Betrayed (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 2) (24 page)

I look up as I hear the familiar roar of a Harley. It’s him, and I shield my eyes from the sun as I watch him pull up outside the row of rooms and climb off his bike. But he don’t go inside straightaway, he sits down on the steps outside and takes something out of his pocket; a cigarette, a joint, I can’t see for sure from where I’m standing. But whatever it is he takes a couple of drags on it and exchanges a few words with a tall, gangly man who comes out of a nearby room before he stands up and finally goes into his own room. Or what I’m assuming is his own room.

I finish my own cigarette and carefully extinguish it, crushing it with the heel of my boot before I head across the quiet road to the motel. It’s a bit run down, a bit cheap and cheerful but, yeah. Somewhere like this would do me OK ‘til I find myself a base some place away from here.

I check out Kes’ bike as I pass it. It’s an older Harley, and I’m guessing he’s had it a good few years. It’s more than likely been a faithful friend to him over time, and he’s certainly done a lotta rides on this machine, the battered leather seat tells me that. But he’s taken his last one now.

I reach around and make sure my gun’s where I need it to be before I head up the few steps that lead to the row of rooms that face the parking lot, and I knock on the door, just a gentle tap, I don’t wanna alert or alarm him. But there’s no answer. So I tap a little harder. And there’s still no answer, so I try the door and it opens. Big mistake. He really should be more careful, a man in his position. I walk inside and close the door behind me, carefully drawing my gun ‘cause there ain’t no sign of him in the bedroom. Keeping my gun raised I walk the few steps it takes to get to the bathroom, and that’s when I see him, slumped in a heap in the corner by the shower cubicle. His shirt’s open and he’s holding onto a bar of soap so I’m guessing he was taking a wash, or trying to. But it seems fate had other ideas.

I crouch down beside him and feel for a pulse but there ain’t nothing there. He’s gone, and I didn’t even have to pull the freakin’ trigger.

Chapter Nineteen

Izzi

‘Are we celebrating something?’ Sam takes a look around the crowded clubhouse as he joins me at the bar. Zeb’s got a bit of a party going to mark the fact the President’s going to be a daddy. He’s like a kid at Christmas and I’m not going to stop him, it’s nice, watching him like this. It gives me hope that maybe some element of our life might actually become normal, once this baby’s here.

‘I’m pregnant.’

I keep my eyes locked on Sam’s as he takes in the news. But his face remains expressionless, for a few seconds, before he breaks into a smile. And it’s a genuine smile, it reaches his eyes, and I like that this news might start to mend our fractured relationship. I hope it does. I’ve missed Sam and the father figure he’d become to me.

‘Izzi, I’m… I’m delighted, sweetheart. I mean, are you…?’

‘Happy? I’m getting used to the idea now, yes.’

He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, leaning in to gently kiss my cheek. ‘I’m so sorry, Izzi. For all the pain and the…’

I take his hand and pull it away, but I’m smiling. I wanted a new start, and maybe this isn’t the new start I’d thought I was going to get, but it’s still a whole new beginning in my eyes.

‘Maybe it’s time to bury all the crap and start over, huh?’

He returns my smile and squeezes my hand, bringing it to his lips and lightly kissing my fingers. ‘Yes. Maybe it is.’ He looks over at Zeb, who’s busy having his back slapped and beer bought for him as way of congratulations. ‘Milek Zebrowski, a father, huh?’

‘Might be the making of him. That’s what they say, isn’t it?’

He frowns slightly. ‘You don’t seem too sure.’

‘I’m sure Zeb’ll be a good dad – a
great
dad, in his own way.’

Sam looks at me, and I know what he’s going to say, I’m ready for it. ‘You could have gotten out, Izzi. If you really wanted to. Even now, even with the baby, I could still fix this…’

‘Stop, Sam. Please.’

‘If you really want to, Izzi.’

