Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men Book 2)

by Giana Darling

  “You don’t have nightmares,” I told him inanely because I was so terrified I could barely remember my own name.

  At least Bea was safe on the roof.

  But Mute was at the front line and my lover’s daughter, a daughter who strangely enough had become one of my best friends as well, was right there with me.

  “Even the devil’s got nightmares, Lou, and mine is losin’ ya so you take care, you hear? No fuckin’ rebel schemes or heroics. You get outta there safe.”

  “Comin’ back,” Mute muttered from beside the window.

  “Come out, come fuckin’ out,” Ace yelled at the house. He sounded high and he probably was. “No? Eh, we figured as much. Fuckin’ pussies. Don’t worry, we got a cure for that.”

  “Fuck,” Mute swore and dove at me.

  We slammed to the ground away from the window a second before the glass smashed and something heavy landed amid the glass.

  A Molotov Cocktail, a nearly empty bottle of booze with a gas-soaked rag stuck in it, burnin’ bright like a white flag in flames.

  Two more crashes followed as more of them were launched through the windows of the house.

  “We wanted ’em alive to reason with the fuckin’ Prez but if you wanna do this the hard way, we figure killin’ ’em will work to shake things up just as well,” Ace shouted into the house.

  Mute hauled me to my feet and quickly checked me over for bruises and scrapes I didn’t feel. I couldn’t feel anything except for sheer terror. He grabbed my hand and ran down the hall to the back door only to find it hanging open on its hinges.

  Harleigh Rose.

  Mute shoved me against the wall beside the door and carefully rounded it with his gun up and out.

  “Fuck,” he swore a second later as he backed up into the house slowly.

  Lysander Garrison appeared in the doorway, Harleigh Rose dwarfed in his big arms, the huge barrel of a sawed-off shotgun to her temple.

  “Put the gun down, Mute,” Lysander ordered softly. “I’m not gonna hurt anyone, okay? I’m just doing this because you’ve got to listen to me. The police are on their way but they won’t be here quick enough to save the girls. You have to trust me here, brother. I can help you guys.”

  Mute snarled. “Not your brother. Lou, get here.”

  I immediately obeyed, racing to him and sliding behind his back. He braced in a slight squat so I could—painfully—climb up onto his back. I wrapped myself tight around him so he wouldn’t have to waste a hand supporting me.

  Smoke started to billow hot and black at our feet as the flames in the front room grew stronger.

  “Fine but we don’t have time to argue. I’m workin’ with Lionel Danner on this. You gotta trust me here, if not ’cause you want to, then ’cause you know I’m the best chance for you here,” Lysander tried again.

  The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

  Sweat beaded on my back. It wasn’t a big house and it was only a matter of time before the fire spread, eating up all the wood like a starving, feral creature.

  Lysander sighed then slowly lowered his gun from H.R.’s temple before taking a step back and lifting his arms in the air. Immediately, she ran to us and stood at our side, her hand finding my back and pressing in for comfort.

  “No harm,” Lysander said, putting his gun slowly over his shoulder so it lay across his back by a thick bit of rope. “Now, if you’re willin’ to take a chance, I’m leaving now. They think I’m back here to catch you if you think of runnin’ but I’m helpin’, okay? There’s a car waiting just through the trees to the left of the estate, thirty meters tops. You run fast and hard, you can make it before they figure out what’s happening.”

  “Mute, let’s do it,” H.R. whispered.

  “Agreed,” I seconded then louder I said, “My sister is on the roof. You need to get her down.”

  Something flared behind his eyes as he thought about my little sister on the roof of a flaming building and I immediately warmed to him for it.

  “Let’s go, Mute,” I urged him.

  He didn’t move.

  The smoke was thick now and the snap, crackle and pop of wood tearing, burning and crumbling to ash was loud all around us.

  I could barely breathe from the smoke in my already weak lungs when I begged. “Promised to stay alive for you, Mute. Need you to get me there and that way is through this guy.”

  I don’t know if it was the hoarseness of my voice and my resulting body jerking coughing fit or if it was my words, but Mute jolted forward as if he’d been jump-started.

