A Blast from the Past

Lachlan/Justice's P.O.V.

My hand gripped the thick ceramic of the diner mug so hard I felt the heat scalding my palm, but I barely registered the burn. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

Did that really just happen? My eyes burned a hole into the back of her shapeless uniform as she rushed away from our booth.

Talk about your ghosts from the past walking right out of the grave and pouring you a cup of mediocre diner coffee. What the hell is she doing here? In some bum-fuck, middle-of-nowhere town in the freezing plains of Nebraska? Is this where she’s been hiding all this time? Is this the exact reason H.W. couldn’t find her despite tearing apart every digital footprint on the West Coast?

Well, to be fair, H.W. did find her at one point. Of course, that was years ago. The only reason our tech genius found anything of use back then was because her fucking engagement had been printed in a local newspaper. A high-society announcement back in Cali, only a few hours away from our hometown.

When her father, Arthur, had the gall to show up at the front gates of our clubhouse about four years ago, demanding to talk to Talon and Valerie about his missing daughter, my blood ran cold. At first, after we saw that engagement announcement, I assumed Maeve and her new husband had just run away together to play house in some gated community. We all had different reactions to the news of her upcoming wedding.

Me? Personally, I didn’t want to know jack shit about her after that paper hit the clubhouse table. She broke her promise to us. A sacred, unspoken promise that we were all desperately holding onto. And then... nothing. Dead silence. She vanished, proving she didn't care about us anymore. She was getting fucking married to some rich prick.

But when Arthur stood at our gates looking like a desperate, broken man, I knew right then and there that something was deeply wrong. I had H.W. look into Maeve again, stripping the internet down to its bare bones. Apparently, the guy she married never stopped covering his tracks. H.W. couldn't find a damn thing. Not a car registered in her name, not a bank loan, not a lease for a shitty apartment. Nothing. Even the husband was like a ghost. We knew his name, and that was the extent of it.

We’d been quietly, obsessively searching for years. My mind couldn't let it go. None of us could. Eventually, we tracked down a sprawling property associated with her husband. Of course, when Maniac and I drove out to scope out the place, Maeve was nowhere to be found. It was a massive estate in the richest, most pretentious part of town. High-end shit everywhere. Marble columns, luxury cars parked on a pristine driveway. It was nothing like what the sweet, fiery Maeve I remembered would have ever liked.

There was a party going on when Maniac and I infiltrated the grounds. Only, it wasn't a party. It was a damn orgy. Rich bastards and hired women tangled up in every room. We searched that massive house for hours, kicking open doors and checking every shadowed corner, but we never found Maeve. Maniac got distracted by a couple of the girls walking around naked, but I stayed focused. I watched from the shadows. I observed everything. I even saw her so-called husband buried in some random woman, getting his rocks off and enjoying his sick little party while his wife was missing in action.

Did that bastard even care where Mae was? Did she run away because she caught him cheating? And the question that haunted me the most, the one that kept me up at night staring at the ceiling of my room: why didn't she run back to us? To the safety of the club? Does she hate us that much?

I stared down at the black liquid in my mug, my jaw ticking. I shouldn't even be surprised, honestly. We all knew that Maeve was a liar long before her dad dragged her away. I thought she’d change once she grew up. I thought she’d put the childish pettiness behind her. I mean, back then, she was only acting out because Chaos started treating her differently when their parents married. That, and Evelyn wouldn't keep her fucking hands off me whenever Maeve was in the room.

I knew Mae was jealous back then. She just didn't want to admit it to herself, let alone to any of us. I thought I’d wait it out, let her mature, but the shit she was doing just to get our attention was getting way out of control. We all had to be stern with her. The last thing we wanted was for our girl to turn into a spoiled, entitled club princess.

There were only four club princesses around, and we had seen firsthand how the girls in other charters grew up to be. We didn't want that poison for Maeve. My little sister was hardly around, choosing to go to school in Scotland where some of our extended family lived. She’d only come home for holidays and summers. She and Mae weren't close, but that was our fault for hogging all of Mae's time and stealing her attention for ourselves.

