Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men, #2)

by Giana Darling

Even at seven, I harbored a black rebel soul bound in velvet bows and bible verse.

Sometimes now, I wonder if I would have done anything differently even if I had known how that bullet would tear through my small body, breaking bones and tender young flesh, irrevocably changing the course of my life forever. Always, the answer is no. Because it brought me to him. Or rather, him to me.

I wanted to reach out and pat him like I did when my dog growled. My grandpa had always warned my mum that I was attracted to dark and damaged things. I was just a kid, but I was a smart one and I knew Zeus was both of those things. A fallen angel. A monster, but a good one under all the scary.

The second thing is harder to teach but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I got out of the hospital. We all have scars. Some of them, like the one you and me share, you can see with your eyes. Some of them, you ink, like you do, on your skin so that they tell the story like a picture book. Like a badge of honour that you overcame something really bad. Then there are others, like the scar that stays in your heart when you’re left alone in a hospital room for a week without anyone visiting you, or when you sleep on a metal bed in a concrete prison filled with bad men or weak men who only touch each other to sin in one way or another.

“Listen here, you motherfucker. You obviously know who I am, you obviously got no respect for anythin’, but if Lou thinks you’re worth her time then you better prove fuckin’ worthy of it or the entire weight of The Fallen will fall heavy on you, you hear me? I personally will cut off your dick and shove it up your ass if you treat her like anything less than fuckin’ gold. Under-fuckin’-stood?”

I don’t know if I’ll remember this in the morning and thinking about forgetting the way you smell makes me want to cry.” “No tears,” he ordered. “But I’m not alone this time,” I reminded him. “I’ve finally got my guardian monster back.”

Even drunk as fuck and rank as shit, Louise Lafayette took my fuckin’ breath away.

I felt spurned worse than a lover because Zeus had never been that. He’d been in some sense more than that. He’d been my guardian monster, the saviour who had first taken a bullet for me and then saved me from living through my first round of cancer alone. He’d been, quite simply, my everything.

She ran her thumb over mine and squeezed. “I’ll just say this, okay? You can love an outlaw and he can even love you back, but that doesn’t make him any less an outlaw. You get me?”

Too bad I was the kind of teenage girl who dreamed of men who could murder with their bare hands, who swore like it was essential to the English language, and believed in brotherhood more than the law. Eh, everyone had their crosses to bear and I figured that was mine.

“Breathe on ya right and you’d fall over, brother,” Zeus said, his lips tilted to the left in a small grin. With his arms crossed over his wide chest, one booted foot over the other and lean hips against the side of the bar, he was the picture of badass biker guy. I had no doubt he could blow on someone just right and bowl them over. I also didn’t doubt that he could blow on me and I’d go down, but probably for different reasons.

“I’m the boss of this world. All those monsters you picture under your bed, in the dark corners of hospitals and night black forests? They’re fuckin’ real, Lou. And I own ’em. So, yeah, you want this world, you better believe I’m the fuckin’ boss of ya.”

“You bet your ass, I did,” I said with a defiant chin tilt. “I’m not a kid anymore, Zeus Garro. And with or without you, this is who I am and I’m in this world to stay.” “Then it’ll fuckin’ well be with me,” he growled, his smile so quickly replaced with a scowl that I lost balance and leaned toward him. “Hear this, little girl, you got what you wanted, yer guardian monster is back but this time, he’s teachin’ ya how to keep the monsters at bay yourself so when the time comes that you no longer need me, you’ll be good.”

She was bendin’ low, her tight jeans strainin’ against her round ass, and every man in the fuckin’ room was lookin’ over at that pretty sight, droolin’ like a fool. I knew ’cause dammit if I wasn’t one of ’em.

She glanced over her shoulder, her pretty face obscured by ugly fuckin’ protective eyewear and ear mufflers and she was still the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, gun pressed to her tricep, finger on the trigger, and massive grin on her face.