  “You get her hurt, I kill you,” he threatened even as he started running to the door and out it.

  Harleigh Rose followed us but Mute put her in front, as we followed Lysander around the side of the house and stopped just out of sight of the front driveway.

  “Thirty meters through the trees straight ahead,” Lysander said when we came to a stop. “I’ll get Bea and you worry about gettin’ out of here alive.”

  I whimpered at the thought of leaving my sister but the shouts from the front of the house alerted us that our time had run out.

  There was about ten meters between the forest and us, with twenty meters still more after that.

  “Doable,” H.R. said, her soot-streaked face set with determination. She still held a knife in one hand and her gun in the other, both held up to her face as if being able to see them made her more confident.

  “Got this,” Mute agreed.

  “Good, now go,” Lysander ordered.

  Mute took off like a shot, Harleigh Rose on the other side of us, farther away from the driveway. I clung tight to him as he thundered across the grass, his breath and pulse thumping away in my ear as I pressed my face into his neck.

  Pop.

  The familiar sound of gunshots followed close behind us.

  Pop. Pop.

  “Let me down, I can run and you’ll be faster without me,” I shouted in Mute’s ear but he only hefted me higher on his back and ran harder.

  Pop.

  Harleigh Rose screamed.

  And in that second that Mute stopped slightly to turn his head and check on her, I saw a fourth man, one we hadn’t known was there, one that looked so familiar, at first, I thought he was there to help us.

  He had pale hair and wore a leather vest like brothers of any MC would. He was too far away for me to see clearly but through my haze of adrenaline, I felt sure I knew him. He stood by the trees we were running to, a gun in his hand leveled high and steady at Mute and me.

  It felt as though I caught eyes with him in that second and saw a wealth of things in that corrupted gaze: anger and greed, vengeance and fury. He was a man on a mission and that mission was to end me.

  I screamed before I even heard the pop.

  Mute grunted a second later, faltering in his steps and almost falling to the ground. He collapsed to a knee briefly before pushing up with a hand and taking off again.

  “You’re okay?” I screamed into his ear.

  He grunted.

  Harleigh Rose limped beside us, running fast even though I could see the blood at her calf where a bullet had gone clear through the muscle.

  We made it to the edge of the trees three seconds later without any more gunfire but I could still hear the shouts back at the house and see the dark plumage of smoke wafting over the cabin through the forest. Harleigh Rose had darted ahead into the brush to get the car started.

  “Keys in the ignition,” she shouted from somewhere in front of us.

  “Thank God,” I said, about to ask Mute to put me down when my world tilted and we both went to the earthen floor hard.

  “Mute,” I cried out before I’d even landed, then as soon as I regained my breath I was scrambling over the cold, wet soil to his side.

  He lay on his back, blinking up at the sky like he couldn’t understand what was wrong with him.

  What was wrong with him was that there was a bullet hole through his neck. A sob exploded in my throat
and tore out my mouth as I fell on the wound with both hands, pressing hard into the blood spilling through his throat. My fingers slipped in the mess and I worried frantically that I was making it harder for him to breathe.

  “Help!” I called out, not caring that there were more gunmen in the vicinity. “Harleigh Rose!”

  “Fucking fuck,” she said, tumbling to a stop beside me in the mud. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod… fuck.”

  “Mute, just wait a second, okay?” I told him, leaning down so I could look into his eyes.

  They were wide and eerily knowing on mine as he blinked, gurgled through a deep breath, and blinked again.

  “Loulou!” Bea’s voice came to me, pulling my gaze from Mute for a second to see her running toward me with Lysander just behind her.

  “You have to help me get him in the car,” I told Lysander. “Quick, please, God, help me get him in the car. He needs an ambulance.”

  Lysander crouched down without missing a beat and cursed as he smoothly hefted Mute’s dead weight into his arms. “Get in the fuckin’ car. Now.”

  I pushed Bea toward the car with my bloody hands then sprinted forward so I could brace against the backseat and carefully accept Mute’s head on my lap. Bea crawled into the front seat and H.R. kneeled in the trunk.

