandbox," I answered, grating the words out from between gritted teeth. "Yeah, this dirty fucking biker was a soldier. He fought for this country—"

  The sirens drowned out my voice, but I didn't care. I knew they'd only asked to make sure they didn't harm him further as we hauled him out from the wreckage, but it wasn't like we had a choice in how we got him out.

  By the time we made it over the hillocks of bricks and wood, the gurney was by our side, and we lifted Mav onto it.

  I wanted to go with him, but someone had to stay and monitor shit on this end.

  Nyx, in that first call, had told me there was a body moldering down into soup at the Fridge. The last thing we needed was the cops or the Feds sniffing around our land.

  Especially when they had a justifiable reason to search our property.

  Whoever the fuck had set the bomb had known that the Feds would get involved with any kind of explosive of this nature.

  Clever bastards.

  Did they have a clue about whose murder we were covering up?

  Lancaster had come into the country through illegal means. Steel had gone to Cambodia himself, hauling the cunt back in a crate like he was a piece of furniture. I knew we'd put him in the hold for the long haul flight too, so it wasn't like ICE had a clue about Lancaster's whereabouts in the country…

  Like the prick had said, every LEA was after us for something. I was just giving it a worst case scenario as the worst possible fucking case had already happened.

  As Maverick was wheeled into the ambulance, I watched him go, my mind blurring as I tried to figure out what to do next.

  Lucky for me, admin was what I did best, but keeping the pigs from sniffing at our doors wasn't exactly easy when they had every goddamn right to be here.

  When the bastard from before trudged over to me, I was happy to note that he didn't look as smug now. I didn't think that was anything to do with Mav almost being buried alive, especially when he'd not even bothered to help us draw him out, but he looked a little green around the gills.

  "First crime scene?" I sneered, unable to help myself.

  He gulped, which was an easy indication that I wasn't wrong. Or, at least, he'd seen something that was a first.

  I twisted around, no longer facing the glare of the ambulance’s brake lights that was drawing down the private road and back to town, and looking toward the clubhouse.

  That was when I realized the firefighters were gathered around a body.

  I winced at the sight, but I'd seen worse in my time in the Fridge. Still, there was no denying that the corpse they were retrieving looked like a side of goddamn bacon that had been left to burn in the pan.

  I closed my eyes, wondering which brother I'd lost, even as I started making plans.

  With Nyx and me at the helm while Rex was busy with his dad, we'd get to the bottom of this.

  We'd figure it out.

  And whoever had done this to us, we'd make them pay for daring to think they could come at us. For hurting our women. For killing our family. For destroying our home.

  They'd pay.

  I'd see to it.

  But before then, I needed to get the pigs off any scent, and I needed a hug from my baby girl.

  I didn't want it to be in that order, but lives were at stake, and never more had I felt the weight of that than I did now.

  Twenty

  Indy

  I was so ready to run I was out of the damn door.

  Only the fact that I wasn't a pussy, that I wasn't a runner kept my feet glued in place as I moved from brother to brother, family to family, hugging the Old Ladies, slinging an arm around the kids, trying to shore them up, make them feel better about their pops being in the ER or the ICU, injuries depending.

  Such an outright attack had us all shaken, but if there was any solace to be found, it was when Storm strode in, looking normal, looking like he owned the fucking place, that something in my heart settled.

  Sure, this world was messy, and Keira and Storm had a lot of fixing to do to make shit right for Cyan, but he was here, and I knew even Keira was relieved when she hauled ass over to meet him.

  When Cyan didn't, my brows rose, but Storm strode over to her, kneeled in front of her, and I tuned out the rest of the world to hear him say, "Kid, you know I've done a lot of fucked up stuff in my life, but the one thing that always made sense, the proudest thing I ever did, was help make you."

  Cyan's big eyes stared at him like he'd set the moon in the sky and from his words, and her behavior, I knew something had been said, something angry that was putting space between them, but tonight's events had rattled shit and when she pushed into him, squeezing him tight, I relaxed.

  Things weren't right, but at least she had some comfort.

  I was almost envious as I looked at her, stupid though it was. I wished my daddy was here, wished I could sit on his goddamn knee, have him tell me the world would keep on spinning even though, for some people tonight, it wouldn't.

  We'd just had word that Tatána was dead. She'd survived a fucking monster, had lived through abuse that no one even wanted to contemplate never mind outright think about, but she hadn't survived the blast.

  I knew there were questions.

  When she lived on the compound, in one of the bunkhouses, why had she been in the clubhouse? And so late? When the other women seemed to believe her and Amara had been in their beds because the parties were too much for them to handle?

  I had a feeling I knew why.

  David.

  Even though he was dead, she wouldn’t know that, would she? No one knew. Not yet.

  My throat felt thick as I thought about the next few days, and how, I'd have to sell a story to his people. I didn't think there'd be much issue though. His parents were dead, and as far as I knew, he had a cousin and an uncle left, but they weren't all that interested.

  Come Thanksgiving and Christmas they might be... so I wondered if I should strike preemptively or was it wiser to wait? Wiser to let the trail grow cold?

  I knew I'd have to consult Cruz, but my thoughts didn't make it any easier to stay.

  I loved shows like Bones and The Blacklist, and whenever I watched them, whenever there was a regular murderer, I al
ways wondered why they stayed around town. Why they didn't just run, leave the country, go and make a new life elsewhere.

  But as I looked around the packed waiting room, where brothers stood with burnt hair and singed cuts, bandages patching them up here and there, sweat-streaked brows that were soiled with ash and grime from the fire as they hugged women and kids who were crying and shaking, this was my family.

  Where else was I supposed to be?

  The dichotomy of the violence of this world combined with the love and connection threw me, and it took me a few minutes to absorb that Storm had hugged Cruz, then he'd gotten to his feet and headed deeper down the corridor.

  Unbidden, I followed him.

  Storm was here for a reason. Not just because of Cyan and Keira, but because of Rex.

  He hadn't said a word since I'd gotten here last night. Just sat there, beside Bear’s room after the surgery was over.

  Rachel was the only one who seemed to be able to get through to him, making him eat, go and get cleaned up in the bathroom, but even then, she'd had to clean him up some herself with a wet wipe she'd used on his face.

  It was weird, seeing Rex like that. Especially because everyone knew the last thing Rex wanted from Rachel was to be babied.

  She was his woman. It was a fait accompli, even as it might never actually happen.

  Watching them together though, watching her stick by his side as the doctors came in and out of Bear’s room in the ICU, was touching. So much so that I'd had to get out of there. I'd just needed a breather because there was more than just love between them, there was time.

  It was a bit like looking at Stone and Steel, only without the animosity.

  Steel had done everything in his power to hurt Stone along the way. His reasons must be big or I doubted she'd have forgiven him, but with Rachel and Rex it wasn't like that.

  She was the law.

  He wasn't.

  I figured it boiled down to that.

  But I moved with Storm, heading for the ICU Bear was in where, even though it was still early days and he was in an induced coma, the doctors had high hopes for him.