Rex snorted. “Oh, they’ll get their fucking blood, but it will be slower than he expects is all.”
“What do you think he can tell us?” I whispered, turning into him as we entered the street and a cluster of people headed our way.
Because they were smart, they filed into a straight line to avoid us, and we went on our merry way without them getting into our space.
“I’m hoping he’ll be able to dish on the Famiglia’s compound.”
“He wasn’t Famiglia,” I reminded him. “Just affiliated.”
“That’s what I want to know. Their affiliations and ours, are they similar? Different? I want to know the inner workings of the business, and the one way to learn that is to get an inside look on things.”
Slowly, I nodded, and thought about news from the prison where my dick of a baby bro was locked up. “Fieri is dead, so that means the leader is without a son.”
Rex shot me a look. “Exactly, that means we have an unknown primed for the top when Benito kicks the bucket. I want to know who might be the next man in line for the throne, and if that’s going to cause Tiffany any issues.
“If we waste him, if we end his miserable life now? Then that’s our Famiglia Google gone forever.”
I heaved a sigh. “I get it, brother, I do, but you’re not taking into account Link or Mav.”
“They’re brothers first. We’re at war. We need to remember that. Look at what happened yesterday,” he rumbled, not pleased with my raising that question to him. “Steel got shot thanks to this stupid fucking game that’s going on between factions. I don’t want this to carry on longer than it has to. If Donavan Lancaster is the key to ending shit sooner, I ain’t going to get rid of him until we’ve pumped him for all he’s worth, and in the meantime, we can make him miserable. Make the place he kept Ghost and the other girls look like the fucking Ritz by comparison. I’m down with that. But we keep him alive, Nyx. You hear me?”
I grunted. “I hear you, bro.”
“Good.” He sucked in a breath as he made it to his bike. While I walked the few steps to mine, he asked, “What’s going on with Stone?”
“I don’t know. Indy just said that she spewed up some blood.”
Rex’s mouth tightened. “Any news on Steel?”
I shook my head. “Rex?”
“Yeah?” he replied, putting his helmet on and fastening it as I spoke.
“Why are you so obsessed with getting them together?”
He tensed just long enough for me to wonder if he’d answer, then he muttered, “Because I was the one who found Steel when he tried to kill himself. I was there when Stone overdosed. All this shit because that fucker was his father…” He shook his head. “You know the rules of chess, Nyx, right? I know you don’t play it, but do you know them?”
I shrugged. “The basics.”
Rex tapped his forehead. “The truth is, a long time ago, Bear taught me those rules and tied them to the MC and its council. He said that as important as the pawns are in this world, it’s the key players who will make or break the MC’s future.
“But the MC is different than how it was in his day. Truth is, we’re more of a family than ever because of the ties that bind the council.”
“I can see that,” I agreed.
Before Rex had been Prez, when his father had ruled the roost, the council had been tight, and even had blood ties on there, but that was nothing compared to how it was with me, Rex, Steel, Link, Mav, and Storm. Now Sin too. Even though he was a later addition, he’d fit right in from the start, once he’d returned from his stint as a Marine and had killed his fucker of a father.
“My key players and his are completely different. He wanted his under wraps, always under his thumb because that would help him figure out where he was going, but me? You guys aren’t just pieces to move. You’re my fucking family. The entire place is. I worry about you all like a goddamn mother hen, and when I see the shit you all go through…” He shook his head. “Of all of you, I was the luckiest. Dad might not have stayed true to Ma, but at least he did in some ways. He never beat me, she never beat me. There was never any bad blood between them. She was loyal, and she raised me to be a good kid, probably too good for an MC—”
We all knew that.
That was one of the issues he had with Rachel. She knew he had potential, and in her mind, he’d wasted that potential on running a band of brothers that did more illegal shit than was on the rap sheet of West Orange’s county jail’s population combined.
“So when I see you fuckers suffering, it gets to me. It really fucking does. Stone and Steel? They were meant for each other. Just like me and Rachel are. Sometimes, I call it in advance, and the truth is, I get why Steel stayed away from her.”
“Because it’s for a similar reason that you stay away from Rachel?”
Rex dipped his chin. “Yeah. Not because my father was a scum-sucking cunt, but because I want what’s best for her. Now you have Giulia, I know you’ll get this more, but sometimes, even though it fucking hurts, you just have to admit you’re not the best thing for the woman who owns you.” He shook his head. “Kills me to be around Rachel. Fucking slays me every goddamn time, and maybe someday, I’ll make shit right between us and I’ll claim her, but we got a lot of bad blood between us, a lot of differences that can’t be overcome. But Steel and Stone don’t.”
I nodded. “I get it.”
His lips twisted. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I do. Even before Giules, I saw what they should have together. I never envied it because I didn’t want it, but I thought he was an ass for not claiming what was his.”
Rex grunted. “Stone was that the second she turned into a woman. Steel just got fucked along the way.” His jaw tensed. “You okay with who his father is?”
I snorted. “No, I’m fucking not, but it isn’t my brother’s fault, is it?”
