Broken (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 1)

by Michelle Betham

  ‘Zeb was my…’ She briefly drops her head and I don’t miss the small smile that crosses her face, ‘teacher.’ She raises her gaze and looks straight at him. ‘One of my teachers.’

  ‘How many did you have, for fuck’s sake…?’

  ‘Just Zeb. And Sam.’

  ‘And he’s here, why?’ I look into her eyes, and she’s scared, I can tell. She’s nervous. I don’t think she was looking forward to this confrontation. I can’t say I’m enjoying it myself.

  ‘Because I need him.’

  ‘And what the fuck am I? A spare fucking part you’ve got no use for anymore?’

  ‘No, baby, listen to me. Listen to me.’ She cups my cheek and guides my head down until she’s kissing me, and I wind my fingers in her hair and kiss her back; I’m taking control and showing this prick who’s fucking boss. ‘I didn’t ask Zeb to come here. Sam sent him. He knows I’m in trouble, and Zeb can help. He’s gonna work with you, Mack. He’s not your enemy. He’s on your side.’

  ‘He ain’t staying here, Izzi.’

  ‘I need him to, baby. I need him here.’

  ‘Jesus, Izzi…’ I rest my forehead against hers and close my eyes. I need a second, just to get my head around this. I had a plan, and his turning up could jeopardize that. I can’t do shit with him breathing down my neck.

  ‘I can’t let him stay here, Izzi.’

  ‘Then I’m going with him. I’m leaving.’

  She steps out of my arms and I feel like someone just kicked me real hard in the stomach. ‘Hey! Where you going? Izzi… Jesus!’

  ‘I didn’t ask him to come, Mack, but now he’s here…’ She bows her head, her eyes down on the ground for a couple of beats and I take a second to raise my gaze, to see what Zeb’s doing. Which is nothing. He’s just standing there with his arms folded and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth watching everything play out in front of him. ‘Now he’s here…’ She slowly lifts her head and her eyes meet mine. ‘He can help, Mack. He knows what I need to do, he’s always known. He can help. Please.’

  ‘You’re fucking killing me here, Izzi.’

  ‘Please, Mack.’

  She slides her hand up under my shirt and, Christ, is that all it takes now? I feel her fingers touch my skin and all of a sudden I’m giving her anything she wants? It don’t fucking work like that. If he stays here I need a plan B. And I don’t have a plan B. I’m not even sure plan A was workable, but it had a shot.

  ‘He can stay in town, Izzi, but he ain’t staying here.’

  She looks over my shoulder, and she’s obviously looking at Zeb and I turn to see him shrug. ‘I can find somewhere to stay.’

  ‘You’ll stay at the clubhouse.’ I’m keeping this one close. ‘I’m staying here, with Izzi.’

  ‘You are?’

  She seems surprised. She needn’t be. That was always part of the plan. ‘Yeah. I am. I’ve left you alone for too long, darlin’. And look what happens when I do that.’

  ‘Hey. Princess.’

  She lets go of me and walks behind me, over to Zeb. And I still don’t know who the fuck he really is. She needs to talk to me, and fast, if we’re ever gonna pull this situation into some kinda line.

  ‘You OK with all of this?’

  ‘Yes, Zeb, I’m OK with this.’

  I narrow my eyes as she steps into his arms and he wraps them around her and holds her tight. What the fucking hell…? ‘Hey, look, you got no right to just take what you think is yours…’

  He fixes me with a look I seen in many a man’s eyes, including my own. He ain’t scared of shit. I’m not gonna intimidate him, I already got that. Just another reason why keeping him close is necessary. I’ll call Odi. Tell him to keep an eye on him when I’m not around.

  ‘You wanna tell me where this clubhouse of yours is?’ He lets go of Izzi and she backs away, back towards me and I catch her hand, taking it in mine.

  ‘Ask Fitz. He’ll give you directions. It’s not far from here.’

  ‘You gonna be OK?’

  He directs that question at Izzi, and she nods, squeezing my hand tight.

  ‘I’ll see you soon, princess. All right?’

  He’ll see her when I fucking tell him he can.

