Gigi: A Black Sentinels MC Novel

by Johns, Victoria

  But I couldn’t do any of that, because she had her arm slung around the shoulders of a young girl.

  The need to offer her comfort and tell her it would be okay fled my body immediately because I wanted to kill someone, anyone, and make them pay for what I was feeling.

  Because I knew that the girl who’d taken my heart and never given it back was stood with her arms around her daughter. A daughter that should have been mine.

  “Isn’t that—” Mom’s shocked expression became a smile that was blindingly bright. She’d loved Gigi as much as I had.

  “Not fucking now, Ma,” I growled, and none of us missed how my voice made Gigi jump. I felt like acid was being poured into my veins and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one. The sourness I felt cancelled out all the good memories I had.

  They had once been the only things that got me through the darkness after I’d lost her.

  Gigi sucked up whatever fear she felt seeing me again and waded deeper into the yard.

  “Mrs. Gears, it’s lovely to see you looking so well.”

  The young girl plastered to her side came with her.

  “I… Uh… Gigi, look at you all grown up. I knew you’d be stunningly beautiful.”

  Gigi blushed, reminding me of how things used to be when mom was straight with her.

  Mom then remembered that she hadn’t seen Gigi for years and became confused. She looked at Angel wondering why she was in their back yard before her immaculate manners and grooming kicked in. It was what I called her ‘hostess mode’. It was painful to watch her rush forward and throw her arms around Gigi, especially when I knew I couldn’t and never would again. “I mean... look at you. And who is this?” She nodded towards the girl

  “Ella!” Liam answered for her. “Come play on the water slide that Uncagears got for us.” He interrupted the craziness, like only kids could do, and threw himself at the shy girl who nearly exploded out of her own skin on hearing her name.

  I could see she didn’t know how to respond, and Gigi’s arm hugged her harder, reassuring her.

  “I have some old shorts and a tank that she can wear if she wants?” Angel chimed in.

  When Ella said nothing, Gigi unhooked the girl and bent to look in her eyes. “You should go, have fun.”

  “Okay then.” Her smile was tentative, but it was clear she didn’t really want to.

  She reminded me of Gigi when I’d first met her, shyness and sadness all bundled into one confused package.

  Angel whisked her away, leaving Gigi stood there alone. “Beer?” Declan offered, breaking the awkward silence.

  “No. Thank you. A soda?”

  “I’ll get you a soda then. Take a seat.”

  Then he walked off, leaving her all alone with me and Mom. The awkwardness that Declan had worked to break was nothing compared to now.

  “Griffin, do you want to leave?” Mom whispered poorly. She’d finally remembered what this girl had done to me, and was worried for my feelings, while I was worried that this very moment would remind her of the hurt and trauma she’d been through after losing both my dad and Gigi.

  “Ma.” I watched Gigi’s eyes well up, her emotions coming to the front. My mother had been protective of her when she was around. It was one of the reasons they’d bonded so well, but I was broken when she left, and my mom had a hard time dealing with the blame she took for it. Right now, she was a mother with the instincts to understand when their baby was hurting and would do anything to stop it.

  “We’ll leave,” Gigi blurted out.

  “You don’t need to leave.” I forced a neutral look onto my face “You’re guests of Declan and Rosie.”

  “No one’s leaving,” came Declan’s voice as he stepped through the door that led to the kitchen, bringing about uncomfortable silence number two.

  A squeal broke the tension, and it was Ella’s.

  Instinctively, Gigi was out of her chair ready to run to her rescue.

  “It’s okay, she’s just having fun,” Angel said from the top of the water slide, looking in her direction, concerned.

  Gigi only relaxed when Ella began to laugh, and that was when I caught a glimpse of the girl I loved. The smile that adorned her face from such a simple pleasure was like a knife through my heart.

  She took the soda from Declan and gulped it back in one go. The fizz and gas bubbles caused her to cough, splutter and burp.

  “Oh, heck!” Mom said, and leapt out of her chair to pat her back as Gigi continued to choke. “If you slurp—”

  “It makes you burp,” Gigi finished, and a look passed between them. That was something Mom had always said to me when I drunk too quickly at the dinner table and belched.

  Ella instantly appeared at her side. “Gigi? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” The poor kid looked like she was going to hit the ground and have a panic attack at any moment.

  “I’m alright, Els. I’m alright.” The girl dropped to her wet knees and put her hands on Gigi’s legs. “I just drank too fast and some went down the wrong pipe is all.”

  “Did you slurp and burp?”

  Knowing that she’d passed something of ours, from my own mom to her kid burned.

  “I did, Els. Go back and play with Liam. We’re okay. We’re—”

  Gigi stopped talking, remembering the audience.

  Ella stood up and thought about double-checking but sensed now was not the time.

  I felt sick. My heart was shriveling up and dying all over again. “You have a fucking kid? Is she mine?” I whispered. I didn’t want to bring it up now, but I was losing control of myself.

  “I can explain.”

