Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,81

knew it.

"The news only came out about Kevin after Nyx killed him."

“You know about that?" he asked, his surprise clear.

I snorted. "Yeah, I know about that."

"How? I thought it was a club secret."

"I was there that day."

He tensed. "No way."

I hummed. "Dad and Kevin were going out hunting. One of Nyx's chores was to clean the guns." I shrugged. "I happened to watch him doing something to Kevin's."

"He messed with the barrel of his rifle, didn't he?"

My smile was twisted. "Yep. That's why you should always clean your own guns," I chuckled, aware I sounded bloodthirsty and uncaring of that fact.

If anything, I'd have given my left ovary to have been the one with the balls to stuff something down that goddamn barrel, but instead, I'd just watched, a little wide-eyed and in awe as Nyx did something no teenager should even be thinking of doing.

It was then, as my family crumbled around me, as my parents who loved us, started doing stupid shit that robbed them from us, essentially abandoning us, I realized Nyx never would.

He'd always be there for me. For Caleb and me.

Which was why he pissed me off when he didn't visit Caleb in prison.

Because he'd been there, a fucking thorn in our side throughout the majority of our childhood, beating up bullies, getting in teachers' faces, generally hovering until we were old enough to live our lives.

It was only now, that I saw how much he'd pulled back when we'd become old enough, that I realized how much I missed him.

Would Giulia bring him back to us? It felt like she was.

He'd been on the brink a long time. His absence not just physical, but mental and emotional.

Nyx was changing.

I knew Giulia was the reason for it.

A kiss was pressed to my shoulder, a soft one, then a little swipe of his tongue along the tendon that joined it to my throat which he nipped had me jolting to attention.

"You didn't trust me."

The flat statement was in sharp contrast to the gentleness with which he held me.

"For less than fifteen minutes," I argued, "and hey, I just killed someone. I think I'm allowed a timeout."

He snorted. "You're aware that isn't how we work, aren't you?"

I winced, even as, deep down inside of me, some part craved what he was telling me.

Why?

I'd never really know, not unless I went to a shrink, and that wasn't about to happen. I'd put myself through a couple hundred hours with a psychologist, but had come out of it feeling worse rather than better.

Self-medicating with fucking around was a lot cheaper and had made me feel something, even if what I’d felt was all bad. Messing with other guys to try to make my body act normally, punishing it because it wouldn’t behave like everyone else’s, was in the past, at least.

I knew full well that staying true to Cruz was another act of self-medication. I was too aware of my nature to fail to recognize that.

So, because he was right, I just sighed. "I'm sorry."

And I meant it.

"He showed you some things that would make anyone question," he reasoned, which countered what he'd just said because he gave me an excuse.

"The second you wanted to show Nyx, I knew everything was okay."

He hummed. "We need to work on making sure that you trust me, and not your brother's word. I get that he's always been your guardian though. The one you run to whenever shit hits the fan, but that's going to change."

The tension inside me hit fever pitch. "You can't replace him, not when you don't intend to be in my life for a long time."

"Who says I don't intend that?"

I froze, unable to believe he'd said that. "The other night, you just wanted us to come out to the club. You said I had to earn my Old Lady patch…”

"That was because I hadn't seen you kill a man with a pair of scissors yet."

I heard the amusement in his sinister tone. "This isn't funny."

"I never said it was. I'm just amused at your weapon of choice."

"It wasn't like I had an arsenal waiting out in the backroom for me."

"No," he concurred. "Still, it was nice to see you're great with improvisation.

"But, you have to bear in mind. Until now, you didn't know about my mother, and while she means nothing to me, I knew it was a chasm I'd never be able to cross without reason. The council knows about her, and that's about it. That's