I stare at him for a second, and then I look over at Zeb, and he’s laughing, he looks so happy, and that makes me smile. ‘Maybe I never really wanted that escape as much as I thought I did.’ I turn back to face Sam. ‘Because, if I had, I’d still be going. Even with the baby. I just wouldn’t have told anyone, Zeb would never have known. And I thought about it, Sam. For the briefest of seconds I actually thought about that.’ I look back over at Zeb. ‘I’m here because I want to be. I’m staying because I want to. And I know it isn’t going to be perfect and there’ll be days when I wonder what it would’ve been like if I’d chosen that other path… those days will happen. I know that.’ I drop my gaze and turn back to Sam. ‘But none of this is about me now. My baby, they come first.’

‘And you think bringing them up in this environment is the best option?’

‘I want them to have parents who love and protect them And Zeb, he’ll protect his child, you know he will.’

‘Do you love him, Izzi? You keep saying the words, but, do you really mean them?’

I nod without missing a beat, because I do. I love Zeb, and he loves me, and in the end that’s all that matters. ‘I love him.’

Sam’s expression tells me he isn’t convinced, but it’s not my job to make him believe me. ‘Good. That’s good.’

I lean over and plant a quick kiss on his cheek, squeezing his hand before I slide down from my stool. ‘I’m going to be a mum, Sam. And that’s all I’m focusing on right now. I’ll talk to you later, OK?’

He smiles and lets go of my hand, and as I walk over to Zeb I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time. Hope…

Mack

‘Sam, a word. Outside.’

Sam follows me out into the compound but it’s just as fucking crowded out here.

‘What the fuck’s going on? What’s the party in aid of?’

Sam looks at me, but he doesn’t answer my question. ‘Something you want to tell me?’

‘It’s done.’

He raises an eyebrow, and I widen my eyes ‘cause what’s he looking for here? A minute-by-minute account of the whole fucking day? ‘Done?’

‘Kes. He’s dead. But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t have to.’

Sam frowns, and I rake a hand through my hair and take another look around the busy compound, and the smell of burgers on the barbecue is making me realize how hungry I am. I don’t think I’ve actually eaten anything for hours now, and I’m starving. ‘Mack?’

I turn back to face Sam. ‘I saw him go inside his room, at the motel, so I followed him. I got no answer when I knocked on his door but he’d left it open, which raised the first alarm bell, and when I got inside… He was already dead, Sam. He was gone. Must’ve been real quick, too, ‘cause this was only minutes after I’d seen him go inside. Probably a massive heart attack, a stroke, I dunno. Didn’t stick around long enough to find out.’ I pull out my phone and hand it to him, and he looks at the picture of his dead brother before he hands the phone back to me. And he looks angry, and I know why. He’ll think Kes got away with everything, that he was handed the softer option by dying in the way that he did rather than at the hands of someone who was taking revenge, even though it was Sam’s revenge, not mine. Yeah, he’d taken my mother from me but I never knew her. I could never feel that same anger Sam’s felt all these years.

‘You should’ve been quicker.’

Jesus! What kinda bullshit is this?
‘Yeah. You’re welcome.’ I go grab a beer from a crate by the door, ripping off the top with my teeth and taking a long, welcome draft. I ain’t had a proper drink in hours either, and I fucking need one. ‘He’s gone. Just be fucking grateful. You can put all that crap behind you now and move on.’

‘Is that what
you’re
going to do? Move on?’

I shrug and down another mouthful of beer. ‘Got nothing keeping me here now, have I? This club don’t feel like home no more, and Izzi… she ain’t mine. So, yeah, I’ll be moving on. Soon.’ I notice his gaze drop when I mention Izzi’s name, and it’s my turn to frown. ‘Something going on here, Sam?’

He looks back up at me, and I feel something deep in the pit of my stomach that I don’t want to feel, but it’s there. It’s happening. I just don’t know why.

