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

by Giana Darling

  I nodded out at the sea of my people, catchin’ eyes with Nova as he held Lila, with Buck as he cranked the mechanism that lowered Mute’s black coffin into the cold, wet earth.

  “And while Mute finds peace in the Underworld, we’ll be busy up here findin’ justice for ’im,” I declared, hand over the microphone so only the force of my lungs carried the promise of vengeances to the eager ears of my brothers.

  A shout swelled in the air like a punctuation mark.

  I nodded, tipped my chin at the pastor, and stepped down.

  King was the first to step forward when the coffin was finally bedded down, a silver coin in his hand, probably a nickel. His face was gaunt like a fuckin’ skeleton’s, his lips held tight against the force of his misery. I wanted to go forward and wrap my kid in my arms like I’d done when he was a boy, but he was a man now and it was man’s walk to the edge of the grave to pay last respects.

  “Go easy, brother, knowin’ you touched our lives like the hand of God ’imself.” He flipped the coin into the grave, payment for the ferryman or the pearly gates, wherever death mighta taken him.

  The Fallen always pay their debts, even in death.

  So one by one, my brothers stepped up to toss a coin onto the coffin and pay Mute’s way to Eden.

  It took half an hour just for the Entrance brothers and when I stepped up last, we were all soaked through past the skin to the fuckin’ bone.

  But I took my time ’cause I had two coins, one for me and one for Lou.

  My heart burned like a torch in my chest, never fuckin’ goin’ out, not since I’d rode into Entrance straight to the fuckin’ hospital and found Lou with tubes in her mouth and so many damn needles in her arms she looked like a pin cushion. Fuck but she shoulda been there beside me. I coulda been strong for her the way I didn’t feel strong for anyone else.

  Instead, she was fightin’ for her life in a fuckin’ hospital bed and her brother, my brother, was in the cold ground.

  “Rest in peace, Walker Nixon,” I said, usin’ his full name for the last time. “Deserve more than this for the guardin’ you gave my girl. Wish you could know I’d sell my fuckin’ soul to get you back. For you, for me, for the club and for our girl.”

  I tossed the coins into the ground but couldn’t see ’em through the wet in my eyes.

  Fuck me.

  A small hand went to my back and I jerked around to see H.R. starin’ up at me with red-stained eyes.

  “Dad,” she whispered through her tear-swollen throat.

  I lashed my arms around her and carted her up against my chest, tryin’ to breathe through the knife in my heart as I held my sobbin’ girl in a group of mostly grown men who wanted desperately to sob too.

  “Need to talk to you.”

  The party was windin’ up, not down.

  It was the way of biker funerals. First came the procession markin’ “Mute’s Last Ride”, then the ceremony, then the reveling. No one could celebrate a life well lived like my MC brethren.

  The clubhouse was overfilled and spillin’ out into the complex, the big industrial lights on across the lot so that everything was coated in yellow. People were shitfaced, high off their rockers and drunk as Irishmen. Families had left when the food the old ladies had put out disappeared and now it was just the brothers, partying hard to forget and celebrate.

  I wasn’t.

  I didn’t want to be with my fuckin’ brothers drinkin’ beer and doin’ shots.

  I wanted to be by my girl’s bedside just in case she woke even though the docs told me that wouldn’t be for days yet even if she did wake up.

  She would.

  She would wake up ’cause no God was cruel enough to give her to me only to rip her from my hands months later. No God would take away the idol of a man’s religion just when he needed it most.

  She’d wake up.

  And I needed to be at the clubhouse with my brothers. They needed their Prez. I loved Lou more than most grown men are capable of ever lovin’ anythin’. Loved her enough to kill and die for her ’cause only the finality of death could match the finality of my kinda love for that girl.

  But it was my brothers who had taught me how to love like that. To do it eternally with loyalty and pride.

  So, I was leanin’ against the wall beside the front door of the clubhouse, sippin’ a beer gone warm and listenin’ to Bat, Buck, Blackjack, and Priest shoot the shit.

  Then, Bat said, “Need to talk to you.”

  “So, talk.”

