Chapter 2 Aiden
Some days, Evie was the best thing in my entire life.
Other days, she was my own walking nightmare, a force of nature designed to ruin me.
I don’t know what type of horrifying shit I did in my past lives to deserve the wrath of Evie, but I must have been some kind of asshole because this was hell on earth.
After forty-five minutes of dealing with pissed-off bikers, I’d had enough. The girl who’d waited inside? She was long gone. Not that it mattered, she had only been someone I could look at instead of staring at Evie all night.
Evie, tall and impossible to ignore, long blonde hair catching the light, those dark blue eyes sparking with something feral. Beautiful, cunning, wild enough to earn the name Psycho—and wear it like it belonged to her.
I needed something to keep my eyes—and mind—off her.
And really, the only thing I cared about now would be getting home to yell at Evie and finally get some sleep.
After working forty-eight hours straight, I only wanted a carefree night out, but Evie wasn’t about to let it happen.
I parked in the garage and stalked inside, keeping my pace measured.
Anger simmered under the surface, but I wasn’t about to let it get the best of me.
Not tonight. She’d be in her room—she always retreated when her chaos caught up to her.
Evie rarely felt shame, but even she would lie low after getting dumped in front of a packed bar.
She usually called the shots, ending things when she felt like it, and this one had dragged out long enough for me to wonder if she actually liked him.
“Evie,” I called out, my voice sharp as I climbed the stairs and turned down the hallway.
The Fletcher Mansion was ours now—even if we’d acquired it by less than honest means.
The previous owner was dead and, thanks to Evie’s hacking skills, in his will the place was left to Regan—Rook’s girlfriend—who didn’t mind when we all moved in.
We’d been debating a name change for weeks, but nothing had stuck.
“Evie,” I called again, as I made it to a hallway full of bedrooms. Three of us had rooms down this one—Evie, Zack, and I—with Hero, Rook, and Mason down another, and Kane downstairs off the living room.
I gave one hard knock on the door—it took everything in me not to kick it down—but my conscience got the best of me, and I held back.
When she didn’t answer, I gave her one more second before throwing it open.
She lay sprawled on the bed, her phone raised in one hand, the glow of the TV flickering in the dark. She didn’t even bother to look at me, as if I hadn’t dealt with her latest disaster for the better part of an hour.
“Evie,” I said, the words scraped out, low and tense. “What the fuck is your problem?”
She shifted her gaze from her phone, one eyebrow raised in mock innocence. “Oh, we’re doing this now? Okay. What’s my problem?” she asked, every word dripping with annoyance. “You, apparently.”
I leaned over the bed, her legs pinned beneath me. My hands shook from the urge to wrap them around her damn throat. I thought the drive home would cool me off, she’d wrecked my whole night, and seeing her now—relaxed and somehow annoyed with me—only sharpened the fury I’d tried to bury.
Evie always found a way to rule my days and nights, and I never could quite figure out how she did it so effortlessly.
“Me? What the fuck does that mean?” I demanded.
“It means, you’re the only problem in my life currently. You made my boyfriend break up with me.”
“I did not. It’s not my fault he felt threatened by me having to be around.”
It’s not like it was always my choice. Somewhere in our ten years of friendship, Rook had decided I was the best person to handle Evie.
It had started from me doing anything for him—and her—and quickly turned into me offering to watch over her.
We lived a dangerous enough life, it wasn’t suspicious she would need some sort of protection.
Rook trusted me and Evie listened to me, it was a logical job for me to take on—until I was watching her too much, hanging around her when I didn’t need to, making her ride with me even if there were other open bikes.
“He feels threatened because not only do I have to be around you, you’re always around me.
Do you need an example?” she asked, her chest rising faster now.
I loved angry Evie. Her nostrils would flare and then her nose would scrunch right before her eyebrows furrowed, the raging fire in her eyes always jumping to life immediately.
“What about you barging into my room in the middle of the night without knocking?”
“I knocked,” I said flatly. “You didn’t answer.”
“And you came in anyway. What if I’d been naked? Or with someone?” she asked, throwing me one of her most devious smiles. “Or even getting myself off? Did you think of that? No, you just barged in without a care.”
I bit down, my jaw so tight it already began to ache.
