Unbreakable: Unrequited Part Two (Fallen Aces MC Book 2) (34 page)

“Want a demonstration? More than happy to help, you know.”

This little bitch is getting on my last nerve. I’ve got a right mind to show her that
I’m
the one she should be worried about, not who might come knocking on my door.

“Anyway,” the older woman says, clapping loudly, “I want to propose a compromise.”

“I’m sure I won’t agree.” What can she say that King hasn’t already? “But go ahead and waste your breath if you must.”

“Two weeks. Tell Dante it’s a holiday to see his father and move out of the house for two weeks.” She leans forward, hands clasped together as though to beg. “Come back with us. Let the boys do what they’re best at and give them that time at least to make it as safe as possible for you when you move back.”

I fidget with my hair, annoyed that she’s got the ability to sway me. Dante has asked when he’ll get to see King again; the boy still wants to know who his father is, and I do owe him the chance to make up his own mind about the man.
Ugh, why do I do this?
Every time I think I’ve settled my emotions around King something happens to dredge it all back up to the surface. “I’m not sure. I’d want to know—”

Two thundering bangs on the front door cut me short. My heart skips a beat, and then restarts at twice the tempo. “This is all your fault.” I glare at the bitches who brought danger’s curiosity to my door. I’ve done nothing but take Dante to school, go to work, and do the shopping. Carlos’s men have no reason to suspect I’m doing anything aside from living a standard, humdrum life. “They’ve never approached me until now.”

I edge into the entrance way, leaving the women behind, and with the chain on I open the door a fraction.
Damn.
The guy who faces me is huge, as in, enormously huge. He makes Sully look like a child.

“Why are you here? Carlos’s time is wasted on me. He has no right to have you thugs following me around.” Why can’t people just leave me alone? Why the hell does everybody think my business is theirs?

“Who are the women?” he asks, chewing on a piece of gum.

“Nobody.”

“Can I speak with them?” He smiles sickly sweet at me.

I shoot him an unimpressed glare. “You most certainly cannot speak to them. Now go, and tell your
jefe
that if he doesn’t call you off and leave my family alone, I will go to the police with all that I know.”

Why the fuck did I say that? My panic has me throwing out a dangerous threat before I’ve thought it through. I stand strong, though, not wanting him to see my fear. Hopefully I can bluff my way out of this.

“You’re a stupid fucking cunt,” he sneers. “You have any idea what he’ll have us do to you for making such threats?”

Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.

He shakes his head and then throws a shoulder against the door. I step back, strengthening my stance and push back. “Stop it!”

“Who are the women?” he asks again before charging the door a second time.

“Nobody important,” I reply, fighting to keep the door from bending under his weight. “Charity volunteers. You’re scaring them.”

“Liar.” He charges the door again, this time with a run up.

“You can’t come in.” I ramble to distract him while I turn so my back is against the shaking door.
I should have kept it closer by.
“I’m warning you—step away.” I reach out, realizing I’m going to have to leave the door to get it.

“I know who they are, Elena,” the pest outside taunts. “Open up and this will be over a lot faster.” He breaks the chain, links flying, and shunts the door open without my weight against it.

His face when he sees what I’ve got pointed his way is priceless. I fire the shotgun at him, stumbling with the kickback, and check to see I’ve hit. He’s a splattered mess over my front stoop. The adrenalin coursing my veins keeps me from losing my lunch at the sight.

“Mama?”

Aww, baby, no.

I step into what remains of Carlos’s henchman and check the street. The dead guy’s buddies run our way, making ground on our shocked party as the women appear behind me. I let off the round still in the gun at them, and then spin to check where everyone’s at behind me. The woman I’m one hundred percent certain is Sonya sees Dante standing in the hallway and looks between the two of us.

“Go,” I shout at her and her friend. “There are two more men coming.”

I can do this; I can protect them. I break the gun and discharge the spent shells, fishing around in the box beside me for more as Sonya picks Dante up and runs out back.

“Elena,” Wiggy yells, “we have to go now.”

