‘Izzi, I’m sorry, OK?’
I don’t move my head a centimeter, I don’t give him any indication that I’m in the least bit all right with his turning up here out-of-the-blue. Because I’m not sure I am.
‘For fuck’s sake… Is this what I’m getting now? The silent treatment?’
I swing around to face him, because I think anger’s starting to kick in now. ‘What are you doing here, Mack?’
‘I came for you.’
‘You’re a few months too late.’
‘And you’re all loved up with the freak show now, is that it?’
‘Fuck you! What gives you the right to walk in here after six bloody months and act like all I’ve been doing is sitting here pining for you? I mean, what do you expect me to do, Mack? Drop everything because you’ve suddenly decided you want me now?’
‘I couldn’t just leave, Izzi. Not straightaway, there was too much going on, my head was a mess…’
‘You want sympathy now?’
‘I made a mistake. All right? I should’ve fought for you, but Sam and Zeb…’
‘It’s their fault, right?’
‘I didn’t know what the fuck to do, Izzi, OK? And you didn’t seem to want…’
‘You have no idea what I wanted.’ Neither did I. Not back then. But I’ve had time to think about everything now. And his timing is way off.
‘I mean, come on, darlin’. You gotta understand – the shit that went down that night at the clubhouse…’
He shrugs and smirks and I swear I want to hit him. For so many reasons. For saying what he’s saying. For standing there like he has some sort of right to talk to me like this. For turning up too fucking late.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong here, Mack, but I wasn’t aware we had anything worth fighting for.’
‘We had something. We could have had more.’
His tone suddenly becomes calmer, and I feel like someone just kicked me in the solar plexus. ‘You really believe that, do you?’
‘Yeah, Izzi, I do.’
‘I wasn’t ready.’
‘But you’re ready for him, huh? For that prick who calls himself my cousin, you’re ready for him?’
‘I need Zeb.’
‘Jesus!’ He sweeps a hand over his head and turns away from me, and when he turns back to face me his eyes are blazing. ‘Can you not see what’s happening here, Izzi? Can you not see what he’s doing to you? I saw it with my own eyes, darlin’. I saw the way he practically hypnotizes you; he touches you and you obey like one of Pavlov’s fucking dogs…’
I slap him so hard the sound of my palm connecting with his skin echoes around the kitchen. ‘You have no right to be here, Mack.’
‘He has every right, Izzi.’
I turn sharply and see Sam standing in the doorway. ‘You think this is a good idea? Now?’
Sam moves further into the room, his hands in his pockets as he walks towards me. ‘Yes, I do. He’s come to warn us, Izzi.’
I frown and step back until I’m leaning against the counter. ‘Warn us? About what?’ Like I don’t know.
‘Viper’s still got eyes and ears everywhere, darlin’.’
I turn to look in Mack’s direction. ‘I’m not naïve enough to think he wouldn’t have.’
‘It’s better to be forewarned, Izzi,’ Sam continues. ‘So we can keep our guard up.’
‘I never lowered mine.’
‘Ain’t that the fucking truth,’ Mack mumbles under his breath and my eyes burn into his and the smirk that’s returned to his face just makes me want to smack him again.
‘Like I need this.’ I start to walk away, but Sam reaches out and grabs my wrist, forcing me to look at him.
‘Don’t act like some stroppy teenager, Izzi. It doesn’t suit you.’
‘Let her go.’
Zeb’s deep growl of a voice washes over me like a dark release and Sam’s fingers unfurl from around my wrist, leaving me free to go to Zeb.
‘You hear most of that?’ Sam asks him and Zeb nods, his arm circling my waist the second I reach his side.
‘He staying?’ Zeb jerks his head in Mack’s direction, and I don’t miss the antagonistic look that passes between the two men.
‘I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet,’ Mack replies, his eyes cold as they stare back at Zeb, who just lets out a quick, low laugh and squeezes my waist a little tighter.
‘Mack…’
‘I said I haven’t decided, Sam.’
