Gage (Steel Riders MC #4)

Chapter 1

Ami

“There is no way in fucking hell I’m giving you a divorce.”

So much for not causing a scene. I’ll admit that bringing divorce papers to my nephew’s christening probably wasn’t the best idea in the world.

The gathering is so massive that it overflows out of my sister’s backyard into the front and spills onto the street like a swollen river rushing over its banks, and each and every single person there now gets to witness the throwdown between me and a certain soon to be ex-husband.

The problem—up until two minutes ago, he had no idea that my presence was going to fuck up his day.

I just didn’t know when I’d get another chance to serve him.

Greg Ambridge. Club name, Gage.

A man I am legally married to but who’s still little more than a stranger. I also haven’t seen him in a year. Not since the fateful morning after our wedding night when I told the entire world—his MC, his Prez, his VP, that he’d beaten me.

Tall. Dark. Chiseled from stone, with a jaw, cheekbones, brow, and attitude that are just as severe.

He’s like a dark thundercloud, one made of raven black hair tied up at the nape of his thick, bronzed neck.

I thought, for all his severity, he’d go down easy.

That he’d want freedom as badly as I did.

That the ball and chain thing was a little old. Apparently, I was wrong.

“If you think you can just walk back into Helena after a year of no contact and demand that I sign divorce papers, when you haven’t had the courage to so much as call me or send a message through one of your siblings, you have another fucking thing coming.”

Just like that, the party grinds to a halt. The sounds of children’s laughter die away. Someone shuts the cheery, annoying as shit, juvenile music—nursery rhymes and songs about nonsense—right the fuck off. Static silence blares over the backyard so loud that it fills up the front too.

Men in leather and worn denim turn their heads in unison to stare at me. My father. My brothers. Wearing the same leather with the Steel Riders MC patch on the back, turn to gape.

The thing is, I haven’t seen any of them since I left. Not my sisters. Not my brothers. Not my mother or the man who lays claim to donating seed to make me. Not that I’d call him a father. In passing, yes. At the heart of me, never.

Even the kids stare. Open mouths. Wobbling lips. Huge tear-filled eyes, because of course they can sense the tension.

There’s a chorus of throat clearing and shuffling of big black biker boots. An embarrassed female laugh from somewhere in the crowd.

More radio silence, crackling over the hot dog and burger scented air. My sister hasn’t even brought the cake out yet and I walked in and spoiled it all. It’s a common theme in my life. Everything I touch goes to shit.

My sister, Steph, calm, graceful, as beautiful as ever with her big eyes and her pale skin, her sweet, heart-shaped face, willowy build, and honeyed blonde hair, breaks the spell.

She lets out a half choke, half laugh sound and leaves her husband’s side to float over to me.

She takes my arm in her dainty hand and bends to study me, since there’s almost a foot height difference between us.

“Come have a piece of cake, Ami. We were just about to bring it out. Adam and I are glad you could make it. You didn’t tell me you were coming, but that doesn’t matter.

” She grabs the stack of papers from me and smiles softly—the way only Steph can—like I didn’t just barge into her backyard.

Like I wasn’t there for all of two minutes before I spotted Gage, stalked up to him, and shoved the stack of papers into his hands.

“I need those papers,” I hiss under my breath, trying to grab for them, but Steph tucks them further away.

“After cake.”

“Now.”

She sighs and purses her lips. “It’s not every day that my baby turns one.

Cake first. This can wait until later. When you’re out of my yard, away from here, where you can discuss things like rational adults in private.

” She glares at me pointedly before her light green eyes swivel over to Gage to skewer him on the spot.

She looks like a pissed off mother bear, and it’s hard as hell to argue against that.

Gage sweeps a hand through his dark hair, mussing it all over the place, since it’s tied up at the back of his head.

A few dark strands pull loose, and I try not to look at him.

Not to focus on his high cut cheekbones or his stony jawline.

Not at his black velvet eyes. He looks hard.

He is hard. Twenty-seven. He’s twenty-seven, but he has that look of someone ancient, someone who’s seen too much life, and at six three, big enough to scare the life out of most people with just a scowl.

In another lifetime, I might have found him attractive. Thrilling, even. In another lifetime, I might have enjoyed being married, if I wasn’t little more than a pawn. Three sisters married to three strangers all on the same day. The same wedding. Traded away by their fucking father.

My sisters found happiness. My father and my brothers and the rest of his men became Steel Riders MC Jacksonville chapter. Their business is booming. Life is good for them.

In another lifetime, I might not have been damaged beyond repair.

“Yeah.” Gage mutters. He stares at me like I’ve just broken my year of self-imposed exile to breathe the plague on them all. When his eyes sweep back to my sister, they’re much softer. “Sure thing, Steph. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Steph smiles and offers a genuine laugh.

She’s nice like that. Always has been. The years haven’t changed her, but why should they? She has a nice house now. A husband who obviously loves her, if the way he looks at her like she’s hung the damn moon, is any indication.

She turns back to me like I have a right to be there.

Like I didn’t just waltz into the place and act like a capital bitch when I should be celebrating a nephew that I’ve never met.

A little boy who looks exactly like his mother.

Beautiful. Sweet. Blond with huge green eyes and a charming, chubby-cheeked smile.

It’s as sickening as the way my sister’s husband steps up behind her and sets his hand at the small of her back. She blushes at his touch and leans into the safety and shelter that he offers with just that simple reassuring touch.

