“She’s good for now. Just got a little dehydrated. We’re giving her fluids and after some rest, she should be just fine.”
“Thanks,” I grunted, movin’ around to sit in that fuckin’ orange chair again.
I pulled it right up to her bed and took her hand.
The nurse left quiet.
I was lucky Betsy had been on staff that day or else I wouldn’t’a been allowed in when I found out Lou was even there. I’d spent two hours thinkin’ worse, that the Nightstalkers had got ’er or she’d been hit by a car or some shit.
It’d been her ex-boyfriend of all fuckin’ people who called H.R. to tell her that Lou’d been taken away from school in an ambulance. No surprise that the kid knew ’bout us at that point—everyone in Entrance fuckin’ did—but I had to give the kid some grudging respect for pickin’ up the phone for his ex like that.
It’d been Betsy who’d had to deal with me when I started yellin’ at the bitches in reception who wouldn’t tell me where my girl was.
It was Bets who’d told me that Lou had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma again.
Loulou stirred slightly, unpeelin’ her heavy eyes to reveal those true blue eyes I loved so fuckin’ much.
“You’re here,” she croaked.
I nodded, pulling our tangled hands against my mouth to give hers a kiss. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Tears wet those eyes and made my heart clench.
“Even though I seriously suck?”
I grinned despite the turmoil in my fuckin’ gut. “Yeah, Lou, even when you seriously suck.”
She closed her eyes and dragged in a shaky breath. “Thank God.”
“Told ya you were stuck with me,” I reminded her.
She grinned like that was the best thing she’d ever heard. “Can you get up here with me?”
I eyed the little bed skeptically, which had her laughin’.
“I’ll lean up and you can sit behind me? Please, I’m cold and all I want is you all around me.”
Immediately, I let go of her hand and gently helped her scoot forward so I could settle myself against the raised back of the bed and pull her against my chest. She rearranged the blankets against us and carefully pulled the tubes in her hands out from underneath them.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” she whispered as she tucked my arms tighter around her body.
I pressed my lips to her hair. “Forget about it. I know now.”
“What does this mean for us?” she asked, her voice girlish with fear.
That fear wrapped cold fingers around my heart and squeezed like a motherfucker.
“Nothin’. You’re still my girl and I’m still your man. You need anythin’, I’m here for you. That includes puke clean up, pickin’ up drugs at the pharmacy, all that kinda shit. It also means you need someone to sit in the hospital with ya and your parents are too fuckin’ selfish to do it themselves, all the better for me ’cause I’m gonna be here every fuckin’ time.”
She sighed into me, settling warm and contented as a cat when I stroked a hand over her hair.
“I might lose it, you know,” she muttered.
My hand stilled on the masses of gold silk. “Fuck, baby.”
“You might not want me. Cancer isn’t a pretty illness, Z.”
I gripped her chin and tilted it up ’til I could look into those scared eyes. Pressed a warm kiss to her lips and said, “Don’t be a fuckin’ dumbass.”
“I might die,” she whispered even softer.
“You might,” I agreed ’cause I wanted to be honest with her but the thought had daggers shootin’ between each of my ribs, all angled at my heart.
“Do you think I’ll go to heaven?” she asked me.
“Fuck yeah, which sucks for me.”
She shifted between my legs, tippin’ her head up so she could look past my bearded jaw and into my eyes. “You going to explain that to me?”
I reached out to rub one callused thumb along the plump curve of her lower lip, my concentration so intense it felt like my eyes burned. “You asked me any day ’fore I met you, I woulda said there was no fuckin’ chance I’d get into heaven. A man like me havin’ done the things I did, things I needed to do? Fuck no.”
When she tried to protest, I pressed my thumb harder against her lush mouth and felt my face turn to fuckin’ stone. “Now, I ain’t makin’ you any promises here, little warrior, but if your fine ass is going to heaven—and it fuckin’ well is—I’ll find a way to get there too. If I gotta move into that fuckin’ church and pay penance every goddamn hour, I’ll do it. If I gotta give up boozin’, guns and drug runnin’, I’ll fuckin’ well do it and I’d do it now if it meant I got a place beside my girl behind those pearly gates.”