Zeb leans in to me, his mouth brushing the space just below my ear. ‘You OK?’
I nod my reply and he squeezes my waist again before whispering something else in my ear that makes me smile. And then I notice the expression on Mack’s face, but it doesn’t change anything. I won’t let it.
I walked into his life and turned it upside down.
But now I know I can’t let him do the same to mine.
Mack
I watch her leave with him, and I feel anger and frustration start to build and I need to vent this or I’m gonna end up fucking hurting someone.
‘Suck it up, Mack.’
I look at Sam through narrowed eyes. Where the fuck does he get off telling me to do shit?
‘Sit down. We need to talk.’
‘No. No, I cant do this. Coming here, it was a mistake.’
‘Sit down, Mack.’
What the hell is it with this guy?
‘Please. Just a few minutes.’
I don’t know why I turned back around but there’s a part of me that feels the need to hear what he has to say. But I don’t sit down. I stay standing. I lean back against the counter and fold my arms because, yeah, I’m feeling slightly defensive here. And he doesn’t push it. He accepts he’s got me to hear him out, on my terms.
‘You don’t have to leave the Soldiers of Darkness behind, Mack.’
‘No, I know I don’t. And I don’t intend to.’
‘So, do you remember what I said a few months back?’
I frown, because I remember a lot of what happened a few months back, it’s just that not all of it makes a lot of sense.
‘About us working together? We can do that right here, Mack. We can work together, build a new chapter – together. We can help expand the Soldiers of Darkness, turn it into one of the most powerful MCs in the country… Do you hear what I’m saying?’
I run a hand over my hair and briefly look down, and I take a deep breath because I suddenly feel like everything’s closing in on me and I really need to claw back some control here, before I lose it completely. ‘Yeah. I hear you.’
‘It’s something I think you should give some serious thought to.’
I slowly look up and meet his gaze, and there’s something there in his eyes that reminds me of me, and I feel a real, almost physical kick to the stomach, so strong I almost struggle to breathe for a second or two. ‘Because you say so?’
‘You can let the barriers down, Mack. I’m not here to hurt you or play against you. I want us to be a team. Together, we could achieve so much…’
‘You can’t just walk back into my life and pick up like you were never away. You don’t have that right. You dumped me when I was just three days old so you have no fucking right to any part of my life.’
He stands up and walks over to me, and I keep my eyes fixed on his. ‘No. I know I don’t. But that doesn’t stop me from caring about you.’
I can’t help the derision-laced laugh from escaping. ‘You care about me, huh? Like you cared about me for all those years…’
‘There were reasons why I couldn’t contact you, Mack, I’ve explained that. And maybe some of the ways I went about things weren’t the best course of action, but none of that stopped me from caring about you; caring about what happened to you. And you can believe whatever you like, that’s your right. Just know that I’m not lying to you.’
‘You want me to trust you, huh?’
‘More than anything, yes. Because I believe we can build a good chapter here.
A strong chapter. This is your club, Mack, I get that. Cooper handed it over to you and I’m not here to take over or interfere but, I have contacts and connections that reach far and wide. Connections that guarantee we can have business deals going from day one…’
‘You want to be President of this thing?’
‘No, Mack, that’s your job. I’d be much more – behind the scenes, shall we say. I don’t want to wear the cut or ride the bikes, that isn’t what I do. Running the club, that would all be on you and the people you choose to be a part of it. All I ask is that you include me in any major business decisions, and that you let me run certain aspects of those businesses. With full transparency, of course. And don’t worry about money. I have plenty to make sure we give this chapter the very best possible start.’
‘This all sounds a bit too good to be true.’
‘And I don’t blame you for feeling suspicious. But I’m not hiding anything, I promise you that. If we work together, I know we can make this new chapter something to be proud of.’
I narrow my eyes and stare him down because I still don’t trust him. I have no reason to trust him, I don’t even know him. And I don’t usually trust no one I know nothing about. ‘You know the Soldiers of Darkness are…’
‘Outlaws. Yes.’