  He turns and strides down the porch steps, over to a black and gold Harley parked just to the right of mine and I watch as he and Fitz exchange words before he speeds off.

  ‘You wanna tell me what the fuck all that was about?’

  She squeezes my hand again and leads me inside, leaving the door open. ‘Soon.’

  I watch as she pulls off her T-shirt and wriggles out of her shorts and, man, she knows how to fucking play me. Ain’t no woman been able to control me like this, but I gotta be careful. I’m here to control her now.

  ‘What makes you think I wanna touch you when he’s not long had his dick inside you?’

  ‘And his fingers.’

  ‘Jesus, Izzi…’

  I run a hand over my hair and turn away, but only briefly. I’m gonna fuck her, of course I am. That’s the plan – fuck her so much she can’t think of anything but me; wanting me, needing me, I’m gonna be like the drug she can’t fucking live without. And once that’s happened, once she’s addicted she ain’t gonna care whether Viper’s crew live or die because she’s gonna have way more important things to be doing with her messed-up life. Like being my old lady. That’s gonna be her life, so she ain’t gonna have time to even think about killing anyone. She won’t care no more, because she’ll have me to concentrate on.

  I feel her hand on my hip and her lips brush the back of my neck and I close my eyes as she presses her naked body up against me, and even through the leather of my cut I can feel her tits with their rock-hard nipples digging into my back.

  ‘Turn around,’ she whispers, and I ain’t gonna argue. I’m tired and angry and so fucking frustrated, and I’m gonna take it all out on her because she fucking caused this. So I turn around and I grab hold of her and pull her against me, kissing her so roughly it hurts, but I need this, so freakin’ bad.

  ‘Lie down’, I murmur, pushing her towards the couch at the back of the room. ‘And open those pretty legs of yours.’ Because I am gonna fuck you so hard you won’t know what day of the week it is.

  She does as she’s told; she lets go of me and lies down, immediately spreading her legs and for a second – just a split second – my skin prickles at the thought of some other man touching her. But then I pull back from that and kneel over her, taking a look at what’s mine. She’s fucking mine, I claimed her, in front of my club. I took her and sent that message out that she ain’t up for grabs, to no one. She’s mine.

  I place a hand on each of her knees and spread them even further apart before I finally pound into her, I don’t ease into this, no fucking way. And her cries and moans only feed my need to thrust harder and faster and I can’t even breathe properly, my throat’s so tight, but all I can think about is doing this, reaching my endgame. So I keep her knees wide apart as I fuck her, and I watch as my cock thrusts in and out of her beautiful, wet pussy. She’s gripping the pillow behind her head and arching her back as I start to feel the climax build, and her cries grow louder and more strained and that only spurs me on. And then I’m coming; short, sharp spasms wrack my body as I pump all that frustration out into her and I swear I can feel a weight lifting off my shoulders. Yeah… I’m done.

  I pull out of her and stand up, and she rolls over onto her stomach, and when she looks up at me – for the first time I notice how young she actually is. She ain’t wearing no make-up, and that kinda exposes her age. She ain’t wearing that mask, and I allow a shred of guilt to pierce any lingering anger I might still be feeling, but that don’t hang around for long. She might be young, but I’m sensing she’s lived some kinda tough, twisted life in a very short space of time, and Zeb and Sam – whoever the fuck they are – they were part of that life. A life that brought her here, to me, and I still don’t really know why. This shit still a
in’t making no sense.

  ‘You need to talk to me, Izzi.’

  She gets up and I watch as she sashays across the room, man, that girl has one hot ass! And she knows it, she uses it. She makes men like me who think we’re strong realize how weak and pathetic we really are. And I need to pull that back. That’s gotta change.

  She stands in the open doorway, bare-ass naked, and I know she’s giving the prospects out there a show, and, shit! As much as I get one hell of a kick from letting everyone see what I’m getting, I really gotta rein her in.

  ‘Izzi.’

  She turns around and walks back over to me.

  ‘You need to talk to me, darlin’.’

  She looks up into my eyes and there’s a coldness in hers that I just can’t get my head around. Someone as beautiful as her, she shouldn’t be so dead inside.

