Betrayed (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 2) (32 page)

Epilogue

Izzi

I stand on the porch and watch as Milo runs across the lawn, laughing out loud as Sam chases him. He loves his granddad. He loves everyone in his life, he’s such a beautiful, caring little boy who never stops smiling. And he has his daddy’s smile, it’s identical, and every time he looks at me and gives me that smile I remember Zeb, and my heart still aches for what could have been, but I’m finally moving on.

Milo’s two and a half now. And those years have been filled with joy and pain and confusion, they haven’t all been easy. But they’ve also been very happy years. Years that really have seen a lot of change.

‘You OK, honey?’

I turn and smile at Cora as she hands me a glass of ginger ale. ‘I’m fine.’

She leans against the railings and looks out over the back yard. Hal’s got a barbecue going over in the corner, and Jet’s in charge of the music at this party – my birthday party. And all my friends, all the biker moms and those who come to our playgroup in town, they’re all here, too. Because we’ve all become a little family, the kind of support network I could only have dreamed of in those dark days after Zeb’s death. But I’ve come out the other side with a whole heap of friends, a wonderful,
 
if not slightly unconventional family, and a little boy I love more as each day goes by.

‘I think we did a pretty good job, don’t you?’ Cora smiles, and she looks at me and I smile back.

‘Yeah. I reckon we did.’

‘He’s gonna be a looker, you do realize that, don’t you? We’re gonna have to vet those girls that come into his life, and I intend to vet them good, make no mistake about that.’

I smile again, because Cora loves Milo just as much as I do. He calls her his other mommy, that’s who she is, and she always will be. She’s in our life for keeps, and I love her, I really do.

‘Ain’t no girl gonna be good enough for our boy, huh?’ I laugh, and she grins.

‘You got that right, honey.’ She looks back out, and she smiles as Hal beckons her over. ‘But as far as
that
boy there is concerned, he ain’t looking no further than me.’

I laugh quietly as she runs down the porch steps and heads over to Hal, and I watch as he pulls her into her arms and kisses her quickly.

‘Those two still going strong, huh?’

I feel his arms circle my waist, pulling me back against him and I close my eyes as he kisses my neck. ‘Could be hearing wedding bells soon,’ I murmur as his hand rests lightly on my stomach.

‘Speaking of which, you thought any more about my question?’

I turn around in his arms and he slides a hand onto my neck, tilting my head back slightly and I close my eyes as he kisses me. And I let that kiss wash over me, let the goose bumps form and my stomach turn somersaults. I let myself feel everything I tried to stop myself feeling for a long time.

Milo was one and a half before I let Mack Slayer in. I kept him at arm’s length for a long time, because I really hadn’t been ready. I hadn’t. And he respected that fact, finally. But he didn’t exactly leave us alone, either. He was still there for us, but he didn’t push anything, didn’t try and make things happen before I was ready. And I guess we just gradually grew closer, without even realizing, I suppose. And one night, at the clubhouse, as we played pool and talked about everything from TV shows to the new words Milo was learning, it just happened. He kissed me, and I kissed him back, and I knew. I was ready.

‘Question…?’

He grins, and he pulls me back inside the house, kicking the door shut behind him. ‘You gonna marry me, darlin’, or am I gonna have to find myself a new old lady?’

‘If anyone’ll have you.’ I smirk, and I lean back against the wall and he kisses me again, laughing quietly.

‘Oh, there are plenty out there who’ll have me, sweetheart. Still a long line of women wanting the full Mack Slayer experience.’

‘Yeah, well, they’re gonna have to come through me first, aren’t they?’

He raises an eyebrow, and then his expression changes as he lays a hand on my stomach again, and I rest my hand over his, our fingers intertwining. ‘I’m serious, Izzi. Let’s get married, darlin’. Let me be a daddy to that boy out there. And this one…’ He looks down, and I drop my gaze, and I smile as his fingers clutch mine a little tighter, ‘she’s gonna need a daddy, too.’

