Hadn’t I been told so many times that the only memorable thing about me was my pussy?
The thought stung, and I drifted out of the poolhouse, leaving Maverick to his grief as I took the same path Link had to the main house.
As I moved, I happened to see someone standing in the window on the upper balcony. Recognizing Tiffany’s mom, I didn’t bother to raise my hand to her as I’d already established over last night’s meal that I was a nobody to her.
That everyone MC related was a nobody.
It was why she stayed in her room, a little like Miss Haversham.
The whimsical thought of one of the characters from a favorite movie of mine had a smile chasing across my lips because I highly doubted the stylish and still fashionable woman would appreciate the comparison—even if she barely left her room.
I felt bad, but it didn’t stop me from snapping off a frond of lavender at the head and crushing it between my fingers before raising it to my nose. The sweet floral scent had my memory pinging, because the last time I’d smelled it, I’d been back home.
A continent away and that smell didn’t change.
I wished I was that way too. I wished I was the same as I’d been back then, but now I was Ghost. Not Alessa. Ghost. In more ways than one.
As I rubbed the little bud over my pulse points at my throat, letting it crumble between my fingers before I dropped the damaged flower into the soil to be at one with the earth, I carried on my way, entering the house by passing through my favorite room—what I’d heard Lily call the salon.
English was a strange language. A salon could be a place where women had their hair cut, but also a living room. I wasn't sure about the connection, but I was certain that I’d never been anywhere like it. Of course, I’d heard them call it a great room too, but I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t ‘cool.’ It was just big.
Overhead, there was a chandelier that, when illuminated, looked like it belonged in a movie. Hundreds of glass baubles hung suspended in the air, looking like juicy apples that were ready to be plucked from the tree. Whenever I stepped into this room, my gaze always drifted upward to the beauty of the installation that had a magic of its own because it seemed so tactile even though I knew it wasn’t at all.
The rest of the place was a little fussy, even as it screamed money. Expensive furnishings, the fabrics deluxe in a way that I’d never seen outside of magazines, and art and antiques rubbed shoulders with an ease that lit my humble beginnings up in sharp relief.
I’d always known we were poor, but this place made me realize the level of our destitution, which reminded me of my mother’s fate—she’d sold herself into marriage.
Mama had flittered away to the States to marry a man she didn’t know to pay for her mother’s healthcare, to support me… She’d been young and beautiful, carefree and buoyant even if the local village had thought she was a slut for being a single mother.
It killed me that I’d lost her before I ever had the chance to know her as more than just a woman who sang lullabies to me at night, and who had shadows under her eyes from fatigue that came from working the farm as well as her shifts at a local factory. She’d been strong and dedicated, had loved her family enough to always smile through her exhaustion…
I hated that Kati wouldn’t know any of this about her too. If I felt shortchanged, then how must she feel? I’d have to be the one to remind her, but whenever I did, it became clear that my mother and the one who’d raised her were different, and that always upset my sister. To the point where we’d barely spoken of her at all.
My mother danced in the kitchen barefoot, but Kati’s version sounded—crazy though it seemed—brittle. Delicate. Always perfectly made up and wearing fancy clothes.
What had her husband done to her to make her like that?
I’d never know, would I?
Uneasy now with memories and regrets, heart aching with grief for both Kati and myself, I darted out of the room and into the hallway. The girlish giggles had me smiling as I followed Kati’s noise down a polished marble corridor lined with more paintings and such toward a kitchen.
It fit, especially as I knew how much Kati tended to pack away.
I found her sitting at the kitchen table, eating what looked like carrots, cucumber sticks, and hummus, while Star glowered at something she was reading.
“Bad news?” I asked as a greeting.
Star shot me a look and shrugged, while Kati squealed and flew out of her chair before throwing herself at me so she could hug me.
I wouldn’t lie that being so freely touched came as a surprise in the aftermath of what I’d gone through, but it was a sign that we were closer than before, which was something I could never regret.
Ever.
I pressed a kiss to her dark blonde hair as I squeezed her tightly in a hug, and as I pulled back, holding onto her, I chivvied, “Are you making mischief?”
“Nope. I’m talking to Kyrian on Star’s phone. He says his daddy is better.”
Ah, Kyrian. Her crush.
She shot me a smile that came complete with a gap where one of her last few baby teeth—or so she’d assured me—had fallen out last week.
Before the blast.
Before everything had changed.
Again.
Why did things keep changing?
Tucking her into my side, I focused on Star. “You look tired.”
“I’m okay, just in pain,” she muttered, and I frowned at her.
“Should you be out of the hospital?”
Her eyes cut to Kati, and even though her grousing denied it, I knew she was back here for my sister. “I’ve already had Lily bitching at me about this,” she grumbled, voice gruff. “I’m fine. Been through worse and I’ll go through worse still.”
Tension filled me at her words. “Just because you’ve been through worse doesn’t mean this particular situation isn’t bad. You shouldn’t measure everything up to the past. If you do, where does it end? Well, I have a migraine,” I mocked, “but I won’t take any acetaminophen because I didn’t need it when I almost lost my leg—”
Her scowl told me she didn’t appreciate what I had to say, but deep in her eyes, I saw a glimmer of something that, shockingly enough, I took to be respect as she hadn’t expected me to contradict her.
