Conflict (Black Hearts MMA, #2)

by Kylie Hillman

  BECOME AN ULTIMATE INSIDER

  To tide you over in the meantime, I’ve included a sneak peek of the free introductory novella to my dark and gritty International Bestselling MC romance series.

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  Soothing Suffering is a free, introductory novella designed to give you a taste of the dark, raw, and gritty Internationally Bestselling Black Shamrocks MC series.

  BLURB: With the woman he loves—the woman he failed— fading away before his eyes, Mikhail “Mad Dog” Kennedy knows he needs to do something drastic to save her. To save himself. If she flinches away from his touch one more time, his guilt-ridden heart is going to shatter into a million pieces.

  Madelaine O’Brien knows she’s drowning. The after effects of what happened to her are slowly killing her will to live; yet, she can’t find the strength to stop it. Keeping everything a secret is the only option. Her internal battle to fight off her feelings of contamination and shame is hard enough without needing to explain to the Black Shamrocks MC what really happened with her crazy ex-boyfriend.

  When Mik comes home and tosses her motorcycle helmet into her hands, declaring that they’re going to ride for as long as it takes for Maddi to open up to him, she realizes this is make-or-break. The trip is either going to push their relationship past the point of no return or it’s going to be their chance to set about soothing suffering.

  Flip the page to read the first two chapters of Soothing Suffering.

  PROLOGUE

  Lainey

  “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~Kahlil Gibran~

  Turns out that there is a fate worse than death. After watching my mother fade away before my eyes, I decided that I would do everything in my power to live a long life.

  Death is scary.

  Death is the end.

  Now, every time I look at my scarred and broken body, I close my eyes and I pray for death. It doesn’t scare me anymore; if anything, I look forward to the day that I can close my eyes for the final time and never have to think about Brendan Taylor and what he did to me, ever again. The sweet respite from the voices in my head—the ones that keep telling me that I’m still Brendan’s slut—can only be achieved by embracing the end of my life.

  That final barrier, the one that stops me from following through on my desire to die, is getting thinner by the day. With every memory that masquerades as a nightmare, with each flinch away from Mik’s gentle touch, with every single glance he sends my way that’s filled with guilt and regret; I edge one step closer to finishing it all.

  No-one knows. I refuse to let them see just how close I am to giving up. There’s nothing they can do anyway. My bed was made when I chose to let my pride get in the way of admitting my mistakes. If I’d spoken up, none of this would have happened.

  I should find it ironic that the person I hurt the most is the only one stopping me from taking my life. Except, I don’t. He’s always been the one. Even when I was too stupid to realise it. If it wasn’t for that loving glimmer I glimpse in his gaze when he looks at me, I’d do it.

  Instead, I hold onto that love and push through another day.

  For how much longer? I don’t know.

  All I know is that today isn’t the day I put an end to my pain.

  ONE

  Lainey

  A heavy hand lands on my shoulder. Lost as I am in my own world—a world filled with painful memories that make the fear that is now my constant companion kick up a notch—I don’t recognize the owner until I’ve flinched away from their touch, putting space between myself and the person I perceive to be my newest attacker. Swinging around with looping punch that would have my self-defence instructor shaking his head, I follow with an ear-splitting shriek that makes me cringe.

  “Fuck. Lainey. It’s me.” Mik holds his arms out in front of himself. He looks me dead in the eye and waves his hands as if he’s trying to settle a spooked horse. Even his mouth is shaped in a circle as if he’s about to tell me to “whoa”. My heart’s trying to pound out of my chest, fearful trembling seizing control of my body, while heat rises up my neck and warms my cheeks. I feel like a damn idiot, but I can’t seem to stop overacting to the smallest thing.

  “I thought you heard me coming, Angel. I’m sorry.”

  His apology makes me feel worse. Adding his slumped shoulders and strained expression into the mix only drives home how much he’s suffering with me. The green flecks in his hazel eyes have been dulled by the pain he carries. Every time I flinch away from him, the light in them—that cheeky spark that used to illuminate his face—dims a little bit more.