“Your cousin,” he corrected, making me pull a face.
“Shit, we’ve got more incestuous ties going on in our clubhouse than an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful.”
He snickered at that. “When you have people fucking as much as we do, it’s a wonder we don’t have an army of brats roaming around the place.”
“We do,” I said dryly, then I muttered, “Anyway, I get it, and I don’t want to keep you. I’ll head for the clubhouse, you keep in touch and let me know how they both get on.”
Rex nodded. “Will do.”
He kicked off his kickstand, and I watched him drive off as I did the same, both of us heading opposite ways.
I wasn’t exactly ecstatic at the notion of traveling on the same road as my brother had, a road that had seen him get shot, so I took a different route out of the city and on to West Orange that added an extra hour to my time.
NYC was a smorgasbord of crossed boundaries and territories that were nearly impossible to identify. I did my best to stick to lines where we had affiliations, like with the Demonios Bandidos.
We were safe on their territory, and I took advantage of that to make it over the bridge and back into our land.
As I rolled home, the wind in my face, my body buffered on all sides as I slammed into it, needing to get back to the compound ASAP, I felt like a part of me was liberated while another was tethered.
I knew what Rex meant.
The MC was like a game of chess or, at any rate, the people were like the pieces on a chess board, and even though I didn’t think of it that way, I knew how fucking smart Rex was. Mostly, I knew that Bear had recognized what his son was capable of.
If anyone could think twelve steps ahead, it was Rex. I trusted his judgment in all things, but I’d admit that I wasn’t happy that when, eventually, I had to open the door to the Fridge and was faced with Lancaster, I’d have to hold back my brothers who wanted blood while Rex had something else in mind.
Strategy meant nothing when bloodlust was high, and I couldn’t blame them. Either of them.
If I had my say, I’d kill Luke Lan
caster a thousand times over. And that would never be enough.
My entire body could be inked with a million skulls, each one representing his passing, and it’d never sufficiently cover how I wanted to maim him.
Lily, Ghost, Tatána, Amara, and all the other women Donavan Lancaster had abused in his time deserved justice.
But they weren’t going to get it yet.
Which fucking sucked.
When I made it back to the compound, I wasn’t altogether surprised to see Giulia was there waiting on me.
She had a bit of an inbuilt radar where I was concerned, and every time it pinged to life, I had this feeling of rightness settle in my heart.
I’d die for her.
I’d kill for her.
But I’d make sure to live for her, because I knew that without me in her world, just like it would be the same if the roles were reversed, she would be living a shadow of an existence.
And the truth was, I’d lived that way for too long.
She’d been in my orbit for months now, a quantity of time that I could still count with my fingers, yet somehow, it was like she’d never not been there.
It was as if she’d always been cemented into my soul.
I hadn’t texted her that I was on my way back, but that she knew had me smiling anyway as I rolled to a stop, climbed off my hog, then twisted around just in time to catch her.
Her legs hooked around my waist, her belly slammed against mine, and her arms went around my neck.
I held her tightly, securely, and loved the feel of all her lush curves against me.
Knowing she was mine and having proof of that resting against my dick was always enough to make me want to blow my load, but when our mouths collided?
Fuck, that was the real welcome a man needed.
She tongue fucked me, proud and unashamed of showing what she felt for me, and I ground my cock into her pussy, holding fast to her ass as I urged her into rocking against me.
I was a private man where sex was concerned, and I knew she was too, but shit had changed since the attack in the bar that had started this entire labyrinth the MC was wading through.
She’d began pushing boundaries, trying to find her limitations, and I’d go with her all the way, wherever she needed to go.
She pulled back, biting my bottom lip hard enough to sting, and I smirked at her for that.
“That’s mine.”
“I can steal a signature move, can’t I?” she murmured, her voice low and husky, making me think of the way she’d cry out tonight when I pounded into her.
It had been too long since I’d been inside her, too long since I’d had her in my arms.
Fuck, I knew I was turning into a pussy, but I just didn’t have it in me to give a shit.
I was living. For the first time in my life, I was actually doing more than existing, and I wasn’t about to apologize for that.
A huff sounded from the doorway, snatching my attention, and I saw a couple of the club sluts were watching us with misery, jealousy, and bitterness etched onto their features.
I figured that trifecta came from a few things.
One, they were jealous because they’d all, at some point, tried to get their hooks into me. Two, because they wanted an Old Man as badly as some of them needed a meal. And three? They were wearing grimy clothes with dirt marks on them, and from the shit in their hands and the yellow gloves covering them, I just knew that Giulia had taken Rex’s edict before we’d left for the city to heart.
“You making them clean at this time of the night?” I asked on a soft laugh as I turned away from them and started toward the side entrance of the clubhouse.
“Course I am,” she replied with a beaming smile. “You didn’t think I was going to make their lives pleasant, did you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Rex has created a monster.”
She winked at me. “No, my darling, you did that.” I snickered, knowing she was half right, then she said, “Nyx?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“What’s going on?”
“With Stone and Steel? They’re both under obs right now.”