‘You’re going to find out soon enough. The second you step back inside that clubhouse, more than likely, so… Izzi’s pregnant, Mack. She’s having Zeb’s baby. That’s what this party’s for, that’s what we’re celebrating. So if you still harbor any ideas about some last-minute fight for her, it won’t work. I’ve spoken to her, and she’s staying. She won’t leave now… she…’

He stops talking, and he drops his gaze again and I feel sick. It’s like someone’s just punched me so hard in the gut I can’t breathe. ‘She, what, Sam? What were you gonna say?’

‘It doesn’t matter. None of it matters now, Mack. She’s made her decision.’

‘And is it the right one?’

‘She thinks it is.’

‘She
thinks
it is? Sam…’

‘I saw it in her eyes, son. A flicker, it was there…’

‘A baby isn’t a prison sentence… Jesus!’

‘She doesn’t see it like that, Mack. She doesn’t. She loves Zeb, I can see that now, and he adores her, and it isn’t right to come between that…’

‘You were quite happy to risk it before.’

‘I didn’t know about the baby then. And neither did she. This changes everything. And now we have to tell Zeb that his father’s dead, and that’s only going to bring him and Izzi even closer, so you need to accept that this really is the end for you and her. It really is over now.’

I lean back against the wall and light up a cigarette, drawing deep as I look out around me. This changes everything. Sam’s right. I can’t compete no more, even if I
had
been planning on one last fight. And I feel a sense of loss so heavy and raw and… This changes everything. Yeah. It does. It really does…

Chapter Twenty

Izzi

He punches the wall and I flinch, but none of this is aimed at me, he isn’t angry, at me. He isn’t really angry at anyone, he’s just frustrated and confused and grieving, for a man he isn’t sure he ever loved; isn’t sure ever loved
him
, like a father should love a son.

But he needs to do this, to let his anger out and cleanse his system of the pain and the poison and the confusion. And he won’t turn that on me, even if I hadn’t been pregnant, he wouldn’t turn that on me. Not that level of aggression, that isn’t who he is. But this – watching him, it still fills me with a nervous tension I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to. He’s the kind of man who can snap in an instant; go from kind and caring to violent and dangerous in the blink of an eye, but that’s my life now. This is my world.

He slams his fist into the wall again and I look down as I hear plaster shatter to the floor. And my hand instinctively falls to my stomach, pressing lightly against it, almost as though I’m already preparing to protect my baby from the things it could very well see, in time. Things I don’t want it to see, and I will do my utmost to make sure they’re kept shielded from the very worst this life could throw at them. I’ll move heaven and earth to keep them safe and ignorant of the crap, but that won’t last forever. It can’t. They’ll grow up, and I won’t be able to control the environment they’ll be living in; the things they’ll see, I won’t be able to control that forever. And that fills me with a fear I can’t begin to describe.

I raise my gaze and Zeb’s done now. I hope. He’s leaning back against the wall, his eyes closed, and I notice blood dripping from his battered knuckles onto the wooden floor and my stomach turns, just a little. His breathing’s all over the place, his chest heaving with heavy, ragged breaths and I cock my head slightly as I look at him again. Tears are falling down his cheeks, and my heart aches for him and the messed-up world he’s lived in. Please, God, let us take all this crap and make sure we don’t transfer it to our child.

‘Come here,’ he murmurs, and he doesn’t open his eyes but I know he’s talking to me. And I walk slowly over to him, and when he senses me near he reaches out and catches my waist and he pulls me against him, his mouth crashing down onto mine in a hard, almost violent kiss. And he’s pressing me against him, his hand firm in the small of my back as he kisses me longer and deeper and I thread my fingers into his hair and give him what he needs. One thing I’ve learned from my short time in this world is that these men have different needs, different ways of dealing with the shit and the mess that accompanies their lives. And the women just have to help them in the only way they can. So I’m only doing my job. And it breaks my heart to see him this hurt, this broken, because I love him, and no-one wants to see the people they love hurting this bad. So I’m doing my job, I’m helping him heal.