  “It’s all good, I was daydreaming,” I say in a voice that doesn’t sound nearly as breezy as it did in my head. Forcing my stiff, shaking body to loosen, I fake my best smile and close the distance between us in three steps. Ignoring how my hands tremble, I press my breasts against his hard chest and wrap my arms around his neck.

  Bringing his head down to mine, I press my lips against his and initiate a kiss that’s deeper than the quick pecks that we’ve exchanged since I was released from hospital eight weeks ago. Mik was rigid when I put my arms around him; yet, he manages to take it to another level altogether at my touch. His arms hang at his side and he doesn’t return my kiss past allowing the initial joining of our mouths. Feeling like I trying to make out with a statue, I pull back an inch and sink my teeth into his bottom lip with deliberate viciousness.

  “Fuck!” He yelps, the blank expression on his face changing to one of annoyance. Gripping me with infinite gentleness by the tops of my arms, he moves me back so that he can look down at me. “Why’d you fucking do that?”

  Pushing away the embarrassment that’s threatening to overwhelm me—first from my overreaction to his innocent touch and secondly from his refusal to kiss me back—I shake my head at him. Wrenching out of his grasp, I sit on the dining table in the same spot I was before he interrupted me.

  “Why did I do that?” I mimic his confused tone. “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because my boyfriend refuses to kiss me.”

  The aggravation leaves his rugged features, sympathy taking its place. It’s the one emotion I can’t deal with; one that he should know better than to send in my direction. The small amount of spirit left in my psyche—the tiny part that survived my ex-boyfriend’s onslaught—flares to life, heating my indignation, and giving me the ability to lash out at him.

  “You know, if being with me is too much for you to handle, the door’s that way.” I spit the words at him with a certainty that doesn’t reflect my inner fear that he’ll take me up on my offer. Pointing in the direction of the front door, I continue. “Don’t let it hit you on your fine ass on the way out.”

  Swinging back to my feet, I step up into his personal space and glare at him through narrowed eyes. “We both know I’m damaged. Hell, nobody’d blame you if you walked. Nobody wants a woman as scarred as me.”

  Putting space between us, I wave my right hand over my abdomen. “Inside and out.”

  Turning my back to him, I make my way to our bedroom. Slamming the door shut behind me, I flick the lock before throwing myself face down on our king-sized bed. The tears that are constantly trying to escape from my eyes—the tears that I have to fight everyday—run down my cheeks. The only time I let them fall is when no one else can see them. When I’m alone, they’re stronger than me. So much so, that I should be out of tears to cry since it feels like it’s all I do lately.

  Keeping my anguish to myself is becoming too much. It’s making me treat Mik like shit, when he’s the only one who has a chance of understanding how I feel because he’s the only one who knows the full truth of what happened to me. The guilt that my behavior brings just adds another layer to what I’m already struggling under.

  If I’d listened to him, none of this would have happened. If I’d gone to him after the first time Brendan hurt me, it wouldn’t have got so bad. If I’d listened to the voice in the back o
f my mind that told me to tell him the truth, I wouldn’t be broken now.

  The handle rattles as Mik tries to open the door, interrupting my mental blame game. He raps his knuckles against the hard wood. “Lainey, let me in. Fuck me dead, I’m trying my best here. If I try to touch you, it makes you freak out so when you kissed me I didn’t have a fucking clue how to react.”

  I hear a soft thud, and I can picture him resting his forehead against the door. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I sit up and stare at the wooden barrier that separates us. Wiping my face, I press my lips together, so they’ll stop trembling while I breathe deeply through my nose, making my lungs expand before letting the air out slowly. It’s a technique my therapist reckons will calm me, although it hasn’t worked so far.

  “Angel. Talk to me. Tell me how to help you. I’ll do anything you want.” He pauses, a loud sigh coming from the other side of the door, telling me that he’s not only confused—he’s hurt and frustrated with me for shutting him out. I open my mouth, unsure what words are going to leave my lips when I speak, when he interrupts me with the words that are the main reason why I can’t confide in him. “Fucking hell, Mo Ghrá. I know this is my fault and I’m fucking sorry. More than you’ll ever know.”

