Broken (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 1) (29 page)

What the fuck’s he talking about now?

‘She was beginning to fall for you, which is why she had to leave. Deep down she knew it was time to walk away. She was a test, for you. An experiment, if you like, to see if you really did want to find someone you could actually care about rather than the endless line of whores and tramps you’ve spent your life around. And that’s all I ever wanted for you – a little piece of normality. A family. And I think you want that too, deep inside.’

‘You have no idea
what
I want.’

‘You wanted Izzi.’

I stare at him, and I know if I move I’m gonna lay him out, I don’t care who the fuck he is. He means shit to me. He’s nothing.

‘And
she
wanted
you
. But she needed to focus.’

‘On something you then ripped away from her! This ain’t making any sense, Jesus…!’

‘It’s complicated. But everything we did, we did for a reason. And I’m sorry, Mack, I really am, if this has messed with your head…’

I laugh out loud, because he’s fucking kidding me, right? ‘I don’t fucking believe this…’

I move away from the table and start pacing again. If I stand still I’m gonna freakin’ kill him, so I pace, and I try to get my head as straight as I can with this much crap flying around.

‘Does she…? Have you seen the way she is around that asshole out there? It’s like he fucking hypnotizes her the second he touches her, I saw it in her eyes, Christ, that ain’t right. He’s got her fucking brainwashed, and that’s twisted,
you’re
twisted, you and that brain-dead prick.’

‘I can understand that all of this must be a lot to take in…’

‘Can you? Really? You arrogant piece of shit…’

‘I want to work
with
you, Mack. I didn’t come here to turn your life upside down…’

‘And what did you
think
would happen, huh? Did you think it was gonna be all
“Hi, Dad, welcome home!”
’

‘I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.’

‘Just get the fuck outta here. And take him out there with you. And he leaves Izzi alone, y’hear me? He leaves her the fuck alone. She needs to get away from the both of you…’

He grabs my wrist before I can finish the sentence, and he twists it back and the pain in my shoulder intensifies, an almost burning sensation ripping through me.

‘Izzi stays with Zeb.’

‘It’s sick. What you made her do…’

‘You don’t know
what
we made her do.’

‘You taught her to fight, he taught her to fuck. She told me.’

He smiles, and it ain’t a friendly one. But I’ve dealt with worse than him before. He don’t fucking scare me.

‘She needs Zeb.’

‘She don’t need that fucking freak. She needs to get as far away as possible from him, and you can’t see that? Yeah. I’m really
not
like you, am I? And there’s me thinking you actually do care about her when you can’t. You can’t possibly care a damn fucking thing about her if you’re willing to give her to someone like him, a man who’s using some twisted premise of pretending to teach her shit when it’s really just a license to fuck a woman who deserves so much more than this. She came to you to escape one kinda hell and you thrust her straight into a new one. And you really can’t see that?’

He lets go of me and steps back, and he shrugs, and it’s all I can do to hold myself back. ‘Go and ask her. Ask her who she wants to be with. Go on.’

I push past him and head outside, kicking the door open with so much force it practically swings off its hinges.

‘Get the fuck away from her, asshole!’

I yank Zeb back and deliver a blow to his chin that sends him reeling backwards. I can’t even think straight, there’s just this red mist descending and I can’t see shit for it…

Izzi

‘Jesus Christ, Sam, do something!’

Sam stands beside me, watching as Mack lays into Zeb, who in turn gives as good as he gets, but I know he can give so much more, and I’m scared, because I know what Zeb can do; how far he’ll go.

‘Leave them.’

‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Leave them, Izzi.’

I lean back against the wall and close my eyes as I try to block out the noise and the sounds of a world I was never destined to live in. Yet I’m here. I’m living it. And I can’t escape it now. ‘I’m guessing the truth reveal didn’t go down too well.’

‘He’ll get used to it.’

I open my eyes and look up as Mack deals another blow to Zeb’s cheek, and I’ve had enough now.

‘Izzi! I told you to leave them!’

I’m not listening. I run over and grab Zeb’s arm, finding enough strength from somewhere to yank him away from Mack. But he isn’t pleased, and his dark eyes are blazing as they glare into mine.

‘Trying to save your boyfriend, darlin’?’

‘Grow the fuck up, Zeb.’

‘I don’t need you fighting my battles, sweetheart.’

I turn to face Mack. ‘Who’s fighting?’

‘You’re playing this all wrong, princess,’ Zeb murmurs in my ear but I ignore him. And Mack’s still looking at me, and I feel something I really don’t want to feel but I can’t tear my eyes away from him.

‘You knew, huh? Who he was.’ Mack jerks his head in Sam’s direction. ‘You knew everything. And you didn’t tell me?’

‘That wasn’t on me, Mack. I didn’t get to choose what you knew and what you didn’t.’