“Yeah, okay,” she breathed, starin’ into my face as if it was the first and last sight she’d seen or ever wanted to see. She made a man who’d felt like a monster his entire life, feel like a fuckin’ angel.

“Stuck with me,” I croaked, trying to be brave and strong and unmoved but completely unable to because how often does a girl live a dream come true? He turned his lips into my hair and kissed me. “It’s you who’s stuck with me, little warrior. Not lettin’ you go now. Not fuckin’ ever.” “Good.”

If I have to kill every single fuckin’ man on this goddamn planet to be with you, Lou, you better believe that I fuckin’ will and I’ll do it with a fuckin’ smile.”

She was so goddamn sexy and so goddamn pure it was like watchin’ two different girls up on the stage. I wanted both. The princess and the sinner.

“You’re gonna tell me everythin’ you know about those motherfucking Nightstalker bitches and you’re gonna do it screamin’, then garblin’. Why’s that, you ask? ’Cause I’m gonna cave your motherfuckin’ face in for playin’ fucked-up games with my girl.” “Your girl?” the rat bastard finally sniveled, fear sparking so fuckin’ pretty in his eyes. “She told me she was nothin’ to you!” I grinned, flexed, and released my fist as I drew closer to ’im and then reared it back as I said, “She’s every fuckin’ thing to me.”

This is me. This is the monster you’re so desperate to make your own. There’s no goin’ into this with eyes closed shut, Lou. I’m the kinda man, someone wrongs you, I cause him the equivalent in pain. I’m a man of loyalty and vengeance, violence and sex. Won’t make apologies for it and won’t have you romanticizin’ it. I’m an outlaw and this is an outlaw’s life.

I shivered as he bent his knees so we were on eye level and said, “Welcome to the dark side, then, little Lou.”

Her hair was fuckin’ everywhere, warm silk on my chest, arms, and abs, but I loved the feel’a it, the smell of burnt sugar and warm cherries all around me. Couldn’t stop touchin’ her even though she was asleep sprawled over my body like a heavy blanket. Loved the feel of her on me, her curves against my edges. Loved the weight of her on my chest against my heart. Loved fuckin’ everything about this girl. If I’d had any doubt before, it was fuckin’ clear to me now that Lou was mine.

But I did feel the grace of God last night, a different kind of god, one made of thunder and motor oil and wicked deeds, held together by leather and ink. It was that kind of god I had transferred my religion to the night before.

I’d always believed that Christianity wasn’t for everyone, that faith was a special and intimate kind of thing that had to occur to you naturally, and express itself through you organically. Now I knew what deity I’d pray to and die trying to please. Zeus Garro.

No, I wanted power but the real kind, the kind that was deeply rooted in fear and reverence, power and genuine cleverness that kept you at the top of the greedy pile of bodies that had tried and failed around you. Zeus’s kind of power. The kind built on blood, sweat, threats, and tears in credence of a lifestyle based on freedom of expression, brotherhood, and defiance of the man just because he was the fucking man. That was real power worthy of sacrificing your kids, their health and dreams for. I was willing to play the power game, but only if I was doing it by Zeus’s side and playing it his way.

The woman made me happier than Harleys, Canadian whiskey, and any kinda high.

“Now, I ain’t makin’ you any promises here, little warrior, but if your fine ass is going to heaven—and it fuckin’ well is—I’ll find a way to get there too. If I gotta move into that fuckin’ church and pay penance every goddamn hour, I’ll do it. If I gotta give up boozin’, guns, and drug runnin’, I’ll fuckin’ well do it and I’d do it now if it meant I got a place beside my girl behind those pearly gates.”

“So you must know Zeus Garro,” I said in a low voice as I served him more wine, watching the red liquid bleed into his glass. “Not as well as you do, but yes.” My smile was sharper than a shard of broken glass as I accidently slopped wine over his hand and then turned to him. “Then you’ll know it’s fucking hilarious that you think you’re so scary because, Javier, I’ve seen scary. I’ve fucked scary and I stared him right in the eyes as I did it so let me tell you, you don’t have his smile.”

