Page 45 of Diary of a Biker Queen

Nyah said nothing, just burst into tears, her shoulders shaking, her long dark hair falling around her face in a curtain while she cried.

Luca didn’t move to comfort her. He stood like a statue beside her, staring at me.

I moved to Nyah’s side, pulling her into my arms and cradling her head to my chest. “Hey, shh. Whatever happened, it’s okay now. You’re safe.”

I kissed the top of her head, but my gaze was firmly locked on Luca’s. I didn’t get the vibe he’d hurt her, but rather something had happened and both were in shock. “What happened?” I murmured to him; eyes full of questions.

His throat bobbed. His gaze darted to my brothers, who’d both paused mid tattoo to stare at us. “Can we talk in private?”

A bad feeling grew in the pit of my stomach, but I nodded, and with my arm wrapped around Nyah, I led them to the little kitchen at the back of the shop. It had a door you could close off so it wasn’t visible to the store floor, and I shut it behind us.

Nyah sobbed harder once it was just the three of us, her arms gripping around me so tight I could barely breathe.

Horror washed over me. “The baby?”

She shook her head fast. “No. No, it’s fine. But, Dax, your mom…”

I blinked at her, wondering what on earth my mother could have done to have Luca walking around like a zombie and Nyah this upset. “What did she do?”

Nyah gazed up at me miserably, her cheeks tearstained and bottom lip trembling. She was so fucking beautiful it was impossible for me to not brush my lips over hers and reassure her, whatever it was, it was going to be okay.

“Just tell me. Whatever happened, we’ll get through it together.”

As long as she and the baby were alive and well, I could handle anything else.

But it was Luca who cleared his throat so she didn’t have to. “We found your mom dead outside the gates at the Slayers’ compound this morning.”

For a long moment, his words didn’t register.

For a slow second, the world still seemed like a good place.

In an instant, that shattered. Exploded into shrapnel that cut deep, spearing its way inside my skin and ripping apart everything I was. I shook my head. “No. I just talked to her when we got back from Scotland. I told her everything. She had to know why she needed to lay low, and why she couldn’t go back to the Guerras’ ever. She said she wouldn’t…”

Luca’s mouth pulled into a straight line, and he scrubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know that we can blame this one on my father.”

Rage and anger exploded inside me because it was a hell of a lot easier than hearing my mother had been murdered. I didn’t want to think about the raw wound that felt like it had punctured my heart and lungs and every other vital organ. If I did, I was scared I’d fall into a heap I’d never recover from. “Of course it was your fucking father,” I seethed at him, taking out that anger on the wrong person. But he was the only Guerra I had in my store at that minute so he would have to do. “Who the hell else would want my mother dead?”

Nyah took a wobbly breath. “There were marks carved into her back,” she said softly.

I blanched at the details I was sure I didn’t want to know.

“Claw marks,” she added. “But not the kind a real animal would have made.”

I stared at her, remembering all too vividly another dead body I’d seen with claw marks carved into skin. “Lynx?” I barely got out, bile rising up in my throat. “No. He’s a good guy. He wouldn’t…”

And yet all three of us had seen him lose control. We’d all seen the way he’d sliced up a man like he was a butcher and the body beneath his blade a slaughtered pig. “Why?” I whispered.

Luca shook his head. “I don’t know. He was triggered. Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing…”

“Don’t fucking make excuses for him,” I snapped.

“I’m not,” he said. “Virginia…your mom, she meant something to me, Dax. Please don’t think I’m making light of this, because I’m not. But if Lynx did this, then something is seriously wrong.”

Nyah leaned against my chest. “He can’t have. I don’t believe it.”

Luca stared at her. “Then where is he?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”