Finale: A Dark Gang Romance (Academy of Stardom Book 4)

“Another drink?” Grim asks me as I sit, propping up the bar in Tales a week later.

“No. I’m good, thanks,” I say, taking a sip of the drink she poured for me twenty minutes ago.

It’s seven in the evening and the club won’t open for another couple of hours yet, but I don’t feel like getting drunk.

“How’s Lena doing? She seems in good form today…” Grim says, smiling as she watches Lena talk a mile a minute at Gray who is doing his best to focus on her and not the dancers practising their routine. Clancy is currently taking them through the choreo we came up with together after Grim agreed to hire her. His eyes keep slipping back to the dancers and I hear Lena’s sharp voice snapping his name.

“Gray! Would you listen? Jeez, show a man some tits and arse and he turns into a mindless hard-on,” Lena says in that snarky way of hers that she’s perfected.

Grim laughs, walking out from behind the bar and sitting on the stool next to me. “She’s just like you, Pen. Full of fucking spunk.”

“I bloody hope not,” I reply with a laugh. “That would be a concern.”

Grim’s face pales. “I meant as in feisty, not as in cum.”

“I know you did. I’m just joking.” Taking another sip of my drink I watch Lena’s exuberance and allow myself a small smile. “She’s taking it upon herself to be the one to crack Gray’s professional facade. Focusing on pushing his buttons is helping her to forget the shitty situation she’s in. So far she’s not doing a very good job at it. He’s a tough nut to crack.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Gray’s not the type of guy to put up with teenage tantrums. I think he likes her.”

“He tolerates her for sure. He’s very good at his job. Thank you for choosing him.”

“Hey, only the best for my friend and her little sister. Seriously though, how is she really doing?”

“Not good, despite how she seems on the surface,” I reply, watching her laugh at some cold remark from Gray. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile or say more than a few words to her. But like me she’s stubborn and won’t rest until he reacts either positively or negatively to her efforts. She’ll keep on poking until he has no choice but to respond. “Nightmares. Every night without fail.”

Grim nods. “And living with you and the Breakers? Is that not helping?”

“It’s not home, at least not her home, not yet anyway. I’m hoping that will change as time goes on.” I chew on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood. “The guys are great with her though, and she wants for nothing… Except her mum of course.”

“Your mum too. She wasn’t the only person to lose someone,” Grim says, watching me closely. “In my experience, no matter how much you love or loathe a person, you feel their absence regardless. That’s especially true of a parent.”

“Not for me.”

Reaching for my hand, she wraps her cool fingers around mine. “By the time Beast brought me my father’s heart, I hated my father passionately.”

“But you shot Beast because of what he did.”

Grim pulls a face. “He went against my explicit request, and at the time we were having this power play tug-of-war… Anyway,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “My point is, my father wasn’t the man I thought he was and every notion I had about him was shattered by his betrayal. Didn’t stop me from missing him though. Love is fucked up like that.”

Sighing heavily, I wince. “She was never a mum to me. I never loved her.”

“Sometimes love and hate are so tightly wrapped up in each other that it’s impossible to tell the difference. But you do know that it is okay to feel love for someone who was cruel, who hurt you, especially when they’re your parent. It doesn’t make you weak, Pen, it makes you human.”

Grim’s words are kind but they pack a punch that winds me, and for a moment I find I can’t breathe all that well. Her thumb rubs my knuckles as she waits for me to absorb her words, to let them truly sink in, and a memory that I’ve buried for years suddenly filters to the surface of my consciousness. I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly.

“When I was around five, before mum got pregnant with Lena, we went to the local park. It was summer and I remember I was wearing this white dress with red strawberries printed all over it. It was the only item of clothing I had that wasn’t second hand. I loved it. The day before it had rained heavily after weeks of blistering heat, and mum took us both out to enjoy the cooler weather.”

Grim cocks her head to the side. “Sounds like a happy memory, was it?”

