by Maisey Yates
They’d talked to him at school. Sent some cops out.
They hadn’t done a damn thing, but it had been enough for his mother to view him as a traitor. He’d broken whatever bond they’d had, and he’d been thrown out on his ass after that. So at fourteen he’d been out on his own. Dealing. Sleeping wherever he could.
He’d tried to get the cops to listen to him. Had tried to do the right thing. It had gotten him jack shit.
So he’d walked even further outside the lines, carried a big gun. He’d found the Deacons. A family that had brought a certain kind of power, a certain security, and for a boy with nothing of the kind, it had been intoxicating.
Pure acceptance. Pure freedom. Bonds that were stronger than blood. The family he’d never had.
Bikers weren’t known for their restraint. They did what they wanted. Said what they wanted. The world was expected to curve around their desires, not the other way around. There was no reason to change to fit a mold.
But in the end, even that security, that family, had proven fallible. He’d made a mistake. One mistake too many and it had cost everyone. He was the reason.
The reason Ajax had gone underground, doing mercenary work. Why Blue had gone off to a swamp somewhere, cut off from the world. From everything. Why Cash had become a fucking computer hacker and moved to fucking Tallahassee.
They’d been a family. Their only family. And he’d destroyed it.
Now he’d destroyed Sarah’s.
For the first time he wondered if escaping to San Francisco and starting over hadn’t been his attempt at legitimacy. If he’d been lying to himself all this time.
He’d told himself, in some ways, that he was continuing the good work Priest had started. Going straight. Turning away from the life they’d been entrenched in.
Outlaws no more, and all that shit.
Now he wondered if his custom suit was his version of a hair shirt. If it was his way of trying to fix everything that was wrong with himself.
What was the opposite of this world? He’d found a world of masks and protocol. Rules. And he’d been so sure he was making it. That he was finally fixing himself. He’d spent a decade telling himself he was grateful for what had happened.
He had found himself in the Deacons. But in the end, he’d destroyed the Deacons. So he’d known he had to destroy everything Deacon in himself too.
It was the only way.
But it wasn’t gone. He knew that now. It wasn’t a part of him that he could remove. It was him. All of him.
“What happened?” she asked, her tone muted.
“I talked to the police. For a while. Stayed there till they were satisfied. Your grandfather killed himself and they had no reason to suspect otherwise. I saw no reason to uncover the past. To . . . sully the Delacroix name,” he said, meeting her eyes.
She snorted. “Don’t spare it on my account. It doesn’t deserve it. Anyway, that isn’t what I mean. I meant what happened before the police came. Before he killed himself.”
He looked away from her, at a spot on the wall behind her. “I took him out of the ballroom, like I told you I would. Took him out to the courtyard. Ajax was there. Blue and Cash. Blade. He confessed to killing Priest. And . . . it turned out Priest was his son.”
He heard Sarah shift positions, but he still didn’t look at her. “I know. Sophie told me.”
“Well, that was fucking helpful of her.”
“She’s very helpful. She also made me a very strong drink. Serious shit. Not one of those touristy slushies.”
“She’s good like that,” he said, forcing a smile, making that spot on the wall his lifeline.
“What else happened?” she asked.
“He wanted to protect the name. Death before dishonor.”
“Yeah. I heard about that too.” She swallowed hard. “So strange . . . I spent all my life trying to guard our family name. Our reputation. And it wasn’t real. It was never real. He built it up tall and strong, like a wall. And I think he figured if he made it tall enough, strong enough, he could build as much corruption up behind it as he wanted. The name was never anything. My whole life was never . . . anything.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “You were born in this. It’s who you are. I put on a suit, got a job, moved away, thought I could make myself into something else, but it wasn’t possible. You . . . you’re the real deal. I just called myself Prince. You were born a princess.”
She laughed, a hollow, brittle sound, and his focus was drawn back to her. “For all the good it did me,” she said. “What has the Delacroix legacy done for me? We aren’t fucking royalty, Prince,” she said. “We’re just people. Bad people, mostly. Biker people, too. But I was going to let that name dictate what I did my entire life. Like it was the most important thing and it was just a . . . a shield.”
“Sarah, the Delacroix name is who you are. What your grandfather did . . .”
“What he hid kept me hiding too,” she said. “I played this stupid game. Lived in this forced, confined little box to conform to something that wasn’t even real. And . . . and, Micah, I was going to let you walk away because of it.”
“Be careful, Sarah,” he said. “You don’t know the rest of the story yet.”
“I don’t really care.” She met his gaze, dark eyes blazing. “When I met you, I would have told you that I was strong. Stronger than you. Stronger than any biker. That’s why I faced you head-on like I did. I didn’t know you, or myself. And it isn’t that I’m not strong, I actually think I’m even stronger. But the truth is I’m weak too. Sometimes I’m wrong. I spent a lot of years being wrong. About what I wanted, about who I was. I imagined myself like iron, and I think that was right. Pounded-out iron that was solid, but thin. Hollow inside. I was just doing things because they were done that way, not out of any conviction. Not out of any desire.”
“I don’t think it had anything to do with meeting me. You’d already called off your wedding.”
