Reclaiming Our Forever: Cimaruta MC Chicago Series, #2

By Natalie Arthur

Francesco

 

I met the love of my life at fourteen. She had my heart the moment I saw her. But when you're young and stupid you don't always make the right decisions. That's what happened to me. I let the temptations of my job distract me from the one thing I couldn't live without. I had lost all hope, but fate gave me another chance. I have to make it up to her. I know she's hiding something from me. Will she let me in and give me a second chance?

 

Maeve

 

I thought I had it all. Sure I may have been young, but when it's real, you just know. That was, until he ended things. I never saw it coming. Now he's back and he wants another chance. Can I really trust him not to break my heart again? I want to believe him. I've never stopped loving him. But it's not just me I have to protect anymore.

 

Can they find their way back to the happily ever after they were meant to have? Or will they be pulled apart again, shattering all hope?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natalie Arthur
• Release date: Jan 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224515967

Book preview

Chapter One

Francesco

Crazy. That’s the only way to describe these last few months.

A few months ago, my baby sister Luciana was kidnapped by one of our chapter clubs from England. The now ex-president of the Feral Raptors, Richard ‘T-Rex’ Vaughan, and a few of his council members thought it was a good idea. She was gone for two fucking days. That may not seem like a long time, but to us? It felt like a lifetime. Not knowing if she was okay was the worst part.

After we found Luciana, we gave the remaining Raptors two choices: stand with us and kick out the members that backed their old president, or be voted out of the family. Their decision was to get rid of all the members that were loyal to T-Rex. When they were done cleaning house, they voted their road captain, Scrapper, in as president. He was the one that told us about T-Rex’s plan to take my sister and kept us up on his movements. When it was all over, he asked to be given a chance to prove the Raptor’s loyalty to the Cimaruta. Even though they have a new council and have gotten rid of the traitors, they’re still on probation. My papà hasn’t decided how long it will last, though. The biggest issue is knowing the remaining members will be supportive of Scrapper taking over. And making sure they’re loyal to the Cimaruta.

Our club, the Cimaruta MC, Chicago, is the mother club, which means we’re the original club. It was founded by my grandfathers, Fausto ‘Drago’ Bastianini and Liam ‘Iolar’ Kearney. They came from Italy and Ireland to make a better life for my parents.

When we turned eighteen, my fraternal twin brother, Celestino, and I prospected for the Cimaruta like everyone else in our club had to. Just because we’re legacy doesn’t mean we get special treatment. A few years later, we were voted onto the council. Besides prospecting, college wasn't something either of us wanted to do at the time. So we started our company, Magic Nights Chicago. We’re male entertainers. Okay fine, we’re strippers. But 'male entertainers' sounds more classy. We do shows Friday and Saturday nights at Luminescence—the club we co-own with the Mancini Mafia. We also do private shows.

Our Irish grandparents own our Magic Nights company. It was the best option for us when we started our business because we were going through so many changes with our MC. Only a few of the dancers that work with us know that my grandparents own the company. We don’t want any of the guys to feel like we’re above them or that they need to ‘answer’ to us. We’re all equals when it comes to working at the club.

Our MC has been going through major changes over the last seven years. We’ve gone from being on the wrong side of the law to being tax paying, law-abiding, motorcycle riders. At least ninety percent of the time, anyway.

When my twin and I were ten years old, our grandfathers stepped down as co-presidents of the Cimaruta MC, Chicago. They returned to their respective countries and started chapters there. Nonno Fausto started his in Florence, Italy and Granda Liam in Galway, Ireland—both of them keeping the Cimaruta name.

We visited Ireland and Italy once a year while we were growing up. But after my grandfathers moved back permanently, we went every few months.

In the last five years, only our parents have made the trip, so I’m excited to be back in Ireland and to see my Irish club brothers. My Granda Liam pops in whenever he feels like it even though he’s not on their council anymore. But trust me when I say no one goes against anything he says. The same goes for our Florence, Italy chapter and Nonno Fausto. It doesn’t matter that they’re no longer the presidents of those chapters, they’ll always be the founders of our MC. So that demands respect from all past, present and future club members.

The council members of our chapter clubs in other countries are required to join us in Chicago twice a year. Council members of our US chapters are required to attend every barbecue. Our club pays for half of all airfare, or if they choose to drive, half of their gas and lodging along the way. The rest comes out of their club coffers. Patched members are required to come to at least six functions a year if they live in the US, and at least one if they live abroad.

