Sydney Storm MC Complete Series

by Levine, Nina

  I shook my head and took a step back. “No, that’s not what this is about. This won’t ever be about that.”

  Her face clouded over with disappointment. “Really? You expect me to believe you would protect me from my husband and then from Brant, bring me to Sydney, set me up here, come whenever I call you over, fix stuff for me, drive me to job interviews, and yet not want to be with me? I don’t buy that bullshit for one minute, King. You want us to be together again.”

  Fucking hell.

  I could see where she was coming from, but what the fuck happened to people just fucking looking out for each other because they cared about their safety and happiness? Why the fuck did there have to be conditions and expectations around stuff like this?

  “I don’t want us to be together again so you need to get that out of your head now. I did all that shit because even after all these years and after everything we’ve been together, I care about you. Just not in the way you think.”

  The disappointment on her face morphed to anger. “That is such utter crap and you know it. Men don’t do stuff for women they don’t wanna fuck.”

  “That’s some twisted fucking thinking, Ivy. Of course they fucking do. And trust me when I say I don’t wanna fuck you.” I hadn’t intended to be hurtful, but I saw that reaction in her eyes.

  Before I could stop her, she closed the distance between us, grabbed my face, and kissed me.

  It was a hard, desperate kiss, and I felt nothing.

  Nothing but the realisation we really had reached the end of the line.

  I’d already come to that understanding, but this absolutely and undeniably confirmed it. Where her touch had once sparked the kind of passion that would consume me for days, it now left me empty.

  I took hold of her arms and forced her away from me. Staring down at her, I bit out, “Don’t ever do that again. When I tell you something, I fucking mean it. And I mean it when I say I don’t want to be with you.”

  She stared at me through tears. Hot, angry tears. Not sad ones. And then the rage came, and I knew this was repressed anger by the violence of it. It was also what she needed to get out of her, so I allowed it all to spew out without interruption. That, I would give her. That, she deserved from me. “I fucking hate you! And I fucking love you! And all I wanna do is forget you, but you are un-fucking-forgettable, King. That”—she jabbed her finger at me—“is the worst part of all this. I’ve tried for years to put you out of my mind, and I fucking failed. I didn’t want to come to you about Tony, because I knew seeing you would kill me, but I did. I fucking came, and I helped you, and this is what I get for that? I even told Brant not to hurt your friend, and I thought he’d listened to me—”

  My body tensed, every inch of me alert as her words triggered my fury. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  She flinched at my tone and tried to move away from me, but I grabbed her arm and held her in place. “Tell me what the fuck you mean by that, and so fucking help you God, if you mean what I think you mean, shit isn’t gonna be pretty.”

  Swallowing hard, she said, “You were right about Brant—he was crazy. Insane probably. I didn’t know about his past, but I knew he was the kind of man to do anything for the woman he loved. And he loved me, so I let him close and I let him help me escape Tony. But I swear I didn’t know he was going to shoot that woman. He’d told me he was tracking the woman you were seeing, and that he wanted to get back at you for all the stuff you did to me years ago. I told him to drop it, because that stuff was in the past, but he was intent on hurting you through her. I honestly thought he meant he was just going to hurt her. I never imagined killing her was on his mind.”

  I shifted my grip from her arm to her neck. Holding her tightly, I backed her up against the wall, pressing her hard to it. “Tell me the fucking truth. You fucking knew he was going there to kill her, didn’t you?”

  Fear flashed in her eyes as she clawed at my hand around her throat. “Let me go, King! I didn’t know. I promise.” She struggled to get the words out, but I didn’t give a fuck. I was dancing the line between sane and crazy here with her revelation, and it was a fucking taut line close to snapping and taking us all down with it.

  Thrusting my face forward, I stared into her eyes. “Fucking tell me the truth, Ivy! At least fucking give me that!”

