Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,48
Sinners, I’d learned exactly what my mom stood for. I was many things, but an idiot wasn’t one of them, so when I’d patched in as a Prospect, I’d name-dropped my mother to the council. Seemed counter-intuitive to a lot of the bikers who, at first, had eyed me with distrust. But, and it was a big but, I’d known what they’d think.
They could use me. I was a source of intel.
I was more than okay with that, but sometimes, when she went months without calling me, it was nice to forget about her, her ties.
I was an honest criminal. She was just a dirty fucking Fed, and if there was one thing I hated more than a goddamn cop, it was a squealing pig.
So, I thought nothing of betraying her because my family was back in West Orange and I kicked my hog into rolling forward, nosing down the narrow roads as I went ‘home.’
Parking beside the narrow house, I became aware that she was watching for me, because the door slipped open when I took my helmet off. I strode up the short path, ducking my head so I didn’t bang it on the low ceiling as I walked in.
There was something brimming inside Caroline Dunbar that made her appear a lot younger than her fifty-six years. Being objective—which was what I did best—I’d say she looked about forty-eight, because the trend of having gray hair made her look like she was trying to fit in with fashion. Mom had never given a shit about fashion. She’d always worn boxy black suits and those square-toed shoes with frickin’ rubber heels so she could run.
I figured she’d believed herself to be GI Jane, and while I wasn’t sexist, I had to hope that GI Jane would be a patriot and not just in the superheroine game because her sleazeball father had managed to get himself executed a long time ago. Every hero had a back story, of course, but that had to be the most pathetic of them all.
I didn’t go further than the hallway, not interested in getting comfortable. The low ceiling, the side table that had the same dish I remembered as a kid with a couple sets of keys in, a coat hook by the door which had only her coat suspended from it, and the staircase which had a basket of laundry on the bottom step was all I saw as I did an initial scan of the place. I didn’t sense anyone upstairs, or in the living room, and Mom’s calm told me she was alone as well.
Only then did she let the mask drop and reveal the monster within.
See, it took a monster to know a monster, and she knew there was no point in hiding it from me.
“What do you want?” I asked, when she just looked me up and down with a disgust that wasn’t feigned.
“I can’t believe you let yourself become this,” she rasped. “You had so much potential, Darren.”
I smiled at her. “I’m living my best life, Mom. What can I say? I’m sorry you don’t approve.”
Her eyes narrowed at my sarcasm. “When I asked you to enlist with them, I never thought you’d take to the life so well. At least by being this way, you can help me out at the same time.”
“I live to serve,” I retorted. “What do you need this time? More information?”
I hated going into these things blind, mostly because I never knew what to shove her way to satisfy her. Thankfully, she knew I wasn’t on the council so what I could pick up were only whispers, but our whispers were the equivalent of a bomb blast.
“It’d be a while ago now, but a woman was killed in your neck of the woods.”
My brows rose at that. “Killed?”
She pulled a face. “It pains me to admit that the Sinners do a better job of keeping that place clean than the cops do, but yes, murdered. She was raped, too, from what I can tell. Do you know who it was?”
Genuinely perplexed by this line of questioning, I muttered, “In West Orange itself?”
“You know that new estate the Farquars were building… sounds like it was there or nearby.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“That’s irrelevant. I want to know who died.” Her smile was wicked. “You know the game, son. Leverage.”
“What’s in it for me?”
That smile turned colder. “You know what’s in it for you. No one will know that you built that little bomb in