Divided (Unguarded #2) (23 page)

“Prez ain’t here, Cole,” he answers Mason and walks out from around the bar, swagger in his step with shoulders back. His chest juts out, showing off the patches on his leather cut.
Misery’s Angels. Manhattan. Sargent-at-arms.

Yeah, because we can’t already tell who he is with dark chopped hair, square jaw, bright green eyes and apparently an attitude to match his old man’s. It’s like looking at Cannon, thirty years younger. Spitting image of the outlaw club president.

He eyes me up and down. “Bring your pretty boy partner today, Cole? What happened to the little blonde thing you got strutting around your precinct?”

My blood boils. I step closer without thinking, too quick for Mason to stop me. My chest out, nose to nose, my fists tightening by my side.

“Pretty boy? Seriously, that all you got, man?”

He smirks barely bothered by my presence, and I gotta admit the dude’s got balls. I’m not a small guy. Not many men have willingly taken me on unless I’ve got a gun aimed at their head or they’re trying to escape arrest.

I feel an arm on my shoulder and when I turn I see Mason, pulling me back but his eyes narrowing at this punk.

“Ace, you disrespect one of my team again and I’ll knock your ass out. Now go find your president. I’ll be waiting at the bar.”

Ace comes back with nothing, just stares Mase and I down as we wander over to the bar and pull up a chair at one end away from everyone else. A cute little bartender offers us a drink and we wait. We wait until fifteen minutes later when Cannon and his Vice President walk through the door of Black Rose.

Cannon pulls out a stool beside Mason. “Cole. What can I do for you?”

“Lucio Marino. We know you want him. What we don’t know is why?” He gets straight to the point.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Cannon. You give me what I want and we keep your youngest out of prison. Hell, you help us catch Marino and I might be able to cut a deal with your boy Diesel’s lawyer. Early parole would be nice. He might even get out in time for his daughter’s fifteenth...” he angles his head to the side, “…her fifteenth birthday is it?”

Cannon’s stool creaks as he moves in his seat. He twists the beer bottle the other bartender placed in front of him a minute ago, in his hand.

He sighs. “All right. Let’s talk. Not here, though. Come on.”

He chin lifts to the stairs that lead up to the MC’s clubhouse. I follow behind the two men because I’ve never been up there before, only Mason has. We step out into a large room with pool tables, another bar, a few lounge suites and a stage in the far corner with a stripper pole bolted in. Apart from the stench of beer, pot and pussy, the place is pretty clean. We don’t walk into the main room. Instead, we head mid-way down a hall off the stairs. Cannon sinks down into a chair behind a thick wooden desk.

Mason leans against the wall, hands in his pants pockets. “Tell me what I need to know, Cannon. What do you know that we don’t?”

Cannon clasps his hands together on the desk and while I listen, I take in the history filling the room. Old photos. New photos. They line every wall of the guy’s office. Some are mug shots. Most are family photos. Club members with their kids and wives. “Heard this morning he was seen at one of the Marino properties downtown. In and out and gone with the wind before we could get to him unfortunately. As for why we want him. It’s personal.”

Mason wastes no time. “I need to know, Cannon. Gotta know if it’s going to interfere with our case? I can’t have you killing the bastard on my watch. Even if he does deserve it.”

Cannon stays quiet for a moment. “He was seeing, Elena. My daughter. Ace’s twin sister. She didn’t know who he was at first. When she realized, she broke it off with him and he beat her. He beat her so bad he cracked three of her ribs, fractured an eye socket and marked her with bruises that lasted weeks.”

“When was this?” Mason quips as I scan the photos. A smile catches my attention. A smile I could never forget. I cock my head to get a better look at the woman in the photo under the arm of a much younger Axel ‘Cannon’ Hawke. My mouth falls open. My chest tingles. Breathing becomes difficult as the smile in the photo becomes a flashback of the real thing in my mind. Her beautiful face stares back at me. Happy. Loving.
Alive.

“Mom.” I whisper and it takes me back.

I clung to Grandma’s neck tighter. Tucking my face away. Away from the rough voices. Rough voices that sounded like the bad man who hurt Momma.

She squeezed me tight and whispered in my ear, “It’s okay, Roamyn. You can open your eyes.”

I didn’t want to look. I shook my head.

“Why did this happen?” I heard Grandma ask and I dropped my chin to my chest to peek out a little.

Axel, the man who sometimes came over to play with me runs a hand through his hair that was all the way to his shoulders. “It was revenge. I’m sorry, Beth. So fuckin’ sorry.” His eyes twinkled with tears. “I’ll make them pay. That’s a promise.”