  Tears streamed down her face, landing on my hand, but I ignored them. I didn’t care about her tears anymore. “This is the truth. I might hate you, but I love you more. If I’d known his intentions, I would have made sure I stopped him. I wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt you like that. Just like I didn’t let Tony hurt you.”

  Hard, angry breaths forced their way out of me as I searched her eyes madly for the truth. It was in the blink, and she hadn’t blinked. She hadn’t fucking blinked.

  Fuck.

  With one last squeeze of her neck, I let her go and jerked away from her.

  We stared at each other, a furious and bitter tension sitting between us. After all these years, this is what we had come down to. She said she loved me more than she hated me, but I didn’t think she did. Love didn’t lead to actions like hers. It was a false love. It was the kind of love rooted in fear and doubt. She might have thought she still loved me, but that was only because she didn’t trust herself enough to love herself and let me go. I could blame myself for her brokenness, but she’d had years to move past what happened between us. She’d had time and resources to help herself, and she’d chosen not to use them. We were all responsible for our own happiness; no one could do a damn thing to make Ivy happy until she decided to make herself happy.

  “I’m going to walk out that door and I’m never coming back. You need something, you ask Brian. He sees fit to ask me for help with it, I’ll do what I can. Other than that, this is the end of the road for us, Ivy. And as much as you may not believe this, I just want you to be fucking happy.”

  Her tears still fell, but they didn’t register with me.

  Not like they once did.

  We were well and truly finished.

  * * *

  I got sidetracked with club business that gave me a headache on my way to see Detective Stark, which meant by the time I finally tracked her down and stood in front of her, my skull felt like it had been hit by a sledgehammer a hundred fucking times. Between the bullshit that had gone down with Ivy this morning and the hours I’d spent on club shit, I was in no mood for her to say no to my proposal.

  Isabel Stark was grieving the loss of her husband. Well, to the world she was. She’d taken a few days off, so I found her at her home again. She was not grieving the loss of her husband. She was cleaning her oven when I got to her.

  She met me at her front door with cleaning gloves on, her hair a mess, and more light in her eyes than I’d seen the last time I called on her. Staring at me through her screen door, she said, “Are you here to finish the job you came for the other day?”

  I arched a brow. “If you’re asking me if I’m here to put a bullet in your head, the answer is no. However, if you’re asking if I’m here to save my club, that would be a yes. Do not send me away without giving me what I want, Isabel. I’ve had a fucking shit of a day and you won’t like the consequences of an incorrect answer.”

  She unlocked the door. “You better come in then.”

  I followed her into the kitchen where she pulled her gloves off before looking at me, and asking, “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to drop the fucking case against me and my club. I want you to walk the fuck away from it and never look back. And I’ll fucking pay you to do that.”

  She considered that. “It’s tempting, but I don’t need your cash. My husband left me a great deal of money. So much that I don’t have to work another day in my life if I don’t want to.”

  “Well that leaves you and me with a big fucking problem then.”

  She took a deep breath. “No, not really. Not if you agree to a deal I have for you.”

  “What?”


  “I’ve worked my job for too long now that I know how shit goes down. I put you away, and maybe some of your club, it still doesn’t fix the problems on the streets. You guys are a dime-a-fucking-dozen. And you just keep coming at me. I’m tired of working the system legally and never achieving my goals. I do this job so my daughter can be safe from men like you, but I’m jaded and don’t buy into the bullshit anymore that what I do makes a difference.” She paused for a beat. “But then you showed up here to kill me and didn’t go through with it, because of the very reason I do my job—because you want to protect my kid from bad people. That surprised the hell out of me, Zachary. I did not see that coming from you. So here’s what I propose—I leave you out there doing your thing, and while doing that, you help me keep the streets clear of as much bullshit as you can.”

  “You want me to work with you?”

  “Not officially. This would be between you and me only. I’ll bury the case against Storm, and in return, you’ll do everything you can to keep the assholes you work with in line. You appear to have that power, so I figure why not use it for good as well as whatever the hell else you use it for. Keep the streets free of war, and I’ll keep you free of jail.”

