I felt her behind me, moving closer, turning into me, and I twisted around, unable to stop myself from burrowing my face in her stomach.
We spent half the time at odds even though we worked for the same team, but she was here when I needed her.
Just like she'd always be.
Just like I'd always be there for her.
Her hand moved to my hair, and she started stroking it, smoothing over the strands, soothing me like I was a kid.
Any other time, I'd have probably shooed her away, but this wasn't any other time.
"I'm being a pussy," I rasped, and my throat hurt, which keyed me into the fact that they were probably the first words I'd spoken in a while.
I wasn't even sure how long I'd been here, how long Dad had...
"You're being a son. It's always hard when family dies or gets hurt," she said sadly. "But Bear is family to all of us, Rex. You know that. We're all hurting."
I bit the inside of my cheek at that, because I knew she was right. My parents had been my council's folks too.
Theirs had mostly been a pile of shit, but mine had big enough hearts for a bunch of rag tag little fuckers who'd come to lead the Sinners someday.
I highly doubted my dad had seen that much potential in us back then, of course. If I asked Rachel, she'd say there was no potential to waste when you led the council of an MC club and not a corporation.
I made more fucking money than a legitimate corporation and paid less tax. Who the fuck wanted to be the President of an LLC when you could rule over an MC?
"The doctors are positive—"
"Positive about what? Even if he makes it, you know how hard it was for Maverick to adjust to life in a fucking wheelchair. How's a man like Bear going to deal with it?"
She cleared her throat. "About Mav..."
I frowned, peering up at her when she hesitated. "What is it?"
"Maverick's just gotten out of the hospital too."
"He has? What the fuck happened?"
"He tried to go into the clubhouse for something. Debris landed on him." She cleared her throat. Again. Never a good sign. Rachel wasn’t the nervous type. ”He’s forgotten, well, I don't know if he's forgotten or if he's just gone back in time." She squeezed my shoulder. "Rex, he can walk."
My nostrils flared. "You're fucking with me," I rasped out.
Only, she was shaking her head. "I'm not. I know it's crazy."
"Crazy? It's fucked up is what it is. You mean to tell me that bastard has been living in a wheelchair when he didn't need to? We couldn't get him to do any of the PT—how the fuck can he walk?"
She shrugged. "You'll have to ask him. As it stands, he's mostly confused right now, so he won't even remember hiding his mobility from you. You'll need to wait for answers, I'm afraid."
My mouth firmed into a grim line. I was happy for my brother, just confused as fuck as to why he'd choose to live a lie like that. What the hell was going on in his head?
"Where's he staying?"
"Most of the council are split between my house and Lily and Link's place. The brothers who don't have homes in town are staying at the Budget Basement Motel."
My nose crinkled. "That was the best we could do for them?"
"Don't ask me. Anyway, it's in your portfolio now," she teased softly. "I had to sign off on the club's purchasing of it."
"We bought that dump? Christ." I reached up and rubbed a hand over my face. The plastic gown I was wearing crinkled with the movement, and I knew I looked anything but a dark and dirty Sinner, but I didn't give a fuck.
"It's time you got some rest, Rex," Rachel told me softly. "You haven't slept in days. He's stable. He's going to be healing slowly, and this is a marathon not a race, so you need to take some time to get some sleep, okay?"
"I can sleep here."
"But you won't," she countered my argument with a tone I was used to hearing.
It was so wrong to get a boner when I was sitting next to my father's hospital bed, but that lawyer tone got me every fucking time.
Before I could say a word, she said, "Indy is gonna sit with him for a while, then the guys have worked out a schedule so that he's never alone." Another squeeze of my shoulder. "You're needed elsewhere right now, Rex. Lots going on."
"Nowhere else I need to be but here."
"When he's awake, sure. Then he'll need you. As it stands, there's work to be done now."
I peered up at her. "Didn't think you'd approve."
