Ashamed that I was going ahead with something simply because my peers asked me to do it.
This was the whole 'Dean' thing again, just by another name.
I didn't have to do shit.
I did plenty for the club.
I got rid of the skeletons, tended the bar, was working on the plans for the clubhouse, would literally do anything they asked of me, but this, I just couldn't do it.
And this woman, my woman, was the reason my eyes were opened.
She'd always hated regular sex. But she'd come onto me, she'd enticed me. Why? To show me that she was different? To give me hope that just because something was one way for a decade didn't mean it had to be that way for another?
Or, maybe, I was reading into it too much. What I did know was that I'd taken a seat at her workstation, fully expecting to walk out of here with a new tattoo, but no woman in my arms.
Instead, it was the opposite.
I had more than a handful of an Old Lady, I was even lying in the fucking wet spot, but the tattoo wasn't complete yet.
I was happy with that deal.
Tilting my head to the side, I nuzzled into her, rubbing my nose against her hairline, breathing in her scent, knowing that with the secret out, unless I was a complete fool, the past wouldn't tear us apart.
So I had to make sure the future wouldn't either.
She dozed against me, and I let her. I'd twisted things toward the end, knowing from the saucy glint in her eyes, that she was waiting for it. And whenever I turned on that side of myself, her pussy just gushed.
She fucking loved it, and because I loved her, because she was trying to show me that she loved me even with the clusterfuck of my past, how couldn't I give her what she needed from me?
So she was tired, and I let her rest. Maybe I even dozed a little, but I woke up to the glaring overhead light, cold from being ass-naked in the middle of the studio, still with a ripe bundle in my arms.
She was twitching here and there, tiny, minute movements that told me what was happening.
Maybe it had to be this way, maybe it needed to be this way.
For her to be here, on top of me, feeling everything she felt, experiencing it physically if not subconsciously with her.
"No, Uncle, no, please—"
Rage filled me, and I'd admit, when things were back on track, if I was still in the MC, and we weren't two computer gurus down, and we had proof, I'd go hunting for that fuck, Martin.
He'd bear my wrath against Indy's Uncle Kevin.
I didn't care if Nyx was going cold turkey, I knew how to dispose of the body. I'd do it on my own time.
Sure, I wouldn't be killing the man who had hurt Indy, the one who was behind the nightmares, but it would be cathartic, and it would make me feel a hell of a lot better.
Indy wasn't the kind to overreact, wasn't the type to misread a situation, so I knew Martin was a cunt. But I also knew the MC had rules for Nyx, knew they had to investigate a man before they put him down, so I would wait as well. Whether it was alone, with Nyx as he broke his promise to Indy, or with Storm if he found out, I'd be there for the ride.
Unable to do anything else, I simply stroked my hand down the length of her spine, wishing she was bare, wishing there were no clothes in the way. But aside from the way her legs were splayed atop me, straddling me like she was, which undoubtedly bared her peachy ass to the wall, she looked pretty normal. Normal when I wanted her naked like me.
Grunting under my breath, I murmured, "He can't hurt you, Indy, I won't let him. I'll stop him. I won't let him do this. I'll protect you. I'll keep you safe."
I whispered the words in a litany, a lullaby just for her. The tiny twitches of her muscles, the way she would lock up, her whole body clenching and releasing, started to fade. The small sounds that came from the back of her throat, petrified pleas, desperate noises, had me wanting to drop Kevin into a bathful of acid alive.
I was almost jealous that Nyx took the chance away from me, but I knew he'd had to avenge Carly, and rumor had it, that Kevin had also threatened him. If anyone deserved that righteous kill, it was Nyx, but I was still jealous.
So fucking jealous.
"Cruz, Cruz, stop him. Please?"
My eyes flared wide in response, because I realized I was in her nightmare. Having never expected that, I froze, then because this might be one way of gradually liberating her from these dreams, I squeezed her tight, and deep in her ear, whispered, "Indy, I'm here. Come back to me. I'll keep you safe. I love you. Come to me."
She didn't.
But her response made me happier still.
She relaxed against me, completely and utterly at peace, no more twitching, no more fidgeting or jerking against me, she grew slack with sleep, and stole my heart a little bit more.
Rolling us so that we were on our sides, I wasn't sure if she'd wake up, but she didn't. She stayed asleep, and I watched her for a while.
The gentle fans of her eyelashes against the upper curve of her cheeks, the way her lips would purse into a moue of annoyance, the glitter of freckles on her chest. The way her cheeks turned concave thanks to her bone structure. The silk of her hair and how it gleamed in the harsh lighting.
She was mine.
All those months ago, I'd never imagined she would be. Never imagined seeing her clean would lead me here.
But it had. And I was hers. Hers as much as she was mine.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, and carefully untangled myself from the knot we were laying in on the narrow chair. It was awkward as hell, but I needed to do it. Needed to get to my phone.
I managed to maneuver her, releasing myself without waking her. I wanted to cover her up, stop her from getting cold, but I knew how she’d react to being covered, so I reached for the shirt I’d discarded earlier and draped it over her legs before I wandered over to where I'd dropped my jeans.
