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

by Max Henry

  “You weren’t a failure, King.”

  “I was, otherwise why would you have left me?”

  “I told you—I couldn’t compete with this.” She tosses her hands in the air.

  “Exactly. I failed you.”

  Elena lets out a short, jaded laugh. “No, King. I failed you.” She swivels on the seat, tucking her legs up beside her. “I knew where our affair would lead, what it would do to the two of us. My gut instinct screamed at me to walk away from you, but I was selfish.” She closes her eyes, dropping her face into one hand and mumbling behind her fingers, “I did this to us.”

  With my palm skimming over Dante’s back, I stare at his perfectly soft and rounded face. “I don’t regret any of it.”

  “Neither,” she whispers. “So what does that mean?”

  I shrug. What does it mean? Love complicates everything. A neutral man, one who was removed from our web of emotion, could see this for what it is: a woman putting the welfare of her child first, and a man whose calling is to make a better life for the people in his. We each have our priorities, which dealt with alone could be completely manageable. But throw love in the equation and the lines blur. Our passions drive us apart, but our insatiable need for each other keeps drawing us together.

  “Are you sure that distance is the best healer?” I ask. “Don’t you think there’s a reason why no matter what happens, we end up back here again, sitting in each other’s company?”

  “Yeah,” she murmurs. “I do. He’s sleeping on you.”

  I shake my head, yet she continues.

  “If it weren’t for Dante, King, I would have chosen to stay away.”

  Her words close a fist around my heart. “Was what we had that trivial? That easy to let go of?”

  “I keep telling you, no.” She sighs and throws her head back. “We’re going around in circles.”

  “Because I can’t understand why you’d do this.” I sit up a little and twist to my side to set Dante down gently on the sofa. He stirs, and I reach across to snag the blanket at Elena’s feet, wrapping it over his little body and tucking it underneath to make a snug cocoon for him.

  She watches me in silence, her head cocked to the side as I fuss over our child. I move to where she sits and drop the bib in her bag, and then crawl to kneel before her. She sighs as I push my arms either side of her seat, encasing her in my hold.

  “What are you doing, King?”

  “Trying to remind you why we risked our lives for these moments.”

  “I don’t need remind—”

  “I think you do.” She closes her eyes as I lean forward and rest my forehead to hers. “There was a reason we thought this right here was worth the fight.”

  Elena sniffs. Her forehead furrows under mine. “Don’t . . .”

  “Why?” I whisper, as I skim my lips across her wet cheeks to her ear. “Because the truth hurts?”

  “Because it all hurts,” she murmurs, tilting her head as I reach the soft spot between her neck and shoulder.

  “It’s supposed to.” I dot kisses along her collarbone, stopping when I reach the fabric of her sweater. “That’s what makes the good times feel that much sweeter.”

  Her fingers knit in the hair at my nape and pull my mouth off her heated flesh. “I didn’t come here for this.”

  “I don’t want you to leave without it.”

  “Why?” Her eyebrows pull together. “Why would you do this, knowing it’ll hurt me that much more when I go?”

  “Because I’m trying to make sure you don’t leave me.”

  “I’m not about to change my mind.”

  “Then I’ll keep reminding you why you should until the day you stay, Elena.” I pull free of her hold and kiss the tip of her nose. “I tried to stop loving you, and it only made me miss you more.”

  Her tears flow free once more, yet her expression is stoic and determined.

  “It might not be today, baby, but you can’t deny this forever.”

  “I’m not denying that I miss you too, King.” She places a tentative palm to my cheek. “I’d never deny that I still love you.”

  “I know. That’s not what I meant.”

  She shakes her head a little. “What?”

  “I meant you’re denying yourself. You’re denying the right to feel this, to have what nobody’s ever given you before.”

  She swallows audibly, her fingers tightening on my cheek a little. “And what’s that? What have I never been given before you?”

