Page 2 of Brandishing Betrayals (Devil’s Psychos MC #2)

Maya

I t was a mistake to come back here.

I looked around the massive backyard, taking in all the smiling and laughing faces at the family barbeque.

There were rough and tumble bikers wearing leather cuts covered in patches labeling them either a Devil’s Psycho or Ravager Knight drinking and smoking.

Kids ran through a sprinkler in the yard while others jumped into the in-ground heated pool.

Wives and girlfriends chatted around the pool or with their men in yard and garage.

Alcohol flowed and laughter rang out. The smell of a pig roasting in the driveway made my mouth water. A group of leather clad men stood around the spit on the driveway—the trailer the spit was attached to, was a state-of-the-art mobile kitchen on wheels.

It was a gorgeous early spring day in northern Illinois. The unseasonably warm weather had everyone was smiling and laughing, happy and carefree—everyone but me.

Scenes like this used to be as familiar to me as breathing. I had grown up in Creekton before I moved to Chicago. After almost a decade in Chicago with my son, I moved back to Creekton, or rather Mourningside, to take care of my aging parents after the car accident they had endured.

Now, I felt like an outsider. A simple backyard party, like the one around me, broke my heart. It reminded me of what had happened back then, and what could have been had I stayed all those years ago; had I not uprooted my life and moved to Chicago.

My son, Luke, ran through the sprinkler and did a running jump into the deep end of the heated swimming pool. He was a spitting image of his father, from the dark brown eyes to the dark brown hair, even the tanned skin of his Mexican heritage.

My heart squeezed when he came up laughing and yelled, “Dad! Dad! Did you see?”

“Heck yeah, I saw! Great jump buddy! Big splash!” Marcos “Killer” Candella yelled across the backyard, a huge smile on his goateed face. He leaned his arms over the top of the four-foot fence that surrounded the pool area, and watched Lucas from behind a pair of silver, wrap-around sunglasses.

It hurt to look at him, broke my heart. It was my own doing, though, nothing to be done about it at this point.

At thirty-four years old, I was no stranger to heart break, but what I’d once had with Marcos was something different. Not just Marcos, his two best friends as well, Jason “Stone” Langford and Nico “Dagger” Gage. The four of us had been inseparable back in the day.

Until I left.

The day I packed up my room in our old farm house rental had been the hardest day of my life.

Until I came back here.

Now it seemed like every day was one of the hardest of my life. Anytime I was around Marcos, Jason, and Nico, was too hard. It hurt too much being around them. I’d all but avoided them in the last six months I’d been back home.

Marcos would come over to the house to get to know Luke, but I gave them space, and mostly left them to their own devices. Eventually they started going out, meeting up with Jason and Nico, and having their own adventures.

They weren’t at the ‘spending the night’ stage yet, but I knew it would be soon. Marcos hadn’t wanted Luke around the biker life yet. It was one of the few things we agreed on.

So much for that , I thought as I looked around at all the bikers and their families scattered around the backyard.

Maya

I sat around pool, wondering what I was still doing at the party. My reason for being here had been whisked away in a flurry of excitement as Kara’s water broke and her three boyfriends had rushed her to the hospital.

Kara had begged me to come to the party and I found that I couldn’t tell my friend no, not anymore, not after rekindling our friendship after almost a decade. We had met in college and grown close after learning we both hailed from the same shitty little town of Creekton.

I had been a junior when Kara was a freshman. As freshman’s weren’t allowed cars on campus, I had offered to take Kara home on weekends and holidays. From there, our friendship had grown, until I eventually met Kara’s older brother Marcos… and his friends.

When I graduated and moved back to Creekton/Mourningside, I had run into Marcos, Jason, and Nico at a bar on graduation night.

I had learned the truth that night about them being members of an MC.

And after our history of hooking up during my college years, seeing them again had only cemented us all being together.

The rest was history.

We had started hot and heavy and burned hot and heavy through our two-year relationship. If things hadn’t gone down like they had at the end, I probably would have stayed with them—probably would have raised Lucas with them.

It hurt too much to think about the what ifs. Just like it hurt too much to sit in this backyard and stare around at all the happy families, knowing I had fucked up my chance at a happy family a long time ago.

I was just about to get up and tell Luke it was time to go home, when a body fell heavily onto the chaise lounge beside me.

I looked over at the tall blond-haired Adonis, Nico Gage sat tall in all his Italian glory.

Deeply tanned and tatted skin, bright blond hair that hung down around his broad-shoulders and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

Thick muscles strained beneath a gray t-shirt and his black leather biker cut.

The horned devil on the patch on his shoulder stared me in the face.

I groaned internally, knowing my chance of escape was likely thwarted. Nico would want to sit and talk. It was what he liked to do. Talk.

I’d purposely been avoiding him for the last six months, knowing there nothing I could say. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I had to keep him and Marcos and Jason at a distance. It was the only way.

“Well hello there, Pretty Dreamer,” Nico said as I met his gaze. “I think you’ve been avoiding me.”