We usually have the barbecues that involve the chapters abroad in the spring and fall. It’s a beautiful time of year in Chicago with the leaves turning, and the air is lighter. There are times when chapter clubs can’t make it to the barbecues, even the mandatory ones. When that happens, we use the program that Sebastiano Mancini, of the Mancini Mafia, created called ‘Script.’ It’s a video-chat program that also allows us to live stream everything that’s going on and keep a recording of it.

Whenever we travel to either country, the first thing we do when we land is head over to see our grandparents. Then it’s on to meet with the MC chapters.

My siblings and I have always been close. Celestino and I are a year older than Isabella and Luciana. When we were little, my mom told Celestino and me that we needed to watch over our little sisters. So we decided that we each had to watch one of them. Celestino chose Isabella and I chose Luciana. Wherever we went, they went.

It was always a lot of fun when we would go to the different clubhouses with our parents. The brothers in the club always made time to hang out with all four of us. We would swim in the ponds or play hide and seek in the trees. We spent so many summers learning about our Italian and Irish cultures.

When I was fourteen, I met the love of my life. She stole my heart the minute I saw her. And I knew from that moment on that there would never be anyone else for me.

This time when we land in Ireland, checking in with our MC chapter is put on hold for a couple of days. When we land today, we’re going to be meeting Rónán’s family. Then tomorrow, my baby sister Luciana is being proposed to—and she has no idea.

Our whole family is here for it, as well as the family of her soon-to-be fiancé, Rónán O’Callaghan. His parents own a restaurant located on the Aran Islands here in Ireland. My parents are thrilled because they love Rónán. Although that wasn’t the case when he started dating Luciana…but he’s proven how much he loves my sister and that he’d do anything for her. For us, that’s all that matters.

Rónán has three older brothers, Keegan, Aodhán and Fintan. As of right now, all four of them are prospecting with us. Along with all of the Mancini kids. Well 'kids' isn’t really the right word—we’re all around the same age. There are seven of them. So our club is growing, and my papà is very happy. It’s the first time in a long while that the club will gain this many members.

Maeve

I loved growing up in Ireland. I’m an only child, but my parents never made me feel like one. They were only children too, so they understood what it was like for me and always made sure I was happy. My da was the road captain for the Cimaruta MC, Galway Chapter. That means he took care of mapping out any runs that the club did, and he was in charge of everyone's was safety as well.

When I was fourteen years old, I found my soulmate. Francesco Liam Bastianini. We met at a club barbecue. He was six feet tall with beautiful blue-green eyes. They reminded me of the ocean. Whenever we would go out, girls would always flirt with him. But he never acted like he saw them. Only me.

The first time my life fell apart was when my parents died. I was sixteen, and they were out for a ride. A car crossed into their lane and hit them head on. I still remember that day like it was yesterday.

Because my da was a high-ranking officer on the Cimaruta council, the president of the Galway chapter came to tell me. That man was Francesco’s grandfather. I was at home when he came to give me the news. I’ll always be grateful Francesco was there with me that day. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had been alone when I found out. Besides Franco, my parents were all I had, and I lost them in the blink of an eye. There was no one to take care of me after they were gone. Well, I had my nana  – my da’s mam, but she was sick. She made sure I had a place to live so that I didn’t go into foster care, but beyond that, she couldn’t do much. And that was okay, I loved her for doing that much for me. Liam made sure I knew that I would always have help from the club, no matter what I needed.

Two years later, my life fell apart again and this time it felt like I would never recover. Francesco left me, with no reason or explanation. After four years and all the promises we made to each other that we would always be together, he blindsided me. We texted every day, talked on the phone every day, even got to visit each other several times a year. The last visit, we got to spend our eighteenth birthdays together. After he left, the number of phone calls started to decrease. He would say that he got busy and he was so sorry. Then the texts became sporadic. The last time I spoke to him, he said everything was okay. That we were okay. He was just busy because he was prospecting for the Cimaruta, and starting a business with his twin brother, Celestino. But I had nothing to worry about because I was everything to him and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.

Obviously, that was a lie. A few months later, I found out I was pregnant. I struggled with telling Francesco about it, but I didn’t want him to come back just because of my pregnancy. There was never any other option but for me to have the baby.

