Unbreakable: Unrequited Part Two (Fallen Aces MC Book 2) (32 page)

I take a moment to look him over a little closer. His clothes are clean and crisp, but his beard is shaggy, his hair overgrown, and his eyes have dark shadows under them. He’s exhausted.

“Maybe you don’t have time for us anymore,” I whisper. We’re clearly too much for him to try and keep up with. “And if so, that’s okay. Leave us be, watch from a distance if you must, but please,” I beg quietly, “stop confusing Dante about whether you want to be in his life or not.”

King drops his head to his knees, burying his face. I itch to reach out and comfort him, a pang of what I once felt for this conflicted man rising inside of me. His heart’s in the right place, but he can’t see what he’s doing, how much he’s hurting those who should matter most by trying to be everything for everyone.

Minutes pass, the sound of chatter and laughter growing inside once more. I lean a hand on the door handle and sigh. “I better get back to the guests. I can give Dante his present if you like.”

King rises, the gift still lying in the grass. He stares at the concrete beneath his feet for a moment and I wait, unsure if he’s going to speak. His silence is loud enough as he turns and walks away, straddling his bike and firing the beast up with a roar. My hand slips off the door, and I drop to the top step as he rides away without so much as a glance in the side mirror.

After years of back and forth, after my heart being tugged and stretched in every damn direction, it’s finally happened. He’s given up the struggle. He’s left us to live out our lives in peace.

I’ve never felt a pain like it.

If this is what victory feels like, I’d rather have died in battle.

King

Two months later

Music resonates off every surface around me, vibrating through my tired and weary bones and leaving a dull echo inside my empty heart.
My kid’s in trouble. My girl won’t listen.
Two issues that have taken precedence over everything else in my life.

I left Elena and Dante behind two months ago. I walked away from my kid on his fucking birthday. Any trace of feeling, of emotion, of
anything
resembling pride died that day. I’ve fought for years to be the better man, to make life right for everybody in mine, but to what end? Vince’s kid is on Carlos’s hit list for something he didn’t even fucking do, and our club is so far in the fucking red I couldn’t put up for a box of bullets if our lives depended on it.

Our membership dwindled when we stopped making it fun to be a part of the club; I couldn’t afford to throw parties, and organize all-expenses-paid runs anymore. So who have we got now when it matters? When one of our own needs us to step up and help him fight? A bunch of old boys who’ve long since hung up their knuckle dusters, and a side helping of young, inexperienced prospects and hangarounds who wouldn’t know the first thing about taking on a man like Carlos.

The place is in crisis. And the guy who’s supposed to lead the club out of the shit is drowning in his own: me. What a fucking joke. I’ve failed everyone and everything. I’ve tripped over my own feet one too many times, and getting back up with a smile on my face to try again has got harder and harder to the point where I don’t want to rise anymore.

I’d rather lie down and die to save the disappointment of finding myself back here all over again.

My fingers work nimbly to fold one of the paper serviettes Sonya left out for the boys into something resembling the origami swan I was taught to make as a child. It’s been years since I’ve done anything like it, taken the time to sit down and test my memory, crafting something from nothing. But the therapy is warranted.

Abbey placed the first message on my desk with a face as pale as a ghost. The girl at least had enough sense to slide me a stiff drink to chase the bad news with. I opened that envelope and slipped out the photo with my heart in my throat—I don’t think it’s moved since.

He’s onto them. I failed in the biggest fucking way. And what’s worse was the message on the back, in the man’s own handwriting no less.

‘You’re messing in my business – truce is over.’

I sent Callum and Vince out of town a month ago to sort the issue of Vince’s son. Sawyer—the crazy motherfucker—had caught wind of Carlos’s hit list, and being the sociopath he is, thought it would be the ultimate “up you” to take his father’s targets out first and deny Carlos his satisfaction at being the one to deliver the consequences of crossing him.

Little did Sawyer know, one of the men was the kid of his fellow brother. To be honest, his bloodlust was so strong I don’t think he really cared. He’d been stirring up shit for years, getting under everyone’s feet. It was time to send him back to where he came from, and we did.

We gave Sawyer back to Carlos.

