Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)

by Darling, Giana

  But I didn’t even know Owen Burns. Why would he kill Margaret for me like the misguided courtship ritual of a madman?

  There was this weaving, this overlap of the Walsh family and the serial killer, as if they were linked intrinsically in a way I felt I should understand more clearly.

  I didn’t understand any of it.

  Neither, it seemed, did Lion or the club.

  After the interviews with the cops, after I threw up at the sight of the dead body in my yard thinking about poor Billy Huxley without a mother and soon to be without a father, Loulou had insisted I go with them to the clubhouse to set up for the barbecue.

  Only The Fallen would have a party when a serial killer was on the loose and a dead body had shown up on a doorstep. Truthfully, I loved that about them. They lived every single day as if it was their last. Taking nothing for granted, they sucked the marrow out of each moment.

  The prospects, hang-arounds, and some of the old ladies were already well into setting up when we arrived, and Loulou immediately ushered us into the clubhouse where the entire rest of the Garro clan was set up, waiting for me.

  Mr. White was at the precinct representing Priest again as he was questioned. I’d wanted to go to him, but Zeus claimed Priest had expressly forbidden it. Normally, I wouldn’t have heeded his protest, but Zeus assured me Priest would be freed shortly and brought immediately to the clubhouse.

  To me.

  Until then, I was happy to lounge between my sister and Cressida with Prince’s gorgeous little face smiling at me from her arms. Sitting there with them, knowing they’d come together to support me yet again, made me feel seen and appreciated in a way I’d never known before meeting The Fallen.

  Lion scrubbed his hands over his stubbled jaw, looking like a handsome cowboy even tired as he was. “The RCMP aren’t getting anywhere. Seems they want to think this Owen Burns is the ‘Prophet’. Makes it easier, that’s for damn sure.”

  “There’s no way,” I insisted. “He doesn’t fit any of the profiling. I think he’s just some poor kid who made some bad decisions and got dragged into this.”

  Harleigh Rose stared to rub the tension out of Lion’s back, making him groan and reach behind his chair to squeeze her thigh. “You and me both, Bea. I got no say with them anymore. I hung up my badge, and for the men in blue, that’s a certain kinda betrayal they don’t get over.”

  “Your dad was a corrupt cop who tried to force you to be corrupt too,” Harleigh Rose grumbled. “Fuckin’ idiots.”

  Lion grinned tiredly, pulling her around his front to sit in his lap. “Yeah, Rosie, idiots, the lot of them. But I’m only allowed this much access because Hutchinson is in with the club, and technically, I’m on the case. The T-Squad hired me.”

  “The fuck?” Zeus barked. “Why the fuck am I just hearin’a this, Lion? We’re hostin’ them for a damn meetin’ and beers today, and you didn’t think I should fuckin’ know that?”

  Lion shot him a sidelong look, knowing he’d bought Z’s wrath but not particularly cowed by it. “My business is private, as I think I’ve told you fourteen thousand fuckin’ times, Zeus.”

  Zeus’s scowl was interrupted by Angel, who played calmly on the ground at his feet until she decided she wanted some attention from her favourite man, so she stood on shaky legs to reach out for him. He picked her up instantly, face softening like melted butter as he brushed his bearded lips over her cheek to hear her giggle.

  When he looked back at Lion, his glower was even more fierce. “They ask you anythin’ ’bout club business…”

  “I’ll tell them the same as I tell you,” Lion drawled. “It’s private.”

  “You invited their prez for a meeting today, Z,” Loulou pointed out from where we’d taken a seat on one of the four leather couches. “You were planning on telling them club business already.”

  “Shut your mouth, woman,” he growled but with a sparkle in his eyes because he loved my sassy sister.

  Lou winked. “Make me.”

  “Okay, ew,” Harleigh Rose complained even though Lion was currently grabbing a handful of her ass in her lewdly ripped jeans.

  Loulou rolled her eyes.

  I closed mine, leaning back against the soft cushions.

  “You okay, honey?” Cressida asked, stroking back my hair.

