Betrayed (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 2) (18 page)

‘How the hell can you help?’ I don’t know whether to feel some kinda hope here, or whether to feel nervous that there’s some ulterior motive behind his offer. And as I notice his expression change again, I realize it’s the latter.

‘You need to do something for me first, Mack.’

I unfold my arms and dig my hands into my pockets, my eyes never leaving his.

‘Find Kes, and get rid of him.’

‘Get
rid
of him?’

‘Kill him.’

‘I thought that was Zeb’s remit.’

‘We don’t know where he is, do we? He might be with Kes, I don’t know. You’ll find out, if you do this for me. And in return, I’ll help you and Izzi get away from here.’

‘And if she doesn’t want to go with me?’

‘That’s a risk you’re just going to have to take.’

I say nothing. I can’t think of anything
to
say right now. This is so fucked-up but, hey. What the hell? That ain’t nothing new around here.

‘Kes took your mother away from you before you even had a chance to know who she was. He killed her and he ran like a low-down coward. And Zeb, he took Izzi, remember? He took the one person you learned how to love, and he made her his. This fight is yours to win, son. You want Izzi? I’m giving you permission to…’

‘I don’t need your fucking permission.’

‘But you need my help. Because if she
does
decide it’s you she wants to be with then you’re both in danger. And you’ll need to get out of here, fast. So you need my help. And I’m giving you permission to fight for her, so you better fight hard. Become the Mack Slayer you used to be, because you need to do that before you can become the Mack Slayer you
want
to be. Both of those men took people from you. Both of them. Remember that.’

I look away, out of the window, watching as another day dawns. Am I gonna spend this day wishing for something different,
hoping
for something different? Or am I gonna try and fight for what I really want?

‘Mack?’

I turn my head to face Sam, and for a couple of beats I just look at him. I stay silent, I let this whole crazy mess sink in. ‘I’m going for a shower.’

I start to walk out of the room but he grabs my arm as I come past him. ‘Do we have a deal, Mack?’

I hold his gaze and wait a couple of beats before I reply. ‘I’ll let you know.’

Chapter Thirteen

Izzi

I don’t know who to trust anymore. I feel sick as I remember Sam’s words; his betrayal. Oh, he didn’t know I was still there, that I could hear them talking, but I heard it all. And I’ve never felt so alone or so scared. So angry.

I stand in front of the mirror and run a hand over the tattoo Zeb recently completed on my thigh. It’s healing nicely, I can touch it without flinching, and the colors are really starting to come through again now. And then I close my eyes and I miss him so much it hits me like a sledgehammer to my solar plexus. I can’t breathe. And I don’t know if I can go another night here at home, alone in our bed, not knowing where he is.

I pull on some cut-offs and a T-shirt and head back downstairs. I don’t feel any better after that shower, I don’t feel like I’ve washed Sam’s words away, they’re still there. So maybe I need to drink to forget, and I reach up into the cupboard for a bottle of whiskey I know I put there a day or so ago. But when I find it it’s almost empty and I throw it at the wall in frustration.
‘Fuck you, Zeb!’
I almost scream the words out, and it’s only the sound of the doorbell ringing that prevents me from taking any more frustration out on some other inanimate object.

I’m not really in the mood for visitors, and I contemplate ignoring the door. But it might be Cora, and the idea of seeing her, talking to her – playing with her, that’d take my mind off everything, for a little while. I could go for that. And fuck Zeb. He wants to run off, he wants to deal with shit this way; we all have our own ways of dealing with crap. This is mine.

I fling open the front door, but it isn’t Cora. And I should just close the door in his face but instead I stand aside and let him in. He’s carrying two bottles of whiskey, and I need them more than I need his company, but if he comes as part of the package… I close the door behind us and follow him into the kitchen.

‘What’s that bottle done to you, huh?’ He jerks his head at the shattered glass and puddle of whiskey on the floor.

‘Be almost empty.’ I take the whiskey from his hands and place the bottles on the counter, screwing the top off one of them and pouring out two more-than-generous measures. ‘Thanks for these.’