  “Time to go, Ma,” I barked, changing my mind and standing up so abruptly I caught the edge of the table and sent sauce bottles tilting back and to on the cusp of toppling.

  Just like me.

  I was torn between needing the explanation for the sake of my sanity, and not feeling strong enough to hear it out. I certainly wasn’t strong enough in front of an audience.

  “Gears,” she whispered. “It’s… I’m sorry.” At least she had the decency to look embarrassed.

  I ignored her. “Ma, start fucking moving.”

  “I’m sorry, please,” she tried again.

  Angel and Declan watched all this unfold but didn’t intervene. Gigi sat looking at the floor, twisting her hands back and to like the shy little creature who first sat beside me in the tow truck, before I helped her become someone new. I stepped close to her, regretting the move.

  “She’s not yours. Or mine. I mean, I wish to God she was. I could have saved her from all the pain,” I heard in the quietest voice.

  I stopped to look at her, like everyone else. “Come again.”

  This time finding her voice, she looked at me. “Gabriella, Ella, she’s my niece.”

  I looked at the kid again and the likeness to that motherfucker of a brother became crystal clear.

  “I didn’t have a choice. I had to do right by her, by you. I used… your mom’s… our thing because it made me feel like you were always close.”

  Her words gutted me and she saw it, but still she carried on.

  “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to us, Gears. You may have lost me, but I lost so much more. I lost you and every part of me that you helped me to find and love. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant I could save Ella. But I need your help. We’re in danger.”

  I was wrong. It was those words that gutted me.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Gigi

  “Ma, get our shit. We’re leaving.”

  “But she said—”

  Gears spun around to face his mom so quickly his feet could have been on a turntable.

  “I. Said. We’re. Leaving.”

  I watched as she nodded and then, using manners I’d come to love, made some paltry excuses to Angel and her family. Ella was still having fun with their kids, but I was entranced by finally being close to the man I’d never stopped loving. />
  It didn’t matter that he hated me, or was desperate to be away from me. Even at his most angry he was still the sexiest man I’d ever seen.

  My dating history had been severely limited in the years we’d been apart. I went to dinner with a few guys just to keep up the pretense Ella and I were living, but no one ever held a candle to Griffin Geary, and it was never more obvious than now we were back in each other’s space. Being this close to him was what my soul had been yearning for. Standing within arm’s reach of him made me realize just how utterly bereft I’d been without my other half. Just how dysfunctional my heart had been without him.

  The man had grown into something so handsome and sexy with age it was criminal. His mop of hair was longer, and his face held a rasp of stubble that my fingers were itching to claw through. If it was even possible, he still smelled the same, too, all leather, motor oil and fresh soap.

  I wanted to be devastated by how harshly he was treating me, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault; it was mine—mostly. Edward, from his grave, had shaped the path my life had taken and because I loved Gears so damn much, that path had led me away from him.

  “You stay, Gears. I need to get Ella home.”

  He ignored me completely, choosing to help clean up leftover cook out condiments while I got Ella dried and back into her stuff. We said our goodbyes, Mom Geary’s face nearly flooring me as she smiled the same smile I’d seen the first time we met. One that conveyed I was a gift in her life rather than a curse or hindrance.

  “I don’t think it was a good idea to come here,” Ella whispered as we climbed in my old car.

  “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry, Els.”

  “I thought you said the Sentinels would help us.”

  I smiled another smile I’d been perfecting over the years. The one I reserved for Ella when I didn’t want her to worry, but knew that as she went to school, I’d be packing up our things and getting ready to move onto the next town. I was so used to running it was exhausting, but I’d got it down to a fine art, and because the two of us had been the only things we could rely on for ten years, she never questioned my decisions. She trusted me implicitly to keep her safe.

  I only hoped I hadn’t made a mistake this time.

  Tommy had been getting closer and closer over the years, and it was time for her to have a life. We needed to stop running, but we couldn’t with so much still unknown. I needed to know if Tommy was working alone or following us on the instructions of the Hermanos, and the only people who could get that information were the Black Sentinels.

  “We’re running again, aren’t we?” Her voice was small and disappointed.

  I turned the key in the car and nothing happened, nothing but a mechanical click of failure. “No. Because this damn stupid car has finally died!” I slammed my hands against the steering wheel, my brain catching up to everything I’d feared.

  We were in trouble. We had no one else; Gears was our last hope. Not only that, I’d played all the cards I had and was back at my family home. A place I despised, a place where the Hermanos could find me in an instant if word reached them that we were back in town.

  “Fuck!”

  I was on the verge of tears, something I made sure Ella never saw no matter how bad things got, when the car door was opened.

  “Get out of the car, Gigi.”

  “Why?” I was struggling to keep it together, not wanting another argument with him.

  “Because the car is fucked.”

  “Then I’ll call a cab or get Declan to look at it for me.”

  “It’s going nowhere. It’ll need towing.” Hearing those words had me turning my head to look at him. It was a blast from the past for both of us and right now, equally unwelcome. “Ma and I will drop you and Ella off.”