“Not until these two are dead as well.” I scowl, angered at the waver to my voice. I’m not afraid; I refuse to be scared anymore. I can do this. I can.

I lift the reloaded gun and fire a shot at the frontrunner as he turns up our path.

“Now!” Wiggy screams. “If you want your boy to have a mother, you run!”

Her words are exactly what I need to snap me out of my stubborn endeavor.
Dante needs me.
He’s scared and most likely damn confused as to what’s happening. I’ve seen this kind of action before, but he hasn’t.

We sprint down the hallway toward the back door that Sonya took Dante through mere seconds ago and break out into the pale sunlight as Carlos’s men breach my front door. An alley runs behind the properties on my street, and we careen into it, chasing after my boy who clings to Sonya like a baby bear. I drop the gun, only now realizing it’s still in my hold, and pump my arms and legs, determined to get to him, determined to be his shield should they need it.

The men holler at us to stop, but I keep my focus squarely on my reason to run and power through the ache in my legs. I thank the Lord, thank anybody who’ll hear me that I run regularly, certain I would have tired by now if I hadn’t picked the habit up again. But then again, fear is a wonderful thing, and who knows how much it’s helping right now?

The Escalade squeals to a stop at the intersection ahead of us. Sonya gasps and turns hard right to crash into somebody’s garden. I mirror her moves after a shunt from Wiggy, leaping garden beds and vegetable patches to cut a path through to the street out front. My neighbors holler and scream, ushering each other inside and to safety as our mad procession tears through their properties.

Shots ring out, a bullet tearing past my ear close enough for me to make out the whizz as it cuts through the air, but I never let up. Sonya breaks into the street first and pounds the pavement toward the crossroads. She reaches the intersection and checks both ways, holding Dante on her back with one hand beneath him.

“Follow her,” Wiggy yells, pointing to Sonya.

My feet slap the tarmac, sore and most likely cut, but I run towards the sound of bikes, laughing despite my shortness of breath. I never thought I’d want to hear that throaty echo again, and yet, here we are.

I reach Sonya and take Dante from her, cooing to my sweet boy as he cries and wails my name. His distress, his need, angers me, because it’s the one thing I never wanted to hear from him.

My child is scared, and all because his mother’s past has finally caught up with her.

I did this to him.

In protecting him, I left him vulnerable to danger. He’s never seen this kind of violence; he doesn’t know how to cope.

One of the men reaches out and grabs my arm, wrenching me toward his bike. I climb on the back awkwardly, sandwiching Dante between the man who wears the vice president rocker and myself.

“Hold on, love,” he yells before opening the throttle and sending us tearing down the road.

As I hug Dante to myself, thankful the bike has a sissy bar, I eye the blur of houses streaking by. My hair whips around my face, and I lift my chin into the wind to push it away without letting go of my boy. His back presses into my stomach in quick, short movements as he breathes through his fear.

Hell of a first ride for the kid.

I smile into the wind before tucking my face on top of Dante’s head and letting the tears start as my adrenaline wears off.
Guess you got what you wanted after all, King.

King

The one condition Sonya had when helping me with Elena was that I needed time off. I think she secretly enjoyed being able to get back at me after the little intervention I’d staged on her a few weeks back when she went into a depressive funk. Payback’s a bitch, and she’s a damn hormonal one at that.

I gave in. A good part of me knows she’s right; I haven’t taken time off since forever and after the shit I needed to sort out in Apex’s wake, my brain’s fried. Going back to my house was a non-option considering I’d killed that lease the minute I started helping out with Elena’s. Pretty sure she still thinks the place is a bargain; she has no idea I pay half her rent. So, I went to Mom and Dad’s.

Mom’s in charge of the milking this afternoon, giving my old man some much needed rest after he’s been in hospital again with an infection. I sit on the back porch with my father in amicable silence, staring out over the fields as the cows make their way back to the paddock, tiny black and white specks on the horizon. Two cold beers slowly drip condensation over the small table between us.

He sighs, breaking the moment. “Are you going to rebuild down the back?” We’ve managed to get through the last few days without him bringing up the past. They never asked why I showed up, and I never offered the information.

