“Is that anyway to greet an old friend? Hell, by the looks of it, seems like you ditched my cousin for some pussyassmotherfuckers. I was wondering if you’d seen old Pete? We ain’t seen him for a while and while that’s not too unusual for him, he usually turns up at big events.” Marco lifted one brow in question.
Mick flipped the knife up in the air, catching it in his palm before sliding it into the sheath on the side of his jeans before he lowered the gun. “I don’t think we’re friends, Marco. As for Pete, I ain’t seen him in a long time either. So, why don’t we cut the bullshit and you tell me why the fuck you’re really here?”
The fact Pete’s cousin was at his place and had gotten in without a key pissed him off. He kept his features schooled to show no emotion.
Marco Rodrigo’s jaw bunched up. The man was whipcord lean while Pete had been a brute of a bastard, total opposites. Pete had a few tattoos but had said he only got ones that meant something to him, while Marco had tattoos covering every inch of skin that was visible, including his neck and head. The only part of him not covered in ink was his face. The two cousins looked similar with their dark eyes and coloring, but Pete hadn’t been as prepared for the harsh battles they’d faced in war. Mick on the other hand had been ready from birth. He didn’t think Marco would’ve needed saving the way Mick had saved Pete’s life several times over the years.
“You gonna invite me in?” Marco asked and stepped to the side, waving toward the door with his right hand.
Mick made note of the fact that Marco didn’t seem to be packing a gun but looks could be deceiving. He let out a tired sigh, motioning for the man to move aside. Once Marco gave him room, he angled his body in front of the keypad. The deadbolt locks disengaging made a thunking sound as they slid back from the doorframe.
“You’re a paranoid bastard, aren’t you, Micky?” Marco snickered from behind as the sound of change jiggled like he was nervous.
Mick didn’t bother to answer as the asshole used the nickname only Pete had called him, even when he’d known how much Mick disliked it. Mick didn’t rise to the bait he was pretty sure Marco was trying for, nor did he growl for the shit to stop with the annoying jingle lingle ling of the coins, hating the habit Marco shared with Pete. When he and Pete had been on an op, he’d had to make sure the fucker didn’t have anything on him that made noise in his pockets, or they’d have both been killed, along with the others on their team. Other than that, Pete had been a stone-cold killer. Anyone who’d truly looked him in the eyes could see it. Marco and Pete shared that same expression.
Mick had recognized that in The Father, fuck, he hated calling him that. His real name being Enrique Ranfla, only he didn’t allow any of his wives or children to call him that. He too was a bastard who enjoyed hurting others. Plain and simple...he loved hurting those who he deemed less than him, especially if it made them fear him. Fear garnered obedience. Obedience garnered respect. Or so he’d been taught. Not that the teaching had been something he’d strived to be like.
Mick shoved the door open, trying to rein his emotions back under control before he faced Pete’s cousin. If there was one thing, he was sure the other man could flesh out, that was any form of weakness.
“Thirsty?” he asked. He didn’t want Marco to stick around invading his space, yet he couldn’t see any way to get rid of him without being a fucking dick.
Marco pulled out a flask from his inner pocket and shook it. “Sure. What do you have?”
The night he and Pete had gone to pay a visit to the Prez’s little brother Luke’s apartment flashed into his mind. Marco’s flask looked like the one Pete had carried and offered to Mick just before they’d ridden the last block or so to the apartment building. Pete had been a master manipulator, but he’d been there too, going along like a dumbass. He hated the memories as much as he hated himself for the grief, he’d caused. Even though he couldn’t remember everything, what he did burned like acid in his brain. That flask...so familiar.
He’ll always see Ivy’s grief-stricken face as she and her now fiancé Tymber stood across from King. The Prez was a fair man, but he was also a grieving brother. When he’d called Ivy to the clubhouse, Mick had been sure he was a dead man for what he and Groot had done. Ivy had been like a little sister to both King and Duke, yet the brothers thought she’d betrayed their brother Luke, until that night. She’d come to the club and had been strong and brave; a young girl who had lost her best friend, and pretend lover in one fell swoop by suicide. She’d stood straight and looked King in the eye without flinching. Her words had been a shock, but King and Duke must’ve had a feeling their brother was hiding something before he’d taken his life.
To this day, Mick still had memory lapses from the night he’d fucked-up and gone to Luke’s apartment he’d shared with Ivy and obviously his lover. Whatever Pete had slipped into his drink that night was some seriously dangerous shit. His mind was so fucking foggy, even now. Mick had confronted Pete afterward when he was sick and puking up his guts. The asshole had only laughed, like it was a joke and then pointed out it was Mick who did most of the ass kicking and that had shut Mick up.
“Do you know what loyalty is, Marco?” he asked the other man.
“My life has been nothing but loyalty. Where I come from, you are taught from birth what it means to be loyal and what it means if you turn your back on family. How about you, brother?” Marco walked around the living room as he spoke, picking up little knickknacks Mick had picked up over the years.
“Yeah, I understand loyalty. My brothers, the Royal MC, they’re men I would never go against, not even as a prospect. If I never get fully patched, I still wouldn’t betray them.” To have gone up to the Prez’s little brother Luke’s place was like slapping King, yet there was hard evidence he’d done it. He now understood how someone who was slipped a mickey felt like, only he wasn’t laid out and unable to do anything, he had been like a walking, talking, hitting moron. Even if they’d thought beating up the fucker, that Ivy was presumably fucking around on Luke with, was right. Unless King had given the go ahead, it wouldn’t have been okay. Then to find out that the truth had been Luke who was with the other man, not Ivy.
He could still hear Pete shouting words like a zealot, reminding him more of The Father. It was that very thing that had shaken him out of the drugged stupor enough to get him out of the apartment. He’d even had to punch Pete the asshole to get him out the door with him. Hell, his brain had slowly come back online or something as he’d stumbled onto the sidewalk, sick to his stomach. King could’ve killed them both the night he sent Pete away. Instead, he’d given them both a second chance, but Pete being the idiot, fucked up while Mick hadn’t, which was why he was still part of the MC, unlike the other man who was dead.
“You off in your head, brother?” Marco called from across the room.
Mick bit back the instinct to tell him he wasn’t his fucking brother and shook his head. He grabbed two beers out of the fridge and turned to find Marco standing at the large wall to ceiling windows.
“You like the landscape down below or what?” He kept a close eye on the other man as he handed him the drink.