  He rubbed his head and I noticed his hair was longer, that all our hair was longer now. It’d been nearly two months since we’d shaved our heads for my girl.

  “Hate to say this, ’specially right now, but we don’t got shit to go on ’ere. The cops have been fuckin’ assholes about not sharin’ their intel and the only thing we know is that Ace Munford is leadin’ the Nightstalkers and the man’s got a helluva a bone to pick with you. We don’t know where their fuckin’ base is or how they knew about Lou and H.R. bein’ up at the cabin unless we have a rat in our ranks.”

  “’Course we have a fuckin’ rat,” I growled. “I need to know who the fuck it is so I can gut the bastard with a chainsaw.”

  Blackjack laughed. “What makes you so sure there’s a rat? They coulda been followin’ Lou or H.R. knowin’ they’re your weak spot and then just struck when the chance came.”

  Buck thumped him on the back with a meaty fist. “Don’t be a fucktard, B.J.”

  B.J. ran a hand over his pale buzzed head and peered up at me. “She’s your weakness, boss. Just sayin’ you should be careful with who knows that. Shame somethin’ happened to her ’cause of ya.”

  I took a step forward, the fury that lay at the heart of me ignited with one fuckin’ little match. Trouble was I was fuckin’ furious with myself. “You wanna say that again, brother?”

  He laughed nervously. “Nah, listen, I just meant, she’s a good girl. Maybe, maybe this is a sign that this ain’t the life for ’er.”

  His words fucked me dry. They were the same words been goin’ ’round my head for the last four days since the fire.

  She was too good for this life.

  Too good for murder, wrath and greed, too good for all the vices I lived and breathed.

  My girl was an angel and I’d taken her to the dark side like she had a hope in hell of thrivin’ there.

  I did it ’cause I was a selfish fuckin’ bastard and once a man’s tasted the kinda sweet ambrosia Lou’d given me, there was no goin’ back.

  So I didn’t pray to God that I’d leave her to a better life if—no when—she pulled through.

  I knew myself and I knew I wasn’t capable of that level of self-sacrifice.

  But I did pray.

  I went every goddamn day to First Light Church and sat in the same front pew Lou’d spent almost every Sunday mornin’ of her life in ’til she found me again, and I fuckin’ prayed to God for her life. Pastor fuckin’ Lafayette had seen me the first day and sat with me each time, sayin’ nothin’ just lendin’ me his goodness so I could use it to amplify my own and make my prayers shine brighter.

  If God’d give her back to me, I’d never let ’er go. Not to violence, wrath or greed. Not to vice or virtue. Not even to death.

  I’d keep her safe, I promised the Almighty, and I’d do it keeping ’er at my side and guardin’ her ’til my last fuckin’ breath.

  Still, I didn’t need fuckin’ B.J. remindin’ me of the dark voices in my head sayin’ I was no good for her and where the fuck did he get off thinkin’ that shit himself?

  “You got a problem with me, Blackjack?” I asked low.

  Somethin’ dark flashed in his eyes then fled like prey. “Sorry, brother, you don’t need my shit.”

  “Damn right, he doesn’t.” Buck hit him again, this time hard in the shoulder. “Shut your mouth ’til I tell you to fuckin’ open it again.”

  “Prez, there’s someone here you need to see,” Axe-Man said as he came up the ste
ps.

  “Who?”

  “Lysander Garrison.”

  Immediately, I was tearin’ down the steps to the front gates. The fuck stood there talkin’ to a mean lookin’ Nova.

  “What the fuck are you doin’ here? It better be to fuckin’ explain why you were with those fuckers who killed my brother and got my girl wastin’ away in the hospital,” I roared as I picked the six-foot-two motherfucker up by the neck and shoulder and shoved him into the chain-link fence.

  He blinked at me, calm as could fuckin’ be. “It is.”

  “Start talkin’ then.”

  “After you let me go and told me to get lost forever, Officer Danner picked me up as I was hightailin’ it outta town. Told me he needed my help puttin’ the Nightstalkers down for good.”

  Buck snorted behind me. “Like the cops could take down an operation like that. Fuckin’ pigs.”

