Since the day I was fucking born.
“She made me promise not to—”
Her gaze softened at my hesitation, because I couldn’t exactly confess to serial killing out on the sidewalk, now could I?
But she understood. “Why did she?”
“She said I needed to make sure no one hurt our kid. Needed to make sure that I wasn’t locked up and that no fucker could get to them.”
Her nostrils flared. “She’s right.”
“I know.” I moved my head, pulling back so I could rest it against her shoulder. As I did, she pressed her lips to the only part she could really kiss—my ear. “I have to… hurt them,” I admitted roughly. “I-I need to. It feels like the only thing that’ll keep me sane some days.”
A sigh escaped her. “Your sanity is as important as your freedom. Maybe we can find a happy medium?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more than one way to destroy someone than by ending their life.” She hummed under her breath. “Lodestar and Maverick would be able to help with that, I think.”
“You’re right,” I said gruffly, as I processed the many ways in which torturing people was possible now.
Long distance.
But there was someone who was close by. Someone who had come to my attention and who needed handling.
If Martin London was a fucking monster, then I had to deal with him. I just had to.
Giulia, like she was reading my mind, murmured, “One last hurrah?”
“You been watching old war movies again?” I asked, amused despite the situation.
As I pulled back, I caught sight of her grimace before she shrugged. “Can’t help the fact they’re all that’s on when I wake up at night.”
My lips twitched at that BS, and I pressed my smile to her grimace, muttering, “Sell that to someone else. Or just bounce onto me and I’ll get you back to sleep.” She still had fucking nightmares. The second I died, I’d be shadowing Luke Lancaster in hell and making him pay for what he’d done to my woman.
“How do you think I got the way I am? Too much bouncing.”
Her snicker fucked with my heart, and I pulled back, pressed a hand to her stomach, and connected my forehead with hers again. We were going to be fucking parents. That was a duty, a solemn one, that few respected, but we weren’t ‘few.’ And that was the only reason I could contemplate giving up my version of therapy.
“Indy—”
“What, love?” she prompted when I hesitated.
“She believes Cyan is being groomed.”
Rage flared in her eyes like a match to a puddle of gasoline—it lit up her soul, called to the demons in mine. This woman. Perfect for me. As always. “What are you doing about that?”
I loved that she expected me to be on the case. No judgment that another bastard was on my shit list. Just expectation that I’d be ready and willing to take out the fucking trash.
“Got Lodestar on it. Hunting out his secrets.”
“Any news from her?”
“Not yet.”
“You should contact her. See what she's found out.” Her fingers squeezed mine to the point of pain before she untangled one of our hands so she could reach between us and grab the cell I’d shoved back in my pocket when I’d moved her toward the mouth of the alley.
Within a minute, with her backup, I was on the line. Not with Quin, who I’d thought I'd be speaking with, but Lodestar.
Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was destiny that was finally working on my side, because when I asked her, “You got any information on Martin London?” Lodestar answered.
“Preliminaries look okay. He was a pastor up in Salem and was renowned for working with kids affiliated with gangs. He’s retired now. Helps out at the local schools with underprivileged kids—gets them into extracurricular activities to keep them on the right side of the law.”
Giulia stared at me. “Could he have been trying to get her ‘clean?’” She pulled a face. “Not that she’s dropping baggies of coke around the schoolyard, but these fucking evangelicals—you know how they roll. Probably think she’s Satan’s spawn because her daddy is a Satan’s Sinner.”
My brow puckered as I thought about that, thought about what I'd heard from Indy as she talked to Cyan the day she'd drawn her away from a potential predator.
“Maybe. She was sullen and defensive when she spoke of him.”
“He made a lot of friends in the community in Salem, Nyx. Lots of people who speak very highly of him, especially with his work with underprivileged kids.”
Giulia heaved a sigh. “Cyan isn’t exactly on the streets, but…”
“No, but perception is everything,” Lodestar concurred. “And to pastors, like you said, a life in an MC isn’t ideal for a young, impressionable girl.”
“So, you’re saying he’s legit?” I rasped.
“I’m saying that I need more time to truly investigate.” She grunted. “I’m slower than I'd like, Nyx. I fucking hate it and don't like to admit it, but I’m not going to let Cyan down. It’s just, for every two hours I can work at the moment, I’m sleeping eight. It’s messing with my output. Just give me a couple extra days to dig deeper than what he wants the world to see.”
Giulia nodded at me, urging me to answer, so I just replied, “Okay, Lodestar. I know you’ll push it as far as you can.”
“I wish Maverick was able to pull his weight,” she mumbled. “Damn inconvenient both of us being out of play right now.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I cut the call on a short goodbye, and Giulia’s hands slipped around my waist as she drew me tighter into her. The feel of her, the heat, it melted the ice that was starting to overtake my soul.
“We’ll know soon,” she promised me.
I nodded, but when I did learn the truth, what was I supposed to do?
I’d already let Indy down, was I going to break a promise I’d only just given her?
“Indy would understand,” she soothed.
“Would she? I don’t think so,” I disagreed.