It makes something in the pit of my stomach ache for just a second before I banish it. I learned a long time ago that touch can harm far more than it heals.

“I’ll have a piece of cake,” I cave, because this is my nephew’s day after all, and contrary to what my father thinks about me, I don’t love drama and this sure as hell isn’t the time or the place to make myself the center of attention, which I’ve managed to do anyway by walking in and acting like a petulant child.

“Thanks. And… sorry.” I grind the word grudgingly, more an afterthought than anything.

It’s necessary though, so that no one here thinks I’m any more of a bitch than they already do.

“It’s alright.” Steph reaches out and grips my hand with both of hers. The divorce papers are mysteriously missing from either of those warm little palms and I nearly panic until I spot Adam walking away with the bundle.

Now that the show’s over, the crowd of people in the yard go back to what they were doing before I strolled in and wrecked the day.

Laughing. Talking. Drinking beer. Helping themselves to burgers and hot dogs, chips, and the rest of the heaping piles of food laid out on three picnic tables pushed up against the back of the house.

It’s a nineties construction. Nice enough.

Freshly painted white with purple shutters.

Imagine. A house belonging to a biker in a small town of ten thousand. A town where everyone knows that it’s a biker’s house and that biker belongs to a club that people shouldn’t fuck with. A cute house with fucking purple shutters.

That’s just my sister.

And I guess that’s her husband.

Who loves her enough to let her have purple shutters.

That ache blooms in my stomach again, a thorny rose that pricks me from the inside out. It shreds me like broken glass, the happiness that surrounds this yard.

I amble off to the side, trying to make myself invisible.

Children run past me, laughing and screaming again, shielded by their innocence from truly understanding the bitter shit that just went down.

I settle up against the fence so hard that my back almost gets splinters from the rough wood.

The house might be freshly renovated, at least from the outside, but the grayed-out wood could use a little work back here.

I nearly groan when I spot a dark head, rising above the rest. Steel, Prez of Steel Riders MC.

His wife, a petite blonde woman, laughs at his side.

They exchange a look that’s absolutely disgusting, full of shimmering mush, sappy enough to make bile flood the back of my throat and bitterness edge out any warmth in my chest. My eyes stray from them to the club’s VP, Edge, and his old lady, Steel’s daughter.

I know her name is Harley, but I don’t know anything else about her.

Other than that she’s loved. I can tell by the way she leans into her husband, his arm wrapped tightly about her waist while they converse with Steel and his wife.

The occasional glances she steals up at his hard face, the private looks they share between them, his protective stance, her private smile—it all speaks so loudly it’s like a roaring train barreling down on me.

I tear my eyes away and stare at the other couples assembled throughout the yard.

Contrary to most clubs, The Riders don’t deal hard shit.

They don’t trade in women. They’ve kept Helena safe for years.

They pick up the pieces for the men they take in, give a family, and call their own.

People talk about The Riders favorably, at least in Helena.

Maybe even in Jacksonville, where I grew up.

It’s why I agreed to go to Tampa when shit went down.

I brazenly looked Steel in the eye and told him my husband beat me.

The club has some stupid rule about the members wronging each other and in return, my father avenged me by letting my brother beat the shit out of Gage.

I was then shipped off to another city. Out of sight. Out of mind.

Never mind that The Riders still pay for the apartment I live in.

Never mind that everyone knows Gage never laid a hand on me.

Never mind that I came here to get a divorce so I can finally, finally be free of it all and live my life on my own terms.

Never mind all that because everyone is gathered there in my sister’s yard, to celebrate that little baby. I know his name is Ethan. Other than that… Yeah. I’m not going to win auntie of the year awards anytime soon.

Even my brothers shuffle about with women at their sides.

My father looks happy. He’s softer since I saw him last. He looks at my sister like he actually enjoys being there.

He looks at my nephew like the kid is the entire reason the world turns every single day.

Then again, the kid’s a boy, so he has everything going for him where my father is concerned.

He probably won’t be traded away in a package deal to ensure a bond between two rival clubs anytime soon. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

I let my eyes roam the crowd freely, unashamed to be caught staring, but then again, no one notices me now that I’ve blended back so seamlessly into non-existence up against the fence.

My youngest sister, Leena, emerges from the house with Stephanie, carrying a massive cake.

Her husband trails behind her, his hands out like he’s ready to catch the damn thing if she trips and drops it.

He has that lovesick puppy look on his face too and I have to stop to wonder if there’s a single person here at this party who isn’t in love. Everyone looks so damn happy.

Even my brothers, and that was something they never were before, as if happiness was a bad STD.

Obviously, The Riders have been good for them. The Riders with their rules about how to treat their women, The Riders who seem to have an excess of boundless, thrilling love for their old ladies, for their wives, their children, and for each other, as brothers.

It’s a real family.

All of them.

The entirety of the people assembled.

This could have been my life, if I’d stuck around. If I’d swallowed my pride and come back. But I didn’t. I wore my pride like a mantle because it was all I had left. I never came back. Not to wallow or to beg or because this is where my family is and I need them.

Instead, I forged my own path and made it alone.

Even if I wanted to come back, which I didn’t—because I had something to prove to myself and to the rest of the world, I know that my life was never destined to be anything more than solitary.

My hopes for a future, for love, for understanding, were stolen away nine years ago.

A single night changed everything for me.

So no. I didn’t just choose to stay away. I chose to run. To keep running. Because it’s all I’ve known for a very long time. It’s pretty much the only thing in the world that I’m good at.