She bit her lip to keep from cryin’ because she knew I didn’t like her tears and then she valiantly tried to lighten the mood. “You’d probably have to give up cursing too. I think that’s a pretty tall order.”
“Fuck yeah, it is,” I agreed before jerking her even closer to me until we were fused together, until I could feel the reassurin’ beat of her heart against my chest. A heartbeat so much more important than my own. “Do it for you, Lou. Do anythin’ for you.”
My house didn’t feel like my home anymore.
Not that it ever really had.
But the curving arms of the double-sided grand staircase, the plush carpets under the heavy antique furniture, the window hangings dripping with tassels and threads of gold and the crystal lights all seemed too opulent to me now, bright in a way my eyes couldn’t handle. I’d grown used to the dark and neon lights of The Lotus and Eugene’s Bar, of the cool natural light that spilled through the wide windows of Zeus’s rustic house on the beach and cabin in the woods. I craved his lived-in furniture, the cluster of family photos hung haphazardly on the wall leading from the entryway to the kitchen. The sounds of laughter and instant feel of warmth the second you opened the door to that home.
Instead, I sat in my habitual spot at the grand dining table in my father’s house wearing a thick brocade white and gold dress that itched my sensitive skin and did its best to collapse the shape of my curves. My hair was up in a swirl, my pearls were in my ears and I was ready for battle.
It was the kind of battle I’d grown up taking part in so I was ready for the role I’d given myself to play. There was something going on with my dad and his companions—the Danners, Venturas, and Mr. Warren—and I was fairly certain it had something to do with The Fallen.
It was the MC who was my family now, so I made it my business to dig a little deeper.
“You look radiant this evening, Louise,” my mother praised me.
“I told her the other day how happy I was that her hair wasn’t falling out,” Mr. Warren shared with her. “It’s such pretty hair.”
My mother tittered and touched her own artificially blond hair. “Of course, she gets it from me so I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should,” he said with a wink that set my mother to blushing.
Yuck.
Was there no one Mr. Warren wouldn’t flirt with?
“How’re you feeling?” Lionel asked quietly, leaning forward in his seat across from me to make the question more intimate.
Not for the first time, I surprised myself by liking Lionel Danner.
I shrugged. “As they said, not much hair loss yet so I’m a happy camper.”
“Louise,” my sister Bea chided me.
She’d been forced to attend the dinner because my parents had forgotten to find something else for her to do that night. She looked immensely uncomfortable in her shapeless black dress with her hair done up in a tight bun.
I winked at her just to see the warmth flood her eyes.
“You’ve been busy lately, zorra,” Javier said from my side.
I blinked at him. “Have I? No more than usual.”
“I suppose for a smart young lady like yourself juggling academics, cheerleading, ballet, chemotherapy, friendships and serving
is an easy task,” he agreed with a flippant wave of his hand.
I shot a glance at Benjamin but happily he was talking to Irina on his other side.
“As anyone in Entrance will tell you, I’m a talented girl,” I said with a sharp smile that cut painfully into my cheeks.
“Yes, with so many interests, one might almost say you’re two very different people at the end of the day,” Javier said as he swirled that deep red wine in his glass.
I could tell he got off on it, on being a villain. He was like a little kid with a shiny new toy, so eager to play with it that he didn’t realize if he wasn’t careful, it would break.
“You know so much about me, Javier. I have to say, I’m flattered.”
He inclined his head. “I intend to bed down in Entrance for a very long time, Louise. It’s good to know the players.”
“And what business is that?” I asked innocently. “Maybe I could intern with you one summer.”
He laughed. “Maybe. I specialize in pharmaceuticals. Are you interested in that field?”
“Recreationally.” I winked.