I brushed my lips against his, so silky smooth compared to the roughness of his beard. “I love you, ya know?” He smiled under my questing mouth. “Love you like it’s my religion, little Lou.” Then he pressed his forehead to mine and said, “Just in case there was any fuckin’ doubt, this is your house now and my bed is your bed. Wanted you here anyway, sorry it happened this way, little warrior, so fuckin’ sorry, but glad you’re here all the fuckin’ same.”

But the first day of the New Year was even better because I’d woken up beside my man and I was in the mood to worship at the altar of my god.

“You lose your moonbeam hair, your bombshell shape, and your sexual appetite, I don’t give a fuck. ’Cause I love your soul better than I love anythin’ else and that includes the fan-fuckin-tastic package it comes in. You got me, Lou?”

He cupped his hands around my face and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. “Love you even when you don’t.”

“Z,” I breathed, wrapping my legs around his hips and diving my hands deep into his hair. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t what you are.” He grinned at me, amused and feeling indulgent. “And what’s that?” “A true fallen angel, too bad for heaven, too good for hell, stuck on earth like a living divinity.”

If God’d give her back to me, I’d never let ’er go. Not to violence, wrath, or greed. Not to vice or virtue. Not even to death.

Zeus Garro, big bad Prez of a notorious outlaw motorcycle club, was crying for me.

My ruined lungs seized and then seemed to collapse because I couldn’t breathe properly. I stared at him, wondering if I was hallucinating or still asleep, but as I stared I noticed the twinkle of something big and shiny on his face, on my hand on his face. A ring. It was big; one huge round black diamond surrounded in a halo of small green stones on a band of white gold. The Fallen MC colours on my hand. And their President, my guardian angel, my childhood dream man had put it on my finger.

“He said something about God having different paths for everyone and then something about some princesses needing dragons to protect them instead of Prince Charmings to save them.”

“Well, you ready to commit yourself to the dark side?” I stared at the man that had been mine in one way or another for over a decade. The man that had raised me more than my parents had, who was my father and my best friend and my lover all tied into one complicated but beautiful knot. I beamed at him. “Bring it on.”

“Feel alive, little wife?” he asked me. “Whenever I’m with you,” I told him.

I stalked up to Warren, grabbed my 9 mil from the waistband of my jeans and drilled a round into both of his hands. “That’s for puttin’ my boy in prison and havin’ a hand in gettin’ Cress and my fuckin’ woman tied up in this shit as well.”

I took a deep breath to center myself and remember that Zeus was coming for me. There was no way in heaven or hell that my guardian monster wouldn’t find me. He would find me and as was his habit, he would save me.

I’d beaten cancer for the second time, watched two men integral to my life die right in front of me, and married a thirty-six-year-old MC biker Prez. Graduating seemed like small peanuts compared to all of that, but I was the only one who thought so.

Just gotta say one more thing right outta the gate here, my first lesson to ya both as your father. You treat your mama like gold, ya hear? That woman has been to hell and back in her life and she’s the strongest woman any of us’ll ever know. She’s gonna treat you so good, trust me, you won’t know what to do to pay ’er back for it. You know what you gotta do, my babies? You gotta let her love ya and then you’ve gotta move the moon to make sure she knows you love ’er too. Trust me, she’ll deserve that from ya and you’ll wanna give it. I’ll teach you how to take care of ’er, don’t you worry, but it’s the first lesson I wanted to give you two. Your mama is an angel, and somehow, some fuckin’ way, she chose a monster as her soul mate, and together we created you. It’s her you got to thank for that magic. Lord fuckin’ knows, I’ll spend the rest of my days thankin’ her too, for the gift of givin’ a man like me her but even more, given me the blessin’ of the both of you.