Haunt (Bayonet Scars #6) (25 page)

And I love her.

The old Alexandra Mancuso would never dream of barging in on a meeting among men. She was too timid, too scared. But that was before a group of unruly bikers showed up and whisked me away to a life I never dreamed possible. That was before she had to find a way to forgive her brother for the unforgivable. That was before men died and women were hurt in a war that began all because of a promise a man made to a woman years ago. And my big mouth is what lit the match.

The new Alexandra Mancuso isn’t afraid to be rude when she needs to. No, she does what she has to in order to protect her family.

All
of her family, and that includes the thick-headed idiots who think they can take on the Italian mafia without backup they can trust. It means being the bad guy when the rest of the club’s women are trying to manipulate their way into getting what they want. It means loving a family enough to refuse to let them get themselves hurt.

The double wooden doors fly open before I can kick through them. I jump back at what meets me on the other side. Grady, Ryan, Ian, Duke, and Diesel all stand in front of Wyatt, the club’s new president, with their guns trained on me. Even Michael and Leo are in the background, behind the rest of the club, with their gold Desert Eagles in hand. Only Torque is missing.

The men are not supposed to take their pieces into Church, but this isn’t Church. If it were, they wouldn’t have two Mafiosos in there with them. They weren’t talking business. They were sitting in there figuring out how to slip past their women without us noticing. So I don’t cower. Two years ago I would’ve flipped out and needed a week to recover. But not now. Ryan taught me that. Don’t cower. Men smell weakness and they prey upon it. I just hope he knows what he’s done.

“What the fuck, babe?” Ryan shouts at me, his expression livid. I ignore the rest of their fuming faces and focus on my man. Slowly, they all lower their guns and start shouting at once. Less than a minute passes before I’m joined by the rest of the women. They chased me down the hall, likely trying to stop what I just did. They were fast, but I’ve spent my entire life running from things I fear, so I’m faster.

“Shut up!” Amber screams from my right. She’s only a few inches taller than me, but her presence is mighty. Amber Wallace was born a princess in this world, much like I was in my old world, but nobody ever tried to extinguish her blaze. They nurtured it, gave her a voice, showed her how to be strong, and they demanded she be fierce in everything. That’s what Forsaken women are—they’re fierce.

No,
we’re
fierce.

They don’t have to vote me in and give me a tattoo for me to be one of them. I’d like to see them get rid of me now.

Wyatt points his finger at Amber and warns her that she’s going to pay for this show of insolence later, to which she smirks and blows him a kiss, telling him she can’t wait. Duke’s the first to break. He shakes his head, turns on his heel, screams, “Fuck,” and stomps back into the room. Slowly, the rest of the men follow.

“We have something to say.” I do my best to keep my voice steady, but it breaks at the end when Ryan moves toward me. Hurt fills his eyes, both for what I’m doing and what he’s doing to me, no doubt. I put my hand up to stop him and shake my head. I won’t lean on him for this. I made the choice to interrupt the boys on my own, and I’ll answer for that choice on my own.

“No shit?” Grady says. A tone of snide disapproval evident in his tone. Holly moves through the room and moves to stand beside him. In a move that looks loving and supportive, she laces her fingers in his. Only, I don’t miss the way her nails dig into his skin. I’ve come to love Holly for her quiet but firm strength. Not even Grady, the new VP, calls attention to it. His jaw ticks as he stares me down.

“You don’t have to like me or trust me to listen to me,” I say, my eyes still affixed to Grady’s. He’s been the most difficult to win over. Even Ian, my own brother, was less challenging to get to know, and that man is like Fort Knox with his heart, but I’m sneaky. I’ve wormed my way in. He just won’t admit it yet.

“This isn’t about
liking
the choices we have to make. This is about doing the things we must in order to protect our family.”

“You’re not going,” Ryan says tersely.

“And how are you going to stop me?” I ask with ice in my voice.

“I’ll tie you to a chair if I have to,” he says.