  “Fuck, that’s a big fucking ask. Streets free of war aren’t something you’ll ever see.”

  “I understand that, but I think we can agree you have the power to control a lot of it. You just need to decide to do that.”

  “I guarantee you our ideas of war are two different things. Some of it is necessary, and that shit I won’t ever stop. So if this deal is gonna go down between us, you need to understand that sometimes I’m gonna handle business in ways you won’t like. Having said that, I’m all for keeping motherfuckers in line, so I’m on board with that part of it.”

  “Good. We have a deal then. And now you can get the hell out of my house and never come back here. In future, you have no reason to come to me. I will come to you if there is a problem.”

  I moved closer to her and dropped my voice to a dark rumble. “If I have reason to come to you, I fucking will. Do not make the mistake of thinking you have any power here. You don’t. If this deal goes south, I will find another way to get what I want.”

  Without waiting for a response, I turned and strode towards her door.

  I’d taken a few steps when she said, “Thank you.” The words were delivered with a softer tone, and I knew she wasn’t referring to anything we’d just discussed.

  Looking back at her, I gave a quick nod, and then I exited her home.

  I never imagined the day I would get into fucking bed with the cops, but here it fucking was. I would play this game with Detective Stark and see where it got us. If she tried to switch her rules up at any point, I’d abandon the deal and force my own upon her. But for now, this would do.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lily

  “What the fuck is that music?” King asked, entering his kitchen on Wednesday night.

  I’d dropped the kids over to Linc after work, stopped at the supermarket to buy the ingredients to cook dinner for us, and had arrived here about an hour ago. He’d given me a key to the place two days ago and told me to use it whenever. I’d told him I really wasn’t sure when that would be since he didn’t have any furniture in the place, to which he’d called me a smartass and told me he would buy some. That had caused butterflies in my tummy and that in turn had resulted in him receiving a blowjob he’d loved so much that he had then proceeded to fuck me for three hours straight. Needless to say, Tuesday had been a long, exhausting day at work.

  I looked up from my laptop and eyed him, noting the tension lining his face. “It’s Taylor Swift. Surely you’ve heard of her.”

  He put the beer he’d bought in the fridge and came to me. Placing his hand on the back of my neck, he bent and dropped a kiss on my lips before continuing on his way out to the living room. “Never fucking heard that song, and never fucking wanna hear it again,” he said as he moved.

  I smiled.

  All was good in my world.

  My man was his usual moody self, my kids were with their father, my sister was with her guy, my mum was out on another date with the library dude, and I had just figured out how to perfect a lemon cheesecake that had given me grief the last time I tried to make it. King would benefit from that on Saturday night, and then I would benefit from him being happy. It turned out he had a sweet tooth. And it turned out that I could get him to do all kinds of shit when that sweet tooth was satisfied.

  I shuffled the playlist, and a One Direction song came on. Grinning, I called out, “Is this one better?”

  He didn’t reply, but when he entered the kitchen again a couple of minutes later, he said, “Your taste in music is shit. Anyone ever told you that?”

  “Only every guy I’ve ever dated.” His features darkened, reminding me of his demand I never mention another man to him again. I’d momentarily forgotten. Shit. In an effort to shift his thoughts from that, I said, “Who’s your favourite band?”

  My gaze dropped to take in his change of T-shirt into a clean, white tee. I’d never seen King wear white before. It kinda threw me, but in a good way. He’d also taken his boots off and walked barefoot towards me. I loved it when he wore no shoes. I felt like it showed his relaxed state, and that was a state I wanted him in a lot more. I didn’t like the idea of my man stressing over shit all the time.

  When he reached me, he slid onto the barstool beside me at the breakfast bar. “Is this gonna be twenty questions?”