She shook her head. “The screams from the Fridge,” she whispered, releasing a sharp breath that told me how bad they’d been if they shook her. She was a tough little nut to crack, but I could see those screams would probably haunt her dreams for a while. “What was going on in there? I didn’t think anything would be happening while you guys were all in the city.”
“It wasn’t supposed to,” I grumbled. “It’s why I’m back sooner than expected though.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because Lodestar got in and made Lancaster squeal.” I heaved a sigh. “Stone’s just gone into surgery, and I split off with Rex because I needed to come here and make sure the Fridge is locked down.” My nose crinkled. “You ain’t even supposed to know about that fucking place, babe.”
She waved a hand. “Tiff accidentally found out from Sin.”
“And she just had to tell you, huh?”
Her lips twisted. “Women talk, baby.”
I rolled my eyes as I finally made it around the side of the building and toward the entrance that would take me straight into the corridor that led to Rex’s office.
I wanted nothing more than to take her to our room, but I had shit I needed to do, and I knew Mav would be in there.
I kissed her before we strolled down the hall, then when we made it to the office, I squeezed her ass cheeks and muttered, “I need to sort this shit out, babe. You gonna be okay?”
“Of course,” she told me brightly, but I saw the shadows in her eyes and knew she’d have nightmares tonight.
Even if Lodestar was behind them, even though I was here and not Rex because Stone was sick, I was just fucking glad I would be with her tonight.
She needed me more than she’d probably accept. I knew how that felt. I was still coming to terms with how much I needed her.
We’d deal with it though. We had no choice.
Just like the white and the black pieces on Rex’s chess board were born to fight forever, me and Giules?
We were born to see this life through together.
With her the queen to my king.
Maverick
I knew I should be mad at Lodestar for changing shit up, but I couldn’t be. I knew her too well, knew the way she worked, and had figured she’d manage to get to Donavan Lancaster before the rest of us had a shot.
The second I’d watched her wheedle her way into the interrogation with Rex, just before Tiff and Lily had been kidnapped, I’d known that whether or not he agreed to it, she’d do her own thing.
As it stood, in her mind, she wasn’t doing anything wrong because she’d gotten permission.
Didn’t matter that Rex was a control freak, that he liked to keep his hands on all the strings and pulled them every way he wanted.
She didn’t give a fuck.
She had her own agenda, had been following it for a long time.
Not that I blamed her.
She might look normal on the outside, but on the inside? She was a hot mess.
Me?
I was scarred and broken at first glance.
You saw the wars I’d been through, the battles I’d fought. It was clear in the body that was still too skinny, even though Giulia made it a point to fatten me up, and it was obvious from my drawn face.
Lodestar just looked like a regular woman.
I looked like a soldier.
You’d never tell that we’d served at the same time. You’d never know that we’d been on the same unit.
Somehow, even though she was three years younger than me, even though we’d seen the same shit and done worse together, she looked a lot younger than me.
I wasn’t jealous, but I knew how devious that could be.
I studied her as she studied me.
A little like we were playing a game with each other, trying to find the other’s weaknesses, but the trouble was, we both knew the
other’s weaknesses too well.
I sat behind Rex’s desk, even though this wasn’t my position, and she sat facing me, opposite it.
Not once had she apologized for going behind our backs and seeing Lancaster when she wasn’t supposed to. Not once had she shown any contrition at the noises he’d made that had Ghost, Amara, and Tatána screaming from their bunkhouse in horror.
I wasn’t even sure what she’d done to the bastard to make him holler like that. The walls of the Fridge were more than just soundproof. Men had been beaten to death there, tortured to within an inch of their lives, given fucking transfusions to bring them back to life, just so we could start the torture some more.
Nothing and no one had ever made them scream like that.
She’d barely had twenty-four hours with the guy, and I knew that because that was the last time I’d seen her. Four o’clock yesterday.
Breaking into our stare off, the door opened, and I glanced across the room, spying Nyx who was just tapping Giulia on the tush.
She shot him a wicked look that made me smile, because if anyone could keep Nyx on his toes, it was that little minx, and she dashed off, evidently enjoying her task of making the clubwhores miserable.
The men had yet to notice that her war against the club sluts had commenced, but when they figured it out, I doubted they’d complain that much. They loved her food, and weren’t going to argue with someone who would easily dope a batch of green chilli to get her own way.
The Old Ladies were not a fan of the men’s preferences of fucking any of the bunnies whenever and wherever they wanted. Only the fact that Giulia was heading the campaign to make the club snatches’ lives miserable stopped the snatch from spreading complaints back to the council, because everyone, even the bunnies, was scared of Nyx.
Hell, sometimes, even I was when he was in a rage.
It wasn’t like a regular fear, more like I was fearful for him, but still, it was true nonetheless.
As Nyx watched her sashay on her way, he turned to us, then glowered at Lodestar.
“I always knew you were a pain in the ass, but I never recognized just how big of a one you were, Lodestar.”
She shrugged. “It’s a talent, Nyx. You have to know that.”
Steel: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 4) Page 18