Feeling brave, I flit my eyes to my twin brother and smile. Michael and I barely look alike now, thanks to puberty. Ian watches us, his half siblings, with deft interest.

“You wanna tell him how well that’s going to work, or shall I?”

Ryan’s eyes slide to Michael, dislike still as evident as ever. I don’t realize what I’ve said until it’s out there. Michael, in a fit of rage, tied me to a chair and beat me in an attempt to save my life. It was wrong, and after nearly two years of healing, I’ve forgiven him. Ryan hasn’t, and I’m not sure if I were in his shoes I’d forgive him either. He doesn’t know Michael the way I do. He doesn’t know how we were raised, the way our father sees women, or the way he thinks they ought to be punished for stepping out of line. They really need to get over this shit at some point, though. I might hit menopause before my man lets go of the grudge at this rate.

My mom, Ruby, was Queen Bee around here for over fifteen years when my stepdad, Jim, gave up his presidency. It’s only been a few months, but they’re happier this way. The transition has been pretty smooth, all things considered. The biggest obstacle has been Ryan holding an officer position as sergeant-at-arms while Jim no longer has a rank. His choice, though. Wyatt tried to at least make him his VP, but Jim’s maintained that he wants easy from now on. Jim wanting easy explains why he stands in the corner, silent and not meeting anyone’s eyes. I notice that Mom is watching him closely.

“Enough,” she says loudly. Even Ryan simmers down a little at her voice. It’s still weird, thinking about the fact that, for all intents and purposes, she’s his mom, too. I share her blood, but she raised him. Neither of us is any less her child, but it sure makes thinking about the whole situation strange.

“In the last two years I’ve seen this club run itself into the ground because we’re making decisions with our hearts and not our heads. Part of that is on me. I’ll never be able to repay you all for what you’ve done to save my daughter,” she pauses and looks at Michael. “And now my son, too.”

I don’t cry much anymore, but if ever there was something that could make it happen . . .

“I know why you want to protect us, but you need to look around.” Her voice is softer now. She’s pleading. Mom and I have talked about this a lot on our own, a little with Mindy, and even some with Jim. Jim’s old school through and through, and even though he gave up his spot as president because he was going soft, he’s still rougher around the edges than the rest of them. As long as it’s not his call, he’s good with letting us come. It’s a weird paradox he’s got going on in his head, and I don’t pretend to understand it. I wouldn’t want to have to make the calls he’s had to.

“Every single one of your women has blood on her hands on behalf of this club.”

“Not putting you in danger, Ma,” Ian says, finally breaking the quiet.

“You’re my child, baby. You don’t get to put me in a position outlive you. I won’t do it.”

“You’re walking a thin line, woman,” Wyatt says with his eyes boring holes into Amber’s head.

“Lied to me,” she says. “Seems you’re walking that same line yourself.”

There’s a venom in his voice that makes me grateful it’s not directed at me when he asks who’s going to watch their kids. The ice in his voice chips away at my tough exterior. I’ve badassed enough for the day. I’m basically done now.

It’s not Wyatt’s size that unnerves me—it’s just him. He’s never been anything but decent toward me, but underneath all the decency lies something disturbing that makes me wary.

“Your mom, my dad,” she says. He opens his mouth and starts telling her he’s not going to risk the mother of his children while she yells back with every bit as much anger and intensity in her voice. It starts out as one general insult after another before sliding into something deeper than I think any of us are prepared for.

“I made a promise to our son that I would bring him to his dad. The only thing that boy wanted after Rig had a gun to his head was to see you. The only thing that let him sleep at night after he had to watch his mom kill a man not two feet from him was knowing he was finally going to get to know
you
. And now you want to run off and risk your life, risk hurting our boy more? No. If you think I’m doing
anything
to take you away from him, you are dead fucking wrong.”

I knew about this. Ryan told me one night while we were lying in bed. Hearing it in bed, being told by someone else is one thing. Standing here, hearing it from the person who experienced, it is quite another.