The other two club princesses, Evelyn and Brody, were definitely too spoiled. We didn't see the warning signs back then, but I’m seeing them loud and clear now. They aren't evil, but they’re pushy as hell. They want cuts, and they want them from us. Well, Evelyn wants me, at least. I think Brody is just trying to get knocked up by whoever she can at this point to secure her place in the hierarchy. After the shit she pulled with H.W., though, no man in the club will even look in her direction.

We never wanted Mae to grow up to be like that. We wanted her to stay just as she was. Our sweet girl with a sharp, fiery side. We even talked about making her an ol' lady. But the problem was... we could never decide whose ol' lady she'd be. None of us were willing to step aside.

So, I spent two entire years after Maeve left devising an intricate, foolproof plan for what we would do when she finally came back to us. The plan I came up with was unconventional. Hell, it was borderline insane. When I brought it to the guys, there was a massive clash of reactions. The ultimate goal was simple but heavy: we intended to share Maeve as our ol' lady. All five of us.

Maniac was pissed that I even suggested he’d want Maeve in the first place. The stubborn fuck still won't admit that he has the hots for her. I mean, who wouldn't? With those insanely long and thick black waves, those deep, electric cobalt eyes, the splattering of freckles across that little nose, those juicy, naturally red lips, and those incredible dimples that show the second her mouth moves in the slightest. He wanted her. We all did. The possessive hunger in his eyes gave him away every time her name was mentioned.

Chaos was also pissed. He straight up said he didn't want to be a part of my master plan and never would. Now that they were officially step-siblings, he claimed he had to give up on whatever lingering feelings he harbored for Mae. He used the excuse that it was easier to let her go after the way Mae treated his twin sister. I still don't see why being step-siblings mattered one bit. We met Mae way before Talon ever met Valerie. There was no shared blood. But there was no telling Chaos that; he was too deep in his own head.

H.W. and Gargoyle, on the other hand, had entirely different reactions. They were eager. Happy as hell and ready to get on board. Of course, Gargoyle would be a bit harder to swing since he was already on his way to being a pro MMA fighter at seventeen years old, constantly training and traveling. But I knew those two could help me get Maniac and Chaos on track.

Hell, Maniac would be easy to trap once he got a taste of her. But the harsh reality was... Maeve never came back. Instead, she stayed with her father in California, paraded around in high society, and found herself a wealthy husband. It's not like we were sitting around like monks waiting for her. Well, maybe H.W. was, but the rest of us were still getting our dicks wet. We just never dated. We never fell in love, never played boyfriend, never got tangled in any of that emotional bullshit.

That loyalty, that beautiful future, was all supposed to be for her. She was supposed to be our shared queen. But she threw it all away because she didn't want it.

So, why the hell is she here? If her husband was cheating on her and throwing an orgy, and she left him, why come to a freezing diner in Nebraska instead of running home? Doesn't she know how much her mom misses her? Of course, she doesn't. They haven't spoken in years.

"You keep staring at Mae, you want me to put in a good word?"

Specter’s voice cut through my dark thoughts. I blinked, my focus snapping back to the table. The Scythes biker was smirking at me from across the booth, leaning back with his arms crossed over his leather cut.

I expertly masked the boiling anger rising in my chest. I hated that he caught me staring. I hated that I was staring at all. I kept my face blank, a stone wall.

"You know her?" I asked casually, keeping my tone flat.

"Uh, I wouldn't say that," Specter replied, taking a swig of his water. "Actually, I just met her and Miriam yesterday. Came in here to see my girl, found out she was cheating on me, and she wasn't even the girl she claimed to be. Bitch literally stole Miriam's whole life and fed it to me like it was her own. Fucking wild. Got the bitch fired after all the drama unfolded."

That was... interesting. But I didn't care about his drama. I cared about the girl wiping down tables across the room.

"Anyway," Specter continued, oblivious to the dangerous coil of my muscles. "I got Miriam's number, since she's apparently the actual girl of my dreams. We been textin', and I bet she would love to hook her loner friend up with a biker."