“Yes and no,” I admit. “It’s been a long, long time since I’ve thought about that day.” Grim nods, but doesn’t say anything. Instead she waits for me to continue. “David was being his usual mean self and when I walked past this huge muddy puddle, he decided to push me into it. I fell face forward into the mud. The dress was ruined. I remember David taunting me, laughing.”

“What happened then?”

“Mum was furious and when she strode over to us both her fingers were curled into fists with anger. I remember clutching the material of my mud-soaked skirt in my hands and dropping my head, waiting for the slap to come. It never did. Instead, mum told off David then hauled me up into her arms, not caring that she got covered in mud too. She hugged me. She let me cry and she held me like a mother should. It was the first and last time she ever gave me affection. I clung onto her for as long as she would let me.”

“Pen…” Grim begins, her voice trailing off as I shake my head.

“At that moment, I had loved her. I had loved the mum she was in those five minutes. Even when I buried that memory deep down inside, I held onto the hope that one day she would return. It’s the only fond memory I have of her…”

“There’s more, right?” Grim gives me a sad look.

“Isn’t there always?”

“With parents like ours? Yes, yes there is,” she agrees.

“That day there had been a good looking man with fair hair and light eyes watching us at the park. I remember her flirting with him for hours and all that time she was the best mum I’d ever known. Nine months after that, Lena was born.” I fix my gaze on Grim, and heave out a sigh. “That five minutes of kindness she’d shown me wasn’t because she loved me, or even cared that I was upset. It was for that man’s benefit, not mine. The sad thing is, I would’ve done anything to have that woman as my mum, even if it was only a pretence. I loved that woman, the lie, but I’ve hated the real version my whole life.”

“I’m sorry, Pen.”

“Don’t be, because that experience made me understand what true love is. What I feel for Lena, for the guys, that is love and right now I’m focussing on that. When I see Lena sad I just want to take away the pain so she can be happy. I want to be that woman who picked up a little girl in her mud-splattered dress and make her real.”

“You’re already so much more than that,” Grim says.

“Thank you, I appreciate you saying that…” My voice trails off as I move my gaze from Grim to Clancy who’s currently running through the second half of the routine we’re going to perform this weekend. She’s been an amazing friend and taken up some of the slack whilst I’ve juggled being a parent to Lena and dealing with her emotional needs.

“Clancy’s good at what she does. I’m glad you persuaded me to hire her,” Grim remarks, watching Clancy as she high fives the dancers. “Her personality is infectious.”

“It is. Thank you for hiring her. I’m sorry I can’t do more right now.”

“You’ve no need to thank me or apologise. Clancy is an asset and you’re my friend. This works for all of us. Are you certain you’re good to perform this weekend? You know I won’t push you to come back until you’re ready. If ever…” She adds that last part as a friend who understands that I have four boyfriends who are struggling right now with my decision to return to work.

“Yeah. I am. I need to get back out there, for me as much as anyone else. Besides, this place is locked up tight with all the security now. I feel safe here with you all, despite the slightly nefarious characters who walk through the doors to this club every night.”

“Slightly?” Grim laughs. “Seriously, Pen, I wouldn’t be offended if you wanted to drop this gig altogether. It’d hurt my purse, but not my heart,” she says, taking a sip of her tea as we watch Clancy and the girls rehearse.

“Good to know, but despite everything, I like dancing here.” We fall silent, and just watch Clancy and the girls run through one of the best routines we’ve put together so far. It’s going to be amazing, and yet I can’t fully enjoy that fact because no matter how much I try to push thoughts of my brother aside, he’s always there in the back of my head, taunting me.

“You know, I keep expecting David to jump out of every dark corner,” I say after a while. “I hate the fact he’s out there somewhere just waiting to make his next move.”

“That’s understandable, but you have to know that we’d never let anything happen to you or Lena, right?”

“I do know that. The guys are on high alert twenty-four seven. They’re trying to hide it, but I know how stressed they all are. It feels like we can never catch a break. Ever since we’ve known each other, we’ve gone from one crisis to another. I don’t see an end in sight.”