“Either you take us with you and use us the way you’re supposed to, or you’re signing your own death warrants. This plan you have is half-assed. Now, are you boys going to listen to what we have to say, or do we need to wait until you leave so we can follow?”

The silence drones on, so long that I practically break out in hives while I wait for somebody to break. Ryan’s eyes lock on mine from across the room. With a small nod, I welcome him over, and he envelopes me in his arms. I don’t realize how much I need his comfort until he’s wrapped around me.

Ryan bends and whispers in my ear, “I don’t like this.”

“You promised,” I say. “We don’t want to be going back on our promises, now do we?”

“Sometimes I want to go back to when the only thing that mattered was my bike and strange pussy,” he says grouchily. “Fuck lot less complicated.”

“Fuck lot less meaningful,” I respond. He holds me tighter, and it’s in this moment that I know I’ve won. I want to protect my man, and he wants to protect me, but he also wants to marry me. He wants babies with me. And I want all those things, too, even if not right this minute. I want us more than anything, but I
need
him to let me make my own choices. He doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t have to, but if he wants this legal and he wants our children, he’s going to deal with it. And he knows it. For the first time in my life, I feel on even keel with a man. He wants me as much as I want him, and that means something.

More than something.

Eventually Grady concedes. He stares right at me, waiting for me to speak. Still not happy with me. And I wonder if ever there will be a day that he looks at me with something other than disgust.

“From the beginning, all my father has wanted is to have me and Michael back. So we set up an exchange. Let him think we’re going in, giving him what he wants. This war has taken too many lives, fractured too many relationships. Let him think he’s won. Even if he doesn’t believe it, he wants his protégé back. He’ll risk it for Michael.”

“She’s right,” Michael says. “If he thinks Leo and I are still loyal, he’ll want us back. He’ll want Al back just to prove he can take her.”

“This plan is a lot more controlled, fewer surprise factors, and less likely to get you all killed than what you were planning to do on your own.”

“I don’t like it,” Jim says from the corner. “As a father, I hate it, and I sure as hell don’t want my wife there. But it’s smart.” Jim meets my eyes from where he stands, now with Mom by his side. He smiles softly, almost sadly, and nods his head as if to tell me I did good.

From behind me, heavy footsteps fall against the concrete floor, but I don’t turn around. It’s only when Jeremy pushes his way through the men—his brothers—until he’s standing, open-mouthed, staring past us that the footsteps come to a halt. I turn around to see what Jeremy’s looking at and gasp. Standing in the hall, behind us women—women who have now turned around to stare in collective astonishment—is Butch Whelan. His long grayish-black hair is tied back in a man bun, the wrinkles that line his face a testament to the life he’s lived. The glow in his eyes is unmistakable.

To my right, Nic is frozen in place. Her eyes are wide and filled with tears as she stares up at her father. Behind her is Duke, his hands on her shoulders.

“Still want to go with us, or would you rather stay home with this old bastard?” Duke’s love for my friend warms my heart. It takes me longer than it should to realize that he planned this. I don’t know how he could since Butch has been in prison the last several years, but somehow he did. And Butch is here. It’s smart—giving his old lady the one thing she wants in order to keep her home. It wouldn’t keep me home, but my father’s never looked at me the way Butch is looking at Nic.

“You gonna stand there and cry, baby girl, or you gonna give your old man a hug?” Half a second later, Nic throws herself into his arms. Butch raises his head and smiles at Jeremy, who still hasn’t moved.

“Cut looks good on you, son,” Butch says. Jeremy juts his chin out and nods, doing his best not to embarrass himself in front of his brothers. As the newest patched member of Forsaken, he’s got a lot to prove still. Only when Grady moves behind Jeremy and whispers in his ear saying, “You’re never too much of a man to love your father,” does Jeremy actually move. He runs full speed ahead at his dad and slams into the older man with a force that nearly knocks them all over. But the once-broken, now-whole family hangs tight.