Gigi: A Black Sentinels MC Novel

by Johns, Victoria

  “Good fucking question,” I wondered aloud.

  “It’s late and I’m not up for a guessing game.” She went to close the door.

  “Wait, can we talk?”

  I watched her for the smallest second, weighing up my request. Her eyes held the same lost look they had when she gave me her parting speech earlier. “Give me a second.” The door shut quickly. A moment later she returned wrapped in a blanket and came outside to join me on the porch.

  “Can we sit for a minute?”

  Gigi shrugged, her eyes lifeless and resigned, before taking two steps and sitting on the edge of the porch steps. Five minutes after we’d both been perched outside, a few feet apart that felt like a million miles, I still had no idea how to start. Fortunately, she went first. “I hate the noise this place makes when it’s windy.”

  “I can imagine it brings back some pretty shitty memories.”

  “Yeah, but not all of them are bad.”

  “I was cruel earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you out.” She shrugged. “I’m ready to listen now, though.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Wherever explains why I lost you, Gigi.”

  “You never lost me,” she whispered, and I let the silence hang a second time waiting for her to fill it with all the details that had left me broken for a decade.

  “The day of Momma’s funeral, when Edward spoke to me, he told me about the family he was hiding. When I spoke to him, I saw glimpses of the old Edward. He even apologized for everything he put me through.” I snorted in derision and she looked at me. “You may not believe him, but still he made me promise that if anything happened to him, I’d go and look for her.”

  “You could have told me. We would have helped.”

  “I couldn’t. He told me they’d kill us all. The only way to keep you safe was to keep you out of it.”

  “That wasn’t your decision to make.” There is nothing worse than living with the consequences of someone else’s decisions.

  “It was at the time. Anyway, I took the money Edward had left for Faye and Gabriella and went to the address. When I got there, oh God.” Gigi stopped and put her hand over her mouth, her big, expressive eyes filling with tears. “Ella’s mom, Faye, was dead in the kitchen, her chest exposed and the Hermanos mark carved into her. Ella was five. Fucking five years old and hiding in a kitchen cupboard.”

  I’d never heard her swear before and the first time I did, it was thick with emotion and sadness.

  “He knew, Gears, and I didn’t give it much thought when I spoke to Edward that day, but he knew he was on borrowed time.”

  Part of me understood why she’d done what she had, but the bigger part of me, the one that thought she’d loved me unconditionally, would never understand how she did it. I stood up and clasped my fingers tight behind my head. “I’m hearing what you’re saying, Gigi, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. How could you do that to me?”

  “Because I made a promise. Because I looked into her eyes and because she knew about me. It was like she was waiting for me to rescue her.”

  “I would have rescued her. I would have spun the earth in the opposite fucking direction to make both of you safe,” I shouted and stood up.

  “I don’t expect you to understand.” She stood up, too. “But thank you for hearing me out.”

  My heart galloped when she turned towards the house. I was torn between protecting myself from her and throwing myself at her feet. I wasn’t ready to let her go yet. I wasn’t ready to let her call time on this… whatever it was.

  “Do you have any idea at all what it’s been like for me?”

  “Probably the same as it was for me,” she replied harshly.

  “No, Gigi, no. It wasn’t the fucking same. You’ve had someone to love and focus on while you’ve been gone. I haven’t because the one person I loved beyond anything else on this planet left me. I had no idea how to sort out my shit. I was so utterly bereft it was worse than if you’d died.”

  “Gears,” she whispered, her eyes showing sorrow and regret.

  “No one ever compared to you. No one could replace you and I couldn’t convince my fucking heart to stop beating for you, no matter who I fucked and how many times I tried.”

  My voice felt hoarse from forcing the words and emotions out. I’d buried everything I felt for the girl who had abandoned me for so long that now I’d started I couldn’t stop.

  “You were going to be my old lady. We were going to have babies and fucking live our lives. I was going to give you everything you ever wanted, no matter what it took. You were my fucking everything.”

  Gigi wiped away a stray tear with a handful of blanket. “I know. I made a decision and I can’t turn it back. Thanks for hearing me out.”

  I couldn’t let this end without having all the answers. “Where’ve you been?” I asked.

  “Everywhere. Edward left us with a lot of money. I was smart with it and tried like mad to keep our heads down.”

  “I need to know.” I hesitated. “Are you…” I swallowed, dreading the answer. “Did you marry someone else? You have a different name.”

  “No, Gears. It was a survival tactic to blend in. I never finished school. I have no skills and being a checkout operator is the sum total of my achievements.”

  “That and keeping that girl safe.”

  I didn’t want her to belittle her efforts. I remembered the dream she’d had about wanting to keep children safe and make them feel loved. She should have felt proud that she’d achieved it, even if it was at my expense. If anyone ever looked up the words ‘despite’ or ‘adversity’ in a picture dictionary it should have her portrait there bold, up front and center.

  “Yeah. That, too, but she’s not hard to love.”