She nodded slowly. “I think I already had one foot on the path. Then I met you. And I wanted you more than I wanted to be good. I knew I didn’t want Charlie. I knew I didn’t want a life with a man who lied to me, cheated on me, didn’t love me. I knew what I didn’t want, but I didn’t know what I wanted. Until I saw you sitting in my mansion like a king who’d just found his throne. You, Micah Carpenter. Whether you’re a biker or a man in a suit. I just knew I wanted you. I saw through to whatever was underneath all that, the words you use, the clothes you wore. Saw straight down past your tattoos, past your skin, to who you are. I wanted that. I wanted that man. But I was going to deny myself, because I know the man you are doesn’t fit into my lifestyle. I know you don’t fit in high society. You don’t fit with my friends, with my family. And I was going to choose them over you.” She paused, something dark, dangerous, glittering in her eyes. “For what? For nothing. But now . . . I see how stupid it is. Maybe I needed this to see what I really wanted. You. Over anything. Over everything.”
He should interrupt her. He wanted to interrupt her, but he was too much of a coward. Because he needed to hear what she had to say next. Needed to know what she really felt before he told her the truth.
It was a dick move, but he was a dick. So he let her continue.
She met him head-on, her expression one of utter defiance now. “Because I love you.”
Her words, those words, were the words he’d feared most, the words he craved most. He didn’t deserve the love of a woman like Sarah Delacroix. Didn’t deserve the love of anyone. And as he looked back over his life, he wasn’t sure he’d ever had the love of anyone else. What he’d had with the Deacons was different. Brotherhood, sworn bonds of protection. Some might call it love. Ajax probably would. Because for all that he was the hardest motherfucker in the bunch, he was also the one who believed the deepest in the brotherhood.
Blue might call it that too, but Micah suspected he would be more inclined to speak of it in terms of duty, loyalty. Honor.
&nbs
p; Still, for Micah it had always been something different. A place to belong, a place to feel a certain measure of security. A place where you didn’t get beaten unless you’d damn well earned it. Love? He never would have called that. Just like he never would’ve called whatever was between himself and his mother love. Because love shouldn’t be so easily disposed of. And his mistakes had broken every bond he’d ever forged in his life.
Down in San Francisco he hadn’t even tried. He’d collected desirable things. Money, wealth, the right clothes, the right words. He found ways to make people desire his presence without giving anything genuine in return. He’d done all he hadn’t managed to do when he’d been in New Orleans. He covered up his emotion, everything he was, and found a place that was in every way less.
Less painful, less authentic. Less of himself.
He’d wanted so badly over the last couple months to get back there. To that life, to that job. To the man he was when he was in California. But he didn’t know that man, not now. He wondered if he had been in some kind of vegetative state over the past decade, because standing here now in the Priory in the middle of the Quarter, he couldn’t imagine going back to that life. Couldn’t figure out who that man was, that man who lived in California, who had the successful career and the perfect apartment. That man who had felt he’d transcended his past.
That man was just hiding.
He’d spent the past few months feeling desperate to go back, but he couldn’t fathom why now. Here, there was freedom. Here, there was Sarah.
She loved him.
Except she didn’t know. Didn’t know the final secret that would destroy those feelings completely.
Micah ruined families. He had ruined his own, he had ruined the Deacons, and he had ruined the Delacroix. He had never been one to believe in magic, though in New Orleans he became much more flexible. And looking at his life now, at the pattern, at the way things had come to this beautiful, fucked-up little circle, he could hardly deny the existence of it. As though some voodoo priestess had spied him early on and decided that she would curse him with the sweetest pain imaginable.
One mistake to destroy the Deacons. One mistake to destroy his ultimate chance at happiness. Manipulating a few things here and there to ensure that ten years from the time he’d committed the sin that had disbanded the Deacons, he would meet the daughter of the man he’d killed. The daughter of the man whose death had destroyed all that he’d believed in.
That one mistake would destroy this too. It would destroy everything he’d built.
Hell yeah, when he left New Orleans, he’d been running. And he had never fully appreciated it. But this was the evidence. That he could never outrun his past. That he could never stop being what he was.
It wasn’t the biker he had spent years running from, it was Micah Carpenter. It was himself. That little boy in the trailer who had destroyed the one family connection he’d had. Had broken a club that had been long standing before he’d joined. Who had destroyed one of New Orleans’s most respected families, deflowered the innocent granddaughter, had a hand in the death of two patriarchs.
He only knew how to demolish. He didn’t know how to build. And standing there before Sarah, he knew she needed someone who could rebuild the destruction she was sitting in the midst of.
And he was not that man.
He’d tried to hide in the Deacons. He’d tried to hide in San Francisco. Standing here before her now, he was exposed. For the first time in his memory. He wasn’t hiding. He was bleeding. Wanting things he could never have. Loving another person. A person who said she loved him back. And he knew he couldn’t accept that love in return.
“You can’t love me.” The words were emphatic, hard. He had to be hard so that he would keep going. If he softened, even for a moment, he would find himself on his knees in front of her, begging forgiveness instead of doing what he knew he had to do. He wasn’t an honorable man. Not in any portion of his life. When he’d been part of the Deacons, he had been selfish. Self-serving. Engaging in orgies whenever he could, taking his cut of the money from various jobs, and spending it on things that benefited only himself.
