Page 27 of Brandishing Betrayals (Devil’s Psychos MC #2)

Nico

I sat down heavily in the chair at Skin of a Different Breed. Slade’s booth with covered in artwork, all done by her, showing off her magnificent skill. “Hey Nic,” Slade greeted as she walked out of the backroom.

“Hey Slade,” I replied, but didn’t glance at her, as a multi-colored massive flower piece was in the middle of display, a piece I was very familiar with. “This Maya?” I asked.

Slade slid across the floor on a rolling stool and looked where I was pointing. “Yep,” she answered.

My eyes were drawn to the right, where there was another picture—this one was of Maya’s back—I could still see the large floral piece down her side, but this one was showing her back, and the massive angel wings tatted there in extraordinary detail.

“Holy shit,” I murmured, sticking my face closer to the picture.

There were words tatted into the wings: redemption, remorse, resilience, strength, breathe.

“You haven’t seen that?” Slade asked, startling my gaze away from the picture.

“No.” I shook my head. “When did you do this?”

Slade looked up from the instruments she was unpackaging from their sterile packs and squinted at the picture. “About five years ago, maybe? The date should be in the corner.”

I leaned back in and sure enough, written small in the upper right corner was the date. Five years ago. “How long did this take?”

Slade looked over again. “We did that in 3 twelve-hour sessions. Then one final touch up session a year later after everything was healed up.”

“She came here for those?”

“Yeah,” Slade replied, her voice a little softer this time.

“And these?” I asked, pointing to the pictures the right, showing Maya’s thighs and arms, where there were skulls and more flowers wrapped around them. I saw the date said three years ago.

“No, those I did in Chicago at an expo. Maya always came to the convention center when I was in the city.”

I hummed under my breath as I took in all the new ink my girl had gotten in the last ten years. And yeah, she was still my girl. No matter how long we’d been apart, no matter what Marcos and Jason said, I would always consider Maya my girl.

“We had dinner with them last night,” I said, turning away from the cubical wall of photos to look at Slade.

Slade Cooper was a beautiful dark angel, utterly gorgeous and unbelievably sweet.

She had long black hair to her waist, piercing green eyes, and was tatted and pierced everywhere .

For as sweet as she was, she was no pushover, though.

She was used to tatting rough and tumble bikers, made men, and even the Don of the Seratelli Crime Family.

She didn’t let anyone walk over her or use her for information—including me.

She leveled me with her steady gaze and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? How was that?”

I sighed. “I dunno. Maya seemed sad, kinda out of it through dinner. She didn’t eat much, and kind of just pushed her food around her plate.”

Slade sighed and picked up the transfer paper. She motioned to the chair and I followed her direction. I pulled off my cut and shirt, folding them together and leaving them on the spare chair in the corner. “Did something happen?”

I frowned, thinking about the night before. “They came home from Chicago. They spent the weekend with her sister.”

Slade’s poker face was intact as she applied the transfer paper to the skin on my chest. “You think something happened?”

“I don’t know what to think. Maya came home looking kinda sad and out of it, from the weekend away. Luke said she saw her therapist on Saturday. When Marcos asked him about it while Maya was in the shower, he said that sometimes she got sad or scared.”

“That’s valid,” Slade said, pressing down on the paper on my chest, before she slowly peeled it away. “Everyone has their moments.”

“Slade, I know there’s more going on here. I know you’re still close—”

“Maya is one of my best friends, Nico. I won’t tell her secrets.” She snapped at me, her eyes narrowing.

I frowned, watching Slade’s face carefully. “I know. And you’re loyal to a fault, but if something serious is going on with her…”

“That’s Maya’s business. If she wants to divulge that with you, then she will.

” Slade picked up her tattoo gun and got to work.

It wasn’t like her to be so short or abrupt, it also wasn’t like her not to ask me about tattoo placement, usually she had me check things out for any adjustments I might want before she got to work.

Clearly, I had struck a nerve.

“I get that it’s Maya’s business,” I said a half hour later, breaking the silence of the steady buzzing coming from the tattoo gun. “I do, Slade. But this is Maya, if there’s something seriously going on with her, I would want to know.”

Slade paused, pulling the needles back. She sighed heavily.

“I can’t tell you what’s been going on with Maya, but I can tell you this: look deeper.