I look up, and our eyes lock. ‘I love you, Mack.’

Because I do. I love him. But even though we’ve been together a year now, I’ve only just told him that. I just couldn’t say the words before, because it still felt as though I was betraying Zeb. I didn’t think I could love anyone else, least of all Mack Slayer. But maybe I’ve always loved him, in some kind of way. But the way I love him now, that’s different. It’s new and exciting and when we found out I was having another baby – his baby – that love just intensified. And today, when we found out we were having a daughter, he asked me to marry him. We were looking at the image of our little girl there on the screen, and he squeezed my hand and kissed my mouth and asked me to marry him. But I couldn’t give him an answer. Not straightaway. But I think I’m there now. I think I can do it.

‘Enough to marry me? And make this President one very happy biker?’

‘Yeah, OK.’

He raises that eyebrow again. ‘OK? That’s it? I get an OK?’

I press my mouth against his and I let go of his hand, and I gasp as he slides it up under my dress. ‘What do you want, Slayer? ‘Cause I don’t do hearts and flowers and all that romantic shit. I’ll marry you, because I love you, and you better be going somewhere with this ‘cause you got me now.’

He laughs low and deep, and I gasp again as he tucks his fingers into the sides of my panties and starts to drag them down. ‘I guess I gotta take what I can get, huh?’

I help him free me of my panties, and he tucks them into his shirt pocket and slides his hand back up my dress, and I throw back my head and sigh quietly as I feel him slip his fingers inside me.

Mack Slayer was always my future.

Always…

Mack

She’s warm and wet and she’s finally mine. She’s carrying my baby and she’s gonna be my wife, and then every piece of the fucking jigsaw will be in place. But, Jesus, we took our fucking time getting here.

That night, when I killed four Russians and told Hal to play dead, that was the turning point, for me, anyway. Hal decided he wasn’t cut out to be President no more, I guess something deeper than what he told me that night had spooked him, but I still don’t know what. He never did tell me, and I never pushed it. But I didn’t just step straight into his shoes, Jesus, people may think I’m that arrogant, but I ain’t. We had meetings, we all talked, we put Franky in charge ‘til we all came to a decision. I still had a lotta shit to prove, but less than a few months later I’d proved everything everyone needed to know. I got us back on track with the Black Dogs, and together we tracked down this Jacob Flint to a small town just outside of
Reykjavic, called in a few favors from our European connections and within a week we’d brought him and his crew down. And it wasn’t pretty, there were casulaties. Mainly on his side ‘cause we got ourselves some good brothers over that side of the pond. But we took him out, and we forged our own connections with the Russians that bring in some serious cash every few months.

So when they gave me back that President’s rocker, they were doing it ‘cause they wanted me back there, taking charge. And I’ve got it this time, I ain’t throwing it away again, ‘cause I’ve got no reason to. I got my club back, and I finally got my girl. And we got ourselves a little family that I am gonna work so fucking hard for, ain’t nobody gonna mess with me and the people I love more than life its fucking self.

I lift her up and she wraps her legs around me, and I kiss her hard as I pull her down onto my aching cock, man, I can’t get enough of her. And I don’t care that there’s a party going on outside, or that there could be people just the other side of that door, this is what we do; what we’re always gonna do. There’ve been a lot of changes, but some things, yeah – they’re gonna stay the same.

Her fingers claw at my skin as I thrust that little bit harder, pushing deeper into her and she cries out quietly, burying her face in my hair to muffle her moans, but it’s my mission in life, to make this girl cry out loud and scream my name as I make her come, over and over again.

All the crap, it’s over now. It’s done. We came through it, all the pain and the heartbreak; all the shit that nobody deserved, we got through it. We got there.

I got my girl.

She got her man.

We got ourselves a family.

Yeah… we finally got our own kinda happy-ever-after…

‘Bound’ – Soldiers of Darkness #3 – a brand new, standalone novel, will be released late summer/early fall 2016…

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