I wasn’t sure why, but that had me swallowing down some nerves.
Lodestar was a soldier. It was in everything she did. In her behavior, how she held herself, the way she stared down the world like she wasn’t afraid of anything.
By comparison, I was a nothing. A no one. Not a fighter or someone who took the world head-on. I was a victim. The only thing I’d done was survive, and even then, I hadn’t done much.
Amara had been the one to escape the cage we’d been kept in. I’d just lain there, knowing I was dying, trying to hold on even though I thought I’d go insane with the need for water.
She’d managed to break free and had, growing weaker every day, tried to make noise so that somebody, anybody, could hear us. I’d thought it was futile when she was too weak to even stand on her own two feet, but like knights in creaky armor, the MC had swooped in and saved the day.
All of that had happened around me. To me. I hadn’t done a thing to help myself.
So for this woman, this warrior to look at me with even a whisper of respect, even if it wasn’t earned, well, it hurt. In a good way.
Kati moved over to Star and slung an arm over her shoulders. “Ghost’s right, Star,” she muttered, pecking her cheek with a kiss. “Can I get you those pills the doctor sent you home with?”
I wasn’t altogether sure if I was happy my baby sister knew about these ‘pills,’ but it wasn’t like Star would have been given a prescription of heroin, was it?
Still, the insight into their relationship was interesting. Star, by no one’s ideals, was a mother. Kati wandered around the clubhouse with wild hair that didn’t look like it had been brushed in a month, usually had dirt on her face, and, thank
fully, was too young to really stink, but she’d get that wet dog smell after a few days which told me Star wasn’t forcing her to shower.
But she never forgot Kati.
Somehow, she never did.
Not a day went by where I didn’t see her hug Kati or Kati kiss her back on the cheek. Where Star didn’t make her a sandwich or tell her to grab some ‘green shit,’ which I thought were vegetables—just like with her veggies and hummus today. She might be an unorthodox mother, but she was better than me.
We were blood, but somehow, I felt like I had no rights to Kati, and I was just relieved that though their relationship was unusual, it worked for them.
It took the pressure off me.
Which, of course, made me feel both guilty and relieved all over again.
Talk about a vicious cycle.
“Go on then,” Star muttered, acceding to the whims of her daughter who giggled and skipped away like she didn’t have a care in the world. I heard her feet thudding against the marble and knew, one day, she’d slip or fall, and should be told not to run in the house, but maybe Star knew that too, because her gaze remained watchful on the door Kati had just left through, yet neither of us said anything, until…
“She has to learn.”
Star’s mumble had me shrugging. “I know.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“Not my place.” I knew she was wary around me, knew she probably thought I’d try to take Katina away from her. There was nothing I could do to diminish that fear, aside from shore up Star’s rights.
“You’re her sister,” was her gruff retort.
“You’re her mother.” I shrugged again. “Even if she does run around like a crazy person, she’s a good girl.”
Star’s chin jerked up. “I like her running wild. I never could. It’s nice to watch her skip around the place, singing and shit. I mean, I never know what the fuck she’s wailing about, but she seems happy.”
I slipped into the seat opposite her at the dining table where she was perched awkwardly, looking like she was in serious pain from the tight purse of her lips, the strain around her eyes, and the tension in her body that wasn’t usually there. Both Maverick and Star acted like they had metal wires instead of bones keeping their shoulders and spine straight, but there was a fragility now that I wasn’t used to seeing.
Come to think of it, when Mav had walked into the house, he’d had that same stiffness about him.
Was he in pain?
Aside from the head injury and the concussion which, of course, had to be painful, I didn’t think there was anything else wrong with him. Did that mean the headache was that bad?
I hoped not.
“I like to see it too. I never had that either. We lived on a working farm, and there were always chores to do. It’s nice to see her have her freedom. We grow up so fast. Too fast. I’m glad she gets to stay young.”
Star shot me a surprised look. “You worked on a farm?”
I nodded. “A dairy farm. It wasn’t fun.”
“We had a ranch too, but not for dairy. For slaughter.” She winced. “Then with Daddy being an all-out hunter, it’s no wonder I’m so easy with death and killing things.”
The instant she let out the words, I got the feeling she’d like to suck them back in again. I didn’t let her be embarrassed or worried though. She was good at killing things—that meant she’d be good at keeping Kati safe, which mattered to me. When I was sent back to Ukraine, Kati would need someone to protect her.
So, I just said, “You’re good with her. It makes me happy to see that.”
Some howling started down the corridor. It might have sounded like a mother cow giving birth to a calf, but it was Kati singing something in a language I didn’t understand.
Lodestar, taking pity on me, murmured, “It’s K-Pop. She could be singing about slaughtering bulls too for all I know.”
My lips twitched. “Not sure that would be a pop song if that was the content matter.”
“It’s a fucked up world. Who the hell knows what sells anymore?”