  Lysander jumped into the front seat and immediately peeled out of the muddy clearing just as there was a great bomb as the cabin imploded.

  “Mute, Mute, I’m right here and we’re going to be in the hospital in just two seconds, I promise, it’s going to be alright… just hold on, okay?” I ranted as I pressed the bunched edge of his tee into the gushing wound and ran a hand over his head, too fast and hard to be truly comforting.

  I could see the blood under his skin thinning, watched as his flesh turned bright red then paler and paler like spilled milk. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t move and couldn’t even really breathe.

  “No, no, no,” I sobbed as one of his heavy hands tried to lift to comfort me and fell back weakly to the seat.

  There was blood everywhere, pooling warm in my lap, the metallic scent of it stuffed up my nostrils.

  He was dying.

  God, I knew he was dying.

  “Is he okay?” Bea whimpered from the front seat as we drove off the edge of a dirt hill and onto pavement with a rough crash that jerked me and made more of Mute’s blood spurt out over my hand.

  “No,” I whispered as my tears rained down on Mute’s face.

  There was so much in his eyes as they watched me; pain and stunning acceptance of his fate, pride that he’d saved me and love, so much love it overflowed from him and filled me up to the brim.

  I couldn’t breathe, my weak lungs were filled with smoke and too damaged to deal with the added stress but I focused all my energy into staying clear headed so I could hold my silent hero in my arms and look into his eyes as he died for me.

  “Love you, love you, love you,” I croaked through my tears, through my lack of breath.

  He blinked slowly and opened his mouth, maybe to say something, but instead a thick trickle of blood spilled out.

  My sobs ricocheted through the car like the gunshots in the clearing.

  “Love you,” I said again as I bent double and pressed my lips to his face, kissing his heavy brow, his broad forehead, his blood-speckled cheeks and nose.

  His breathing was faint, so faint I couldn’t even hear him struggle for it anymore. I pulled back just enough to see his face and watched as those beautiful brown eyes, more eloquent than his lips had ever been, sparked one last time and then went out.

  I cried out like a wounded animal, so long and low and loud that black spots dotted my vision and my tired lungs gave out. I passed out over Mute’s still warm, dead body with my cheek on his cheek.

  Zeus.

  Thank fuck it was rainin’.

  Yeah, it fit the mood, which was good. Loulou woulda liked that.

  But even better, it hid the fact that my grown ass son was cryin’ beside me as he comforted his woman and his sister. I didn’t blame him for cryin’. How could I when I’d spent the past forty-eight hours leaking tears like a broken fuckin’ faucet?

  Besides, I was fuckin’ thankful that he had it in him to take care of Cress and H.R.

  I was barely keepin’ myself together.

  The crater in the middle of my chest kept yawning open like the jaws of a monster to swallow up every ounce of strength I mighta had under other circumstances. I was no father, no Prez. I was barely a man, held together by three bottles of Canadian whiskey and a serious prayer.

  That’s right, Zeus fuckin’ Garro, President of the maddest, baddest, fuckin’ richest MC in the country was praying.

  And he was praying with every atom of his crumblin’ black soul that God would send Lou back to him.

  She wasn’t gone yet, I reminded myself for the thirteen-thousandth time. She was hanging on tight to life, fighting like only my little warrior could.

  The docs said she had inhalation injury made worse by the preexistin’ condition of her lungs ’cause of the chemo. There was a thick tube stuck down her throat and they’d put her in a medical coma so her body could have a chance of healin’.

  Wasn’t allowed to see her for the first five hours I sat there in the hospital reception, yellin’ and demandin’ to be let in to see my girl.

  They refused.

  She was seventeen and technically, still under the guardianship of her parents.

  So, I’d had to wait five hours while the cops contacted the Lafayettes then visited with Lou. The mayor had glared at me as he came and went but there was genuine fuckin’ panic and sorrow in his face when he left after an hour of visitin’.

  It was the panic, I was stuck on most.

  I’d been railin’ at the fuckin’ nurses and doctors for the eighth time about lettin’ me in to see Lou when Phillipa Lafayette appeared beside me.

