Maverick: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Series Book 6)

by Serena Akeroyd

  “Come on then, hit me with it.”

  “You have the brain of a sixty-four-year-old,” was not so beautiful Barry’s sniped response.

  “You don’t say? Probably still smarter than you,” I retorted, uncaring about his words.

  My old nemesis growled under his breath, then the door opened and in wandered a couple of his colleagues, and instantly, his tone changed, turned softer, kinder.

  Wasn’t sure who he was trying to fool.

  He was still a prick in a doctor’s coat.

  As words like tau deposits and brain trauma floated around me, I processed it all. Handled it.

  What was I supposed to do?

  It wasn’t like I was scared. I’d spent half my life waiting to die, knowing I’d end up passing over a lot sooner than I should because of how I lived. Sure, this was a slower kind of death, but I guessed I’d be alive to see it.

  I’d outlived Nic.

  By two years.

  Fuck, how was it that he’d died at thirty-five? How had I survived ten years without him?

  My insides churned up something fierce, and my grief was a thousand times more powerful than the news the doctors were serving up like it was a side of BS on prime rib.

  My brothers’ faces spoke loud and clear—I might have changed, might have lied to them, might have somehow become the club’s treasurer, but I was a good man.

  They loved me.

  I guessed I’d been doing something right even if I’d been hiding a ton from them too.

  When the doctors wandered out, discussing prognoses and treatments and things they were going to do to try to slow down the extent of the damage, I had only one thing to say.

  “I need to get out of here.”

  I kind of expected them to give me shit, to tell me I had to stay in the hospital, get treatment, do whatever I had to to get better.

  But that was, I figured, the beauty of this situation.

  I wasn’t going to get better.

  This was me.

  Maybe I’d get my memory back. Maybe I wouldn’t.

  Maybe I’d lose my fucking marbles for real when I hit fifty, or maybe I’d be dead by then.

  Who the fuck knew?

  Who fucking knew anyway? Wasn’t like everyone in this room wasn’t a ticking time bomb too, was it?

  That was what it meant to be human.

  We lived. We died. Hopefully, as we lived, we brought something good to the fucking world.

  At my declaration, Nyx merely sighed. “We’re going to Arlington, aren’t we?”

  I nodded. “We are.”

  “You ain’t ridden a bike in four years, brother,” Link pointed out gruffly.

  “Arlington’s no more than four hours’ ride, Link. I think I can handle that.”

  “You can if you ride bitch,” Steel grumbled. “Fuck knows what’s going on with your head. You can’t BS me. I can see you’re fighting a migraine.”

  My brows rose at his insight. Sure, I had a migraine—I’d had one since I woke up. That was what being a soldier meant. You got up, got on with shit. War didn’t stop because you had a fucking headache.

  “We could get Hawk to drive him down,” Link suggested, waiting for Nyx to lobby it back.

  “Think he should ride. Clear out the cobwebs,” was his retort.

  Even though it pricked my pride, I’d only just earned the right to start wearing boxer briefs again under this shitty hospital gown. I figured I shouldn’t run before I could walk.

  “I’ll ride bitch. Who’s ready to feel my dick at their back?”

  Link snorted. “Forgot what a fucking pervert you were, Mav.”

  I grinned. “Sure, ’cause you’ve changed since I last met you?”

  The shake of his head said it all, but his words gave me pause. “Weird as fuck when you say shit like that.”

  I shrugged. “In my mind, I just flew in from Afghanistan. Ain’t seen you fuckers for a good eight months. And you sure as shit weren’t these old cunts.”

  “Old but still pretty,” Link countered, but even as he was teasing me, I saw the concern etched on his face.

  Clambering off the bed, I stood up and stretched, aware that they were gaping at me and ignoring it. They’d been doing that ever since I’d gone to take a leak that first day, and Nyx had shoved me into a chair seconds after I got up, as though I was going to fall over like a toddling kid.

  Somehow, I’d managed to gain back the use of my legs, somehow I’d managed to gain enough muscular strength to walk, and some-fucking-how, I’d managed to do all that without their goddamn knowledge.

  Maybe I’d been bitten by a radioactive spider too.

  That seemed to be how my life was rolling right about now.

  Getting out of Dodge wasn’t as easy as I’d have hoped, especially when Barry tried to have security take me into custody, but what was I? A fucking wimp? I went to throat-punch one of them, pulling back a bare inch from connecting with him. His eyes were wide as he shrieked, almost like I had hit him, but the move triggered the reaction I wanted—the pair of them backed off and left me the hell alone as Barry squawked behind me about shit I wasn’t interested in.

  Never would be either.

  Whatever time I had left on this planet, it wasn’t going to be spent in a fucking hospital ward. It was going to be doing the shit I needed to do.

  Living.

  In more borrowed clothes, even on borrowed hogs, because the blast that had half the club tucked up inside the hospital I was just leaving had taken out a lot of our rides, I clambered on behind Link.

  It was weird for both of us, because we shared bikes with our bitches—no one else. And I knew for Link it had to be weirder because he had an Old Lady now, whom I certainly wasn’t.