I pull back from him slightly, and I take his hand and gently dab the blood away from his knuckles with a tissue, and I wipe those stray tears from his face with my thumb, and I smile, and he smiles back, and I suddenly feel a wave of love so intense swell up inside of me that causes my breath to catch. I still don’t know what it is we really have here, it’s so complicated and confusing and so wrong, at times. But I look at him now and I can’t bear to think that I even thought about leaving him. It terrifies me that I almost did that, almost chose that path instead of this one. This is where I need to be. And maybe when Mack finally leaves we can start to work at this mess of a marriage before we welcome our baby into this world.

I take his hand and pull him back towards the bed, untying my robe as I go, letting it fall to the floor, and his eyes briefly drop to scan my naked body. And I shiver, because his gaze is so intense, his eyes burn into me, and when he pulls me against him I sigh quietly as he cups my breast, his palm pressing against my nipple. He lifts me up and my legs instinctively wrap around him as he kisses me, and he lies me down on the bed and I stretch out and close my eyes as I wait for him to undress. The aggression, it’s all out now. It’s over, he’s done with that. He’s ready to calm down, and I’m ready to help him.

I open my eyes as he lies over me, and that shiver returns as his naked body touches mine, his skin warm, his muscles taut and tight and I pull my legs up around him as he slowly pushes inside me, so carefully and gently I feel tears start to well up.

His fingers intertwine with mine as he pushes that little bit deeper, and I buck my hips slightly to pull him in, arching my back as his head dips and his mouth covers my breast. It’s the most beautiful sex we’ve ever had, because we aren’t fucking. It’s beautiful and perfect and I wish it could be this way forever, but it won’t be. This will happen again, at some point, but the fucking and the fighting and the harsh, sometimes violent sex will be back, and I like that. I do. I like the danger and the excitement and the thrill that gives me, but I like this, too. I like this feeling of us being the only two people alive; I like the peace and the calm. And when we come we come together, and it’s the most beautiful thing. It’s a slow-burn of a climax, something that washes over us both in a blanket of tiny, white-hot tingles and I throw my head back and jerk my hips up towards his again as I feel him empty into me, feel him filling me up, his warmth spreading through me and I cry out quietly and grip his fingers tight.

We’re going to be OK, me and Zeb.

We’re going to be OK…

Mack

Neither Sam nor Zeb went to Kes’ funeral this afternoon. I ain’t even seen Zeb since it happened, since I found his father – my uncle – dead on the floor of a run-down motel room, his days ended by a massive coronary. Because that’s what’d killed him. And the fucker didn’t see it coming.

‘You still here?’

I look up and throw Cora a smile, but it’s loaded with sarcasm. ‘Good to see you too, Cora.’

She leans back and rests her elbows on the bar. She’s covered only by a short black robe ‘cause she’s about to go out there and give these guys their nightly dose of jerk-off action, and I remember the one time we’d fucked like it was going outta fashion; a time when I never went back for seconds, ‘cause there weren’t no-one out there who made me want to. Until Izzi crash-landed into my life and fucked-up my whole freakin’ world.

‘I thought you were heading out of here, is all.’

‘I am.’ I drain my glass of whiskey and light up another cigarette.

‘But not yet, huh?’

‘You trying to get rid of me?’

‘Just wondering what’s keeping you here when all you been saying these past few days is how you can’t wait to get outta this town.’

I narrow my eyes as I stare her down. ‘You not got somewhere you need to be?’

She turns around and leans forward, clasping her hands together on the countertop as she looks straight at me. ‘You’ll be OK, Mack.’

‘I never doubted it.’ I take a deep draw on my cigarette and blow smoke up at the ceiling. ‘A new start’s just what I need. It’s time to exorcise all those ghosts; make a new life for myself.’

‘Any idea where you’re heading?’