Looking down, I grabbed my cell, saw that I had a few missed calls and some messages.
Most of them were from Rex, and I knew why.
Because it was easy for me to do now, I tried to call my mom, but yet again, she didn't answer. And it had nothing to do with being late. Mom answered her phone whether it was 5AM or 5PM.
Something was going on with her, something that wasn't necessarily good. I knew that, wondered if Rex did too, but I wasn't about to say anything to him. He was already a man on the edge, and I didn't need to be the one who pushed him into a freefall.
I tried twice more, and when I got no answer, I composed a new message to him.
Me: Rex, just tried Mom a couple of times, but still no answer. I'll keep trying.
What the council asked of me last week, I've decided I can't do it. I won't do it. I won't be that man again.
I understand if you think that means I need to leave the club, but I'm hoping you understand that I can't be the one to reap that level of devastation again.
When I hit send, I didn't feel like I'd just started slashing at my wrists as I cut off one of my lifelines. Writing about leaving the MC left me feeling all kinds of choked though, but I didn't want to be involved with people like Dean.
Crime was one thing—I'd gone into this knowing what it would lead to. But I needed to walk away from my past, needed for my future to be different. If the MC didn't want that for me, then they were as toxic as Dean. Bombs killed too many people. They didn't disparage between innocent and criminal. I knew no weapon truly did, but a gun couldn't wreak the havoc one of my creations could in a split second. I couldn't hurt another bystander again.
My soul wouldn't take it.
A Famiglia-owned joint might have some pizza delivery guy driving down its road, a kid working hard to support his fam while struggling with college tuition, there at the wrong place at the wrong time, just trying to earn some honest bucks...
No. Just, no.
"Cruz?"
I turned around, and saw she was still on her side, watching me, her eyes sleepy and dazed, but somehow penetrative.
She understood what I'd done.
She held out her hand for me, leaving me no choice but to wander over to her, a little zombie-like, and to slip my fingers into hers.
"Everything will be okay," she soothed.
"The MC has been a part of my identity for a very long time," I told her, shooting her a wan smile. "I don't know what I am if I'm not a Sinner."
With her other hand, she reached out and trailed her fingers over the sore outline of her brand. "You might not know, but I do."
My lips twitched, but before I could say another word, my cell buzzed.
I sucked in a sharp breath, hating that I was nervous, hating that I was the same friendless kid again who was terrified about losing the approval of the only people who'd ever liked him.
But I was so much more than that now.
Indy was right, because Darren would never have been able to get a chick this hot. Only Cruz could do that. Only Cruz could get a woman like Indy to be his Old Lady.
So I bit the bullet, stopped being a pussy, and looked down at my cell phone.
What I saw had me closing my eyes.
"What is it? What did they say?"
I showed the phone to her, let her read the message.
Rex: No worries. There are better ways to get retaliation anyway. Please, don't stop trying your mom. She's the only one with any answers right now. I'll speak to you tomorrow, and I'll smooth things over with the council. Night.
"See, they're not as big a bunch of assholes as you think," she murmured, sitting up so that she could slide her arms around my waist, and press her face into my chest.
"I guess not," I whispered shakily, burying my own into her hair to hide from the world.
"Happy now?"
I squeezed her. "I don't deserve to be this happy."
She smiled—I felt the movement of her lips against my skin. "Don't worry, you haven't lived with me when I get PMS yet."
Snorting out a laugh, which was totally worth the pain in my ribs, I pulled back, relieved and glad and loving her for breaking that charged moment, before I said, "No, I guess I haven’t.”
“Or… did you know I hate bikes?”
My lips quirked. “Funny.” Although, she never had ridden with me on mine before…
“I’m not lying,” she told me with a small chuckle.
“You’ll like riding bitch with me,” I vowed. “When I get a new bike, that is.” My nose crinkled at the loss of my prized hog. “Anyway, you going to finish this tattoo before I change my mind now I know you hate bikes and are a bitch when you get your period?"
Her eyes twinkled, tiny gold filaments dancing around her irises. "Well, the customer is always right, but the tattoo artist isn't usually leaking the client's cum as she works."
"That's the perk of having one for an Old Lady then, no?"
She hummed. "It would seem so."
"Know where I want your brand?" I asked softly.
"Well, I figure it has to be somewhere I can reach," was her dry response.
I snickered at her smartass retort, then reached for her arm and twisted it gently around. “Here."
“What do you have in mind?”
I grabbed her other hand and pressed it to the tattoo on my chest, the one of a shriveled heart—how it had been for far too long, and how it would always have been. Without her. “This was how I was before I met you. I can’t change it, you know a cover up wouldn’t work on this kind of ink, but I figure since my heart beats for you anyway, you can keep it safe for me, right here…” I tapped her forearm, just above her pulse point.
A shaky breath escaped her. “You really mean that?”
“You know I do, Indy.”
Her smile was beautiful, pure, innocent, joyous. Everything I needed to see to know that she felt the same way as I did about her. There were no doubts, not a single one on her face, and I knew, even though my connections might disturb her, she wasn’t going anywhere.
Ever.
Unless it was at my side.