  “Unconditional love.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  King

  Hooch slips on to the stool beside me. The club’s quiet, vacant of most people being that it’s mid-afternoon on a weekday. After the showdown with Carlos, we lost a dozen or more prospects and hang-arounds—people who realized that being a part of our club meant they stood dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. The place was instantly a ghost town; the fully patched members are mostly nine-to-five workers, so without the younger blood the halls became empty during the working week.

  “Take it things didn’t go none too well?” Hooch takes hold of the empty bottle of Jack beside me and turns it over in his hands.

  “Not the best, no.”

  “She comin’ back?”

  My nostrils flare as I stare at the wall behind the bar. “Probably not now, and dude . . .” He spins to face me, sitting side on to the bar. “I think she really meant it.”

  He heaves a sigh and sets the bottle down on the wooden bar top. “What you gonna do?”

  I shrug. What can I do? She’s made it clear; as long as I stay with the club, she wants no part of my world. What part of the fact that she is my world doesn’t she get?

  Hooch slams a heavy hand down on my shoulder. “Chin up, brother. There’s ways we can make sure you get to see your kid at least.”

  I grunt in reply as he raps his knuckles on the bar and walks away. I turn and catch him before he disappears into the garage. “Hooch.”

  “Yeah, man?”

  “Keep this to yourself, yeah?”

  He frowns, looking as though he’s about to argue before his face softens and he simply nods once.

  The last thing this place needs are rumors of who Elena is and what our connection involves. Thanks to Apex’s indiscretions, the whole mess with Carlos on our turf was brushed off as an inter-club argument. There was no mention of Elena, and the only witnesses to what Carlos and Apex said about my involvement with Elena—the prospect and the old boy—were kept quiet with a stern word from Beefy.

  Maybe Apex had been right from the start? I should have walked away and let it go when I still could? If the brothers find out about my affair with Carlos’s wife, then shit, my respect and reliability are shot straight out the fucking window.

  My head makes a dense thud as it hits the bar between my arms. I’m fucked. All I ever wanted was to live an honest life amongst a brotherhood of men who looked out for each other, no questions asked. And now I’m staring down the barrel of a life sentence lying my ass off, pretending I’m straighter than a freshly dry-cleaned suit.

  What sort of fucked up oxymoron is this? In order to be the guy they need to bring the club back on the straight and narrow, back on the safe side of the tracks, I’m going to have to be the biggest charlatan of them all.

  I can’t do it.

  I can’t live a lie and expect to sleep straight in bed at night.

  Fuck, I don’t sleep at all as it is.

  “Hard day?”

  I whip my head off the bar to see Callum leaning on an elbow beside me. “You could say that.”

  “Joker was acting weird. Anything happen I should know about?”

  And it begins. “Nope. Just another day tryin’ to make sense of the mess that Apex has in that office.” Liar, liar, pants on fire . . .

  “Understandable.” He takes a seat beside me as two more of the lifers wander in through the garage door. “Speakin’ of the old bastard, you seen him lately?”

  �
��Couple of days ago.” The change in conversation perks me up somewhat. This I can talk about. “He was waitin’ on some test where they have dye in his blood. Angrier than a cut cat at, as he put it, ‘wastin’ his motherfuckin’ time and energy on this bullshit.’”

  Callum chuckles, rubbing a hand over his stubbly chin. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

  I glance around the room, noting one of the lifers has left and the other is setting up a game of pool at the table. Satisfied nobody is in earshot, I turn back to Callum and lean a little closer. “Can I ask your opinion on somethin’?”

  He looks my way quizzically and nods. “Sure.”

  “You think I’d ever get put forward for pres?” When the vote came through that put me in the position of VP, I took that role on with full confidence. But after seeing Elena today, realizing the sum of my errors, taking on the ultimate role seems too much of a farce. They need someone better. Someone like Callum, I think, as I stare over at my friend.

  He bows his head, rubbing a stiff palm over the back of his skull while he thinks it over. “I’d say yes, just based on what everyone says about you, but I don’t want you gettin’ the idea in your head if it doesn’t happen, you know?”