“It’s okay, Axel. She always knew it could end this way. I’ll call you when it’s safe.”

Grandma shifted me into her arms and walked us to the front door where there were cases full of our stuff. She told me we were going on a holiday. She opened it and I looked over her shoulder at the three big men in our little kitchen. Axel looked at me and I could tell he was sad. I just didn’t know why.

He called out just before Grandma shut the door. “Beth. Take care of my boy.”

My rigid muscles ache from standing so still. Slowly, I come back. I can hear Mason and Cannon’s voices. I blink, coming out of the daze and turn around to see if they noticed any of what just happened.

“Nine. Maybe ten months ago.”

“Why now go after him? Why did you wait so long?”

The two men are still talking, taking no notice of me. I chance another look at the photo, rubbing my chin. The wave of shock from another suppressed memory slows and the questions surface.

Why was he there the night my mother was murdered?

Why did he call me his boy?

Is he my father?

Was my mother in love with the Misery’s Angels Club President?

I clear my throat and straighten up. Taking a deep breath, I turn back around. I try my hardest to concentrate on Mason and not the man sitting behind a desk who might just be my father.

“I might be a biker Cole, but I’m not stupid. We had to play it right or we would’ve had a war on our hands. I wanted retribution and for the kid to pay more than anyone. He laid a hand on my baby girl. When Giuseppe got killed our perfect chance came up. The Marino name was tarnished. Lucio had no one left and was already on the run.”

Mason runs a hand along his jaw, lost in thought. “You’re right. Perfect opportunity. But one you’re not going to take. You’re gonna call me if you find anything else out. I don’t care how small or big your intel is, you find something out I wanna know about it.”

Mason walks away, ready to leave and as he pulls on the door handle, he turns back to the president. “And Cannon, if you double cross me, it won’t end well.”

Cannon grins. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good.” He eyes me. “Let’s go.”

I follow Mason without looking back. My mind is reeling and my heart’s still beating a million miles an hour. I need a breather and a stiff fuckin’ drink.

We pull out into traffic once we get back in the car.

“You believe that story?” I ask, Mase. More for small talk than anything because I don’t want him to notice something’s up.

He frowns from behind his aviator sunglasses. “Yeah. But it sure as hell isn’t the whole story.”

His comment circulates through the shadowed mess of confusion in my head. Everything I thought, everything I believed, is being dragged out of the darkness from the past and hinting at questions I’m not sure I want to know the answers to. One thing is for certain, though, Mason’s not wrong. Worry rips through me.

“You might be right on that one.”

Yeah, I don’t have a good feeling about this.

A loud knock sends me jumping out of my skin and the two metal forks I was holding clink on the floor as I drop them. I pick them up and set them out on the coffee table beside the takeout containers of Thai food. My hands rest on my hips and I smile. My tummy flutters instead of churning for once and the reprieve is welcoming, I just hope it lasts through dinner. I admire my effort with the candles lit on the table and around the gorgeous room of the Soho loft. The place still exudes Lindsey with shabby chic decor and beautiful furnishings I’d never buy for myself. If it weren’t owned by my sister, I’d never be able to afford it. I still can’t. But Lindsey offered to help me out and this was her way of doing that. Giving me her beautiful home and also, offering me an entry-level position at Jenkins & Davenport, her and Oliver’s multi-million dollar publishing company. At twenty-nine, the woman does well for herself. Whatever she and Olly did for Giuseppe, it paid their ways through college to get the degrees they needed to build an empire to be proud of. And had I have not been sick for the past few weeks I would have already started the job. Now it’s on hold until after the baby is born.

I clap my hands together with excitement over the candles, the wine glasses full of water and the dinner that smells half enticing, half nauseating thanks to an unborn baby who seems to hate all food. It’s funny how a simple dinner is small but sending me into spasms of excitement because it means so much. I want to surprise Roamyn when he gets here after work because last night he didn’t get to come back. He rang and told me it would be too late when he got home and he didn’t want to wake me because he doesn’t have a key, so he’d just head back to his place and see me today. Our night might only be takeout at home, but it’ll be our first real date.

I pull on the door handle. “Hey,” I greet Roamyn with a bright smile who’s on the other side, tie loose around his neck, top button undone, shirt folded up his forearms and eyes—tired. Very tried.

My enthusiasm falters.

“What’s wrong? You wanna come in?” I point behind me, and for a man lost in his own head a minute ago he manages a loving smile. My body quivers.

“Hey, babe. Nothing’s wrong. Just work shit.” His hand grasps my waist as his mouth descends on my forehead. It’s sweet and soft. The opposite to Roamyn. He heads inside. I frown and pull the door closed. Not the greatest start to our first official date.