I drank myself to oblivion that night, unable to stomach what I’d done. I’d handed a child back to his parent, knowing what kind of a man Carlos is. And why? Because it gave me a way to save the club from bankruptcy. I sold our collective souls to the devil, knowing he still had mine in his fist. The Fallen Aces will work on a one-off project to right the wrongs done by Vince’s son’s friend, and in exchange we’ll get the cash to get this club out of the red.

Doesn’t stop what the asshole’s doing to me though. Doesn’t stop the fact Carlos knows where Elena is and he’s going to make her life and mine a living fucking hell for the plain fun of it.

Our oldest prospect, Dog, watches me over the rim of his beer bottle. He laughs as he engages in conversation with the patched members beside him, but his focus is very obviously on me as I sit alone, doing my best to keep my shit under wraps. The concern in his eyes shines bright, worry clearly distinguishable in the hard lines of his tanned and tired face. He takes a sip as I pick up my two paper creations and turn them to face one another.

“I never needed your help,” I whisper through a scowl, wiggling the swan in my left hand. “Accepting help doesn’t make you weak,” my right-hand swan states. “But it means we owe you,” the left swan says, “and until you started interfering we were doing just fine on our own.” The swan in my right hand sighs and flops down dramatically on the tabletop. The paper effigies parrot the words Elena and I spoke yesterday when I tried yet again to convince her to move out of her house until I can stop Carlos’s threat. She’s in danger, our son is in danger, and yet the woman’s still as stubborn as a mule. My mood grows increasingly angry with the birds clasped in my grip as though it were them who argued about something as base as a life-and-death situation.

But it wasn’t.

It was the mother of my child who denied my protection, who reasoned that she could keep the big, bad wolf from knocking on her door.
Little pig, little pig, let me in.
He would burn the house down, too.

The folded napkins un-crumple as I drop them to the tabletop and nudge them so they lie next to one another. The swan from my right hand cuddles up to the back of the swan from my left, reminding the bird that no matter what, it’ll always be there.
You’re fuckin’ losin’ it, boy.
Paper swans. I’m reduced to acting out the miseries of my life through paper swans.
Fuckin’ lost it already.
Thrusting my right hand in the air, I stare blankly at the table before me and whip my wrist in a circular motion to signal I’d like another drink. Yet instead of Sonya with an ice-cold brew, I get my VP, Callum.

Fuck it.

“How goes it, boss?” He leans a casual elbow on to the table, narrowly missing my love-struck birds.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” I snap. “You know as well as I do that things aren’t going so well. So how about you just man up and say what it is that’s on everyone’s mind, huh?” I stare pointedly at Dog while I make my request.

Callum sighs, scrubbing a hand over his stubbly jaw. “Brother, you’ve got us all worried. Somethin’ is clearly eatin’ at you, but you won’t deal.” He picks up one of the birds and stares intently at it before tossing it haphazardly on the table again. “You need to let us know what’s goin’ on so we have a chance at helpin’ out.”

I fix how the discarded swan lies, tucking it in to ‘cuddle’ the one beside it. “Who’s to say you can help?”

“Who’s to say we can’t?”

I reluctantly drag my eyes to his, wincing at the stern reprimand in the brown depths. “Fine. Tomorrow.”

“Now.” He places a boot against one of the legs of my stool and pushes it back from the table. It’s a mean feat given my height and stature; I’m no lightweight. “Office.”

My jaw drops, my tongue poised to give him a dressing down for daring to tell me what to do, but I halt. Over his shoulder stands my sergeant at arms, Mighty, and the single look he gives me speaks volumes.

My men depend on me to keep this ship tight, and right now, they can’t trust me to keep my shit together.

I
can’t trust me to keep my shit together.

“Let’s do this then, but let’s also get something straight—you don’t fuckin’ pull this kind of stunt on me again.” I punctuate my words with a pointed finger in Callum’s face.

He glares me down, shepherding me toward my office as I stand. “Ditto.”

Casting a glance around the common room, I recognize concern in no less than a dozen faces that all stare intently back at me. I’m the fuckin’ main attraction at the circus, the laughing stock, and I’m the fuckin’ president.
Some leader, huh?