  My mouth closes of its own volition. I throw myself backward on the comforter, landing on my back as the tears call an end to the brief reprieve they’d granted me. Flailing my hand toward the head of the bed, I reach for a pillow. Jamming it over my face, I open my mouth and scream ... and scream and scream. My mind joins in, shrieking two sentences at me over and over in a matching rhythm to the cries that my pillow is muffling.

  It’s not your fault. It’s mine.

  Mik must mistake my silence for agreement. A louder thud makes the door shake—I’m not sure if he’s hit it with his head or his fist—before I hear him walk away from our bedroom, his heavy biker boots sounding against the jarrah floorboards. My attention is drawn from my screams as I listen to see if he’s leaving the house.

  Ten. Eleven. Twelve. After the thirteenth step, there’s a resounding bang as the front door is thrown open, hitting the wall behind it. I jump on the bed when a louder boom echoes through the house as Mik slams the door shut behind him.

  Barely five seconds later, I hear his Harley roar to life before the squealing of tyres heralds his departure from our street. With straining ears, I listen as the rumbling engine gets further away, the sound receding until I can’t hear it anymore.

  Rolling onto my side, I pull the pillow against me and curl into the foetal position around it. Burying my face in its softness, I drag in a ragged breath and Mik’s scent overcomes me. I must have grabbed his pillow. The familiar smell makes me long for him. Yet, I know that after my actions this afternoon, this might be all I’m left with. An empty house, a broken heart and body, and the slowly disappearing scent of the man I love.

  It’s with that thought that the never-ending tears pick up pace and begin pooling on the pillow as a liquid tribute to my sorrow.

  TWO

  Mik

  Squeezing the throttle, I rev my bike harder and start weaving in and out of the end-of-workday traffic. The stinging from the broken skin of my knuckles and the laser focus needed to navigate the vehicles in front of me is the only thing stopping me from letting thoughts of Lainey fill my mind.

  Madelaine Alanah O’Brien. My Lainey, my angel, my fucking everything. The moment I’m past the worst of the traffic she pops straight back into my head. Shame makes me want to turn around and apologise for punching our bedroom door and then smashing up the front door as I stormed out, but the guilt that had me heading for the exit crushes that need.

  A beer, a bong, and hopefully someone’s ears to box at the Compound will have to serve. No sooner has the thought entered my head before the snarky voice in the back of my mind reminds me that it was those three things that got us into this mess. Too many beers, too many bongs, and one half-hearted punch-up later and I’m agreeing to hook Benji up with the fucker I get my weed from just to get the little prick off my back. Only problem with that—I didn’t know he didn’t just sell weed.

  One dumb decision ending with irreversible damage—total devastation of the woman who owns my soul and a secret that feels like it weighs ten-fucking-tonnes trying to crush me alive whenever I draw in a breath. Every time I look at her and see the pain in her eyes, the guilt gets heavier.

  My fuck-up has destroyed her.

  *

  “Oi, Mad Dog,” Timber waves me over to him when I walk into the front bar of the Shamrocks Clubhouse. He’s got a beer in his hand and a half-dressed Club slut on his knee.

  Taking one look at his glazed eyes, a glint of trouble barely hidden by the icy-blue depths, I shake my head and make my way for the bedroom at the back. Before I can think about getting drunk and into a fight with my best friend, I have shit to get done. That look in his eye means one thing—his demons are haunting him as hard as mine are tonight. It also means that we’re probably going to go toe-to-toe over something stupid before the night’s done.

  Rapping my busted knuckles on the door leading to Kid’s bedroom, I take a second to steel myself before I open the door and step into the chaos that awaits me. It is as I expected. Benji’s curled into a ball in the middle of Kid’s bed, pleading for a hit while Kid and Joel try to talk some sense into him.

  I pat Kid on the shoulder and tilt my head toward the door. Our newest Prospect jerks away from me. Embarrassment at this reaction turns his face red, the colour on his cheeks only just visible under the two fading black eyes and split lip that he’s sporting from the persuasive tactics I was forced to use on him to get the name of Benji’s dealer. My dealer, as it turned out.