  The look on his face told me it was the last thing on earth he wanted to do, but whatever happened, no matter how much he hated me, if we were running again then I was going to give him my side of events before I did it. I’d lived too long regretting what had happened all those years ago and I wasn’t prepared to wonder ‘what if’, for the rest of my life.

  The drive back to the Livingston hellhole was uncomfortable for both us.

  Every time we passed something that reminded us of the past, our eyes would meet in the rearview mirror. Ella hopped out of his truck first. “Thank you, Mr. Gears,” she mumbled shyly.

  “Just Gears, sweetheart.”

  His mom climbed out of the car with her, either to avoid the awkwardness or give us time to talk.

  “Thank you for not taking it out on her,” I told him, grateful that he’d been normal with Ella.

  “She’s not to blame for what happened between us. You are.”

  “I acted on a decision that was already made for me, Gears.”

  “All those years ago, JP was right. From the moment I laid eyes on you I should have worked hard and devoted my time to avoiding you.”

  That didn’t just hurt.

  It killed.

  Once again, our eyes met in the rearview mirror, but his averted first, closing down any opportunity I had to explain.

  He was done.

  There was no point.

  Succumbing to the realization that this would be the last time I’d ever lay eyes on the guy I still loved with all my heart, I climbed out of the truck. I had to give him some closure, even if it meant I’d never get any.

  “If I could rewind time to the day you first laid eyes on me, I would. Just so you could be somewhere else now living your life, just to avoid this. Even though we were apart, I never stopped loving you. Whenever I was lonely, I used to think about happy times and they were always with you, Gears. Whenever I thought about the future, I always saw myself with you, right beside you, smiling like I was the luckiest girl in the world. Sorry means nothing when you won’t let me explain.” He continued to ignore me, staring straight through the windscreen of the truck. “We’ll get back on the road as soon as Declan can fix my car.”

  “Gigi,” he called as I was about to close the door on his truck. “I’ve still got the money your mom left you with. I’ll get it sent over with the car when it’s back on the road.”

  My fractured heart was now completely broken and the hope that had been holding it together evaporated. I shut the door of the truck and walked away from him.

  Chapter Thirty

  Gears

  Ma lead the way into the house, and after all she’d discovered today, I expected her mouth to be going a million miles an hour, but no. Deathly quiet.

  “Say it,” I instructed, closing her front door behind us.

  “Say what?”

  “Whatever it is that’s whirring in your head.”

  I’d give her the opportunity to offload it, then go back to the club and get annihilated. Beer wasn’t always the answer, but right now it was the only one I could come up with.

  “You don’t want to know what’s in my head.”

  I folded my arms across my chest, ready to do battle. “Let me guess. You’re disappointed. You think I should talk to her.” She walked into the kitchen and I followed her. “Ma, talk to me.”

  “Frustrating, isn’t it?” She smirked. “Do you know you’re the biggest achievement of my life? Of course you do. It’s what a mother says to her kids. Or what a mother is expected to say. Some people never had that, though.”

  That was the first stab of truth and I knew there was more to come.

  “Do you know when you made me the proudest?”

  “When I graduated school?”

  “Good lord no,” she laughed. “When you brought that girl home. I knew you were totally gone for her, even though you didn’t yourself. But it wasn’t that you brought home a wounded bird who needed fixing. It was that you did it even after you’d seen what loving someone so completely and losing them had done to me.”

  That was the first time she’d said out loud that losing my father had destroyed her and changed her. “Ma.”

  “An
d watching how you treated her today was like looking at your father.”

  All the times I’d been in the ring with my brothers, sparring or fighting for honor, hearing my mom say those words was the hardest blow I’d ever taken.

  “Gigi may have grown up, but she’s still scrabbling around trying to make the best of the hand life dealt her. You pair were inseparable all those years ago. You both existed for each other and no one else. Do you really think that whatever took her away from you wasn’t important? Even you’re not that stupid. I’ve blamed myself for so long for not checking on her that day, but I’m not taking that blame anymore. You, Griffin Geary, are to blame. You stopped looking for her. You stopped your brothers from finding her. You gave up on her. It’s only now, though, that I realize how you channeled the hurt you felt over her running out on you. It’s turned you into your father and I just didn’t see it until today.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I’ve loved you from the moment I knew you were cooking in my body, Griffin. I’ve always been grateful for how you’ve stood by me when your father left. But right now, I can’t bear to look at you. Looking at you brings it all back.”

  With that, my mom turned from the kitchen and walked off, so much disappointment rolling off her body it was stifling.

  Time to kick off my original plan and get fucking annihilated.

  Only this time, as I threw my bike through its paces and headed for the club in order to do that, I found myself riding straight past the turning for the Sentinels autoshop and continued until I was parked outside the old Livingston house.

  “It’s okay, Els. It’s Gears,” I heard her shout from behind the door. “Go back to sleep, girl.” The door then opened a crack. “What do you want?”