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“Agreed,” Serenity says. “I’ll tell everyone it’s time to leave. Alexandra, if you really can do what you say, you’ll be my hero.”
With a faint smile of satisfaction, I lead the way out of the Tide & Palette. It’s good to feel wanted. First with Dixon, then with my dad, and now with a bunch of ladies from the MC.
Yes, today’s turning out to be a wonderful day.
Especially since I didn’t see Moose’s penis.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alexandra
Beaming, I lock the bar door behind me and step out into the parking lot. It’s been a long day, but one of the best ones I’ve had in ages. My heart feels lighter than it has in as long as I can remember, and my ears sing with the laughter of the club’s ol’ ladies. We drank, we talked, we bonded, and I felt myself doing something that I never imagined happening — I put down roots. My community — no, my family — grew beyond simply myself and Dixon; it now includes Jennifer, Amelia, Danielle, Eliza, Serenity, and Moose. Costa Oscura isn’t just a stopping point on my way to revenge, it’s my home.
Home.
Damn, it feels sublime just thinking that word.
When I finally have closure, I’ll have a life waiting for me. It feels too good to be true.
“Alex, is that you?”
A voice I both recognize and don’t brings me to a stop halfway to my car. It tickles at childhood memories, at being a young woman, at having a crush on someone I could never be with, because I was the president’s daughter, the VP’s sister, and he was my older brother’s best friend. When I lost my virginity, I thought of him, and not the fidgety teenage boy I was with.
When Lucas died, it was his shoulder I cried on.
And from him I, and the rest of the club, got answers about just what went down at that parlay-turned-shootout. Because, supposedly, he was the sole survivor.
“Mateo?” I see his shadow materialize out of the darkness. I blink for a few seconds, wondering if he is just an illusion. “Is that really you?”
“It is. How are you, Alex?”
He looks different. So different. Grown, with a scruffy beard growing in, one that looks like it’ll never be more than a patchy 5 o’clock shadow with ambition bigger than its potential. His eyes are sunken, hollow, as are his cheeks. Still, when he gets closer, and he smiles, I’m taken back to more innocent days.
“I’m good. Actually, I’m great,” I say, and those words sound shockingly true. I want to say them again, over and over, just for the hell of it. But I don’t, because Mateo would probably think that I’ve lost my mind. “What are you doing here? Did my dad send you?”
“No. I came on my own. But he told me you were following some clue or something?”
I nod, then, before I know it, my voice is moving a mile a minute. I know he’ll want to know, and I’m excited to have something to share with someone who was just as affected by those horrific events as I was.
“Do you remember someone named Erik Marquez? Dad had him around the clubhouse a time or two. So did Lucas. Erik worked for hire. He wasn’t part of the club. We’ve been tracking him, and I think he was involved in what happened to Lucas.”
Mateo frowns. “Rafael showed him around? Are you sure? An outsider wouldn’t have just been given a tour, Alex. You positive you’re remembering right?”
“I know it. Dad showed him around, and I remember asking him about it, and he told me that Erik Marquez was going to be extra security for when you, Cobra, Tiburon, and my brother went to parlay with the Road Kings. You really don’t remember him?”
Another frown and a deep, unreadable look surfaces in Mateo’s eyes.
It used to be that look would suck me in and make my teenage heart race like I’d just cranked the accelerator on an open stretch of road. But now, it makes me sad. How can he not remember? Has he tried to move on so much that he’s forgotten that day? What else about my brother has he forgotten?
"It's... hazy." Mateo's voice is apologetic, and he rubs the back of his neck with a hand. "There was a lot going on back then, and after everything with Lucas, some details just... Life was hard, and I drank just as hard, too," he says. “Fuck, I miss him, Alex. He was my brother, too, you know? I know you know some things, but there’s a lot you don’t know. A lot you’ll never understand.”
It's not forgetfulness that’s keeping him from remembering — it's pain. It’s grief. A wound in the soul that will never heal.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't mean to push. It's just that I can't let it go. Not until I know what really happened."
“Be careful, Alex,” he says. “If this Erik Marquez guy is involved, and I’m not sure he is — because I’m telling you, he wasn’t there — but if he is, and he is one of those people who kills people for money, it means he’s really dangerous. You should let me help you. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
I sigh. There’s such earnestness in his voice that turning him down feels so wrong, yet I’ve worked so hard to get Dixon and his MC on my side, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize how far we’ve come; I know the Steel Reapers, and I know that bringing in a new person at this critical juncture could cause serious problems. I trust Mateo, but they have no reason to.