‘You can’t stay with them, Izzi.’

‘And you don’t get to make that choice for me.’

I feel Zeb take my hand and I curl my fingers around his.

‘Please, Izzi.’ Mack’s tone is almost pleading. ‘Don’t do this.’ He shakes his head and I still can’t break the stare. It’s a mess, everything, and none of it makes sense anymore. All I know is that nothing got solved today. Everything I needed to do, that got ripped away from me. But I can’t go home. I’m not going back there. The woman I am now, she doesn’t belong there. She belongs here. ‘Talk to me, Izzi. Forget these two jerks…’

I feel Zeb start to move and I pull him back, he isn’t doing this. The fighting, all that shit, it’s over. For tonight, at least. I’m tired, and I can’t do this anymore, not right now.

‘Talk to me. Please.’

I turn to Zeb, and the look in his eyes tells me that’s the last thing he wants me to do. But I think I owe Mack something.

‘Let her talk to him, Zeb.’

Sam comes over and places a hand on my shoulder, giving it a protective squeeze.

‘We’ll be inside. Come on, Zeb.’

I watch as Zeb’s fingers slip from mine and I wait until both he and Sam are inside before I turn to face Mack. He walks over to me, and once more my eyes lock on his and I suddenly feel defeated. Confused. I just want to curl up into a ball and sleep all this crap away.

‘You OK?’ he asks, and I can’t help but smile.

‘Shouldn’t it be me asking
you
that?’

He leans back against the wall and tilts his head back a touch, staring up into the night sky and I watch him for a few seconds; the way the moonlight catches his jaw line, and a part of me aches to reach out and touch him, to run my fingers over his rough chin.

‘Why now, Izzi?’ He turns to face me, and even in the dim light I can see the confusion in his eyes. ‘Why’s he come looking for me now?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t. But the one thing you have to believe, Mack, is that he does care for you.’

His laugh drips with derision, and I can’t blame him for that.

‘He only ever wanted you to be happy.’

‘By taking away the one thing that could’ve made me that?’

I stare at him, and I allow myself to remember those things I’d started to feel for this man. And then I remember why I had to stop feeling anything. I lost Aiden in a brutal, heartbreaking manner. Mack’s part of that world. And I can’t risk being with a man I could lose in the same way.

‘I was never meant to be with you, Mack. It couldn’t happen, and I should have walked away sooner…’

‘Why didn’t you?’

I don’t know if I can answer that. Because I don’t know why I didn’t.

‘What he – my so-called father – what he made you do, Izzi, it was wrong. It was twisted and cruel and none of it –
none
of it makes any sense.’

‘I needed to become someone else – some
thing
else. He helped make that happen.’

‘He used you, Izzi. To get to
me
. Can’t you see that?’

I drop my gaze, because there might be an element of truth in that. But it became more than that, in the end. ‘I think, deep down he – Sam – he just wants to get to know you. And he was willing to do anything he could to get to you.’ I shrug and look up, and his eyes are still on me. ‘We were all using each other, Mack. To some extent. It’s a mess, nobody’s denying that, but – but I think he really does just want to get to know you. He wants to put things right.’

‘Then he has one shit-crazy way of going about it.’

Tiredness is sweeping over me slowly now and that need to close my eyes is growing. ‘He’s never had a stable relationship, Mack. Him and your mum – they were nothing more than kids when they had you. He’s never really loved, or been loved.’

‘Am I supposed to be feeling sorry for him or something?’

I drop my gaze again and stare back down at the ground, leaving a couple of beats before I say anything. ‘What’re you gonna do?’ And I don’t look at him when I ask that question. I can’t. I feel like I’m beginning to emerge from some kind of trance-like state. I’m waking up. And the enormity of what’s happened over the past twelve months is starting to hit hard. But I’m not scared. I’m just sad, that I chose this route. That I let this happen.

‘I dunno. I gotta take all this shit in before…’

He trails off, and I can feel his eyes still burning into me as I slowly turn my head to face him. ‘Before what?’

He stays silent for a second or two, and his eyes remain locked on mine, and I’m not sure I’m going to get an answer to that question. ‘What exactly’s going on with you and him, Izzi?’

‘Your cousin?’

He laughs, but it’s a humorless one. ‘My cousin… yeah…’

‘I belong to him, Mack.’

He frowns, but he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on mine, he doesn’t let his gaze slip once.

‘I’m his property.’

He’s confused, I can tell, and I don’t blame him.

‘It’s complicated.’ And messy, and wrong, but it’s the way things are now. And I’m OK with that. I have to be.

‘I don’t understand any of this, Izzi.’

And I’m not sure I can say anything that’ll make it any clearer.

‘You really want to be with a man like that?’

My eyes burn into his. ‘And he’s different to you, how?
You
made me your property…’