"I don't," she said simply. "But even I think this level of action deserves retaliation." Her lips curved in a faint smile. "You've seen me play Grand Theft Auto. I'm not a pussy."
I stared up at her, surprised by the teasing, enough to rumble, "Christ, you really do want me to sleep if you're trying to make me laugh."
"You look like shit," she murmured, and then she did the damnedest thing. She reached up and smoothed her thumb under my eyes, just along the crest of my cheekbone. "You need to sleep."
"You sure you want me at your place?"
"Nowhere else you should be," she whispered, her gaze on my lips.
I gritted my teeth at that, but I nodded, and got to my feet. My ass and back immediately protested after being stuck in this goddamn plastic seat for days on end. I'd been stuck here so long I didn't even need to piss because I'd barely drunk or eaten anything.
I rubbed my forehead as I got to my feet and muttered, "We might have to grab some food on the way back."
She nodded. "Okay."
I twisted to look at my old man and muttered, "See you soon, Pop."
The next five minutes were a bit of a blur as we headed out of the hospital. Indy hugged me, which told me I looked like a piece of shit, before she suited up for the ICU.
As Rach and I made our way to her SUV, I peered up at the grim sky, thinking that it pretty much suited my mood.
There were more gray clouds than gray streaks, and it looked like it could piss it down.
That would really fit with my jam right about now.
A tornado was something I could handle.
When she started the ignition of her swank Porsche ride, the dash lit up and revealed the date and time to me.
"Christ, has it been four days since the explosion?"
She hummed. "See why I had to come and drag you out of there? Anyway, you stank much more and it would have disturbed Bear. He needs to rest as much as he can, not be woken up by your stink."
I grunted. "Have the funerals been arranged?"
"Yeah, you know it. They should be happening tomorrow."
"Which is the real reason you hauled my ass outta there." I sighed. "Thanks, Rach."
Before she pulled out onto the highway, she cut me a look and said, "You'd do the same for me."
And I would.
I just never thought she'd look after me. Which was mean as hell, but the truth nonetheless.
We had a definite love/hate dynamic, except she always seemed to loathe me more than she loved me.
Ten minutes in, we pulled into a Popeyes, and I grabbed a couple of sandwiches, plus some extra fries because she never ordered them but always managed to eat anyone else's—she was one of those annoying females who did that. Only, on her, it was cute.
I started my feast the second we were riding back to her house, and only paused when we passed the compound.
There were construction vehicles there already. Skips and diggers as they started to clear out the site, making it ready for the clubhouse to be reconstructed.
I had no idea how it worked, but I knew Storm and Nyx would be handling shit, Steel would be pushing his nose in, and if memory served, Cruz had an engineering degree, so he'd be helping out too.
Relieved that the pressure was off me for once, I slouched into the seat and carried on eating, feeling weird to be going to Rachel's domain when I was never welcome there.
I often wondered why she lived so close to the clubhouse when she said she hated everything Sinners-related. But live close she did and
that was to our benefit if she was letting us crash with her for the foreseeable future.
I had no idea how long it'd take for the clubhouse to be built again so her generosity was more than I expected.
Not even feeling guilty for thinking she'd be so uncharitable because she could be a cold bitch when she chose, I grabbed my paper bags of food as she pulled up outside the ranch-style house.
Though it was only one floor, it was massive. Built on Sinners' money of course, but I never begrudged her the crazy fees she charged.
Mostly because she earned it, and mostly because I wanted her to have what she wanted.
She was a workaholic and the expanse of this place meant she could have her office here, which meant she was safe.
So close to the compound, we kept an eye on her, and Steel and Nyx had seen to her alarm system and the various security measures I deemed as a must for her safety.
The veranda had a couple of comfortable-looking pieces of garden furniture that I knew I'd be sleeping on today.
After being stuck inside the goddamn hospital all this time, I needed the fresh air.
So I took a seat on one of the squishy cushions that had a pattern of some palm trees printed on them, and dumped my food on the coffee table.