  I nod and give him a pat on the arm. “I understand.” He offers a wan smile as I stand. “Just wonderin’ is all.”

  The clubhouse slowly comes alive as I cross over to Apex’s office and barricade myself from the growing noise. Painting on a happy face for those ten minutes was hard enough—how the hell am I going to do this for months, or years?

  I drag a hand over my beard as I take in what’s left of the mess to sort and file. The old boy didn’t want a bar of me in here to begin with—understandable, given our history, but a firm word in his ear from Beefy and Apex soon gave in. He hasn’t filed a fucking thing since the day he took over. There are power bills, property rate notices, receipts for food bought when we’ve organized a run, and random scraps of paper with scrawled notes every-fucking-where. Took me two days just to reconcile the fuel account and figure out which current members still carried cards for it.

  The Aces need a damn secretary. They need somebody who understands how the place runs, who can keep track of the basic paperwork, filing what’s non-important and saving only those letters that need a final decision for the officers. A go-between if you like.

  The realization of who that could be smacks me square in the face. I turn heel toward the door and rip it open on a mission to track down Abbey. The girl’s been here long enough, and seen enough to know what she’s doing. She needs an excuse to keep the property girls off her back. Who better to fill the role than her?

  As I circle the common room without finding her and then head for the stairs, a niggling thought in the back of my mind grows to a dull ache, demanding attention. As much as I’d hate to break this temporary sense of calm, of purpose, I can’t help but acknowledge what I’m doing for what it is.

  Yet again, I’m deflecting, distracting, and drawing my thoughts away from the one thing I should be trying to sort and file as completed.

  Elena.

  Yet again, I’m putting the club first.

  THIRTY

  Elena

  Six years later

  “Can we go out for dinner tonight, Mama?”

  I flick my gaze to the rearview and smile at Dante. “Not tonight, sweetheart.”

  “Aww, why?”

  “Because Mama doesn’t have enough money.”

  Living is frugal, but the thing I’ve come to accept about the way Dante and I survive on my measly wage is that the important part of it all is just that—we’re living. Four shifts a week on the front counter at an auto-repair shop would never be enough to take us anywhere, but we have food. We’re alive, we have a life, and we have each other.

  I pull my old car up out front of our house and sigh when I spot the gray sedan parked two doors down.

  “What’s the matter?” Dante asks from the back.

  “Nothing, baby. You go on and get out. Make sure you grab your bag.”

  I step out into the mild spring air and lean a hand on the roof of the car while I watch our lurker watch me. We enter the same Mexican stand-off we have each and every Friday when he comes past to check in on us. The moron isn’t even subtle about what he’s doing. He lifts a long lens camera and snaps a few pictures of us.

  I flip him my middle finger and follow Dante up the path to the front door.

  His lens is positioned outside the driver’s door, resting atop the wing mirror as he takes another snap. Enough. The guy’s been tailing us for months, and I can only guess one person who’d hire such a fucking novice to get the job done.

  “Take your things to your room, baby, and then start on your homework. Okay?”

  “Yes, Mom!” Dante runs off down the hall as I shut the door behind me and leap off the two front steps to head for our stalker.

  He pulls his camera in and depresses the button on his car door with a concerned furrow to his brow. It doesn’t matter how hard he holds his finger on that thing—the window isn’t going any faster than usual. The jerk starts the car as I reach the sidewalk of the next house over from where he’s parked. I catch the clunk of the gearbox as he slots it into drive, and sidestep out into his path.

  He bangs both palms on the steering wheel with a frustrated scowl as I stare him down, my hands on my hips.

  The window whines back down. “Are you crazy?”

  I nod. “Apparently.”

  “Move, lady.”

  “How much he paying you?” I ask, moving closer, yet not giving away my position as a human roadblock.

  The guy snickers and ducks his head back in the car. “As if I’d tell you that.” He revs the engine for effect.