“They love you, Pen. They’re not going to rest until your brother is dead and Santiago is behind bars. I don’t think any of us will…” Her voice trails off as she taps her finger on the bar counter, a thoughtful look crossing her face.

“Then why does it feel like we’re just sitting ducks? He has the upper hand, Grim.”

“Hudson has every avenue he can think of covered. Between us, we’ve hired more ghosts to protect the clubs we own just in case David or Santiago send another crew in an attempt to take us down. Interpol have upped their surveillance. Not to mention your boys have stepped up and gone into protective mode.”

“I’m not being funny, but Interpol doesn’t seem to be doing much at all, other than taking ages to find out anything.”

“It’s an issue. Doing everything correctly according to the law takes time. There’s a lot of red tape to cut and bullshit legal documents to get in place before they can even take a shit, let alone start pulling hundreds of hours of CCTV footage from across various areas of London.”

“But they hid what Zayn did. So really, what’s the big deal?”

“Your Breakers made a very tight deal with Interpol that meant they couldn’t be arrested for any unlawful activity whilst working on this case, including killing someone in self-defence, which is why Zayn literally got away with murder. Believe it or not, covering up a crime is a lot easier than dealing with various police forces and council departments over differing London boroughs to gather CCTV footage. It’s likely that David travelled quite a distance that night he murdered your mum, and that means several different warrants need to be raised for each local authority before they can even access the CCTV footage.”

“I didn’t realise it was so complicated.”

“If it isn’t handled correctly then the whole operation could be put at risk. There are too many people who can blow the whistle. Plus, hours of manpower is needed to trawl through the tapes, and that’s only the ones the local authority have jurisdiction over. It doesn’t include the hundreds of privately owned CCTV systems dotted around London.”

“I wish there was an easier way.”

“Right? I’m all for using the unlawful way to get what we want, so believe me it’s just as frustrating for me as it is for you that we can’t. I’m not concerned though; between all of us, we have enough ears to the ground and eyes on the street that it won’t be long before David fucks up, and when he does, we’ll be ready for him. He can’t hide forever.”

“This is all a sick, twisted game to him. It’s part of the fun. Those notes he left for me; I keep expecting another to turn up…” I swallow down the bile I feel rising in my throat, forcing it back down and closing a door on the memory of my mum’s wide, staring eyes.

“Eenie, meenie, miney, mo…” Grim whispers, repeating the words that haunt my dreams. I flinch. She meets my gaze, and I see the sympathy she has for me harden into hate for my brother. “He might enjoy playing games, Pen, but he’s fucking with the wrong people. We’ve got this covered.”

“And Santiago?” I ask.

“You, sweetheart, don’t need to be worrying about that fuck. You’ve got more than enough to worry about,” Beast says, appearing behind me like a ghost. I jump, and he grins.

“Don’t do that!” I admonish, slapping the back of my hand against his broad chest and regretting it instantly when pain ricochets up my arm. He’s basically made of rock. I’ve really no idea how anyone can beat him in the cage.

Beast chuckles, nudging me with his arm, the force of which would’ve had me falling backwards off the barstool if I hadn’t been ready for it. I’m used to his quirks by now. He doesn’t care that I’m ‘a girl’, he treats me exactly the same as he would the guys. Well, maybe he dials it down a notch, but still, I like that about him. He doesn’t treat me with kid gloves.

“What’s up, Pen, you feeling delicate today?” Beast asks, poking me with a finger on my upper arm.

“Leave Pen alone, you brute,” Grim admonishes with a glare, though there’s a smile in her voice that she only seems to reserve for Beast. Angering Grim is a risk for the general population. Beast, however, can wind her up to the max and she’ll let him. Well, she might break his nose or shoot him if steps over the line, but he loves her enough to take the punishment. We all know they’re mad about each other.