“Someone has to—”
“I know,” I breathed. “But in this case, London is Storm’s—his little girl, his to kill—so I’m okay. For another day.”
Her exhalation encompassed just how hard this was going to be for me. “Maybe you should speak with Quin?”
Understanding her hesitance, as well as the change of subject, I whispered, “I seriously don’t think I could deal with that right now. I know that’s fucking selfish of me—”
She squeezed me. “He’s stuck in a jail cell, Nyx. He’s not going anywhere and the conversation isn't either. But,” she reasoned, “I don't think it’s something you should do on the phone. You already promised me you’d go visit him. I think something like this should be talked about face-to-face.”
My jaw felt like it had turned to stone as I nodded, because she was right.
I’d never tell her this, but she usually was, and rather than be pissed at that, it was a weight off my shoulders. I never wanted her to bear a burden so big it broke her, I wanted to be the one who caught her demons and helped her lay waste to them. But that, in this moment, when my worst nightmare had come to pass, she could be there for me?
It made me love her all the more.
Eleven
Cyan
“You’re such a good girl, Cyan.”
My cheeks pinkened at Martin’s tone. “Thank you, Martin. I don’t know why Daddy is being so mean to me right now.”
“If you were my little girl, I’d never be so cruel. I can’t believe he left you, Cyan. I’d never do that.”
Tears pricked my eyes because Martin was right. Daddy had left me. It didn't even matter that he was back home now, I’d barely seen him.
Fairness had me realizing that he was busy, that with Uncle Rex in the hospital with his pop who was badly injured from the incident, Daddy had to take charge of the clubhouse.
Why had he come back for them though and not for
me and Mom?
I gnawed on my bottom lip as I whispered, “Remember when I told you Mom and Dad were arguing on the phone? Before Mom tried to get me to stop talking with you?” She’d taken away my phone and had dramatically reduced the time I was allowed in front of a screen, but Martin had managed to get a tablet to me.
I missed him so badly and hated Indy for getting in the way of our friendship.
He made me feel good. Made me feel like I was more than an MC brat.
Everyone at school hated me, said I was scum. Harry Jenkins had even managed to break into my locker and had tagged ‘MC SCUM’ all over my stuff. Mom had gone to the office about it, but it never worked.
How were we the scum, how were we the criminals when these idiots from the town could do these things to me?
“I remember, honey. Did you forget to tell me something?”
The hairs at the back of my neck pricked at his tone as I registered he was mad. Martin liked for me to tell him everything. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. Some things he asked made me feel weird inside, and I couldn't always share with him. I just wanted him to love me though, and when I told him the truth, he always told me he did.
This wasn’t one of the things that made me feel weird, but that made me upset. I knew what he'd say, knew what he'd think, and I didn’t want to hear him say it. But he was my best friend, and he knew most things about me and my family.
Just not this, because I’d only discovered the truth recently myself.
“What is it, Cyan?” he demanded, his tone hard with his annoyance.
I bit my lip, nerves fluttering inside me as I sought a way to appease him. “I overheard Mom say that Daddy cheated on her when she was pregnant with me.”
He grunted under his breath. “He doesn’t deserve you, Cyan. You’re too good a little girl for him.”
I was mad at my father, mad at him for things I didn’t even understand. I felt like, when he’d gone to Ohio, he’d abandoned me. It didn't matter that he called me every day, he wasn’t here. He wasn’t stopping Harry Jenkins from ruining my things. Didn’t stop the girls in my class from being horrible to me.
Mom tried, but she wasn’t Daddy.
It was his fault I was an MC brat, after all. He’d always called me his princess, but it was only when I'd started middle school when I realized we were everything the kids in my class accused us of being.
Criminals.
And to learn that he’d treated Mom so badly?
My head was all over the place.
I loved him. I missed him. While he was in town, I missed him so badly because everything had gotten so much worse since he’d left, and I needed him to ground me again. Martin couldn’t compete with him, but Daddy wasn't even trying to help me. He was just doing stuff for the MC. It was like I didn’t exist anymore. Like I wasn’t here.
But for all Martin’s voice had me tensing up because I knew he was angry, I couldn’t stop myself from defending Daddy. “H-He was young when he had me. We all make mistakes.”
“You could never be a mistake, Cyan.”
I blinked at that. “I didn’t mean—” Did I? I meant that everyone made mistakes, but Martin’s words made me see things differently. Was I a mistake too?
Was I the only reason my parents had gotten together?
Nausea churned in my belly, making me feel like I could puke.
“It's okay, Cyan,” Martin told me, his words softer now, kinder. He wasn’t mad anymore, and the relief that hit me stopped the churning in my gut. “I’m here for you. I’ll always be here.”
I closed my eyes, the sense of security his words gave me had me releasing a shuddery breath.
And when he asked, “Can you take a picture for me, baby girl?” I didn’t even get hot and flustered. “In fact, you can take two. You’re so pretty.”
He loved me.
He wasn't going anywhere.
He wasn’t going to abandon me like Daddy had.
That was all that mattered.