Kati wandered in, still skipping, but with each step, she rattled now too. She moved over to Star, dropped the bottle in front of her, then wandered over to the fridge. She didn’t return until she had some juice in her hand as well as a little cake in the other. The cake she shoved at Star with the order of, “Eat it. You haven’t eaten anything yet.”
Star grumbled, “Heil, Hitler.”
Kati giggled. “The brothers say that about Giulia.” Her chest puffed up. “When I grow up, I want to be just like her.”
“Jesus Christ,” Star groaned. “Wait until you learn who Hitler is. I don’t think you’ll wanna be like him then.”
Kati frowned. “He’s a real person? I thought it was, like, something on Netflix.”
“No, he was, like, real, like, you know?” Star huffed, grabbed the cake, tore open the packet, and took a large bite as she did something on her phone. Shoving it at her, she said, “Go on, read it. Tell me if you wanna laugh now.”
Kati scrunched her nose up. “Is this a teachable moment?”
My brows lifted at that, and it was hard, so very hard, not to laugh.
“Yes, it is.”
“Is she supposed to know it’s labeled a teachable moment?”
Star shrugged. “Don’t know.” Her lips pursed. “Don’t care. Read, monkey face.”
Kati sighed. “Okay,” she grumbled, grabbing the phone, revealing the screen to me.
I watched as she scanned through the article as Star finished the cake and popped a couple of pills.
“She reads fast, doesn’t she?”
Star nodded. “Taught her how to speed read. That stuff they make them learn in school is too boring to spend a lot of time over.”
Using a cough to hide more laughter, I dipped my chin to shield my smile and simply watched Katina process a piece of world history that had escaped her this far.
When she was done, she shot Star a look. “I don’t like him.”
“No? Good. I’d need to take you to a child shrink if you did, and I really don’t feel like paying six hundred dollars an hour for you to play with playdoh and pretend you’re not a psychopath.”
“Six hundred?” Kati tipped her head to the side. “We can come to a deal where you can give me that money and I’ll play with toys all by myself.”
Star snorted. “No can do, kid. Unfortunately for you, you’re normal.”
Kati heaved a disappointed sigh, then her fingers traced over a couple of the pictures on the article. “Why did he do that?”
“Why do people hurt each other ever?” Lodestar asked rhetorically. “Some folk are good, some are bad, but it’s never that simple, sweetheart. Look at the Sinners. You know what Mary Jane Winslop told you about them?”
“That they are bad people? Scum?”
Inside, I tensed up, hating to hear that about men who were rough around the edges but damn good people in possession of big hearts.
“Yes. Well, would scum care for people the way they do? Look how they’ve watched over your sister, look how they helped Cyan and Keira when they were down on their luck and didn’t have enough money to make rent. And then look at Stone. How they prettied up that bunkhouse so she could have someplace nice to stay while she got better…
“What sounds worse to you? Some judgmental little bitch who calls people who are like family to us scum, or her desire to hurt you, to make the family you care for seem bad in your eyes?”
She pondered that for a second then cheerily inquired, “Does Mary Jane need to visit a shrink?”
Lodestar smiled. “Yeah, I think she does. You should tell her that next time she’s mean.”
“Can I call her Hitler?”
“Well, I’ll get called into the office for that, so no. We need you to stay under the radar because although your papers are good forgeries, the less trouble you cause the better.”
Kati’s shoulders straightened in umbrage. “The la
st time you went into the office, I skipped a grade! That wasn’t my fault but yours.”
Lodestar winced. “Yeah. That was accidental.”
“I don’t want to skip another grade.”
“You won’t. We’re working on making you dumb down for the class, aren’t we?”
I cleared my throat. “You are?”
“Yeah. Look at her, doesn’t know anything about Hitler at her age. Disgusting.” She heaved a sigh. “Not the teacher’s fault or anything, it’s this stupid new system they introduced. So I let her do what she wants in class, but at home, she does real studies, and then we have to work hard to make her look normal.” She reached over and tugged on Kati’s hair. “We don’t want them to know how smart she is.”
“Why?”
Kati tutted. “Because they’ll make me skip a grade again, silly.”
Because all of this seemed utterly logical to them, I merely shook my head. Maybe it was wrong, maybe it was bad, but like Star had said, those words were relative.
The meaning was not often as easy as black and white.
That fit for all of us, I saw. Not just me and Maverick or the rest of the Sinners, but for Lodestar and the Old Ladies and Kati too.
The thought, somehow, settled me. Made me feel better.
None of us were normal. None of us fit in with the Mary Janes, and for the first time, I recognized that I didn’t want to be a Mary Jane. I didn’t necessarily want to be Ghost, but I’d be quite happy to be Alessa again, so maybe that was something I needed to work on.
Not just for me, but for Kati and perhaps even Maverick as well.
Six
Alessa
“No backup. Pass it on. No medevacs.”
My sleep wasn’t the deepest anymore, not even when I’d rested in Maverick’s arms had I slept a full night through, so it could have been the fact I was on the other side of the hall, or it could have been his volume that awoke me.
“No backup.”
It was a mutter at first, one that had me blinking past the dazed state of dreams I didn’t wish to remember.
Maverick: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Series Book 6) Page 5