Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

Talia and a woman named Melissa.

As soon as they’d stated Talia’s name, a new cop on the force (most of them were new because more than half of the old guard had been corrupt officers under Staff Sergeant Danner’s thumb) stepped forward to tell Tayline she was being taken in for questioning.

Cyclops stood calmly by her side as the officer approached, his entire manner subdued, even lethargic.

But as soon as the male cop reached for Tay, Cy’s massive fist landed a sickening blow to the smaller man’s jaw. The cop swayed for half a second, the momentum and force rendering him dumb, before he crumpled to the ground.

Four more cops were on Cy in a heartbeat, but their attempts to pin the giant men were as comical as the Lilliputians trying to rope down Gulliver. He tossed them off his back, roaring that he wouldn’t let them take Tay.

I slid closer to wrap an arm around Tayline’s shoulder and hugged her close so I could say, “Talia works at Wet Works Production. She’s hooked on drugs, and I think she’s living with one of Javier’s dealers…I can get the address if they push you for it.”

She nodded, her delicate face pale as a paper heart. I’d never seen spunky, hilarious Tay so subdued, but she seemed almost terrified, stale memories playing out behind her eyes.

“It’ll be okay,” I assured her. “I bet Mr. White will beat you to the station.”

“He should really ask for a raise,” she murmured just to watch me smile.

I bumped her with my hip.

“Cy,” she called as her man finally got corralled to a cop car. “I’ll see you at the station, Mr. Big.”

The smile he shot her was sweet and intimate, a love note tucked into the craggy planes of his face, before a cop shoved him into the car, and he snapped at his hand like a feral animal.

Tay giggled.

That was when I noticed her.

The lone woman in the group of invaders.

She stood off to the side, half obscured in shadow at the edge of the clubhouse. There was just enough light, a fat wedge of yellow, that fell across her face to see she was older, middle-aged, for sure. At first, I thought maybe she was a new detective, in her pencil skirt and kitten heels she looked the part, but then she shifted back, and I saw someone emerge out of the shadows.

Nova.

He stalked her backward until she hit the chain link fence, then moved closer still, caging her in with a hand clutched through the metal.

A shiver of omnipotent foreboding slithered down my spine like a snake in the grass.

I moved away from Tay, away from Lion working the cops for info, away from Zeus standing sentry at the door, watching the police in a way that was meant to scare them, and did if the way they kept dropping things and stuttering was any indication.

Lion, Bat, and Harleigh Rose had snuck out the back with Ransom, carting him into the boat they kept moored on the dock so they could head into the dark, unencumbered by the police.

I forgot about them all.

There was only the feeling deep in my stomach, like shifting plates beneath the earth, that told me Nova needed me.

So I went.

As I drew closer, I heard the woman’s voice, cultured and smooth, slow moving as her injected lips formed the words. It was the voice of a woman who cared what people thought of her eloquence and manner. The voice of a woman with very different priorities than me.

“Well, handsome boy, you should have returned my calls,” she said, leaning forward into Nova’s face.

From where I stood just behind them, it looked for a moment like they were kissing.

Nausea crashed in to me like a sixteen-wheeler, rocking pain through every surface of my body.

Why hadn’t it ever occurred to me that Nova might cheat?

Was it even cheating?

We had no definition, no rules. He was a biker man. I was a hippie biker babe. Life was too short to spend time sorting everything into boxes and labels.

Life was for the living, and recently, I’d been living my dream.

I didn’t want to ruin it with rumination, digging myself into holes I’d never get out of.

So no labels.

No exclusivity. No rules.

Suddenly, I felt terribly young, ridiculously inexperienced. I was twenty-four, but I’d only ever been with two men. The nuances of dating and sex were written in a language foreign to me, in a book I’d never thought to pick up.

I had been expecting it to be easy. I loved him, and in his own way, he loved me. We respected each other. Shouldn’t that have been enough?

How foolish of me to think it would be. Was anything enough for the ever-hungry human heart?

“Last time I saw you, told you I didn’t wanna see your face ever again, let alone talk to ya,” Nova growled.