Page 24 of Brandishing Betrayals

Seated behind the desk, Marcos had his head down as he poured over the stacks of papers in front of him. In the six months since Buckley’s death, Marcos had pulled the club from the brink of death and bankruptcy, saving us, but we were still scraping by.

I saw how it weighed on my brother. The stress he carried as president was hard. But add in the stress of trying to form a relationship with a son he hadn’t known about, and the tense relationship with our ex… it was a lot for any man to handle.

Marcos never complained about it, though. He never bitched and moaned, he just shouldered it all, so others didn’t have to, and pulled us out of the bullshit Buckley had sunk us into with Las Serpientes.

The fucking snakes were circling, demanding payment for Buckley’s death. Buckley apparently still owed them money for the death of the Ravager Knights MC President Mac ‘King’ Taylor—money the club didn’t have.

I knocked on the doorframe of the office, waiting for Marcos to acknowledge me before I walked into the lion’s den.

“Yeah,” Marcos grunted before he glanced at the door. His face was unreadable, so I couldn’t tell if he was surprised to see me or not.

“Hey,” I said, stepping into the office and closing the door behind me.

Marcos looked over my bruised face before he turned back to the papers in front of him. “What do you want?”

I ground my teeth as to not lash out at my brother’s gruff attitude. “To apologize.”

“I’m not the one you owe an apology to,” Marcos shot back immediately.

Again, I gritted my teeth. I may owe Maya an apology, but I doubted she’d let me anywhere near her any time soon to deliver it. And I wasn’t ready to face her yet. I moved further into the office and set both beers down the desk between us. I took a seat in chair in front of the desk. “She’s the mother of your child, I’m sorry I hurt her, man,” I apologized, despite the fact that Marcos didn’t want to hear it.

Marcos shook his head and let out a low sardonic chuckle. “You know what I don’t get?” he finally said, looking up to meet my gaze. “How you—the man who used to be so fucking obsessed with her back then that you would borderline stalk her—couldhateher so much now, that you almost fucking killed her?” The anger radiated off Marcos in waves.

I gritted my teeth again and forced myself to relax. I couldn’t explain my irrational rage when it came to her. “She fucking left us,” I ground out.

Marcos nodded. “Yeah bro, she did. I’m not saying you have to be in a fucking relationship with her, or even beniceto her. But don’t fucking try to kill her!”

I looked away, gritting my teeth. I fucked up, I knew that already.

“Dude, Maya is not your mother,” Marcos said.

I snapped my gaze back to my brother and glared. “Don’t.”

“No, you fucking don’t. This bullshit you have with Maya is the same. You think she fucking abandoned you. She might have leftus, but she came back, and she would never abandon her child. She’s not your mother.”

“And you’re okay with her walking out on you? Not telling you, you had a kid?” I snapped, getting pissed off.

“Of course not,” Marcos shook his head. “I won’t deny that she broke my fucking heart, and that some days I can’t even fucking look at her. But she’s a damn good mother, and will do anything for him. And she’s done a damn good job of raising him so far on her own.”

I sighed and looked down at my bare feet, before I reached for my beer on the desk. I pushed the unopened one toward Marcos. “I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to her and figure out how to curb my anger.”

Marcos reached for the beer and popped the can open. He took a long sip as he leaned back in the chair. He ran a hand over his chin thoughtfully, “I think Dagger’s right about her. Something’s not adding up.”

“Come on, man,” I said shaking my head, not wanting to hear it for the hundredth time. Dagger was bad enough, but now Marcos?

“You didn’t see her,” Marcos snapped. “Monday, I went over to Dagger’s. He had convinced her to call into work, to heal,” Marcos glared at me. “She was sleeping when I got there. So I hung out for a while. Seeing her go from unguarded to instantly on the defense when she saw me…” he shook head and looked away. “I think she’s hiding something.”

I rolled my eyes.Of course, she was hiding something, she was a fucking liar,I thought. “Like what?” I humored my brother.

Marcos shook his head again. “I don’t know, man. I talked to Nic yesterday. He said before she left his place, she apologized for leaving us, for hurting us. When Nic asked her if she could just explainwhyshe had done it, she started sobbing. She saidshe couldn’t tell him, and became inconsolable the harder he pressed.”

I narrowed my gaze on my buddy. Marcos clearly believed whatever happened was a breakthrough into the inner workings of her mind, but I didn’t see things like that. In fact, I thought it was a convenient way for her to get Dagger to stop asking questions. She knew how easy it was to manipulate Dagger’s feelings; she knew Dagger would stop at the first sight of a tear in her caramel eyes. It was a little tooeasyfor my liking. I kept it to myself though. I knew my buddies were looking for any hint or sign or reasoning for her ghosting us back then.

I was pretty sure we weren’t going to get the truth out of her, though. Maybe it was time to do our own investigation into her.

“I met with Johnny and his boys this week. I’ve got a couple jobs I’m gonna bring to the table tomorrow, drug running, security, things like that.”

I nodded, accepting the change of subject.

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