Think about it harder, Nico. Maya is tough as nails and will always shut out the world.

Something must have happened that made her seek therapy.

For a girl that never opens up and can’t talk about her feelings, why would she volunteer her feelings to a stranger? ”

My mouth popped open. “You know something.”

Slade looked down, refusing to meet my gaze.

“You definitely know something. Slade, what the hell happened?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and when she lifted her head, I could see tears lining the eyes of the bad ass tattoo artist. She blinked them away quickly, taking another deep breath.

“All I’m saying is, maybe there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to Maya.

Please, be gentle with her, Nic. She needs you now more than ever. ”

My heart clenched in my chest. “What do you mean?”

Slade shook her head and pressed the gun to my skin again.

When it was clear that Slade wouldn’t tell me anymore, I dropped my head back to the chair and sighed. What the hell was going on?

Nico

I was lost in thought later that night while I sat in the living room of Marcos’s small apartment, still thinking about my conversation with Slade. How much did we not know? What really happened that drove Maya away ten years ago ?

“Earth to Nic,” Marcos said, snapping his fingers in front of my face.

I blinked out of my thoughts and looked up at my buddy who standing in front of me. “What?”

“Dude, where’s your head? We’ve been talking about the realtor finding us a bunch of places to look at this week,” Marcos said, stepping back and sitting down on the couch.

I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. Jason walked over with a plate of food and handed it to me. I nodded in appreciation. “You guys wonder if there was more to Maya leaving?” We’ve had this conversation before, but I couldn’t help but bring it up again.

Jason huffed, but Marcos sighed. “We’ve talked about this before.” Marcos ran a hand over his buzzed head.

I shook my head. “I saw Slade today. Something wasn’t sitting right with me after what Luke said last night.”

“About what?” Marcos asked slowly.

“About Maya seeing a therapist.” I looked at my brother, really looked at Marcos. The man was sitting across the living from me, sprawled out in the only recliner in the small living room that consisted of a couch and one recliner situated before the TV.

Jason and I were sitting at the small two-person dining table, set up behind the couch, in the very small one-bedroom apartment.

Marcos didn’t look comfortable with us in his place. He’d been bouncing his leg all evening, antsy, agitated. His leg stopped bouncing long enough for him to digest the words that I spoke, then he picked up his rhythm with abandon, bouncing his leg faster if possible.

“Slade alluded to more going on with Maya. Her entire cubical is decked out in photos of all the ink she’s done on Maya’s body.

She’s still one of her best friends, even after all these years.

Slade wouldn’t say what was going on, she just told me to dig deeper, because it’s not like Maya to seek out a total stranger to spill her guts to, when its already so hard for her to let anyone in. ”

“She say why Maya left back then?” Marcos asked.

I shook my head and picked at the plate of food before me.

“We know why she left,” Jason said. “She said she was done with us.”

“I don’t believe that at all,” I said.

“What do you believe?” Marcos asked, cutting off any snark from Jason.

I ran my hand through my long blond hair. “I think something more is going on. Something spooked her back then. That fight with Tish—what was it that Bear said—Hillcrest sent Tish into the clubhouse that night to instigate that fight?”

“Yeah,” Marcos murmured the word slowly. His hand rubbed over his scalp, while his eyes stared off into the distance, like he was lost in thought.

“What if she was threatened? What if Tish got in her head? Think about it—” I started.

“Then she would have come to us. She knew we would have protected her,” Jason cut him off.

I shook my head. “Just hear me out. What if she was threatened and she was spooked? What else happened that week? You two were both shot, I was arrested—framed by Hillcrest—and Tish started that cat fight. Is it really too far of a stretch to think maybe they got to her, too? Maybe that’s why she left, she was scared? ”

“And Luke?” Marcos asked.

“Maybe she thought she was saving her child by running? Keeping him away from the dangerous lives that we live,” I reasoned.

“That’s a bullshit excuse,” Jason shot off.

I rolled my eyes; my brother’s hard black and white thinking was getting old. Jason refused to give Maya any leeway. “You need to see things from her point of view, brother .” I stressed the endearment.

“That whole day doesn’t add up,” Marcos said softly. “She wasn’t right after our scene together. Why was there a saline bag on the counter? Do you remember that? She was dehydrated after everything we did.”