”Maybe I should be glad you want me to do it,” she teased with a hiccup, “because I thought you'd want me to have a tramp stamp."
"Nothing about you is a tramp, Indy—"
"I'm no innocent, Cruz," she said, her tone slightly sorrowful, the gold in her eyes disappearing with her shame.
"What you are, is perfect. For me." And just like she had earlier, I sealed it with a kiss and shut her up, stole her breath, and erased any negativity she might have from her mind.
At least for the moment.
But I had a lifetime to work on that, a lifetime to make her see herself as the queen she was.
My queen.
The Old Lady I'd never thought I'd have.
The future I wasn't sure I deserved in the shape of a woman I knew was too good for me, but I was a Sinner, and the last thing we were, was fools. I’d take her, claim her as mine, and make sure she didn’t regret it for as long as we both lived…
Rex
Two weeks later
I cracked my knuckles as I watched a team of ten of my brothers head for the city.
Link led the way, behind him was Nyx—they were the only show of force from the council. In all honesty, I didn't like sending them off, even though this was just a standard run. A very late, standard run.
They’d pick up the haul from one of the O'Donnellys’ many warehouses, before taking it up to Canada for those fuckers, the Rabid Wolves’ MC, to take across the border to Montréal.
I was just feeling protective. And I didn't think that was too fucking crazy of me either.
My father was in a coma, his body torn to shreds by a bomb that we still could only ‘assume’ was planted by the Italians. Anything he'd learned about Mom’s death, and the circumstances behind it, were hidden in his memory banks as he healed.
It was crazy to think that he would have more answers than law enforcement, but surprise surprise, the Feds had come up blank. Even Cruz had. His mom was AWOL, nobody had seen her for weeks.
I had him trying her cell phone every damn day of the week, several times even, but she never answered.
In this world, my first thought was to think that she was dead, something that was most likely, but killing a Fed came with repercussions, and I knew few people who wouldn't shit themselves over that.
With her missing, though, any lead was gone. Apparently she had information about Mom too, and with her out of the fucking picture as well, I was at a loss.
I had enemies in need of killing, people who needed to pay for what they’d done to my family, both by blood and MC, but I didn't have the wherewithal to find out what I needed to know.
Maverick was no fucking use right now, and though it was hard to keep my patience with him, I tried. Normally I'd have been understanding, but the idiot had gone into the clubhouse when it was unstable, and while Lodestar was hard at work, she was at a diminished capacity too.
With both my computer geniuses up shit creek—one with concussion headaches that had her sleeping a lot of the day away and a broken leg that limited her freedom more than she was used to and made her a grumpy bitch, and the other so entrenched in his amnesia that he didn't even realize he wasn't fresh out of the sandbox—again, my hands were tied.
I'd thought I'd known frustration. Banging my head against a brick wall was par for the course in my line of work. And when you were in love with a woman who made an ass look complacent, frustration was normal.
But this was killing me. I believed the Famiglia was behind the bombing, but we weren’t animals.
Storm had asked Cruz for a weapon to retaliate against them, but not only had he refused, I would never have allowed any kind of attack to take place without knowing full well who was behind the clubhouse’s destruction.
I liked to think that we were a better class of one-percenter, but it was only common sense. You didn't bait a bear when said goddamn bear was in a cave.
I wasn't about to attack somebody who hadn't attacked us first.
&
nbsp; We were already battered, I didn't need us annihilated.
With my hog lost to the blast, as well as many of my brothers', we were just fortunate we had Link's workshop to help with our transport issues.
Sixty percent of the guys on the run were using borrowed bikes, and none of us were happy about it.
Most of our rides were custom, tailored to our specific preferences. It was hard to bitch about that when so many people had lost their fucking lives, and with my own dad in the hospital, moaning about a bike was just pathetic. But as I cocked my leg over the borrowed hog, I grunted as I settled into the seat and kicked off.
Not even the ride could make me smile, the wind in my face, the sun on my head, the feeling of being free... It was all bullshit.
Mom was dead, knowing the whys and the hows about her death wasn't going to bring her back, but I had to know.
Needed to know.
And since the news of her murder had hit, it felt like a dozen other bullets had been fired at the same time.
I had to think that the clubhouse was targeted because Pop was coming home, which led to me thinking that Mom's passing was the catalyst. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I wasn’t.
That was why I needed fucking answers.
The Famiglia had to be behind it, but proving that was another matter entirely.
I had already seen on the news a couple of days ago that Fieri had washed up in Connecticut, and with the head of the family now laying in a morgue, that meant the Italians were going to be at war as they figured out who would take charge.
The death of Fieri, who, if the Famiglia were behind Mom's hit, would have been the one to give the order, was a source of some satisfaction, but not much.
His execution had the O'Donnellys’ smell all over it, not mine. I should've been the one behind his death, but if the Irish had decided to take the Italian Don out, they had a reason to.
And simply being at war with them wasn't enough of a justification. In war, foot soldiers died, they were the sheep tossed to the wolves... Leaders didn’t perish.
If Fieri had pissed off the O'Donnellys, then maybe they'd have answers that would stop me feeling like I was going insane while I tried to figure out what the fuck was going on.
Cruz : A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 5) Page 38