Broken (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 1) (35 page)

‘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 beer. ‘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?’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I told you why. I mean, come on, honey, just because I can’t have you don’t mean I have to run back home with my tail between my legs…’

‘Because that would make you look weak, right?’

He keeps his eyes on mine and laughs quietly. ‘You ain’t the only one entitled to a new start, darlin’.’

‘But this isn’t really a new start for you, is it? It’s the same life, just in a different part of the country.’

‘Tell it how it is, sweetheart, why don’t you.’

I keep my eyes on his and neither of us seems to want to break the stare. ‘I’m sorry, Mack.’