  “She gets that from her aunt.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

  “Don’t,” she murmured. “Don’t give me hope, Gears. After everything I’ve ever been through, you were the one thing that kept me going, kept me sane. We might have been apart, but I never left you. Not here, where it matters.” She thumped a fist into her chest.

  “Why have you come back now?”

  I needed to understand what her plans were. She wasn’t the only one hanging on by a thread right now and I didn’t trust her not to run again.

  “I keep thinking I’ve seen Tommy, but I know that’s my own fear talking to me.”

  Hearing the name of the motherfucker who had violated her years ago was like lighting the touch paper. I’d always envisaged the revenge I would dish out on her behalf, but he left before she did.

  “I can’t live in fear anymore. She can’t hide, either. She needs a life. She needs to look forward to normal things like college and dates in movie theatres. I’m down to the last of my money and this house of horrors is mine. I don’t have the luxury of being able to pass it up. I have to either make a go of it or sell this land and get on the road again. But the Hermanos scare me. She’s their blood, Gears, and if they find out who she is, then, then… I don’t want to think about it. I need your help, the Sentinels help. I need protection from them for us.”

  “So… you didn’t come back for me?” That fucking hurt. This girl had always felt like home to me.

  “I have no right to you anymore. I lost that right when I chose her life over ours.”

  I turned back to look at her. The hope in her eyes was unmistakable and I was so fucking confused I didn’t trust myself to be here any longer. “I’ll talk to Wolf, see what we can do about your situation.”

  “Gears,” she asked, stopping me before I could make it to my bike. “I’m sorry.”

  There was no looking back; looking at her would kill me. “I loved you. I believed in you and us, in spite of everything, because of everything, but right now all I can remember is how heartbroken and destroyed I felt when you didn’t choose us.”

  As I put my helmet on, I felt something odd, something not right.

  As I straddl
ed my bike, inserted the key and turned it, I knew she was watching me, and I thought that was it, the odd feeling.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was as I was riding away from her that my head and heart started to protest.

  It was the same feeling I’d had years ago when my soul couldn’t settle because it was missing hers. I’d spent a decade feeling unsettled and now she was back, my pride was getting in the way.

  I couldn’t do it. No matter how much she’d hurt me, walking away from her hurt more.

  I anchored up the brakes, spun the bike around quick enough to make it fishtail and protest before heading back to reclaim her.

  Gigi was still wrapped in the blanket on the porch, her frame shuddering with sobs and her tears visible in the moonlight. “Gears? What’s wrong?”

  “This. Everything about this is wrong, but I know what it feels like to live without your other half and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to let that happen again.”

  I stepped towards her until she was forced to look up at my face.

  “You broke something inside me that I didn’t even know existed. Fuck no, that’s not true, either. You broke a part of me that I didn’t want to acknowledge existed.”

  “Gears,” she cried.

  “But that’s point, isn’t it? When something is broken you try to fix it, and everything inside me is telling me that you’re the only one who can do that. Fix inside me, what you broke.”

  I put my arms around her and my whole body yielded to the feeling of home that it had been missing since we’d been apart.

  “Mine,” I whispered with no control.

  “Yours,” she repeated with seemingly no control, either.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Gears

  “Can I have a word, Prez?” I asked Wolf’s back as he tinkered with an engine hoisted up on a crane above a classic old Chevy.

  “Have at it,” he grunted, his hands full of metal that if his cursing was anything to go by, wasn’t cooperating.

  “Privately.”

  Wolf dumped the metal and walked off, expecting me to follow him. The problem was he was heading to the office and that was where I knew Angel would be. The last thing I needed was for her to be in this shit. “Not sure this is for Angel’s ears.”

  “What’s not for my ears?”

  “Fuck.” Like a magician, she appeared out of nowhere and now there would be no getting rid of her. Wolf also knew this and didn’t bother to hide the smirk adorning his face.

  “Talk,” he demanded.

  “I need to keep Gigi and Ella safe.”

  “From?”

  “The Hermanos.”

  Angel had the biggest smile on her face, and I was doing my damnedest to ignore it, but she was literally hopping on the spot, one step from applauding.

  “Babe,” Wolf said, shaking his head, failing to hide his frustration that was now a full on smirk of satisfaction.

  “Can you set up a meet with them for me so we can negotiate a truce or an understanding?”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  “Am I doing it as her employer, your president, or for another reason?”

  Angel started bouncing again.

  “Does it matter?”

  “I wanna hear him say it?” Angel squealed.

  “Fuck, you’re not a part of this,” I warned.

  Wolf looked at me and raised his brow. “I kinda wanna hear you say it, too.”

  “Fuck, Prez, you gonna let Angel wax your balls next, too?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with manscaping,” he told me confidently. “And I’m man enough to admit it. Are you?”

  I was hoping to avoid this at least until I’d talked to Mom. She was asleep when I got in the previous night and I’d left early again that morning. I hated how we’d left things.

  “There might be another reason.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Babe, calm down.” His attempt to rein her in was half hearted at best.

  “No way. No freaking way! I knew you were lobsters,” she shouted.