‘California.’ I stub my cigarette out on the underside of the counter. ‘There’s a Soldiers chapter in Sacramento, got a couple of brothers gonna put me up there for a few days.’

‘Gonna take some time to get there though, huh?’

‘And I got all the time in the world, darlin’. Gonna ride up through Arizona, into Vegas, through Nevada… got brothers in every state, and women who ain’t yet experienced what Mack Slayer can do, so I ain’t in no rush to settle in any one place just yet.’

‘The old Mack is back, huh?’

‘You bet your sweet ass he is.’ I slide down from my stool and grin at her, sidling up behind her and smacking her ass as I lean in to her. ‘And if was still giving away seconds you’d be first on my list, darlin’.’

She turns around and looks at me. ‘And what about Izzi?’

‘What about her? She’s gonna be a momma now, she ain’t no use to me no more.’

‘You really mean that?’

My expression hardens slightly, ‘cause I ain’t liking the way she’s turned this conversation. ‘Yeah. I really mean that. Now you got work to do, sweetheart. And you don’t wanna keep these brothers waiting.’

I head out of the bar and climb onto my bike, taking one last look around me before I start up the Harley and begin my escape outta this town.

I don’t need this shit no more.

I don’t need anything, or anyone.

I’m starting over. I’m leaving the crap behind.

Yeah… the old Mack is back…

Zeb

‘I would’ve gone with you. If you’d wanted to go.’

I pull Izzi down onto my lap and kiss her slightly open mouth as she straddles me. ‘I didn’t wanna go, darlin’. In the end I owed him shit, and knowing he’s dead... it’s a relief.’

She hooks her arms around my neck and rests her forehead against mine and I know she ain’t convinced, and that’s because she’s just watched me punch a hole in the wall in frustration and anger but that wasn’t because I was sad my daddy had died. That was frustration borne outta so much crap. I hated myself ‘cause
I
hadn’t got the balls to kill him; hated the fact Mack Slayer had been sent to do the job in my place. I hated the fact Sam put us through all this shit, but I was mainly angry with myself. I wanted to hurt
me
for being weak. I needed to rid myself of that crap and she let me do that. She loved me. And I love her for doing that.

‘It’s a new beginning now, Zeb,’ she whispers, and I close my eyes and breathe her in and I ain’t felt shit like this before, I ain’t. I mean, I ain’t scared of nothing, but this – what I’m feeling here, what she’s carrying inside of her, our baby; that’s what scares me. Because that ain’t anything I’ve ever had to deal with. Being in love, becoming a father, it’s scary shit. It’s fucking terrifying. But I’m gonna make damn sure I do a better job of being a father to my kid than my old man did. He or she ain’t gonna grow up hating me or resenting me for nothing. I ain’t gonna let that happen.

‘You scared, Izzi?’

She strokes my hair and smiles and she kisses me gently. ‘Of what?’

I lay a hand on her stomach. ‘This. The future.’

Her fingers lightly stroke the back of my neck and her hand covers mine, our fingers intertwining. ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. But we can do this, Zeb. I know we can.’

I smile, and she returns it, and I feel my stomach dip and it’s fucking crazy. I ain’t ever been so happy, and that’s probably the most terrifying thing about all of this. The most alien thing about all of this, ‘cause I ain’t sure I ever really been happy before. Not like this.

‘Yeah. We can do this.’

She winds her fingers in my hair as we kiss again, a long, slow, deep kiss and I just want to hold her and protect her and never let her go. I want to keep her safe and love her like she should be loved.

‘I gotta go, princess.’

‘Now?’

‘Got things to do over at
Six
. Then I gotta drop by the clubhouse and sort some shit out with Ivan, the club’s lawyer; something to do with Kes’ will.’

I lift her off me and grab my cut from the back of the chair, and I reach out and circle her waist and pull her to me again, my mouth catching hers in another kiss.

‘You sure you’re OK?’

I smile and gently rub her back as she presses herself against me. ‘You just rest up, all right?’