  I murmured something, forgetting the words as soon as they were spoken. After a night of raucous sex with Priest and an early morning finding a dead body on my stoop, I was bone tired and shaken. Honestly, it was hard not to feel terrified knowing that a serial killer had been in my backyard, that maybe he was watching me live my life and taking fucked up notes on my habits. I almost wished I knew what he wanted with me to have some kind of context for his obsession. Being so in the dark was horrifying and cast new light on the murders I studied for my podcast.

  Surrounded by men who would fight to the death to protect me and women who would support me until their dying breath, I let myself relax again.

  That was, until Ransom ushered Phillipa into the room, obviously sent out to bring her to the haven until we knew what was really going on.

  Bitterness welled on my tongue, coffee grounds left over from our dinner with the Linleys.

  She took one look at me sandwiched between Cress and Lou, and the look I must have had stamped on my face spoke of my unhappiness because she froze.

  I did not.

  I was on my feet, dislodging Cressida’s soft hands and Lou’s hip as I surged out of my seat. They called after me as I stalked to my mother, aware that in my pleated skirt and vintage University of British Columbia crewneck, I didn’t exactly look threatening.

  But I meant business.

  The scowl on my face felt strange, the muscles unused to contracting in anger. I wasn’t a woman who angered easily or held a grudge. Forgiveness, to me, was divine, and patience was the penultimate virtue.

  I’d just run out of it where my weak mother was concerned.

  She was already tearing up when I reached her, which took some of the wind out of my sails as she knew it would. I had no defense against someone crying, and she knew it.

  “Beatrice,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  I just blinked, watching the way she wrung her hands together, noticing the lack of a massive diamond ring on her finger. “You took off your wedding ring?”

  She sniffed, eyes darting over my shoulder to the group that wasn’t even pretending not to watch us. “Well, I figured it was time.”

  “Past time,” I scolded, which was about as strongly worded as I got despite my best efforts. Frustrated with myself, I forced my face into a fiercer glower. “You disappoint me, Mum. After all these years with The Fallen, the way they took us in and made us family when we used to stand against everything they were, when dad actively tried to take them down… I just don’t understand how you could not only stand by while someone talked badly about them, let alone seek out advice on how not to be…what? Corrupted by them?”

  “Don’t judge me,” she whispered harshly. “You girls had it so easy because of your father and me. We looked after you, made sure you had everything a little girl could need!”

  “We had nothing,” I shouted, eyes wide with shock as all the toxicity of my youth cracked through the surface of my gut and surged up my throat, hot and chemical on my tongue. “Loulou and I didn’t give a crap about diamond tennis bracelets and our wedding cake topper of a house. We wanted parents who kissed our skinned knees and held us close as we watched movies as a family on a Friday night. We needed quality time and affection, Mum, not just gifts and bragging rights. We needed parents, not society figures. If you don’t understand that after all this, after watching and feeling the way these heathens love each other and have loved us, then I’m sorry, but you don’t deserve them. Maybe you don’t even deserve Loulou and me.”

  Phillipa blinked at me, huge tears rolling down her skin, crumpled softly with the years and sorrow like creased silk. To be so beautiful on the outs
ide and so woefully weak, so ugly inside was such a tragedy.

  Something tickled my cheek, and when I lifted my fingertips to my skin, they came away wet. Of course, I had to cry when I was angry. I couldn’t even be badass like my sister in anger.

  Still, I tilted my chin and stared my mother down, refusing to feel guilty for speaking my truth even though it hurt us both to hear it.

  “I love you,” I told her honestly, voice so soft and flailing I wondered if she could even hear it. “I love you, Mum, but I love you because you’re my blood. I love them”—I gestured to the family at my back—“because they earned it. I hope one day, you can earn it too.”

  A sob exploded from her throat and burst against her hands as she tried to catch it in her palms.

  I forced myself to walk away, to channel my inner Priest and remain unmoved by her tears. For too long, I’d capitulated to Phillipa. Because she was weaker, she needed my love and patience, but it was long past time she stood up for her daughters and, honestly, for herself.