A couple months after I found out I was pregnant, I met Callum McGregor. He had just moved here from Scotland and came into the cafe where I was working. He came in every night for dinner and always sat in my section. I was starting to show, but he never asked questions. We talked about life and things that he wanted to do now that he was in Ireland. I was about seven months pregnant when Callum asked me to have dinner with him. I told him I appreciated his offer but I couldn’t accept. When he asked me why, I told him it wasn’t something I could talk about. Then he asked me about the da of my baby. I told him that he wasn’t in the picture. He told me that even if I wasn’t ready to date him, I didn’t have to do it all by myself.

That was the first time since Francesco left me that I didn’t feel empty and alone. I’m not sure why, but when I met Callum, I felt like I could trust him. But that didn’t mean I would start dating him. So for the next couple of months, he continued to come to the cafe whenever I worked. Which was usually five to six nights a week. I was exhausted, but I had to make sure I had enough money saved up for when I had the baby. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work for at least a month, maybe more. I needed to be able to pay my bills and I would need help with the baby. Even with all my preparations, I still didn’t know how I was going to do it.

I thought about calling Cormac Neeson, the President of the Cimaruta MC, Galway. But after Francesco left me, it felt wrong to accept help from the club. Even though they had been helping me since my parents passed away. After things ended with Francesco, I tried to return the money that Cormac sent to me every month. When he asked me why, I told him that we had ended things and it didn’t seem right to keep taking money from the club. He told me that the help was because I had lost my parents at such a young age and because my father was part of the MC family. Which meant that I was part of the family. It wasn’t because of my relationship with Francesco. So I agreed to continue to accept the money, and if I’m being honest? I don’t know where I’d be without it. And now with the baby coming? I needed the money more than ever.

I knew I had to tell Cormac about the baby. It took me a little while but I finally got up the courage to call him and ask him to meet me. When I told him about the baby, I asked him not to tell Francesco. I said that he left me and didn’t want anything to do with me. Which was sort of true. I mean, I never tried to contact him, but he never tried either. Cormac agreed to not tell Francesco, but asked that I didn’t come around the clubhouse because the guys would ask questions. If I needed anything, I was to call him directly and he would come to me. If that was the only way I could keep this from Francesco, I would do it. But I miss my MC family so much.

It’s been almost five years since then and my life has been pretty good. Callum and I have had a good relationship. But lately all I can think about is Francesco and whether or not I made the right decision about keeping the baby from him. Callum has never told me I shouldn’t tell him, all he says is that I need to do what’s best for me and the baby. Maybe I should contact Francesco and tell him about his daughter. But that thought terrifies me.

Chapter Two

Francesco

My twin and I were raised to be strong and protective of our mam, sisters and everyone in our family. Blood and chosen. When we turned sixteen, we had trackers hidden in our arms, as did our younger twin sisters. We did this because of the changes that were being made within our club and the possible repercussions.

When Luciana was taken and the tracking program I created almost failed, I swore it would never happen again. Because of that, I decided it was time to go to college. I wanted to learn how to make the things we needed the right way and to fix the ones that weren’t working. Being self taught is great, but there are some things you need to learn from people that know more than you. Sebastiano Mancini is one of those people. He is the head of IT for his family's company, Mancini Legacy Enterprises. He and I have been working together to make the tracking program work the way I envisioned.

It’s funny how life has a way of throwing you curveballs that can make your head spin. Just when it seemed like my life was going to mellow out, she came back into my life.

Maeve Ciara Flanagan.

The one girl I thought I would never see again. We met in Ireland when we were fourteen. Her papà, Ansel ‘Cruach’ Flanagan, was the road captain for our Cimaruta MC, Galway chapter. He was one of the original members of our Galway chapter. He and his wife passed away in a motorcycle accident when we were sixteen. Maeve went to live with her nana after that, and my granda made sure the Galway club helped take care of her.

Maeve and I spent almost all of my time in Ireland together, as much as our families would allow. Our last visit was when Celestino and I were eighteen. Things were getting busier with Magic Nights, and I started to feel overwhelmed. We tried to keep the relationship going, but it was just too hard. Especially with her in Ireland and me in Chicago.

Maeve was my first for everything. Kiss. Love. Sex. And heartbreak. Since then, no one has ever come close to making me feel what I felt for her. Part of it could be because I never really let anyone in after I ended things. She’s the only person who knows everything about me. Even with the club—that’s the part of me that I can only talk about with my family. But since her papà was a part of our club, she knew the life. I never had to hide anything from her.

I don’t know when I decided to end things. I’m not sure I really made a conscious decision to end it. I let myself get consumed with what I had going on at home. And in doing that, I lost the love of my life. There was also the allure of the women who came to the shows. I let them pull me away