"Loner?" I blurted out. The word threw me off balance.

Mae always hated being alone. She never wanted space. She never complained that having all five of us around was too much for her. If anything, I swear she would have been glued to our sides twenty-four-seven if she had the choice.

"That's what Miriam said last night when she told me that she finally got Mae to go get a drink with her," Specter said with a casual shrug. "Tried to get them to come to the clubhouse and party since you guys came down for some fun and business. Miriam thought it was too soon though."

I shifted my gaze back across the diner. Maeve was on the far side of the room, near the register. She was desperately avoiding my gaze. I knew she recognized me the second she poured that coffee. The terror in her eyes was unmistakable. But I had just walked past her to the booth. Honestly, in that split second, I had no idea what to do, and that never happens to me. I always know the next move. That's why I'm the President of the Crimson's Fire Riders.

What do I do now? Maeve is right here. Right within my physical reach. I'm still furious with her, and I know the others are too. Except maybe Gargoyle and H.W. If those two find out she's serving coffee in Nebraska, they’ll tear this country apart to come for her, even if it means leaving the club behind.

But she didn't come back home. She ran away from us. She broke her promises and took off to build a fake new life.

Watching her wipe down the counter, I noted with dark satisfaction how she had aged. She looks skinnier, her uniform hanging off her frame, which pisses me off to no end. Who the fuck is starving my girl? But at the same time, she looks... tougher. Her curves have filled out perfectly into womanhood. I've never seen such a flawless body, even hidden beneath ugly polyester. She just needs to eat more. I can fix that.

Her hair is pinned up in a messy bun, and I wonder if she's kept those gorgeous black waves long like they used to be. Those electric cobalt eyes are still exactly as I remember, but the heavy, bruised shadows under them tell a story of deep, bone-aching exhaustion. I think back to the moment she first spotted me at the table. The way her hand gripped the handle of that glass coffee pot in pure, unadulterated terror. She looked like she was staring at the devil himself. She was scared of me.

Why? Why the fuck is she so scared of me?

Something isn't adding up here, and I need to make a firm decision about what to do next.

"So, want me to put in a good word for you?" Specter pressed again, oblivious to the storm brewing in my head.

Before I could answer, a loud, grating voice echoed across the diner. The manager—a balding, pathetic-looking man in a stained shirt—marched up behind the counter and started screaming at Maeve. He was waving a receipt in her face, his face turning red with rage.

My blood spiked. My muscles coiled tight like a spring. I braced myself, fully expecting her to shrink back and burst into tears. My hand drifted to the knife at my belt, ready to stand up, cross the room, and brutally threaten the motherfucker until he pissed his pants. Just like I used to do when we were kids and anyone looked at her wrong. Mae was always sensitive. She only ever had a backbone when it came to people she was comfortable with—us.

But she didn't cry.

Instead, Maeve turned slowly, squared her shoulders, and fired right back. I couldn't hear the exact words over the diner noise, but her body language was loud and clear. She was firmly, coldly putting the jackass in his place. She wasn't taking a single ounce of his shit. The manager's face fell, his mouth snapping shut as she tore into him. He actually took a step back, defeated. Then, Maeve casually rolled her eyes, turned her back on him, and went right back to taking care of her customers.

I sat there, stunned.

That was interesting. Very, very unlike the Maeve I used to know. The fragile girl we had to protect had vanished. She is significantly tougher now. The fire is still there, but it’s been sharpened into a blade.

"Hey, Justice. Did you hear me?" Specter nudged my focus. "You want me to talk to her for you?"

I looked at Specter, my mind made up. The pieces clicked into place, locking tight. I wasn't going to court her. I wasn't going to play games or ask nicely.

"No," I stated coldly, my voice leaving no room for argument. "We're leaving tonight anyway."

I stared at Maeve's back one last time, a dark, dangerous resolve settling over my heart. I won't ask her. I'm simply going to take her with me.