Maybe I should’ve thought it all through. Maybe I did—and still opened the damn door. Maybe part of me even hoped to see one or two of those things.
I tried to shake it off, but the thought sat heavy between us.
The world probably didn’t even like me enough to let me walk in on the beautiful sight of Evie getting off.
Pushing up from the bed, I knew I’d lost this battle—the only chance left was putting distance between us.
“Forget it. Good night, you little psycho.”
“That’s it?” she called after me, making me pause.
“Yeah, that’s it. I’m tired and done for the night. Your psycho antics were taken care of and I came home alone. We obviously aren’t going to get anywhere since you clearly think you did nothing wrong. You got your revenge, so good night.”
She scrambled up on the bed, moving onto her knees and showing off the smallest pair of shorts I had ever seen.
“I mean, you aren’t even going to yell at me? You’re not pissed?” Her voice had a desperate edge I hadn’t expected. “I made you lose money, sex, and hours of your night.”
“And what the fuck did you want from it, Evie? Me angry, or us fighting? I took care of it. I’m home, I’m done.”
She moved closer, shuffling on her knees across the bed until we were only a foot apart. Her lips parted like she had something else to say, but she bit it back. Evie didn’t give anything away if she couldn’t twist it to her advantage.
“What? No way to use this to piss me off more? I get it—you’re mad my presence encouraged your boyfriend to break up with you, but it’s not like I said anything to him.
You don’t have to be around me all the time.
You can always ride with Mason or Hero. They work with us and live here just like I do. ”
It was a lie. I could easily make sure they didn’t take her anywhere. No one in the house would question it if I said Evie was riding with me.
The words I thought would smooth things over seemed to set her off more.
“Wow, so shove me to the side and make me someone else’s problem. Get the hell out of my room.”
The faint scent of vanilla caught me off guard—soft, sweet, and completely at odds with the sharpness of her words. It was a reminder of everything about Evie that got under my skin, the contradictions I couldn’t ignore. How could I spend every day around her and still not build up a tolerance?
“You could at least pretend to care about him breaking up with me in front of everyone,” she said. “Pretend you’re not only some unfeeling robot who does whatever my brother tells him to.”
The jab stung, but I didn’t let it show. “I’m not here to fight with you. And I’m not here to throw a pity party about some stupid guy being a dick to you. Go to bed. Sleep off whatever this fucking attitude is tonight.”
Her lips curved into a mocking smile, but I saw the flicker of hurt behind it. “Sure, Ace. Just keep doing what you’re told. Go be Rook’s perfect little soldier. Was checking to make sure I’m locked up in my room another order for the night?”
I froze, the nickname making my stomach tighten. She always knew how to find the weak spots, but I wasn’t going to let her see she’d hit one.
“Exactly. Now, good night, Evie.” I turned to leave, not wanting to continue this agonizing hell another second.
“Coward,” she muttered behind me, and I stopped in the doorway, my hand tightening on the frame.
I didn’t turn around. If I did, I might not leave at all.
“Good-fucking-night, Psycho,” I said, slamming the door behind me.
She spent every day unknowingly pushing me closer to that line. I knew she didn’t actually want me to cross it, she only liked to push boundaries when she could. She was always thinking of a thousand ways to destroy my life, and the worst part was, I’d let her.
Because the only thing worse than Evie ruining my life would be not having her in it.
I swung off my Ducati, parking at the back of the shop. The black Panigale V4 caught the morning sun, carbon-blue accents flashing perfectly. She was the main love of my life these days.
Not that competition was fierce.
Maverick Moto had been up and running at our new location for two months now—after our last place burned down—and it seemed to be running perfectly.
Up front, during the day, we ran a fully legal, upstanding motorcycle shop.
And the large garage in the back could handle any illegal business at night, uninterrupted.
Our black-market business put us in the orbit of the city’s most dangerous players.
We weren’t just investigators—we were the ones they called when they couldn’t go to the cops.
A stolen drug shipment? We found it. A rival robbed your chop shop?
We tracked them down and made them wish they hadn’t.
We were the fixers, the informants, the hunters.
Whatever they needed, we handled. It was where we made most of our money—and the one line of work we all agreed we weren’t giving up.
“Hey,” Rook said, weaving through the maze of bikes to me. “Have you had any issues with Cross’s guys the past few days?”