‘You’re welcome.’

The corner of his mouth twists up into a smirk as he takes the tumbler I offer him. I swallow my drink in one mouthful and immediately pour myself another one, and he raises an eyebrow as he watches me. ‘What?’

‘You might wanna slow down there.’

‘You can leave if you’re gonna start lecturing me.’

He finishes his own drink and comes over for a refill. ‘You OK?’

‘I heard you. Talking.’

He looks at me and frowns.

‘You and Sam. You thought I’d gone but I was still there. And I wasn’t deliberately listening in, I’d left my phone on the table and I was on my way back to get it, but I heard you both. Talking.’

He leans back against the counter and drops his head, sighing quietly.

‘So? Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna kill Zeb’s dad in the hope that I’ll agree to ride off with you into the sunset?’

His head shoots up and his eyes are blazing. ‘This isn’t a fucking a game, Izzi.’

‘Oh, believe me, Mack, I get that.’

Neither of us says anything for a couple of beats, we just stare at each other, and my heart’s beating so fast, my stomach’s in knots, and I don’t want him here. But I don’t want him to leave, either.

‘I get that, OK?’

My voice is quieter now. Calmer. I think the alcohol hit is beginning to take hold. I might even start to relax if I drink enough.

‘I ain’t here to be a pain in your ass, Izzi.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘I care about you…
shit!
That’s a fucking understatement…’

‘What me and Zeb have, Mack, it’s complicated. It’s messed-up and it’s different and I doubt there are many people out there who understand it. We met under fucked-up circumstances and things haven’t really changed all that much. I just learned to accept things the way they were. We settled down… or we tried to…’ I push a hand through my hair and down my second drink. ‘I’m not making any sense…’

‘I’ve made a decision, Izzi.’

I look at him, but his eyes are down.

‘I’m leaving, whether you decide to come with me or not, so, I don’t see what I got to lose, by doing what Sam wants.’ He finally looks up at me, and I feel a real, physical kick to my gut. ‘I got nothing to lose, darlin’.’

‘Where are you gonna go?’

He shrugs, his eyes still locked with mine. ‘Anywhere the road takes me, baby.’

I smile slightly, and he returns it, and the atmosphere’s now heavy with something we should both be trying to extinguish.

‘He scares me, sometimes,’ I whisper, and I don’t know why I’m saying this, where these words are coming from but they’re falling out of me and I can’t control them. ‘There are days when I love him so much and days when I don’t want to be near him; days when I’m terrified of what he might do, but then he touches me, and that fear; his anger, it all just melts away.’

‘You still think he’s your future?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you really want, Izzi?’

‘You should go…’

‘What do you really
want
, Izzi?’

I stare at him, right into his eyes and it’s like a showreel of everything we once shared is flashing up in front of me, from the fucked-up sex to me shooting Viper dead, it’s all playng out like some messed-up movie.

‘You need to go, Mack.’

‘Everything you went through. All that pain and fear, all that shit, Izzi… everything you went through, and you’re willing to just settle?’

‘That isn’t what I’m doing…’

He puts his drink down and moves closer to me, his hand cupping my cheek, and his eyes are dark and dangerous and I feel my stomach contract in waves of nerves and fear.

‘You ain’t good for me, darlin’. You’re young and beautiful and, God forgive me, I ache to be inside you every day of my sorry, fucked-up life but you ain’t good for me. I should’ve gotten back on my bike and left this place the second I saw him fucking you. I shoulda left it there, rode away and forgotten all about you but you’re like the worst kinda drug, I can’t leave you alone. I can’t. I’m fucking addicted, you’ve ruined me. You’ve broken me. And I can’t leave you alone.’

I close my eyes and shake my head and I feel his breath warm against my neck as his mouth brushes my ear.

‘You ain’t good for me, but I need you. And I wish I didn’t, Jesus… I wish I didn’t, but I do. And I think you need me, too.’