  ‘OK. We’ll talk.’

  ‘There are things I need to know, baby.’

  ‘I said, we’ll talk. Can I grab a shower first?’

  ‘Can I join you?’

  She smiles, just a small smile, but it melts the ice in her eyes a little and I kiss her – a soft, gentle kiss that is so at odds with who I am but she’s turning me into someone I don’t even know anymore. ‘Yeah. You can join me. Then you’re cooking breakfast, and we talk. Deal?’

  I return her smile and pull her against me. ‘Deal.’

  I don’t know what we’re doing here.

  I don’t know how it’s all gonna end.

  I don’t know much anymore. Except that I need this girl to stay.

  I need her.

  To stay.

  Chapter Twenty

  Izzi

  ‘Who’s Sam?’

  I look at him, right into his eyes. I need to do that, when I tell him all of this. If I can do that, I think I can probably do anything. ‘You don’t need to know, Mack.’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t need to know? You tell me you find some guy on the internet who turns you into this hard-faced bitch you’ve become; someone who rocks up in my town and asks me to help her kill men I do business with, and you tell me I don’t need to know?’

  I look down, because this is harder than I thought it was going to be.

  ‘I’m putting my life on the fucking line for you, sweetheart. You asked me to help you, and I’m doing that, I’m helping you, but now you gotta help me, darlin’. Last night I sat there and I looked Viper in the eye and I spun him shit I still ain’t sure he believes, but I think it might be enough to make him back off. For now. You hearing me, Izzi?’

  I raise my gaze to meet his, and there’s something there behind his eyes that tells me this is a man who can care. I don’t think he’s all that he makes himself out to be, he has another side to him. I just don’t think he’s let anyone see it.

  ‘I just want to know who you are, baby. I want to know who I’m fighting for here.’

  ‘What if I don’t really know who I am myself, Mack?’

  That’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud, and I’m torn between wishing I’d kept that to myself, and feeling relief that I’m finally talking about it. With Mack Slayer? Is he really the right person to be opening up to?

  ‘What I still don’t get, Izzi, is why this – this Sam, or Zeb… why didn’t they just help you? You went to them, they knew what you wanted to do, so, why didn’t they just help you?’

  ‘They did help me.’

  ‘They helped you become who you are, I get that. I don’t get why they didn’t just do the job you wanted them to do. Why they didn’t just kill Viper’s men for you.’

  I feel my expression harden as I look at him. ‘Because I don’t want anyone else to kill them, don’t you understand that yet, Mack? That’s a job I want to do. I’ve got to finish this, otherwise I can’t move on. I’m stuck, in this constant state of anger and pain and I… I need to end that. By ending them; the bastards who took the lives of people I loved.’

  ‘Do you even know what you’re saying, Izzi?’

  ‘I’ve asked you before not to patronize me, Mack. I know exactly what I’m getting myself into.’

  He says nothing for a couple of beats, he just looks into my eyes and I can tell he’s trying to find something, anything that’s going to make this all a little easier to understand.

  ‘You know all about retribution, Mack. You understand how that works…’

  ‘It ain’t always the best idea, Izzi.’

  ‘The words of a true one percenter, huh?’

  ‘You know nothing about this world, darlin’. Not really. You don’t know how dangerous it can really be.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  He frowns. He doesn’t know the half of what I really do understand. How much I really do know, about this world; about his world. About him.

  ‘I know enough, Mack.’

  He pulls out a packet of cigarettes and offers them to me. I shake my head. ‘You gonna expand on that one, or are you just gonna carry on with the cryptic shit?’

  I look down at my clasped hands. We’re sitting out on the porch steps and it’s a beautiful, sunny day – the kind of day I used to love. The kind of day that used to see me and Aiden grab our bikes and go riding before stopping off for lunch at a local pub; the perfect kind of day. I don’t think I’ve had a perfect day since he died. In fact, I know I haven’t.

  ‘After Aiden and my dad were killed…’

  I look up, and I turn my head to face him, my eyes locking with his.

  ‘After they were murdered, I went into shutdown. I was working on some kind of autopilot, my head – it wasn’t in the right place. But at the same time I was probably thinking clearer than I’ve ever done before.’