  I smiled as I ran my fingers through his long hair that had fallen across his face. It reached just below his beard now, and I had to admit, it did good things to me. I’d never been into this kind of haircut on a man before, but on King, I loved it. “Will you play with me?”

  His eyes searched mine. “Twenty is a fuckload. Hit me with five.”

  “You play hard to get.”

  “Metallica.”

  “Does that mean I only have four left?”

  “Yeah, and you’re running out of time.”

  Shit, I had so many questions that my brain scrambled to pick the best. In the end, I decided to keep this light and fun. The deeper stuff could wait. I wasn’t convinced he was in the mood for it tonight. “Favourite meal?”

  He didn’t have to stop to think about it. “Your roast chicken and that gravy you make with it.”

  Oh God, he was trying to kill me here.

  “Favourite number?”

  “Who the fuck has a favourite number?”

  “I do.”

  “What is it?”

  “Seven.”

  “And what the fuck makes it your favourite?”

  “It’s my lucky number.”

  “How the hell is a number lucky, Lily?”

  “I choose it when I put the Lotto in or when I have to take a number at the butcher or—”

  “You don’t just take the number at the front?”

  “No. I search for one that has a seven in it.”

  “That makes no fucking sense. You’d be waiting there longer than you have to.”

  I shrug. “So?”

  He shook his head and swivelled so he faced me. Spreading his legs, he reached for my stool and pulled me closer. “You do the strangest fucking things, woman.”

  I lifted my legs so I could wrap them around him. “Pull me closer.” Once he had me right next to him, I put my legs around him and rested my feet on the stool behind him. I then placed my hands on his chest. “What things do I do that are strange?”

  He rested his hands on my legs. “Lucky fucking numbers for one, but let’s list this shit out. You watch Elvis movies like they’re going out of fucking fashion, you have bows everywhere on your bags, bracelets, shoes, and underwear, you eat chips with chocolate, you eat fries with ice cream, you read five books at once, you have hard rules around what butter and cheese you will buy, you insist on fucking texting me all the time, you insist on sleeping with the fan on every fucking night,
you don’t like your food touching other food on your plate, your cookbooks have to be in alphabetical order.” He paused, arching his brows. “I could go on.”

  “Don’t knock my bows! You seemed to like them on my panties.”

  “I fucking like anything to do with your panties. I’d like it a hell of a lot more if you never wore them again, though.”

  “I bet you would,” I murmured, leaning in to kiss him.

  The kiss started out slow, but quickly worked its way to being one of King’s demanding kisses. By the time he let my lips go, he had a hand inside my bra. Stroking my nipple, he said, “How long do we have before dinner is ready?”

  “You’re seriously going to stop whatever you have in mind just so we can eat?”

  His eyes flashed with heat. “Once I get started with you, we won’t be stopping for dinner. I’m also not giving up anything you’ve cooked, so yeah, how fucking long before dinner is ready?”

  I grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him long and hard again. Pulling away breathlessly, I said, “It’s ready.”

  “Fucking hell, woman, why didn’t you just say that?”

  I grinned. “Because I like to work you up a little.”

  He smacked the side of my thigh. “Yeah, I’ve fucking worked that shit out.” Attempting to pull my legs from around him, he added, “Get your ass up and serve me my food.”

  I gripped his hips with my legs, refusing to move. “Oh really, Mr Caveman? You seriously think I’ll respond to that shit?”

  He curled his hand around my neck and pulled my face to his. Against my ear, he growled, “The longer you fucking sit here arguing, the longer till I get inside you. And I’ve been thinking of nothing but that today, so stop fucking arguing with me.”

  I stopped arguing with him. I mean, I didn’t care that he went all caveman on me. I just liked to push him to see how demanding he’d get, because that shit turned me on.

  As I served up our dinner, he sat on the stool watching me intently. King was always watching, always taking note. He’d proved that when he rattled off his list of strange things he’d observed about me. I loved that he already knew those things, but what I really loved was knowing he paid attention.