‘One percenters.’
‘It’s the same thing, is it not?’
I laugh quietly, dropping my gaze briefly. ‘I’m not a good man.’
He says nothing for a beat or two, and when I finally raise my gaze his eyes are on me, his expression impassive; stoic. ‘Bad men can still do good things, Mack.’
I don’t know what the fuck he means by that, but I ain’t in the mood to push it.
‘Why did you wait so long? To come here?’
‘I didn’t need the complication.’
‘Is that what Izzi is? A complication?’
‘She’s the biggest complication I’ve ever encountered.’
‘Yet here you are.’
‘You fucking analyzing me?’
‘I’m just trying to find out why it took you so long to realize that this is what you needed to do.’
‘Yeah, well, turns out it was a fucking waste of time.’
‘Because she’s with Zeb now?’
‘Yes, because she’s with… What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Izzi was the reason you came here, Mack. Don’t let her be the reason you leave.’
I narrow my eyes and hold his gaze, but I say nothing.
‘Yes, you could walk out of here and go back home but you’ve left your old chapter in new hands now, I’m assuming.’ His eyes drop to the space on my cut where the President’s rocker used to sit. ‘And whether you realized it at the time or not, you did that because you knew you wouldn’t be going back. If you’d had any intention of returning you would’ve just handed over temporary charge to your VP. You wouldn’t have handed over your President’s patch, and you know that, don’t you?’
This guy’s fucking with my head and I ain’t happy about that.
‘Am I right, Mack?’
I stare at him, I can’t look away, and I’m angry and confused and there’s a part of me that wants to lash out and take all my frustration out on this man, because he made me this person. He forced me to take the route I did; live the life I’ve lived, he forced me to do that.
‘You think things would have been any different if me and your mother had been able to bring you up?’
I narrow my eyes a touch more. Can this guy read my fucking mind or something?
‘We lived a cold, hard life, Mack. Me and your mom. We both grew up with outlaws as parents, spent time hanging out at clubhouses just like yours. The world that became your world was our world, too.’
‘And you’re quite happy to continue living in that world, huh?’
‘Are you?’
I laugh again, but there are nerves hidden beneath that laugh and I hate that that’s happened. He’s making me nervous, and ain’t no one done that before. I’m supposed to make people nervous, it ain’t supposed to be the other way around.
‘It’s all you know, Mack. It’s all I know.’
‘You make it sound like we could never walk away.’
‘Is that what you want? To walk away?’
I can’t answer that straightaway. Because there’s a part of me that’s scared of what might come out of my mouth.
‘If Izzi told you she wanted to walk away from this life, Mack, would you walk away with her?’
‘No.’ And I mean that. I wouldn’t. I risked a lot just coming here, but I ain’t ready to lose it all.
Sam’s face breaks into a smile and he reaches out to pat my shoulder, and even though there’s a part of me that wants to shrug his hand away, I don’t. ‘Can we work together?’
‘What about him? Zeb? Where does he come into this?’
Sam pulls back and steps away from me. ‘That’s up to you. If you don’t think you can work with him…’
‘I ain’t got that much of a choice, have I? He’s with Izzi…’ I stop talking and bow my head, running a hand along the back of my neck.
‘He could be very useful, Mack.’
I look up, and even though I could quite happily hurt Zeb, I realize that’s just my macho pride getting in the way. He got the girl. He won. I lost. I need to get over that and start thinking about what I can do to change things. ‘Yeah. Yeah, maybe he could be.’
‘He knows a lot about this world. He grew up within an MC in Texas, before he left to join another chapter in South Carolina.’
‘He’s not with them anymore?’
‘He preferred the Nomad lifestyle.’
I ain’t sure whether that’s an explanation that hides something deeper, and if he’s gonna be a part of the Soldiers of Darkness I gotta make sure he ain’t done the kinda shit that could come back to bite our asses. And Sam gets that, he sees my concern.