I swallowed thickly. I looked down at my hands before I forced myself not to fidget under his intense scrutiny. I turned to face the pool, hoping to appear calm and cool, bored even.

I needed to push him away, and keep him away.

“Not everything is about you, Nico.” I shrugged and turned back to him.

His bright blue eyes narrowed slightly, though an amused smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. He didn’t buy my act for one minute.

Fuck.

Jason once might have been good at reading me, but Nico was better. Nico knew my soul on a whole other level. He would be the one I’d need to be careful around. He wouldn’t give up as easily as Marcos and Jason.

Nico knew me so deeply, I often wondered if we hadn’t been made of the same soul at one point, and had split apart some eons ago. He was my heart and I was his.

Or we had been, at one point.

He chuckled gruffly. “Oh, Little Dreamer,” he shook his head. “Let’s not lie.”

I glared at him. “Let’s not act like you know me, Nico. It’s been ten years. You don’t know me.” I rolled my eyes and looked away from him.

He chuckled again and leaned toward me. “That’s where you’re wrong, Little Dreamer.” His voice was low and close to my ear.

I turned my head to find him only inches away from my face. I gasped softly.

He smirked at my reaction. “I can see how uncomfortable you are here. This isn’t your scene anymore.” He tilted his head toward the yard full of people.

I huffed a laugh. “It was never my scene.”

He smiled widely, showing off bright white teeth. “Another lie,” he shook his head. “You used to own these parties.”

He was right, I had owned these parties. People and parties and socializing had been my thing back in the day. I grew up with half of them in Creekton and the other half weren’t any different than those I’d grown up with. They’d all come from the same rough and tumble small town.

“I may have owned those parties,” I said. “But I didn’t like them and I’m done doing things I don’t like to do. I’m not that same girl anymore,” I admitted, looking away from him.

I saw him frown out of the corner of my eye.

“No,” he agreed softly. “I don’t think you are.”

I turned back to him and gave him a tight smile. “Do you think you could take me home? I’ll leave my car for Marcos to drive Luke home later.”

Nico was slow to agree. He looked me over slowly, like he was memorizing my face, or trying to see into my soul. It was unsettling and sent a shiver down my spine. I didn’t want him looking at me too closely. He was likely to find something I didn’t want him to see.

“Sure, Little Dreamer,” he agreed. He nodded once at me, before he slowly got to his feet. “Let me tell Marcos the plan and we’ll head out.”

I nodded and dug out my keys. I handed them to Nico and stood up. “I’m going to say goodbye to Lucas.”

I walked away before he could say anything more.

Luke was climbing out of the pool when I walked over. “Hey mom! Did you see that?” He grinned brightly at me, all the happiness in the world shinning on his face.

I smiled easily. “Sure did! It was awesome!” I high-fived him. “I’m gonna take off, alright? Your dad will drive you home later.”

Luke nodded, smile still stretching across his face.

At this point in his relationship with his father, he had no problem going home with Marcos.

“Alright! I love you! See you later!” he shouted.

He bounced up and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek, before he turned and jumped back into the pool again.

Sadness welled up inside me at his quick dismissal. There had been a time when he was a young child, that he couldn’t leave my side without a huge production of waterworks and hysterics. Now, I barely got a kiss if I was lucky, and he was on his way again.

Nine and going on Nineteen.

As I turned away from the pool, my eyes caught on Nico and Marcos talking along the fence surrounding the pool. Marcos’s face turned toward me, and though he had on mirrored sunglasses, I knew his eyes were on me.

I ignored him and headed for the front of the house. There was no reason for me to hang around here anymore. Not with my son occupied and his father wanting nothing to do with me.

Instead of walking past all the men congregated on the driveway, I chose the opposite side of the house.

Walking through the grass, I rounded the side of the house and stopped in my tracks as I came across a scene that stopped my heart cold: Jason was pressing a leggy blond against the side of the house.

Her long legs were wrapped around his waist and her head was thrown back in ecstasy as his thrusting hips bounced her fake tits in her skin tight crop top.

His face was buried in her neck, so he didn’t see me frozen there.

I debated on turning around, when a heavy arm dropped around my shoulders and Nico’s deep voice said, “Ready to go, Dreamer?”

I jumped and Jason lifted his head from the woman’s neck as her eyes popped open. With both sets of eyes on me, I felt a blush heat my cheeks.

Nico nudged me forward, keeping his arm around my shoulders.

I squared my shoulders and owned it.

Stone’s steely gaze locked on mine as I walked by. His gaze raked over me, before a smirked tugged at his lips. My stomach clenched; it was the most emotion I’d witnessed on his face in the last six months. “Always did love to watch,” Jason goaded, his voice low.

I tripped over my own feet. I hated that he could get under my skin so quickly. “Wasn’t much of a show.” I shrugged as I passed them. “I’ve seen better.”

Nico chuckled softly as we headed for his motorcycle. “Little Dreamer, you’re playing with fire.”

I didn’t have a response…’cause he was right.