She didn't say anything, just took a seat, grabbed one of the drinks, and sipped deeply from it then began picking on the different items.
It was so much like when she was a kid, when she'd first moved to the compound.
She'd been tiny, really fucking small and underfed. Getting her to eat had been hard because her mom had never fed her, but if you put some food out, she'd always graze.
I'd learned to always order more so that there'd be enough for her.
Funny how old habits died hard.
We ate in silence. The only noises came from the clubhouse but even the sounds of construction weren't too loud. I could hear birds and the wind trickled the scent of the herbs she had in her garden into my awareness.
It was peaceful, nice. Until it wasn't.
When Nyx came outside, Giulia perching on his knee, then Rain, Rachel's brother, and Hawk, Giulia’s, bruised like a bastard after his run in with the bomb, popped up from out of nowhere, the conversation started up like a thousand bees just starting to fly out of the hive at the same time.
And the crazy thing was, it was good.
Exactly what I needed.
They didn't talk to me, didn't ask me shit, just carried on like I wasn't there.
But I was.
I was part of this family.
A family my pop had given to me upon my birth, and whose care he'd passed over to me eight years ago when Mom had died.
These were my people.
Some of them were going to be buried in the morning, and some were still in the hospital. A good chunk of them were homeless, probably living out of Walmart shopping bags, and some of them had goddamn amnesia...
It was fucked up, one crazy chaotic pile of goo. But it was my chaos. My goo.
Mine.
And when I found out who was behind the deaths of the people I loved, they'd wish they were dead too. Because we were the Satan's goddamn Sinners, and we had Death on our fucking side.
Indy
I blew out a breath as soon as I got back to the tattoo parlor. Twisting the sign around from 'closed' to ‘open,' I stared around my joint, grateful that today was over.
I'd need to go back to the hospital in a day's time to sit with Bear, but now the mass funeral service was done, and we'd laid so many Sinners to rest, I knew it was the start of change.
Not necessarily good change, either.
I wasn't a fool.
We'd been in a stasis. Our home had been hit, and we needed to rebuild. The ex-Prez, a man who was like a surrogate dad to all of us, had been horrendously maimed, and we'd lost men and women whose deaths we'd mourn for a long time.
But that stasis was going to come to an end.
I'd already been warned about the 'war' that the Sinners were supposedly engaged in with the Famiglia, but now they'd pulled this move—assuming it was the Italians—there was no way this was the end of it.
The guys would hit back harder than Thor slamming down his hammer, and to be honest, I was grateful for it.
The people behind this deserved to pay.
With their lives.
As I slipped into the chair behind the desk, relief hit me as I toed off the Doc Martens' I'd worn to walk on the grassy marsh where we buried our dead in the private graveyard on our land, and pushed my feet into flip-flops.
Wriggling my toes once they were liberated, I sat up just in time to see Giulia pushing the door open.
"Hey!" I arched a brow at her. "Didn't expect to be seeing you so soon."
She sighed. "You're normal. I need that right now."
I blinked at that. "Me? Normal?"
Her lips twisted into a smile. "Yeah. You're more normal than your brother, that's for fucking sure." She sniffed. "He only wants me to either never leave the house or walk around with a Prospect."
I shrugged. "Makes sense. You're carrying precious cargo. You had to know that Nyx was going to make his psycho ass of before look positively Hannibal Lecter-like now."
Her nose crinkled. "Shit. You're not making this better."
I just grinned, before I peered outside and saw the Prospect leaning against a truck, his gaze on his phone.
There were some new faces I didn't recognize since the explosion had taken place on the night of a patch-in-party that had taken Giulia's brother, Hawk, and Jaxson, a brother we'd buried today, and made them full members of the MC. But a few guys had also been sworn in as Prospects, and they tended to get the shittiest of jobs.
Like guarding irate mothers-to-be.
Not a job for a faint-hearted man. Not when that mother-to-be was Giulia, at any rate.