  She’d been wearing a pink suit with a pink band in her hair. It struck me in the throat that she looked like an older, sadder Loulou. Phillipa tried to hide it behind her conservative, ugly clothes and a shit-ton of pearls, but she was almost just as much a bombshell as her daughter.

  Thank fuck, I’d gotten to Lou in time to stop her from becomin’ her frigid bitch of a mother.

  The woman had stared at me for a long minute. Watched my chest heave with the force of my fury, my fists tight at my sides and my eyes, I knew it, were crazy. I was a beast at the end of his rope, threatening to go green as the Hulk in about two seconds fuckin’ flat if someone didn’t let me see Lou.

  “You can come in,” she’d said in such a soft voice I’d had to lean forward to hear it and she’d flinched as I’d done it.

  “Come a-fuckin’-gain?”

  Her lips pursed and she held her purse to her chest like a shield. “I said, you can come in and see her. She’d want that.”

  I blinked at her for a sec before decidin’ not to give a fuck about the reasons for her change of heart.

  “Put my fuckin’ name on the approved list,” I snarled as I stormed across the hall and into the white room housin’ my fallen angel.

  Since then, this was the third time I’d been forced to leave her bedside and the only time it was worth it.

  My brother Mute deserved a funeral befitting of the gods.

  And we were givin’ it to him.

  Every single brother from every chapter of The Fallen on the west coast of North America and our neighborin’ province of Alberta was in First Light Church Graveyard. They spread nearly as far as the eye could see like a murder of ravens and when we’d done the funeral procession through town, seemed every citizen in Entrance had come out to watch The Fallen flood Main Street on a tide of rolling thunder.

  Only family was close to the deep wound in the earth where the casket was bein’ lowered, a circle of people linked by choice insteada blood that would always and had before, bled for each other.

  Cops ran like a loose chain-link fence around the perime
ter, hemmin’ us in and watchful of so many outlaws in one space. It was standard procedure for an MC funeral to have the cops up our ass but I fuckin’ hated that they were there today watchin’ like they always did instead of doin’. The only thing they were fuckin’ good for was keepin’ the press at bay.

  “Zeus Garro, I understand you would like to say a few words.” Pastor Lafayette was doin’ the ceremony. It was fucked as shit but I respected the guy. He didn’t like my way of life, didn’t like that his granddaughter was livin’ that same life beside me, but he supported me anyway because it was what she wanted.

  So, he was doin’ the ceremony for a biker and not carin’ that it was unconventional as fuck.

  I stomped through the mud to the microphone beside the pastor and pulled my presidency all around me like a fuckin’ shroud. The sound of tears underscored the rain, could see the tracks of ’em on the cheeks of women and brothers alike. This was not a happy time for the club. The loss of a brother hadn’t happened to the main charter of the MC since I’d killed Crux and inadvertently started this whole mess.

  It was up to me to be strong, to be Atlas bended on one knee with the world on my shoulders, holdin’ up my family for as long as they needed that from me.

  I took a deep breath, thought of Lou to give me strength, and started.

  “Wonder if those motherfuckers who ended Mute woulda done it if they’d seen a movie of his life. They woulda seen a neglected, abused kid with huge brown eyes wiser an’ more soulful than ten grown mens. They woulda seen his character grow with the struggle of bein’ different, how he found acceptance with a brotherhood that nurtured ’im and how he threw himself body and fuckin’ soul into givin’ that back and more.” The sobs were louder now, in my ears with more in my throat. Fuck, if I was gonna cry but fuck me if I’d ever had a better reason to.

  “Yeah, I wonder if they woulda killed a man like that if they’d known him; if they’d known his quiet fuckin’ wit, how he could play us all like fuckin’ pawns without even sayin’ a word. He lived by a simple mandate like the rest of us, brotherhood, loyalty, livin’ free and even in the end, dyin’ hard. Brings me some small degree of comfort to know my brother died how he woulda wanted to, defendin’ his and my girl. Whatever place he’s in where fallen angels go, I know he’s livin’ a dead man’s dream ’cause a soul like his woulda bought him first class seats to paradise.”