So I took the pictures even though I knew I shouldn’t, even though it was wrong.
I loved him.
Enough to please him.
Enough to help him when he asked me.
That was all that mattered.
Twelve
Maverick
It was cold out, but that fucking pool had been beckoning me for days now. What with the headaches and the flashbacks, the hallucinations and the nightmares, I was turning into a zombie. The only consolation was I didn’t feel like eating brains and I hadn’t hurt Alessa since that first night.
Not that I felt any better about that.
For a couple of days, she’d walked around with smudge marks on her throat from the force of my assault, and in the whites of her eyes, there’d been those broken blood vessels I’d predicted. She displayed no signs of anger, no signs of anything.
Did I hit her on the regular?
The thought had plagued me ever since.
I didn’t know the man I’d become, had no idea what kind of person he was, but she’d fallen for him so that had to mean something, didn’t it? The only trouble was I couldn’t hide from how she wore her bruises with ease, no shame or bitterness tangling up those pretty features of hers.
She was used to abuse.
It killed me to admit it, but I knew domestic violence could be common among soldiers who came back from a bad deployment overseas. There was no excusing it, but we weren’t animals. We were men. With thoughts and hopes and dreams that were wrecked every time we saw the worst kind of shit humanity was willing to do to one another.
You couldn’t toss us into that quagmire of hell then expect us to come back like perfect tin soldiers. This wasn’t a fairy tale.
Knights who went away with their armor gleaming returned with it creaking and in need of oil.
That was how I felt. Even if, rationally, I knew I hadn’t been in the sandbox for a long time, there was no avoiding what my mind believed.
Having lived with her for a few days now, I understood why she was nicknamed ‘Ghost,’ because it was like living with Casper. The trouble was, I wanted to talk to her and just didn’t know how.
I slipped into the water with a sharp gasp as the chill immediately hit me like a slap to the face. When I surged back out, I jerked in surprise as I found Link sitting on one of the loungers by the side of the pool. He had a beer in hand, his cut was off, and his booted feet were crossed at the ankle.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked, not altogether happy about having his company.
“Wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, I ain’t in the mood for chatting.”
“Tough shit. I let this crap go on long enough—what the fuck did you do to her, Maverick?”
I cut him a look, my mouth tightening with regret and anger at being questioned. “It was an accident.”
“Like she accidentally walked into a door? Or how about she fell down some steps? Shame the poolhouse has no goddamn steps, you fucker.”
Jaw tense with agitation, I managed to bite off, “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“Wife beaters never fucking do.”
Rage hit me then, and I almost leaped out of the pool and went for the bastard, but as I surged forward to act, it was like someone had taken an ice pick to my fucking head. I crumpled, sinking down into the water like I was made of paper, and only the fact that I clung to one of the massive decorative rocks stopped me from going under the surface.
Grabbing on tight, like my life depended on it, I waited for the hammer blow to disperse. My ears rang with sound, my brain felt like I’d gone three rounds in the ring with Tyson, and I didn’t even feel Link grab me and haul me out of the water until my body collided with the ground as if I was nothing more than a bag of bones.
I lay there, gasping for air, excruciating agony making it seem as though the walls of my skull were caving in, and through it all, Link was there. I felt him, his heat, his solid presence, and when, after Chr
ist only knew how long, the agony abated, I managed to turn my head and see he was lying next to me, I gasped, “Thanks for not letting me drown.”
“Dumb fuck,” he rumbled softly, his words quiet, telling me he knew my head was hurting. “Why would we go to so much effort to save your scrawny ass if we didn’t love the shit out of you? Brothers to the end, Mav. I don’t think you ever got that, not really. You were overseas, and you had brothers in arms, but we’re the same. We’d die for you—just like they would.”
Throat choking with emotion, not just from his words but from the pain, I managed to grind out, “I did know that.”
“Well, you hid it real well, along with the fact you didn’t need a wheelchair anymore.”
I blew out a breath. “I have no idea why I did that.”
“I know it’s irrational to be mad when you’re not even that fucking man right now, but I am. We fought for you, you piece of shit,” he grumbled, moving slightly so his ankles were still crossed, but so he could rest his hands on his belly as he stared up at the night sky. “We were the ones who got you out of Bethesda when you called, not your goddamn A-Team.”
“They were deployed,” I countered. “If they made it out at all. I don’t even remember that.” I could have researched my old unit, but I hadn’t had the heart. So much so I hadn’t gone near a computer since the hospital.
Link grunted. “This is all kinds of fucked up.”
“I know. I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt her, Link.” Of all the brothers, even more than Nyx, Link was protective toward women. Sure, he was a hound dog, or had been until he’d taken up with the woman who owned this mansion, but he’d always been good with them. I figured that was why Alessa actually managed to relax when he was around, enough to laugh.
I’d heard them in the kitchen—talking and shooting the shit.
How were things so normal for them when it was the exact opposite for me?
She was my wife, but she whispered around me like we were dancing a silent tango. There was no laughter in her eyes whenever she deigned to glance at me, only hurt.
Maverick: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Series Book 6) Page 10