“Hey, babe, no need to go all mama bear on me,” he says, his already deep voice dropping an octave or two. If I weren’t so in love with my Breakers I’d be squirming in my own seat right about now at the sexy look he’s giving her. No one can doubt how much he adores her, and when he leans down to give her a kiss, I have to look away. By the time he pulls back, Grim’s cheeks are flushed, and her pupils are blown.

“How did the sparring with Dax go?” she asks him.

“Good, babe. He got his arse whooped though,” Beast chuckles, wrapping his arm around her shoulder before giving me a look, screwing up his face.

“What? Please don’t tell me I need to get Dax seen by Joey? I don’t trust that old quack,” I say.

“Nah, nothing like that,” Beast says. “Dax did tell me that he’s teaching you how to fight. How’s that going?”

“Good, actually. Why?”

“No reason.”

Grim laughs, rolling her eyes. “Beast was offended that you didn’t ask him for help. He thinks he’s the better man for the job.”

“I don’t think, I know I’m the better man for the job.”

I smile. “Don’t let the guys hear you say that…”

“Too late, just fucking heard it, ” Dax says, striding over to us. He’s changed out of his workout gear and into his clothes, and smells nice and clean. No doubt using the showers here at the club.

“What? You know it’s true. I’m almost ten years older than you, and I’ve barely broken a sweat. You on the other hand have just pissed out a litre of water from your pores sparring with me. I’m the don of bare-knuckle fighting. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. Pen should be taught by the best. Am I right?”

“Maybe I should be calling the Deana-dhe then? After all, I’m pretty sure you said they were your betters,” I comment, my lips quivering with a smile.

“Fuck, no! I don’t want you within ten miles of those dangerous fucks,” Dax warns, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me close. I lean into his hold, breathing in his clean scent.

“I’d have to agree with you, mate. As much as I respect them—”

“Fear them,” Grim points out.

“Babe, I don’t fear anyone. Well, except perhaps you…” Beast counters with a laugh before continuing with his point. “As much as I respect them, those lads aren’t people I would feel comfortable leaving my woman alone with.”

“Speaking of which, have you heard from them lately?” A look passes between the two that has me frowning and wondering about The Masks. Aside from that time when Beast and I met with the Deana-dhe in Tom O’Brien’s pub, no one’s mentioned Malik Brov or his crazy sons for weeks but that doesn’t mean to say the threat has gone away, just that they’re hiding the problem from me.

“No, I haven’t. But if I do, you’ll be the last to know about it,” Beast retorts with a smirk. Grim scowls. “Babe, I’m kidding. Tom’s going to let me know when they’re back in London or if he hears from them.”

“Good.” Grim presses a kiss against Beast’s cheek. “Drink anyone?” she asks, giving him a sweet smile.

“I guess that’s your cue to start serving,” Dax says, smirking.

“Well of course it’s his cue. I’m a pregnant woman and need to get off my feet every once in a while.”

“Wait a minute… Whenever I suggest you get off your feet and rest, all I get is an ear bashing and sent to the spare room for being a chauvinistic pig. That shit ain’t fucking fair,” Beast retorts, grumbling under his breath.

Dax blurts out a laugh, and I elbow him in the ribs when Grim glares at him. He immediately slams his mouth shut knowing better than to piss off Grim. Beast, on the other hand, either has a death wish or gets off on the fact that he’s always a few seconds away from losing his dick.

“Babe, you know it’s true,” he counters.

Grim grins sweetly, but her eyes are glaring daggers. “That’s my prerogative, and frankly, you’d better get used to it, because if you continue to piss me off, I’m going to be doing more than sending you to the spare room. I’ll be chopping your cock off and stuffing it down your throat.”

Beside me Dax is desperately trying to hold in a laugh, and I’m biting my lip to stop myself from doing the same. Poor Beast, he really is trying his best, but Grim isn’t making it easy for him with her hormonal mood swings that flip on a dime. Perhaps the Freed brothers were onto something with their little wager after all.

“What’s going on? Why does everyone look like they’re straining to go for a crap?” Lena asks as she approaches with Gray. It’s all we need to set us off, and everyone, including Grim, roar with laughter.