‘No,’ I whisper, but I’m losing this, I know I am, because I could fight it, if I wanted to. I could push him away and make him leave but I’m not doing that, am I? ‘Mack, please…’

His thumb strokes my cheek as his eyes once more lock on mine, and I feel that kick to my gut happen again, stronger, more powerful than before and with it comes another wave of fear because we could cross a line here. A dangerous, forbidden line and I’m scared. And excited…

‘You need me, Izzi. ‘Cause this life will kill you in the end, darlin’, it’ll pull you down so far you ain’t ever gonna be able to get back up…’

‘He said nothing would hurt me, he wouldn’t let it…’

‘You ain’t that naïve, sweetheart.’

‘You should go.’

‘I ain’t going nowhere, Izzi. And I think you know that.’

I breathe in deep and I close my eyes and I know it’s going to happen. He’s right. I’m not going to make him leave, and me telling him to go is just a waste of breath. And then his lips lightly brush mine, and he pulls away, and I take another breath before his mouth crashes back down onto mine and the kiss is both brutal and beautiful and I’m taking it all. I bury my fingers in his hair as his hands in the small of my back push me against him, and I moan quietly into him as they slide up under my T-shirt, and the second his fingers touch my skin I know – it hits me like a rocket launcher, slams into me with a terrifying force.

Mack Slayer was always meant to be my future…

Mack

I stand in the doorway for a second or two just watching her. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at her hands clasped together in her lap and it breaks my heart to look at her. This ain’t the girl who walked into
Laney’s
all those months ago, full of anger and attitude. This girl’s different. And I think she was drawn to Zeb; I think she married him because she thought she had to cling onto that attitude, had to remain that hard and angry woman to be happy in a world she thought she had no escape from. But she’s wrong. She don’t need to be that woman no more, and she don’t need to stay here, in this shit-filled world living this God forsaken life, she can walk away. We both have a chance to do that.

She looks up and smiles at me and I close the door behind me and sit down beside her. She’s only wearing a tight white T-shirt and tiny white panties and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want her to take ‘em off ‘cause, yeah… I need that real bad. I need
her
. I need to feel her and touch her and it’s a real mind-fuck for me to sit here and know that that might not happen tonight. But I ain’t gonna push her. She don’t want me like that, that’s OK. For now. I kinda get that she don’t want to cross that line just yet, but, man – this is one hell of a learning curve for me.

‘I still love him, Mack.’

She turns her head to look at me and I really don’t wanna hear her say that, but she needs to talk. We both do. We need to sort this out, make a plan; we need to know what’s happening here.

‘But I…’

She drops her gaze and I reach out and take her hand, and her fingers slide between mine and squeeze them tight and my heart kinda swells a little. That shit she kick-started months ago; the kinda things I thought I’d never feel, because I wouldn’t let myself, they’re pushing their way to the surface again, all set to confuse me and scare me and, shit, it’s fucking crazy! We’re in the middle of one unholy frucking mess that could end so badly, but this is a risk I’m taking. ‘Cause I really can’t leave this girl alone.

‘Izzi?’

She slowly raises her gaze and her eyes meet mine and I squeeze her hand again. ‘I should never have walked away from you, Mack. You offered me this escape back then and if I’d just listened to my heart – really listened…’ She drops her head again but I tuck a finger under her chin and nudge it back up, forcing her to look right at me. ‘If we’d left then, we could’ve been living that life we might not even have a chance to experience now.’

‘Hey, come on. We can do this, OK? Sam – he’s gonna help…’

‘I don’t know if I trust him anymore, Mack. He’s willing to betray Zeb…’ Again she tries to look down but I keep her head up, keep her eyes on mine. ‘
I’m
willing to betray Zeb. So how can I call Sam out on that one, huh?’

‘It’s a mess, Izzi, ain’t nobody denying that. But I’m tired of analyzing all this crap. We don’t live in a black and white world, darlin’. There ain’t no handbook telling us how to do this, and sometimes you just gotta grab those chances when they happen and fuck the consequences.’

‘You need to kill a man before Sam will give us any kind of help, Mack. What kind of a deal is that, huh? What kind of fucked-up world are we living in here?’