  Blackjack laughed his nervous, yippy laugh.

  I turned to glare at him and found him sweatin’, lookin’ back and forth between Lysander and me like we were puttin’ on a tennis match.

  He was high as a fuckin’ kite and somethin’ about havin’ a high brother involved with club business had always seemed like a bad fuckin’ idea.

  “Get him in a cold fuckin’ shower ’fore he keels over and dies,” I ordered Priest who immediately acted, his face twisted with disgust as he dragged the tweaker away.

  “You gonna tell me where those motherfucking Nightstalkers are hidin’?” I asked, turnin’ back to Lysander.

  “No,” he said. “But mostly ’cause they don’t have a base of operations here. They have a clubhouse down in Vancouver right now, but they won’t relocate ’til they flush you out. Like I said, I’m workin’ with Danner and even the cops can’t get a location on ’em.”

  “Why the fuck would you help Danner? You think I was lyin’ when I told you I’d put you in the ground if you showed your face again in Entrance?”

  “Wanted to be able to look my sister in the eye again and tell ’er I’d made things right.”

  “And how are you makin’ things right? Far as I can tell, my brother is dead ’cause of you,” I snarled in his face.

  “I know. I’m so fuckin’ sorry. But Ace is a maniac and no matter how long I ride with him, I can’t predict what that high motherfucker is gonna do. Someone told him your girls were up at that cabin. One of The Fallen.”

  “Fuck,” I roared into his face and squeezed his neck tighter. “Who!?”

  “Don’t know. All I came ’ere to tell you was that Danner’s a good cop and between the two of us we’re this fuckin’ close to nailin’ ’em.”

  “And what the fuck do you want me to do about it?”

  I stared at his neck to center the anger threatenin’ to overwhelm me. I stared at the pulse in his throat thumping up against my thumb and I thought about how easy it would be to snap his neck. I’d done it before; it wasn’t as hard as you’d think.

  “One of the players, Warren, he has a thing for Louise—” His voice cut off with a garble because I now had my hand pressed to his windpipe.

  “You dare to fuckin’ mention her name when she’s barely fuckin’ breathin’?” I said quiet. “Don’t think you understand that I’m a fuckin’ monster, Sander, and I ain’t afraid to kill a man. Not even one that’s kin to my son’s woman or one in bed with the fuckin’ police. I’ll snap your neck and have you with the pigs in record time. You know it takes pigs eight minutes to eat a full-grown body?”

  Finally, there was fear in his eyes and his body stank of it, of sweat and somethin’ more metallic.

  “You go back to Danner and you tell him to get his glory on his fuckin’ own. The Fallen is not helpin’ anyone but their own,” I growled then shoved off him before I throttled ’im and stalked off to take my frustrations out on a fuckin’ punchin’ bag instead of Garrison’s motherfuckin’ face.

  I woke up crying.

  There was no gap between unconsciousness and waking.

  I knew the second I opened my eyes that Mute wouldn’t be there because Mute was dead.

  I couldn’t remember any other details of that night, which the doctors would later inform me was normal after a traumatic event, but I remembered immediately and brutally that Mute was dead.

  The tears fell hotly down my face, burning so badly I thought they’d leave scars. A part of me wanted them to. I felt mutilated by the pain of his loss.

  It took me a few minutes of deep, thready breathing to open my eyes and take in the hospital room around me.

  Everyone was there.

  My entire family.

  Harleigh Rose was curled up on a sofa with her bandaged calf in King’s lap and her head in Cressida’s.

  Bea sat in the cradle of Nova’s arms against the wall in a long line of bikers—Cy, Lab-Rat, Curtains, Bat, Priest and Boner—that extended out the open door and into the corridor.

  Ruby lay on the ground beside my bed wrapped in a thin hospital blanket with Lila curled up behind her for warmth and comfort. Maja was curled up in Buck’s lap in a huge chair someone had dragged in from another room, and Hannah, Cleo and Tayline lay curled up liked kittens against the sofa at King’s feet.

  They were all asleep.

  Even my guardian monster.