"How's Hawk doing?" I asked, my gaze still on the Prospect.
She sniffed. "Spent most of his time pissed this week."
I grimaced. "I think a lot of the brothers have spent way too much time at the bars around here. The ones not tucked up in the hospital, anyway.”
"Yeah, dumb fucks. Like that's going to do anything."
"Sometimes you just need to forget," I mused, aware I sounded wistful and not really caring that I did.
Her brows soared. "Sounds like you've been there yourself." She tipped her head to the side. "With Carly?"
I snorted. "I was only a kid."
"Like being underage stops anyone from drinking."
“Nah, I started that when I went down to New Orleans. Things weren't great for a while, then I nearly lost my apprenticeship at the tattoo parlor I was working at, because my mentor, Jimmy, was a hardass, and that sobered me up real quick.
"Too many parties, too much booze, too many guys." I admitted with a wince. "Those weren't the days."
"You regret it?"
"Hell, yeah. But I had to make the mistakes to figure out that I wasn't—" I broke off, unsure of what I was trying to say.
"That you weren't?"
I shook my head. "It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't it?" She studied me long enough for her eyes to soften, and that wasn't necessarily a good sign with Giulia. She was more perceptive than I thought Nyx gave her credit for. Even though I had no doubt in my mind that he knew she was a smart little shit, sometimes, you could mistake someone younger than you as not being wise.
If anything, Giulia, who was at least five or six years younger than Hawk, was a damn sight wiser than her elder brother.
As for North? He had dumb POS scrawled all over his forehead.
Not that their stepmother agreed with me, seeing as she’d run off with him.
Giulia let out a shaky breath as she moved toward the storefront and peered out onto the road. “I feel bad.”
“Understandable, Giulia. We’ve just been to a mass funeral—”
Her brow puckered and she wrapped her arms around her waist. “I was sitti
ng with Bear today before the service and it was, Christ, it’s just so hard seeing him like that.”
I grimaced. “Tell me about it.”
“I can’t believe he’s…” She shook her head. “It’s tragic. I know he’s getting older and everything, but he’s still so fucking vital, you know?”
I cast her a look. “He hasn’t been back to West Orange for years, Giulia. I haven’t seen him in at least three. You’re remembering him from when you were a kid. He’s changed a lot since—”
She swallowed. “No, that’s just it. I’ve seen him more recently.”
Pouting, I demanded, “When? I always hang out with Bear when he comes back. I miss the old fucker,” I finished sadly, because I did. Though I’d never liked what he stood for, never appreciated the MC and its MO, the man himself was pretty cool. And hearing his war stories was fascinating. He’d served at the tail end of the Vietnam War, and the shit he’d seen had always caught my attention.
“You know, I never told anyone this before…”
Curiosity hit me. “Told anyone what?”
“That night, when Lancaster attacked me at the bar.” She bit her lip, and I realized she looked anguished. I wouldn’t put it past her to start wringing her hands together. As it was, Giulia, the ice queen and chief psychopath-handler, looked to be on the brink of fucking tears. “I didn’t kill him.”
As the breath whooshed out of her lungs, I blinked at her. “Huh?”
“God, you’ve no idea how long I’ve been keeping that in.” She pressed a hand to her chest, like she’d been holding a solid mass in place, and now with her admission, the weight had gone.
I knew how that felt, but still, she’d stunned the shit out of me. “Keeping what in?” I repeated a little dumbly.
“That I didn’t kill Luke Lancaster. Bear did.”
“Bear did.” I gaped at her. “You're joking, right?”
“I’m not. I don’t know where the hell he came from, and to be honest, I thought it was a fucking dream when salvation came walking through the door—then he killed him, and reality hit with a bang.” She raised a shaking hand to her mouth, then pressed her pointer finger to her lips in the universal sign of ‘silence.’ “He told me to keep it quiet. So I did.”
Cruz : A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 5) Page 32