His laugh was delighted as he leaned forward intimately. “You are a treasure. I can understand why The Fallen MC enjoys your company so much.”
I didn’t deny that I knew them because it was obvious that he knew everything about Loulou Fox. “What do you know about them?”
“I know that there’s a new MC in town and they seem to have The Fallen’s every move written down by an oracle before they even make it. And I know, personally, that they are a very well-funded organization.”
“Doesn’t seem you know much more than speculation,” I said as I casually cut into my bloody steak and brought a morsel to my mouth.
Javier didn’t like my lack of interest. He leaned closer and divulged. “What do I care about a gang but to use it for a greater means. No, I’m not after The Fallen MC in particular so I don’t care what they stand for, what they’re really about. I only need to know the basic facts to make my moves.”
“So you must know Zeus Garro,” I said in a low voice as I served him more wine, watching the red liquid bleed into his glass.
“Not as well as you do, but yes.”
My smile was sharper than a shard of broken glass as I accidently slopped wine over his hand and then turned to him. “Then you’ll know it’s fucking hilarious that you think you’re so scary because, Javier, I’ve seen scary. I’ve fucked scary and I stared him right in the eyes as I did it so let me tell you, you don’t have his smile.”
The chime of the doorbell sounded throughout the house, stilling conversation because who called during dinnertime?
My parents stared at each other before my dad excused himself to answer the door.
A shiver of foreboding ripped up my spine as I watched him go and then again when I turned back to Javier to see him grinning at me.
“I may not have his smile, zorra, but trust me, real evil doesn’t need a face, it just needs a presence.”
My dad walked back into the room frowning down at a brown manila folder.
“What is it, Ben?” my mother asked.
“Someone left this on the doorstep,” he murmured as he unwound the string holding the folder closed and dozens of glossy eight-by-ten photos spilled out.
I was too far away to see what the images depicted but I knew from talking to Zeus that those were the kind of pictures that had been left at the scenes of the fires started at The Fallen properties.
And now they were in my home.
I was on my feet and moving toward my dad before I was even aware of it.
It was too late though. My mother was closer and my father was already there staring down at the puddle of images like he was submerged in sinking sands.
I fell to my knees in the pile and scooped one up in my hands.
It was me, blond hair streaming in the air as I rode behind Zeus on his great black-and-silver beast down the Sea to Sky Highway with my arms tight around him and my face broke up in a wild grin.
Another one showed Zeus, his big body mostly concealing my own as he caught me from a flying leap into his arms.
Another. His bearded lips on mine outside his house two days ago, a big hand down the back of my jeans palming my bare ass as we made out.
There were so many of them, at least twenty, all depicting my illicit relationship with the thirty-six-year-old outlaw motorcycle President.
I looked up just in time to see my dad’s face contort with black rage and then see the closed fist come flying at my face.
It connected with my cheek and sent me reeling backward across the slippery pictures. I blinked up at the chandelier, stunned. My left cheekbone throbbed with blinding pain.
“Benjamin!” my mum cried as she fell down beside me. “What are you doing?”
“She’s sleeping with that fucking thug,” he roared, pointing his finger at me.
Lionel Danner was suddenly in his face, holding him back and snarling, “You touch her again, I’m taking you into the station, Ben.”
“My daughter is a fucking slut!” Dad shouted in his face.
I blinked back tears as I lay on the floor and tried to find my breath.
My dad had just hit me.
Oh my God.
With one simple act, the vestiges of my youth fell away and the girl who’d once been Louise Lafayette died. I lay on the ground blinking up at a life that was no longer mine. There was glitter and money all around me, the dinner party a frozen tableau of class that felt like a false front over something much darker.
My mum helped me to my knees but then grew distracted by the pictures all around us and shakily picked one up in her hand.
It was a bad one for her to have chosen.
In it, I was naked but for one of Zeus’s massive tees and I was straddling his lap as he sat on a chair on his front porch. His jeans were clearly undone and my head was thrown back in ecstasy as I ground down on him.