  Throwing as arm over Joel’s shoulder, I pull him into my side as Kid exits the room like the devil is on his heels. He’s fucked up from watching his brother detoxing; it’s too much to expect from a barely eighteen-year-old. Yet, we have zero choice but to use him. Lainey’s my priority. Timber’s job is to keep our parents from finding out the connection between Benji’s drug use and Lainey’s nightmare. So, it falls to Kid and Joel to deal with the brunt of Benji’s issues, with as much help as the rest of us can offer them.

  The whole situation is fucked. More than fucked when you add in Lainey’s refusal to tell everyone what really happened between her and her psycho ex.

  Joel leans into me for a second, then pulls away. Throwing a quick glance in the direction of his older brother, he swallows, then speaks. “I need to get outta here. Can’t do it anymore today.”

  With a small incline of my head, I give him the permission he’s requesting. “Go have a beer, get laid, whatever. I’ll watch him for a few hours then Kid can take the night shift.”

  “Thanks.”

  Without exchanging another word with him, I sit on the edge of the bed. The door closes behind Joel, the sound of the latch catching sounding like a gunshot in the silence that’s overtaken the room.

  “He hates me.”

  Patting Benji’s closest leg, I answer his declaration in a tight voice. “No yet. Keep going like you are and he fucking will.”

  He rolls over, scrubs a hand over his eyes, then hits me fair in the face with a gaze that’s identical to his twin sister’s. Visions of the look in Lainey’s eyes when my touch surprised her push their way to the forefront of my mind. Her expression is mirrored in Benji’s.

  Fear. Self-loathing. Desire to end it all.

  “How do you figure I fix it? All I want to do is get the fuck outta here and away from you all. Yet, none of you will let me leave.” Pushing himself upright with shaking arms, he turns to me and shakes his head. His gaze fills with pleading, and I know his next words before he says them. “Mad Dog, I need something to smoke. Just a little. Something to take the edge off.”

  “N-o.” I don’t get the word the whole way out before he’s taking a swing at me. The only thing that stops his fist from connecting with my nose is his own sloppiness—it�
�s certainly not my reflexes since I wasn’t expecting the little shit to get physical.

  “Fuck you.” Benji swings at me again, this time missing me by a mile. I grab his arm and twist, wrenching it up his back until he bellows with pain.

  “No. Fuck you.” Pushing him away from me, I growl. He lands face first on the bed, curls into a ball, and starts moaning again. With my fingers jammed in my hair so I don’t give into my rising need to belt the shit out of him, I stare down at him. He’s fucking pathetic. Writhing in pain on the bed, sweat dripping from him, blubbering like a fucking baby. “Man the fuck up, Benji. Do you honestly think any of us have sympathy for you? This is all self-inflicted. You picked up the pipe. You put it to your mouth, and, you went back for seconds. For fuck sake, your sister nearly died and all you’re worried about is your-damn-self.”

  Kicking the side of the mattress, I purge the rest of my frustrations. “None of us have time to babysit you. We should be concentrating on putting Lainey back together; instead we’re here taking it in turns to help you get straight. You’re a fucking idiot if you can’t see how much your shit is affecting everyone else.”

  Benji doesn’t move. He doesn’t make another noise. Dead silence fills the room, letting the voice in my head mock me about my sins without interruption. The need to purge my soul is choking me. I need to tell someone the full truth before I shatter into a million pieces under the strain.

  “It wasn’t the first time.” The lump on the bed doesn’t move, but I know he’s listening, so I continue. “What we walked in on was the worst time, but it wasn’t the first. That was when she took him home during your eighteenth birthday party.”

  “No way.” Benji shifts until he’s lying on his side facing me. “How do you know?”

  It takes me a second to meet his gaze. Deliberate disbelief covers his face. He’s trying not to let the clues that we missed back then slide into place. “Lainey told me. It started on your birthday, ending the night our flight was cancelled because of fog and we walked in on them.”