  “Did you just Friends quote me?” I asked in disbelief.

  “I did. Have you told her? Does she know? Were you all, ‘I will take what is mine with fire and blood’?’” She raised her hands like she was wielding power.

  “And now we get Game of Thones?” I mumbled, my disbelief growing.

  “Brother, welcome to my world,” Wolf declared.

  “Wait! Wait! I have a good one. ‘You don’t know how long I have waited for you’.” She dramatically fell to her knees in front of us. “’I’d rather die than stay away from you’.”

  “Babe, fuck, get off your knees,” Wolf groaned. “You know I get ideas when you’re down there. What girly shit was that line from?”

  “Twilight,” she giggled.

  “Argh,” he groaned. “Vampires make me think of sucking and you’re still on your knees.”

  Angel started to laugh so hard she rolled onto her back in the middle of the office. When he tried to pull her up by the hand, she pulled harder and he ended up on top of her. That was my cue to leave.

  “I’m out. You’ll think on what I asked?” I shouted, walking away.

  “I’ve already put plans into play, but leave it with me and take the day. Get them out of that fucking mausoleum before we start shaking Hermano trees.”

  Plans into play… What did that mean?

  “I’m not supposed to let anyone in the house.”

  Ella was stood with the door open a creak.

  “Then why did you open the door?”

  “Because it’s you and I know all about you, Gears.”

  “I’m still a stranger who is more than capable of kicking down a door that’s already open two fucking inches with a girl who probably weighs a hundred pound wet through behind it. Where’s Gigi?”

  I was definitely getting these two out of here. I dreaded to think what would happen if the Hermanos did come out here to look for them.

  “Nipped to drop Liam and Little Angel off with their Glam-ma. She won’t be long. Would you like to come in and wait?”

  “Stranger danger’s not one of your strong points, is it?”

  Ella opened the door wider now. She was dressed in shorts and a T shirt, and if it hadn’t been for the fact she reminded me so much of that fucking asshole of a father of hers I would have said she was pretty. “That’s the thing about our life, Gears. We can sense those who mean harm a mile off.” She walked off, leaving the door open and the choice up to me.

  I was not going in that fucking house.

  Ever.

  And I was still a stranger to the girl.

  Twenty minutes later, I was still outside when Gigi pulled up in her car.

  She looked nervous at first until her face registered panic.

  Me, standing outside, the door to her house ajar, sent her into a flat spin.

  “Oh no! Did they… Have they… Ella? Els?” She broke out into a run.

  “Hey, calm down. She’s okay.”

  “Gigi, what’s wrong?” Ella appeared at the door, the same look of panic on her face.

  This was how they had been living, day in and day out. Worried for each other. Living for each other. I’d fucked up by trying to do the right thing and waiting outside. I didn’t know Ella at all, and she didn’t know me from a hole in the head. I’d thought keeping some distance until we were familiar was the appropriately adult thing to do.

  Gigi left my arms and grabbed Ella like some feisty momma bear.

  “That’s it. Pack your shit. You’re both coming home with me.”

  “What?” they chorused at the same time.

  “I stayed out here because Ella doesn’t know me and is shit with strangers. That’s gotta change, babe.” I looked at both of them, holding each other up, each drawing strength from the other. Gigi looked confused but Ella was beaming from ear to ear. “You’re moving in with me and Ma. I want you where I can see you and know that
you’re safe. This house isn’t it.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “You can and are. You’ve got until I return with the truck to pack up whatever you need. Got it?”

  I didn’t think about the tone I brokered with both of them. Fuck, Gigi and I had been apart for so long that we could have been classed as strangers. But this was the man I was now. I was strong and confident. I was dominant and I got what I wanted, and right now this was it.

  “But what about your mom?”

  “She’ll be over the fucking moon and you know it.”

  Gigi and Ella walked over to me. “You sure about this?” Her voice was a whisper of hope.

  “We’ve already lost ten years. Are you gonna make me wait any more?”

  She shook her head before whispering, “No.”

  Gigi was so close yet so far away and I hated the distance. Distance was the destroyer of hopes and dreams. With distance you convinced yourself that what you really knew was false, and what you didn’t know, what you perceived was fact and gospel.

  “Ella, honey, are you okay with this?”

  My breath stalled because I’d already come second best to this girl once before and I knew that even though it would physically break her to do it again, she would put her responsibility to this girl before me every time.

  That was who Gigi Livingston was.

  It was then that I understood the reason why she’d done it last time. Gigi had never had anybody to do that for her and if she could save just one other person from feeling that level of desolation in their lives, she would. This young girl was her family and that only made her resolve that much stronger.

  Fuck, she’d make a wonderful mom, a fucking amazing one.

  “No probs, Gigi. Where you go, I go, right?”

  “Sure thing, Ella Bella.”

  And then I realized that not only was I opening my heart up to let Gigi come back. I was going to have to make room for this girl, too. They were a package deal and I had to get over any resentment I harbored towards her because of who her dad was. It wasn’t the girl’s fault and if Gigi could do it then so could I.