  For four hours, I stayed close to him without trying to make shit creepy. Hugging him around the waist wasn’t going to happen, so I monitored the road as much as he did, making sure I moved with the bends and stayed low and close as we maneuvered around tight spots.

  For four hours, I dealt with the migraine that was getting worse under the heat of the sun, the roar of the wind blasting in my face. My skin was starting to ache too, and my actual skull felt as if it was throbbing under the weight of a borrowed helmet.

  The honks of a hundred horns through the ear plugs Steel had shoved at me before we took off, the throb of the bikes, the rattle of the goddamn straight pipes, everything seemed to sink into my brain and shake it around as though it was being blended, but I coped with it.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else, be it my recovery or the help the MC needed in the aftermath of this heinous attack on our territory, if I didn’t see for myself that Nic truly wasn’t here anymore.

  It seemed like yesterday we’d been in that bunk, sharing it as he tried to get over a migraine by napping. How had things changed? How was I that person now? The one dealing with migraines and nightmares, and the one being diagnosed with abbreviations and illnesses that weren’t possible to treat.

  PTSD was a part of life for almost all soldiers, and I knew, just like a lot of the guys on my A-Team, I had it.

  Ken was so wired most of the time that it was a wonder he could take a leak without managing to shoot his own dick off. Then there was Wamba—he’d stuck so close to the rules, to the fine line of orders, to an anal-retentive degree. Boggled my mind that he’d ever been able to get to sleep at night without a colonel giving him permission.

  Ten years, man, ten fucking years. Gone. Without a trace.

  I had time to think about it on that ride. While I didn’t have silence, I had no means of communicating with my brothers who rode through two states for me, who helped me on, what was essentially, a pilgrimage.

  A pilgrimage to the only person I’d ever loved.

  Not like love-love. I’d adored my mom, and my brothers all took up prime real estate in my heart. But Nic? He was like my Romeo.

  He couldn’t be dead.

  He just couldn’t be. />
  Only, he was.

  Those four hours on the road culminated in us managing to get into the cemetery just before it closed for the day. I had no idea how they knew exactly where Nic was buried, but they did. Which told me they’d expected this. Had anticipated my wanting to visit and had been prepared for the eventuality.

  Section 60 was a marker most soldiers knew about. At least from my generation. We all had someone buried there, someone we’d served with who’d died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  I just never thought I’d be here for Nic.

  The walk from the entrance to that sector was hard going. Proof that, even if I could walk, even if I was strong enough to do it on my own and without help, I wasn’t used to it. I’d need to build up some strength, some stamina too, and get myself ready for anything, because even though the war was over for me, I knew the MC was deep in the throes of one on our home turf.

  Still, those thoughts were shuffled aside as I passed fallen brothers, witnessed the tears of loved ones who grieved their lost as they visited their graves, talking to them as though they were alive, moms and dads tending to the pristine pitch of grass like it was ragged, kids standing solemn and bitter as they tried not to cry, tried to process what was impossible to process.

  Through it all, I tried to come to terms with the prospect of coming across the one name I didn’t want to see etched into white marble. It hit me that if I, a grown man, couldn’t deal with this, then how the fuck could those kids who were visiting their mommies’ and daddies’ graves?

  My brothers’ surety made me want to hesitate. Run away. They knew to head four rows deep, twelve across from the path we were on, and I followed them. Knowing they wouldn’t steer me wrong—even if I wanted them to.

  Dominic J Ellis

  MSG

  US ARMY

  Sep 8 1975

  May 17 2010

  Purple Heart

  Operation Enduring Freedom

  The pain that speared me was worse than the agony in my head.

  For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

  For a second, I couldn’t think.

  For a second, I couldn’t move.

  And then, all three happened at once. As I gulped in air, my knees gave out, which had me plummeting, face first, to the soil.

  Forehead to the grass that blanketed the man I loved, I wept.

  For him.

  For me.

  For the past that was lost to me, the present that was tearing me to shreds, and a future we’d never have together.

  Through it all, my brothers stood around me in silent sentry. Guarding me. Guarding the man I loved as I came to terms with a truth I couldn’t remember.

  A truth I didn’t want to be real.

  But one I’d have to come to accept because there was no denying what I was seeing.

  Nic was dead.

  And so were we.

  Five

  Ghost

  After a couple of nights alone in the poolhouse, it was with relief that Maverick came to stay with me.

  The place was big, larger than I was used to, and I rattled around it, unsure what to do, where to be, how to act.

  Lily told me to treat it like this was my home.

  But it wasn’t.

  Perhaps it was pathetic, but Maverick had come to be that.

  He was my solid ground, which made things a thousand times worse for me when the day he returned to me, the day he walked through the door, he point blank ignored me.

  I bit my lip as I watched him storm down the short corridor toward the room Link pointed him to. Without a backward glance at me, he headed in there, leaving me feeling breathless at the sight of him walking, which still came as a surprise, but also at the state of his face.

  It was ravaged.

  He’d been crying.

  The pressure on my bottom lip had me wondering how the bit of flesh hadn’t given in to the force of my teeth, but as he strode away like I was the ghost Link had nicknamed me, I turned to him and asked, “Why was he crying?”

