Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
The dots came fast. Yes.
I stared at the single word like it might burn its way through the glass into my palm.
Twenty minutes, I replied. Door. Jacket.
Okay, she responded. Then, a simple but thoughtful: Be careful.
I smiled where no one could see. “Always,” I said to the empty lot, and swung my leg over the Harley-Davidson. Never replying back.
The engine ticked in rhythm. The road opened. Behind me, my brothers split into the night to face the task at hand or deal with their own shit at home. Ahead of me, a girl waited at a door with a jacket and a heart that didn’t know how to quit.
I wasn’t a kind man. I wasn’t a good one either. But I believed in loyalty at all costs. I’d pay it for my son. For my club. And God help me, guilt could eat at me until eternity, but I’d do whatever I had to even if it meant entangling an innocent woman in this mess.
The bitterness sat heavy on my soul. Hampton Stanley thought he owned this town, and Judge Walsh smiled like justice was a joke. They were about to learn what it felt like when the joke bit back.
We would dig. We would gather. We would build the case like a scaffold.
And then we would hang them with their own rope. And in the meantime, I would enjoy tasting the innocence of a woman tossed in a world she had never known.
Chapter 11
IvaLeigh
When Gonzo told me he’d be “on a run,” I didn’t ask questions.
Part of me wanted to. I wanted to know what that meant, what he did when he disappeared for days, what kind of business could take him away with nothing but the roar of motorcycles fading into the distance. But the way he said it—the finality in his tone, the weight in those words—told me it wasn’t something I had the right to pry into.
So I just nodded. And then I allowed myself to miss him.
I missed him more than I should have, more than made any sense. I barely knew him, yet the silence of my apartment felt heavier without him there to break it. Darla seemed scarce and I wasn’t complaining about that. My classes dragged. The library lost its comfort. Even the walk across campus felt emptier without wondering if he’d be leaning against his motorcycle, waiting with that patient, dangerous calm.
Darla noticed, well as much as she was capable. She was too wrapped up in Collin most days to care about me, but even she raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been staring at your phone like it’s going to sprout legs and kiss you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m just waiting on a call.”
“From who?” she pressed, smirking.
“No one,” I lied.
But it wasn’t no one. It was him.
When he finally called, I nearly dropped my phone fumbling to answer.
“I’m back.” His voice rumbled, low and steady.
My chest squeezed. “Oh.” I was confused because inside my whole chest was leaping for joy at the idea of seeing him, even kissing him again. And then the reality washed over me again. I was a fool to get tangled up with him. Yet, I couldn’t deny myself of even this moment of attention from him.
“Oh,” he repeated, amused. “That’s all you’ve got for me?”
I swallowed a laugh, my pulse racing. “What do you want me to say?”
There was a pause. Then: “I want you to come to a party tonight.”
“A party?” I repeated, unsure.
“Clubhouse,” he said simply. “My people. My world. You don’t have to stay if you don’t like it. But I want you there.”
The way he said it, like it wasn’t a request but an invitation to something deeper, made it impossible to say no. And if I was honest with myself, I was curious about him and his world.
“Okay,” I breathed.
The clubhouse swallowed me whole the second I stepped inside.
Bass rolled through the floorboards, thick enough to feel under my shoes. Neon bled across walls layered in framed photos, old patches in frames, a crooked “NO SNITCHES” sign, and a lineup of dented helmets that looked like trophies. The air was a cocktail of smoke, whiskey, leather, fryer grease, and something electric—like the sky right before lightning strikes breaking through.
I stayed close to Gonzo without meaning to. He didn’t touch me at first, just ghosted a hand at the small of my back, guiding me through bodies the way a tide guides a boat. Heads turned. Chin lifts from men, quick once-overs from women, a couple grins so shameless I felt my cheeks warm. No one said my name, but I felt it in the look they gave him then me like being beside him mattered.
A prospect hustled by with a tub of ice on his shoulder. Two women were perched on the bar like queens, their boots braced on a barstool rung while a tattooed guy poured shots down their throats. Somewhere to my left, a pool game popped and a woman cackled, hips rolling against the guy lining up his next shot. “Rack ’em,” she told him, and he did, hands lingering on her waist like they’d been there a thousand times.