  I lift an eyebrow.

  He makes a shooing motion with his hands and gives the gas another pep.

  “Help! He’s stealing my car!”

  The man’s jaw drops and he looks frantically around to see if I’ve drawn any attention.

  “Please! It has all my baby’s things in it!” I smile sweetly at the asshole.

  The door flies open and he steps out, rushing around the hood to reach me. “Shh. Just shut the fuck up, okay?”

  “Tell me who hired you to follow me.” I case him out, looking for any telltale signs that he’s packing. Nothing obvious.

  “A biker, okay? That’s all I’m going to say. The guy’s part of a club, and I’m not keen on fucking them off.” He sighs, running a hand over his balding head. “I’m just trying to do my job, lady.”

  “You’re terrible at it. Whatever he’s paying you, halve it.”

  He snickers and leans back on the front of the still running car to fold his arms high on his chest. “Yeah? And how you gonna know if I do or not?”

  “Ask him.” I’m bluffing—I wouldn’t, but he doesn’t know that.

  The wiry man looks me up and down, and then slowly nods. “Yeah, you strike me as the type who’d do that.”

  “You picked the wrong woman to tail, buddy.”

  He shrugs, pushing off the car to walk back around to his door. “I work for whoever’s paying. And your man, honey? He pays.”

  My man. The P.I.’s unknowingly given me the lowest jab he can. My man. Every damn day I have to tell myself it’s over. They say time heals all wounds, but after six years of wondering what King’s doing, how he is, and who he shares his nights with now, I beg to differ. The time apart has only served to filter out the petty arguments we had, the little things that used to annoy me about him, and strengthened the memories of what I love and miss.

  “Tell him we’re doing just fine,” I snap and storm back toward the house.

  The car passes me by as I turn up the path, and when I head inside Dante is doing exactly as I asked, his homework spread out before him on the small table. How did I luck out with this child? He’s never given me trouble, never questioned why it is he doesn’t get to see his father. He helps me cook, cleans up a
fter himself without being asked, and on Sundays brings me breakfast in bed as it’s my “day off”. He’s selfless—a lot more than I can say for the man he resembles in almost every way.

  “Can you help me with this sum, Mom?”

  His brow furrows as he concentrates on the set of equations set out on his sheet of paper. A look I’ve seen on King when he’s determined to find a solution to the problem himself.

  I never hid from Dante who his father is. I waited for him to ask, and when he did a little over a year ago, I sat down with him and told him the truth—a story about a man and a woman who, despite their love for each other, were never supposed to be together.

  “What’s got you stuck?” I take the other seat and drag it around to sit beside him.

  Dante points out what he’s already done to try and work out the multiplication, explaining each number he’s written down on the worksheet in great detail. Sharp green eyes follow the tip of his pen as he works through the problem aloud, telling me how he came to the answer he has.

  A heavy weight settles in my chest, the feeling as familiar as an old pair of sweats. Every time I see him like this—so studious, so focused, and so determined to get it right—I see King. The child’s more like his father than he’ll ever know, and I can’t help but marvel that all of this comes through even though the two of them haven’t spent more than the brief hour together when Dante was a newborn. With the way King and I left things, the visits we’d bartered over never came to fruition. Perhaps he was ashamed of the way he reacted? Perhaps he finally let me have it my way? I’m not sure, although I’m guessing it was more a case of stubborn pride getting in the way—a lot like myself. Admitting fault has never been a strong point for either King or me.

  Dante flicks his head, throwing the longer strands of his hair out of his face when he looks up to see why I’m not answering. “Mom?”

  “Sorry, baby.” I offer him a smile and squint at the page, willing my thoughts to focus on the task at hand. “What was that last bit?”

  I’ve told myself a hundred different ways that this right here, seeing Dante settled, safe, and happy is all that matters. I’ve lectured myself a thousand times while lying in bed, seated on the sofa, or with my hands wrist-deep in dishwater that I made the right choice—for our son.