  He sat in chair that was too small for his enormous frame, the upper half of his torso collapsed on the bed at my side with one of his big hands curled around my thigh and the other tangled tightly with one of my own.

  Even in sleep, his handsome face was tense with worry. I pressed my fingers to the crease between his thick brows and over the fan of wrinkles beside his eyes but he didn’t wake up.

  I wondered how long they’d been there.

  “You’ve been out for days, honey,” a familiar voice said from the doorway.

  I couldn’t have been more shocked to see my mother standing there, not only because she was there but because she wasn’t wearing makeup—something I couldn’t ever remember happening—and she was wearing a tracksuit. It was a designer one but still, my mother didn’t wear anything more casual than slacks on her worst day.

  “Mum?” I croaked through a painfully dry throat.

  She rushed as quickly as she could pick her way through the sleeping bodies on the ground to my side to pour me a cup of water from the pitcher on the bedside table.

  “Here you go, sweetie,” she said as she tipped it up to my lips for me.

  I had a déjà vu moment, remembering her doing the same thing for me when I was first diagnosed with cancer as a kid.

  When I was finished, I turned my face away and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Pain slashed across her features like a blade but she recovered admirably. Her hand shook slightly as she put the cup on the table and perched on the side of my bed without the mammoth man half on it.

  “It kills me that my daughter has to ask why I would visit her in the hospital,” she admitted.

  “It’s not something you’ve done much of before,” I reminded her. “And you recently told me that you’d never talk to me again.”

  Her lips rolled under her teeth, a habit I realized with surprise, that we shared.

  “I’m so sorry. I…The truth is I never knew what to do with you. You were born this beautiful, vibrant little girl with a personality that developed very quickly and it was one I didn’t understand. Then you got cancer and…” She brought her hand to her mouth and pressed at it as if that would stop the tears that coated her words. “I didn’t know what to do with a little girl with cancer. I was afraid to get close to you because you were so close to dying and then what would I do?”

  I tried to remain unmoved by her speech and mostly it was easy because my heart was preoccupied with mourning Mute, but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt because honestly, I didn’t really want to lose another person close to me.

  “You’re supposed to love them anyway.”

  She nodded empathetically. “I know, I know, and ther
e’s no excuse but you can’t understand what it’s like to have a daughter who’s so sick. It feels like your fault. Maybe if I hadn’t eaten starch when I was pregnant with you or if I hadn’t let you get so close to the microwave when we cooked together or—”

  I interrupted her with a snort. “We never cooked together, Phillipa.”

  She flinched again at my use of her first name instead of “Mum”. “We did, sweetheart, and I’m so sorry you were too young to remember because I do and they were some of my favourite times. You always wanted to put candy in everything, gummies in the cookies and sour cherries in cakes. They were truly awful, but you loved them, so we made them.”

  Something flickered at the back of my mind but I clamped down on it. “When did they stop?”

  She knew that I knew the answer. “When you were seven, after you got shot in the horrible accident.”

  I pulled Zeus’s hand closer onto my belly and stared at it, loving the coarse brown hairs on his arm and the way the feathers merged with his skin like they were part of him. My big, bad fallen angel had saved me back then and he’d saved me every day since just by existing.

  “I don’t want to hear this, Mum. I want to wake up Zeus and the rest of my family and mourn my fallen friend with them,” I told her honestly.

  She sucked in a breath but nodded. “I know. I’m so sorry, honey. He was… a sweet boy and I’m sorry I couldn’t move past my own worries to see that and get to know him better.”

  Sorrow slammed into my throat and brought tears rushing to my eyes. They spilled over as I stared at her and shook my head. “I don’t get what you’re doing here. I’m sorry but I don’t have it in me to comfort you or make you one of your martinis.”

  “I deserve that.” She nodded even though her voice was bruised from my words. “I just wanted to see you well and whole with my own eyes. They wouldn’t let me in at first but I’m your mother so I just waited in the main reception until it was late enough they were all asleep each night. Only a few of them have come and gone, honey. Most of them have been living here the eight days you’ve been unconscious.”