My mum turned to me with wide, horrified eyes and breathed, “Who are you?”
“Your daughter,” I reminded her, and only then realized I was crying.
“Not anymore,” she said, getting to her feet quickly like I had an infectious disease and she’d already spent too long in my presence.
“Mum,” I tried again, but she was already scuttling toward my dad who was still ranting at Lionel.
I sat there on my knees for a second looking at the table where Mr. Warren sat stupefied, staff sergeant Danner looked disgusted, Irina bored and Javier, fucking Javier, was smiling like the Cheshire Cat.
My dad broke through Lionel’s hold and stormed over to me. I backed away on my knees and fell onto my ass, hands in front of my face to shield me as he lifted his hand to backhand me. It occurred to me in a strangely manic way that I’d spent my life comparing Zeus to a monster when it was my father who was the true beast, a man dipped in civilized veneer with an empty center where his heart should have been.
“Stop,” Bea shouted as she fell in front of me and wrapped her arms around my body like a shield. “Daddy, please, stop this.”
He leaned down, pried her sobbing body off me and held her away. “Don’t touch her, Beatrice.”
“I’m not infected with anything, Dad,” I tried to explain, my stomach so nauseated I thought I might vomit all over the photos at my knees.
“You sleep with filthy animals, Louise, you’re bound to pick something up. Now get up and get the hell out of my house. I will not have a wanton slut living under my roof, let alone one who associates with the likes of Zeus fucking Garro.”
The dry, malnourished part of my heart that I’d tried for years to nurture for my family kindled and went up in flames at the mention of Zeus. I surged to my feet, caught my balance with a hand on the table and stared down my dad.
“Fuck you, Benjamin. Maybe if you’d bothered to parent me at all the last seventeen years, things would have been different. But they aren’t because you’re a selfish fucking bastard who onl
y cares about himself and his career. You want me gone, fine, I’m fucking out of here.”
“Don’t you dare fucking come back and you can kiss your education goodbye. There isn’t a chance in hell I’m sending you to university now. When that thug leaves you for someone younger don’t come crawling back to me for money.” He kicked at the photos and sent them flying through the air. “My daughter, a biker slut.”
“My father, a daughter abuser,” I retorted through the snot and tears that streamed down my face and into the hem of my ugly brocade dress.
Then with the limited dignity I could muster, I ran to my room to grab what I could before I left the Lafayette mansion for good.
I knew my face was already swelling and discolouring when Harleigh Rose opened the door for me and covered her dropped-open mouth with both hands.
She was a biker’s daughter so I figured she’d seen worse but maybe not on a woman.
“Hi,” I said.
There were three big Louis Vuitton suitcases at my feet and two more duffels slung over my shoulders. I had a lot of stuff I didn’t want to leave behind, including the wooden box in one of the duffels that contained my letters from Z.
“Ohmigawd,” Harleigh Rose breathed, stepping forward with a lifted hand to flutter her fingers along the goose egg forming on my cheekbone. “What happened to you?”
A second later a big shadow loomed behind H.R. and Zeus was in the doorway, pushing her gently aside even as his face darkened with fury.
“My dad knows about us,” I said calmly.
Then, because I’d finally made it to safety and a pair of arms that would close around me if I fell, I burst into tears.
Gently, Zeus hefted me into his arms so I could wrap my legs around his waist and bury my face in his hair. He walked me in the house straight to the left where the family room opened up into the kitchen and sat down with me in one of the big wooden chairs at the dining room table.
Cress and King sat at the table with their half-eaten dinners in front of them, frozen in the act of eating because they were both staring at me with horror.
Zeus’s hand stroked down my hair as he ordered King, “Get ’er bags and put ’em in my room. Then get your ass back down ’ere ’cause the second Lou stops cryin’ long enough to tell me why the motherfuckin’ fuck did this to her, we’re rollin’ out.”
Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men Book 2) Page 26