  “We went to visit Nic’s grave at Arlington.”

  Surprise hit me. “Is that nearby?”

  He shrugged. “Four or so hours away in Virginia.”

  My lips parted. “Four hours? That’s a long distance! Should he have been traveling so soon—”

  Link stepped toward me, and as the brothers tended to, he made a move to touch me then froze when he remembered he wasn’t supposed to.

  Sighing impatiently, I demanded, “Link?”

  He winced. “Truth is, Ghost, there was no way in hell we were going to keep Maverick from that place. He needed to see for himself how the land lay.”

  “He’s devastated,” I whispered, turning back to look at the now closed door.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first time he really let himself feel anything for Nic,” he admitted rawly. “We’d never heard of him before. He’d never mentioned him to us. Considering how he’s suffering, that seem healthy to you?”

  “Lodestar must have known—”

  “Christ knows what she knows,” he muttered grumpily. “She’s a law unto herself.” Because I could hardly argue, I stayed silent until he sighed. “Everything will turn out right, Ghost. Might not seem like it now, because things are so fresh, but we needed to know what was going on with him.”

  “Do we really know more now than we did before?” I countered, unsure if that was a lie Link was feeding himself or me.

  He hitched a shoulder. “I don’t know, but what I do know is that you need to give him some time. Some space. Some sympathy. To him, rationally, he knows we’re no longer in our twenties, but he’s fresh off the plane from Afghanistan, Ghost. Pushing him won’t achieve anything.”

  I didn’t bother to reply because if he thought I was the kind to push then he was wrong. It hadn’t been in my nature before I’d been sold, so why would it be now?

  Getting the feeling he was talking to himself more than me, telling himself not to push the friend who was like a brother, I let him go, watching as he lumbered back to the big house.

  Amid the stylishly coiffured gardens and the grand pool, Link stuck out like a sore thumb in his jeans, leather cut, and boots. He didn’t fit in around this place. Not like Lily did. Maverick and I didn’t fit in either. Maybe not even Star and Kati. Tiffany did, I’d seen her yesterday when she came to visit her mom, who also looked well at ease around such luxury.

  Evidently, Lily didn’t care whether he fit in or not, because she was there, like they were on each other’s radar, rushing toward him, not stopping until he was picking her up and hauling her into his arms.

  The sight had my heart sighing, because I liked both Lily and Link—that had nothing to do with the fact that Link had been the one to get me out of the dungeon I’d been in—and wanted them to be happy.

  That was the difference between Tatána and me, I thought. Not Amara, who was a little too focused inwardly—not selfishly, just her introverted nature made her different and difficult to get to know. But me, I wanted others to be happy. Wanted them to grab their slice of contentedness where it could be found before it was snatched away. As life, I’d learned, always snatched the good things away…

  Tatána had begrudged people their joy, and that was why it was getting easier to accept that she could have sold out the MC.

  It wasn’t my fault—I wasn’t responsible for her or Amara and their behavior, but oddly enough, it felt that way. I felt duty bound to understand why she’d done what she had, which was annoying because I didn’t think I’d ever get any answers.

  Reaching up, I plucked at my bottom lip as I watched Link laugh at whatever Lily had said when, with her legs around his hips and his arms supporting her, they retreated to the house.

  A unit.

  They were different somehow.

  They’d always been close, always been affectionate, but I felt like something had changed since they’d gotten engaged. Intimacy… Could a diamond rin
g really change things that much?

  As I pondered that, I also pondered the fact I couldn’t bear to be staying here with a brooding Mav when all I wanted was to go into his room and sit with him, huddle into him and have him comfort me as much as I comforted him.

  I’d never been the kind of person who’d dreamed of being able to lie in a bed with a man, just talking about dreams and wishes, hopes and prayers for the future. I’d always been a busy child with chores my grandmother had set as well as schoolwork.

  There’d been no time for thinking foolish things. There’d only been time for doing.

  I’d never complained because that was just how I’d been raised, but even though it hadn’t been a week since I’d lost the Mav I knew, I missed him something fierce.

  With nothing to do, nowhere to work, and time on my hands, I decided to go and sit with Kati. She liked my company, in fact, seemed to want to hover around me all the time, and I wanted to speak with Star.

  I wondered if she knew anything about Nic, anything she felt comfortable sharing, because if she could tell me more about Nic and Maverick as a couple, then it would spare his feelings if she shared them with me as it wouldn’t be a wound I’d need to prod to understand how I could help him more.

  I refused, point blank, to think there wasn’t a way to help him.

  There had to be.

  I couldn’t just give up on what I had with him, even if it was barely anything in the grand scheme of things.

  It wasn’t like we’d done anything other than sleep together. We’d kissed a few times, pecks on the lips, gentle brushes of his mouth against my temple or on top of my hair, even a few deeper caresses, and what I knew Giulia called dry humping. His hands had clung to me in sleep. We’d shared secrets in the dark… but we hadn’t had sex.

  Was that why he’d forgotten me?

  It was hard not to think that. Hard to wonder if I should have spread my legs so I’d be memorable…