‘He left because he wanted to, Mack. He wasn’t banished, he didn’t do anything stupid, he isn’t going to bring trouble to our door. He’s going to stop it getting here.’
I grip the edges of the counter behind me and throw back my head, taking the longest, deepest breath because my head, man, it’s freakin’ spinning! ‘I’m gonna need a VP who can take control of shit when I ain’t around. Someone who can handle themselves and all the crap that could happen.’
Nobody says anything for a good few seconds; the silence hangs heavy in the air and I close my eyes and take another deep breath as I realize just what the fuck is happening here.
‘Are we doing this, Mack?’
I open my eyes and look at this man who gave me away as a baby and re-entered my life thirty-eight years later. I still don’t trust him, that’s gonna take time. But he knows Izzi better than anyone. And she’s the real reason I’m sticking around. I’m not looking for some father/son bonding experience, I’m here to build a new chapter of a club Cooper left in my hands and I ain’t gonna fuck that up. I ain’t doing that to his memory. So, yeah, I’m gonna build that new chapter, I’m gonna start that new life and in time I’ll have Izzi by my side the way she was always meant to be. And people better believe I mean that, ‘cause I got all the time in the fucking world…
Izzi
Sam’s just told me, that Mack’s staying. That he’s setting up a new chapter of the Soldiers of Darkness right here in town, and I still don’t know how I feel about that. But I know that Sam’s happy. This is what he wanted, for Mack to give him a chance, although, I’m still not sure that Mack’s completely sold on the whole father/son reunion thing. Knowing him like I do now, I can’t help thinking that Sam wasn’t the real reason he’s staying. Or maybe that’s just me being way too presumptuous; flattering myself, even. But he kind of told me he’d come here, for me.
‘Zeb not with you?’
I turn to look at Mack as he joins me outside on the porch steps. ‘Does it look like it?’
He sits down beside me and hands me a bee
r. ‘You OK?’
I take the beer and stare back out at the three Harley Davidsons parked up next to the two SUV trucks in the front yard. ‘In general, or about you staying?’
‘Both.’
I turn to look at him again. ‘I’m fine. On both counts.’
‘Nice ink by the way.’
He glances at my back and I follow his gaze.
‘Your boyfriend do it?’
I don’t answer him, because it’s a rhetorical question, he knows Zeb’s a tattooist. His studio’s going to be part of the new Soldiers of Darkness empire, apparently, so Mack knows who did my ink.
‘He treating you all right?’
My eyes lock on his and I swallow hard. ‘Yeah. He is.’
‘You’re his princess, huh?’
I keep staring at him, but I don’t say anything.
‘I don’t get what you and him are, Izzi. I don’t understand how you could let him do what he did to you. I mean, why…’
‘Do you think I wanted it? Huh? Do you honestly think I wanted to do any of that? Do you think I wanted someone like Zeb – a stranger – to touch me that way? To do those things to me? After Aiden? But I was broken, Mack. I was broken and angry and messed-up beyond belief. And in some twisted, sick way Zeb made me better. He fixed me.’
‘He got to fuck a girl over twenty years his junior. He’s gonna tell you anything you want to fucking hear, Izzi.’
‘Age had nothing to do with it. I didn’t see him as an older man, or anyone to be feared. And I didn’t think it strange that two hours after meeting him I was naked in his arms with his fingers inside me, I was that fucked-up. But I needed him. I needed that.’
Mack shakes his head and I don’t expect him to understand, why would he? Why would anyone? It’s a crazy, messed-up situation that I could never begin to comprehend, in my other life. The old me would be horrified. Shocked. But that woman, that life, they both died the second Sam took me in.
‘It’s wrong, Izzi.’
‘You’re seriously gonna sit there and lecture me about what’s wrong?’
He hangs his head, an almost defeated air surrounding him now.
‘Why are you doing this, Mack?’
He looks up, and our eyes once more lock. ‘Why am I staying?’
Broken (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 1) Page 28