“Hadn’t thought on it.” And I haven’t, hand to my heart. Every time I do, the memories are too painful to bear. So I just stop thinking about it.

Problem solved.

“If you want, we can sell it.”

“Nope. Still want the land.” Bad memories of a future lost with Elena or not, the land still is my best connection to Garret.

Dad nods slowly and reaches over to pick up his beer. “Everything okay at the club?”

I haven’t visited in close to two years. My monthly visits pre-Elena bailing on us turned into quarterly, and then an annual visit before I just stopped. My parents became another bunch of people I shut out of my life to avoid disappointing with my choices.

“Busy.”

“When did you become president?”

“Not that long ago.” I snatch up my beer, craving the deflection. “Selling the cows soon?” I ask, keen to steer the subject away from me.

“Nope. Seen that woman of yours at all?”

Smartass old bastard.
I chuckle at his wit. “Not much.”

“Your kid? How old would he be now?”

“Seven.” I take a swig and watch a cow hesitate on the track, only walking again when the next one catches up.

“What’s his name again?”

Can’t blame him for forgetting—it’s not as though we’re a permanent fixture in their lives. Hell, the kid’s barely one in mine. “Dante.”

“Dante,” Dad repeats. “That’s right. Who picked the name?”

“She did.”

He grunts, jerking his chin up. “You see him much?”

My thumbnail picks at the label of my bottle. “Not as much as I should.”

Dad sighs and sets his drink down. He drums his fingers on the arms of his chair for a moment before he speaks again. “I’m a little let down by you, to be honest, Lloyd.”

I don’t want to hear this.
“You’re not the only one.”

“You had such grand ideas for that club. You were going to make it something good, get your woman, and raise a family.”

“Sounds perfect, huh?” I sass.

“So what happened?” He shakes his head. “I hear things down at the bar, you know.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Never spoken to someone far enough out of our circle to see what kind of reputation the Fallen Aces have before.

“That your club is tied up with drug runners.”

News sure travels fast.
“That so?”

“Bunch of Asians, I was told.”

Koreans.
The people Apex borrowed a healthy stash of money from before I took over the books. Money that gathers interest faster than I can pay off the principle.

I hum at him, not exactly able to say anything on the matter to a non-member. “Things are busy,” I repeat.

“You look tired. You keeping well?”

Not really.
“Well enough.”

“Getting sleep?”

“Some.”

He kills the conversation by picking up his bottle and taking it for a walk down to his veggie patch. I watch as Dad checks his shoots, picking out the odd weed here and there.

He’s damn right. I wanted to change the place, drag it out of the mud, and somewhere along the line I’ve decided it’s easier to sit back and let things happen how they will. Somewhere along the line I decided to be Apex, a thought that disgusts me. What do our prospects think of me now? Do they look at me and think the same things I did when I was in their position? Do the members trust me?

I wouldn’t say the fire that used to fuel me has burnt out, more that the embers are buried deep within me and I can’t find the fuckers to blow life back into them. They glow, though, that much is true. I feel it sometimes, that urge to dive in elbows deep and fix the mistakes of my predecessors.

I just wish I could recognize
how
it is I find that spark so I can emulate whatever it is I need to do to get my mojo back. I wish I knew how to be
that guy
again. The one who loved fiercely and fought twice as hard against the unjust.

My phone breaks me from my thoughts and I pull it out of my breast pocket without looking at the display. “Go ahead.”

“Boss,” Callum greets me, wind whipping over the mouthpiece. “Discussions went hostile, if you like. You might want to swing by and see what we’ve got for you.”

“Spit it out, brother.”

“Comes in a pair,” he says, following rules and not openly discussing business over the phone. “Mismatched sizes though.”

Fuck me.
He has Elena and Dante. “Meet you there.”

I leave my beer where it is and run through the house without a single goodbye to my dad. I’ve got no time to waste, and beside, when I’m his biggest letdown, why bother him with excuses he don’t want to hear?

Snatching my keys up from the front table, I take the stairs two at a time to grab my shit and hit the road.

Holiday’s over.