  So I turned on my heel and moved over to the couch where my sister sat dumbfounded. I offered her my hand with a little smile. “Come get ready for the party with me, big sister? I think I left an old Cosmo here somewhere. We can take a quiz to see what kind of man you’ll end up with while you do my hair.”

  Loulou looked up at me with glistening eyes just a shade darker than my own, eyes that were velvet with tenders and wet with pride. I knew she remembered that night so many years ago when I’d read that silly quiz, the last night we’d lived under the same roof before Dad hit her and kicked her out for dating Zeus.

  “You know I love you, right?” she whispered through the lump in her throat I felt mimicked in mine. “You know I’m so fucking proud of who you’ve become, right?”

  Hot tears pooled on my lower lids. I struggled not to blink so they wouldn’t fall. I’d just been as emotionally badass as I’d ever been, and I wanted to maintain that for at least as long as it took to walk back to Z and Lou’s room in the clubhouse.

  “Yeah,” I breathed. “No matter how lonely I’ve ever felt, I always knew I had you.”

  “Jesus,” Nova interjected with a little cough. “You tryna make grown men cry?”

  We both laughed wetly at him as Lila punched him playfully in the shoulder, but it was a good way to break the tension. Maja went to console Phillipa, and I respected that. They had their own friendship, and truthfully, I was glad my mum had someone to comfort her because, for once, it couldn’t be me.

  “You ready to make a biker babe transformation?” Harleigh Rose crowed, jumping to her feet and rubbing her hands together with an evil little grin.

  Lila whooped as she got to her feet and hip-checked H.R. “Yes! Let’s get gorgeous.”

  “Already gorgeous, Flower Child,” Nova noted with a lazy up and down look at his woman. “But you wanna lose some clothes, I’m down for that.”

  “Me too,” Boner added with a lecherous wiggle of his dark brows.

  Nova shoved to his feet and pinned him in a headlock. “You hittin’ on my woman?”

  “If I had a chance in hell, I would,” Boner asserted even though Nova was choking off his air.

  I laughed; the feel of it, of them, warming my belly like a shot of Z’s favourite whiskey. There was relief there too, knowing that in all the chaos and fear of the serial killer haunting my life, at least I’d found my place in life, the one home where I knew I’d always belong. It wasn’t what I’d always imagined it would be growing up—a nuclear family, a stable job, a normal life—but thank God, it was so much more than I ever could have hoped for.

  * * *

  * * *

  No one knew what to expect from the Thunderbird Squad. They mostly operated on their reservation or within the network of other First Nations’ communities on the mainland, so The Fallen didn’t much care what they did so long as it didn’t step on their toes. I wasn’t even sure if anyone other than Zeus had even met one of their members.

  It was clear, though, when they rolled onto the compound that they knew of The Fallen.

  They rode in no clear formation the way our men did, just an amorphous mass of bikers in leather cuts and bandanas. However, one man was at the helm who radiated authority just seated on his Harley leading the charge onto the lot.

  He was the first to swing off his bike.

  The first to take off his half helmet and reveal the tanned, surprisingly young face beneath. He had to be around Zeus’s age, late thirties or early forties, with a wide, strong body that made him seem shorter than he really was. His hair was cropped military short, an ink blot on his scalp, and his eyes, even from a distance, were a clear, pale brown like sunshine through maple syrup.

  He commanded everyone’s attention instantly, and he was aware of it. His broad shoulders rolled back, feet braced, and he stared down the entire Fallen MC as if he planned to go to war against them.

  For his sake, I hoped he didn’t.

  Zeus stepped forward then, his massive bulk dwarfing the T-Squad’s leader, his swagger a smooth roll of his powerful frame. Just seeing him walk forward, proud, powerful, completely unruffled by a potential enemy rolling through the gates, released some of the palpable tension in the group.

  “Nicholas Rivers,” he greeted with an extended hand. “Pleasure to fuckin’ meet ya.”