“I’m losin’ respect, man,” I whine to Callum. “If they find out what you want me to tell you, then I’m done. I might as well toss the fuckin’ gavel out to them like a bride’s bouquet.”
Would that be so bad?

“Get over yourself,” Callum snaps back, guiding me with a firm hand to the shoulder when I start to stray toward the bar. “If they had that little faith in you, you’d be out already.”

I stare him dead in the eye, bringing us both to a halt. “Somethin’ you want to share?”

The asshole has the audacity to laugh at me. Actually laugh in my face. “Settle down, tiger. I haven’t got any plans to take over just yet. You can keep this bunch of crazy kids for yourself.”

“You sure about that?” My gaze darts between his eyes, searching, but I come up empty.

With a shunt, he has me walking toward the office again. “I’m sure.”

“Seems like the opportune time for a mutiny if there ever was going to be one,” I mumble, crossing the threshold to my second home. I might not be happy about my title as president, but fucked if I’m going to let them take it from me like that. I kind of want to be remembered in a good light if I can help it.

Callum shakes his head, his hands on his hips like a right little bitch as I round my desk. “Just let it go, King.”

The masses of paperwork spread across my desk stare at me like jaded employees waiting on resolution for their grievances: debts, threats, and loose ends left behind by Apex that I’m struggling to square away. The enormity of the task still ahead of me hits me square in the face yet again. “You don’t get it,” I try to explain, staring at the mountains of grief before me.

The door clicks behind Vince as he joins our little pity party.
Great.
Callum had the whole fuckin’ thing planned from the get-go. “Get what?” Vince asks, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re talking to yourself, playing fuckin’ origami games with napkins. You’re going to snap soon if you don’t take a step back.”

The asshole isn’t exactly telling me anything I don’t already know. Doesn’t fix my problem, though. “You. Don’t. Get. It,” I grind out through a clenched jaw.

Vince’s eyes flare, his fists flexing at his sides. As do mine. If the fucker’s after a smack down, he’ll damn well get one. He might have a few inches height on me, and ten or so pounds in weight, but I’ll be fucked if I’m letting the moody asshole think he can get one up on me.

I might be near breaking point, but I’m still the boss around here.

Callum lifts a hand to urge Vince to back off. “How about you explain it to us. Maybe if you talk it through we can help you figure out where you’re stuck.”

The bastard’s talking down to me, trying to reason with me like a child, and fuck it all if the respect I have for the man doesn’t make it work. The corner of the sheet of paper that holds my biggest problem peeks out at me like a beacon in the darkness that my life has become of late. Perhaps they could help? Although I don’t know how. Elena’s the stubbornest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Both men startle when I lunge for the letter, taking action toward accepting their help before my inflexible ass wins out again and reasons that I can find a way to do this alone. “There’s something I haven’t told you guys about me.”
For good reason, too.

Callum looks to Vince. The confusion between them is palpable.

“I have a kid.”

“What?” Callum cries out. “When?”

The familiar shame at having to explain
how
washes over me from head to toe. I place a steadying hand on the edge of the desk. “He’s seven. Product of a fucked-up love triangle that never should have happened.” The soothing darkness behind my closed lids brings me some respite while I wait on their questions.

“And how does this affect what’s going on now?” Callum asks from my left.

I open my eyes, but still avoid looking at either of them. “Carlos knows about him.” The admission sends a sharp pang straight through my heart, the familiar ache in my chest following close behind. Shoving the photograph in my hand at Callum, I explain. “I’ve had a P.I. following him and his mother—Elena. She won’t let me near him—and the guy gave me those.”

All I want is to protect them, and because of petty arguments that don’t seem so important now, Elena won’t give me access. She’s shutting me out, shutting me out at the worst time.
I never should have left her to raise him alone. I never should have walked away . . .

“Is this because of the deal we made?” Callum asks, referring to the recent pact we arranged to get Carlos off the Butcher Boys’ backs—save Vince’s son from trouble.

“No.” I shake my head, wishing it were that simple.

“Then why?”

Because I fucked up, and my past is coming back to haunt me. Because no matter what I do I can’t escape my mistakes.
Threading my overgrown hair between my fingers, I give it a good tug to dish out a bit of penance for my sins. “Past grievances.”