In San Francisco, he was no better. He worked to promote himself, to collect things that he shared with no one. He forged no meaningful relationships, because they might inhibit what he was creating for himself, and himself alone.
Right now, he was going to be selfless. Because every part of him wanted to take Sarah, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her upstairs. To stake a claim on her. To have her against a wall. To tell her she would stay with him, always. No matter what he did. No matter what he’d done. To tell her that he was bad for her, and he didn’t care.
But he did care. So he couldn’t.
“Micah, I understand these emotions might be new to you, but you can’t tell other people what they feel.” He could sense the hurt running through the note of steel in her voice. But she wouldn’t break, not in front of him. Not this iron southern belle, who was stronger than most of the badass outlaws he’d met over the years.
Strong enough to tell someone she loved them with no guarantee of that feeling being reciprocated.
So much stronger than he was. Because he couldn’t even return it now that she had spoken the words first.
“All right, maybe I can’t tell you what you feel, but I can tell you how it’s going to be. I’m going back to San Francisco. I have a life there.”
She shrugged, her expression placid. “It so happens I don’t have much of a life here in New Orleans. I might be open to a move.”
He tried to imagine Sarah in San Francisco. It was certainly a city that had its character. Nothing generic or bland about it. But she wouldn’t fit. She was part of the air here. The rich, smoky bayou air. He feared the crisp, clean breezes in California would dry her out.
Like they had him.
“I didn’t invite you, baby.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed screwing you, but that’s all this ever was. And I never told you different.”
“Things change,” she said, her tone muted. “I certainly have.”
“I haven’t. I’ve been through enough that watching one man shoot himself in the head is hardly going to affect a sea change in who I am. This was just another day in the Quarter for me, princess. You’re a nice girl. A good girl. Sexy. I liked what we had. Don’t ruin it.”
“Hush,” she said, her voice stern. “You’re the one who’s ruining it. You’re the one who’s lying.”
“I haven’t lied,” he said, lying even now. “I told you what I was here for. I told you I was going to leave. I got what I came for. Revenge for Priest. But the reasons I left New Orleans ten years ago are still here. I’m not going to take up with this merry band of outlaws and forget that I earned myself a better life in San Francisco. I’m not going to give up everything to come live in this shithole, where I was treated like nothing from the day I was born. I can’t have what I have there here. I will never be more than my birth here. And I think you underestimate how important things are to me. They call me Prince for a reason. It was because I liked status more than I liked anyone around me. You think those debutantes you hang out with are shallow? They got nothing on me. I want expensive things, a nice house, and a different, beautiful woman in my bed every night. That’s the beginning and end of it. There’s nothing more to me. Nothing more to this.”
Sarah looked at the hollowness in Micah’s eyes and knew he was lying. She had known from the moment he’d walked into the Priory that he was going to lie to her. Somehow, she had just sensed it. And now that he was speaking, it was confirmed. She knew he was lying, but that didn’t make it hurt less. Oh Lord, it didn’t make it hurt less.
“You’re very comfortable talking up what a bad guy you are. The kind that I shouldn’t be with, the kind that I shouldn’t speak to, or touch. You’re so comfortable with that, but you aren’t comfortable admitting all the good things about yourself.”
; “Because there is nothing good,” he said, his voice rough.
“That isn’t true. You know it isn’t true. There are other men, plenty of other men, who would have gone about this whole thing differently than you did. Who would have treated me with so much less respect.”
“You think I treated you with respect? Your head is pretty fucked, princess. Because in my memory, I put you up against a wall and had you even when you told me no. I told you you were mine. I called you my possession. There is no respect in that.”
“Maybe not for some men. But I know. Because you’re a different kind of man, but that doesn’t make you less of one.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped, his arms crossed over his chest. “Are you going to beg? You know I like it when you beg, honey, but it compromises your pride a little bit.”
“And a few months ago that would’ve bothered me. Because my pride mattered a hell of a lot more than it does now. Pride gets you where my grandfather is, which is in hell, by the way. Pride fixes nothing. It doesn’t bring happiness, it doesn’t bring fulfillment. Pride is not what I’m looking to satisfy here. For the first time in my life, I just want to satisfy myself. I want to be in love with someone who loves me back.”
“Well, that’s a problem. I’m the wrong audience.”
Liar, liar, liar. “That isn’t true. You do love me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I feel for you,” he said. “When you hear the truth about why I left New Orleans ten years ago, you’re going to change the way you feel about me.”
“Why would I let it? Why would I listen to anything you have to say about yourself?”
“I told you we had to leave because we killed somebody. I told you I was a killer.”
She curled her hands into fists, anger pouring through her. “I told you that wasn’t true.”
“I know you did. That was before I knew who we killed. That was before you knew.”
Something cold settled in the pit of Sarah’s stomach. Somehow she had a dark sense of what was coming before the words left his mouth. But even so, when they did, the shock was so severe, so stark, it stole her breath.