  “Not sure the pleasure is my own,” Nicholas said, cutting straight to the chase. “You got a man here by the name of Priest?”

  My man stepped forward from where we stood locked together on the stairs of the clubhouse. We hadn’t separated since his return from the police station, and I wasn’t eager to let him go then, but he moved away inexorably.

  “You got a problem?” Priest called out casually, strolling down the steps as though he didn’t have a care in the world even as he cut a menacing figure all in black, his red hair shining like blood in the bright lights of the lot.

  Nicholas’s eyes narrowed, and he moved beyond Zeus to face Priest. “You the motherfucker the police said were involved with these murders?”

  Priest cocked his head to the side in that robotic, chilling way he had as he considered his opponent. Finally, he tucked his hands in his pockets and shrugged one muscle-heavy shoulder. “Think I’d be behind bars if they had any kinda proof of that.”

  “We’ve all heard the rumors about you,” Nicholas fired back, rolling onto the balls of his feet as though he was prepping for a fight. “Maybe you’re just clever enough to get past the fuckin’ pigs.”

  “We can both agree on that,” Priest practically drawled, obviously bored of this conversation already. “But this murdering arsehole is obsessed with my woman in a way he won’t lose sight of her anytime soon. I got no reason to kill for her when she’s already mine. You got an issue with me, though, I’m only too fuckin’ happy to sort it out right here and now. ’S been a while since I had anythin’ like a good fight, and you look like you can take a punch.”

  The entire compound, dressed for a party but ready for war, held its breath.

  Nicholas Rivers glared at my unruffled Irishman for a long moment before he tossed back his head and roared with laughter.

  I blinked in shock as he rocked forward to clap a friendly hand on Priest’s shoulder before he walked back to Z and took his hand in a pumping handshake.

  “Heard stories of The Fallen, but this shit is better than the telling,” Nicholas said through his chuckle, his face made handsome with harsh smile lines. “I’m looking forward to cracking a beer and seeing what the rest of you motherfuckers are like in real time.”

  Zeus’s face broke into his charming as the devil smile as he raised their joined hands and called out, “Let’s get down to it! Someone start the fuckin’ music and grab this man a beer.”

  Over the roar of the crowd and the churning of bodies as men swung off their bikes and The Fallen sluts rushed out to greet them in slicked-on halter tops and little miniskirts, I caught eyes with Priest and laughed under my
breath when the left side of his mouth tipped in a minuscule smile just for me.

  “I think he was always lonelier than he realized,” Cress murmured from beside me.

  It was one of the first times I’d seen her without Prince since she and King had returned from Alaska, and the beauty of her dolled-up biker style took my breath away.

  “You look like a Disney Princess in the middle of a teenage rebellion,” I told her, noting her heavy eyeliner, painted-on jeans, and the little white crop top straining at her breasts.

  She laughed, sliding an arm around my hips. “Baby-free, honey, I gotta make the most of it. The goal is always to get King to take me before we even leave the house and again during the party.” She leaned in conspiratorially, so much more open and freer than I’d ever known her to be before she married King. “So far, we are one for two.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” I laughed at her as she ushered me into the party through the masses of bodies already smoking, drinking, and dancing to the music Curtains was playing through the surround speakers.

  The winter air was biting, but the party still raged on the blacktop outside the clubhouse, lit with Christmas lights strung by old ladies that reflected off the rows of Harley Davidson motorcycles lined up like dominos to the side of Hephaestus Auto.

  It was the first night in so many that the entire club let loose to party and relax. We didn’t get many nights without worries, not when we were in or associated with one of the most notorious criminal motorcycle gangs in North America, but when we did, we let loose.

  Within two hours, half a dozen brothers were fighting for bets on the tarmac, still more throwing knives at Priest’s old wooden cross in the back with blindfolds on and beers in their hand. Women were half-naked and grinding on men’s laps or working one of two poles set up in the clubhouse, two of them putting on quite the show at the bar where my cousin, Carson, the new prospect and in a very committed relationship with another man, looked incredibly ill at ease serving around their mostly naked, writhing bodies.