  ‘How did you find them, Izzi? This Sam. Zeb. How the hell did you find them?’

  I look down again, still unsure as to how much I should tell him. Sam never told me what the boundaries were, I think he trusted me enough to know I’d have some kind of an idea.

  ‘I got talking to people online, in the biker community, here and around town, on social media, chat rooms, that kind of thing. And at first I don’t think I really knew what I was looking for. I was confused and angry and filled with so much hate, I just knew I wanted revenge. I just didn’t know how to go about getting it…’ I look back up at Mack, and he’s looking at me with an expression that’s verging on confused. ‘I didn’t talk about revenge and killing people in the name of my dead family online, Mack. I wasn’t that out of it. I was just trying to get information, anything, something that could give me some kind of clue as to who it was who’d gunned my family down. And then, one day, I got a private message from this man who said he could help me.’

  ‘Sam?’

  I nod. ‘Yeah. Sam.’

  ‘He messaged you?’

  ‘He gave me a number. Told me to call him.’

  ‘And you contacted a stranger, just like that?’

  ‘I was desperate, Mack. He told me he could help me, and that was all I was looking for. Help.’

  ‘So, OK, you called him, he told you he could help you, and you, what? Just hopped on a plane and went to him?’

  ‘Pretty much, yeah.’

  He laughs, and I don’t think he believes me.

  ‘Seriously? Jesus, Izzi… he could have been anyone.’

  ‘At that point in time I didn’t care. I either got the help I needed or I died trying to find it, I was that low. Dying didn’t bother me, Mack. It just meant I got to be back with Aiden and my dad. There wasn’t a downside as far as I was concerned.’

  He takes a drag on his cigarette and stares out ahead of him. ‘You really wanted that revenge, huh?’

  ‘Want, Mack. I want that revenge. No past tense. That anger hasn’t subsided, I just learned how to control it.’

  He drops his head and I’m sensing he hopes I’m going to leave this alone. I’m not. I can’t. It needs to be done.

  ‘Do you think this is what your dad…’ He looks up and his eyes meet mine, ‘what
Aiden would have wanted?’

  I shake my head as I feel a wave of anger rise up. ‘No, Mack, don’t do that. Don’t put that one on me. No, they wouldn’t have wanted this, but they don’t get a say, do they? They’re gone, they aren’t here anymore because some piece of shit decided to cut them down for no fucking reason, and I can’t forget that. They killed me, too, that night. But I’m still here, and I spend every day in a fucking daze just waiting to make somebody pay. And I can’t live like that forever. I can’t do it.’

  ‘So you go to some stranger and he, what? Turns you into some kind of avenging soldier?’

  ‘Fuck you, Mack.’

  I pull myself to my feet but he’s right behind me.

  ‘Hey, Izzi, I’m sorry, OK?’ He grabs my wrist and swings me around to face him. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just – this is crazy shit, darlin’. I mean, how the hell do you go from an ordinary girl planning her wedding to wanting to kill someone?’

  ‘When that someone erases your entire life in the blink of an eye. That’s how.’

  I pull away from him and head inside. I need a drink. I need alcohol, yeah, it isn’t even 10am and I’m seeking out the solace of liquor.

  ‘This Sam…’

  I turn around and lean back against the counter, folding my arms as he finds the bottle of bourbon Odi left yesterday and pours out two shots.

  ‘How did he help you? Because you haven’t exactly mentioned details.’

  I take the glass he offers me and down the drink in one. ‘By helping me change who I was. You know this isn’t who I used to be. Who I used to be wouldn’t have been able to do any of this. She had to go. And someone else – something else – had to take her place.’

  ‘All right, so, this “change” – how did it take place, huh?’ He takes my glass and pours me another shot of bourbon.

  ‘It wasn’t instant. I had a lot to learn. But once I’d talked to Sam, he knew what we needed to do. I needed to get strong, stay angry, lose any fear or anxiety I might have at the thought of entering a world I hadn’t even known existed before.’

  ‘And he could do that all by magic, could he?’

  ‘Don’t be a prick, Mack.’