Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,6

sealed it.

Without even knowing it, she sealed both our futures.

“No, Kevin, no. Stop it. Unc—” Her head whipped from side to side, and her arms made shooing motions. She moved edgily, her desire to escape clear.

I’d only meant to keep her warm, but the blanket, something on top of her, had evidently triggered a memory.

We all knew that name in the clubhouse.

Kevin.

Nyx’s uncle.

The blood brother of his father, Jester.

A pedophile.

A defiler of innocence.

A man who Nyx killed over and over as he went on a mission that saw him taking out child abusers all over the US.

He’d touched Indy. That much was clear. And from her fear? The abuse went deeper than I figured anyone knew, because we all thought Nyx’s desire for vengeance was for Carly—their elder sister. If it was for Indy too, I thought it’d be common knowledge.

The distress on her face was even more repugnant in contrast to that serenity I’d seen before, and I knew I had my answers.

This was why she wore her resting bitch face like a shield, why she was a grade A pain-in-the-ass, why she never smiled, why she had more attitude than sense…

This.

Gritting my teeth, I stepped over to her and cast the blanket off her, dragging it to the foot of the bed. She instantly settled. In fact, it was so immediate that it stunned the hell out of me, enough so that I got out of there, didn’t bother to grab the cover, just wanted to leave her to get some peace.

She deserved it.

And now that I knew, I’d do everything in my power to return it to her.

If it was the last thing I did.

Two

Cruz

Five weeks later

It wasn’t by chance that I was heading into town and about to use the highway to get to Verona.

Verona was where Indy lived and worked, after all. Ever since that night, I’d been hanging around the town’s main street where Indiana Ink was located. Not like a creep, just using the diner there to eat instead of staying at the clubhouse. Shit like that.

But what was by chance?

Seeing Lodestar slipping down a side street as I idled at a stop light.

A street that Dog, one of my brothers, had just sidled down.

As far as I knew, most of the guys were at the clubhouse. Or, at least, they were supposed to be.

Dog was one of those dumb fucks who partied way too hard. He was far too old for it, far too old to be living it up the way he was, but the idiot didn’t recognize that he had a good thing going on with an Old Lady who was a fuck ton better than him.

I’d seen him throat fucking a couple of clubwhores before I left the compound so how he’d gotten here before me, and why, was definitely a mystery.

And I loved and loathed mysteries.

What were they if not a puzzle by any other name?

So though I was intending on going into Verona, having decided that getting Indy to work on my ink was the best pretext for starting a conversation, I pulled over and parked.

For a biker, I spent way too much fucking time in a cage, but I was glad for it because it meant my straight pipes weren’t rattling, which didn’t key Dog or Lodestar into the fact that I was sneaking up behind them.

Jumping out of the truck, I rushed over to the alley where they’d both gone. A quick glance around told me there was nothing around here that should’ve caught their attention. Not unless a closing coffee shop was their end destination, and wouldn’t they have gone in through the front door and not the back if that was their intention?

Eyes narrowed as I peered into the mouth of the alley, I watched as Dog headed to the bottom of it, while Lodestar made moves toward him that were beyond suspicious.

I wasn’t a soldier. I was a scientist. But even I recognized someone being hunted.

She headed down to the bottom of the alley where he was pacing, and though it was clear he was waiting on someone, it sure as hell wasn’t Lodestar, because when she reached him, they didn’t greet each other.

Nope.

She went for him.

I’d never seen anything like it.

And I’d seen a lot of random, cruel and gruesome shit in my life.

She flung herself at him like she was a fucking vampire, and as she went for his throat, it wasn’t to bite the bastard, it was to grab