Chapter 2
Odin
It’s been quite a few years since I made anyone cry. Sure, people might walk to the other side of the street or give me weird looks, but a smile usually puts them at ease.
I have no idea who this slip of a girl is, how she knows my son, or what she’s doing here. Hart is literally all the way across the country from LA—eighteen odd hours.
I draw in a sharp breath at the flood of tears.
Rage floods through me. My first thought is that my son fucked up.
I judge this girl to be around eighteen at most. She’s dressed herself to look alluring, wearing a scrap of a leather vest, a tiny skirt, and towering heels.
Her makeup is heavy, her long, platinum blonde hair flowing all the way down to the small of her back.
She’s lovely, but there’s no mistaking that she’s young.
She better have been fucking legal when Preston knew her. He’s motherfucking twenty-four years old.
She wipes at her eyes smearing eyeliner across her cheek.
The need to offer her something is overwhelming, but I have nothing. I’m not exactly the hanky carrying type.
She takes care of the mess herself, shamelessly using her hands and wiping them on her skirt.
I reach out, letting my hand hover in the air for a good ten seconds in warning.
I give her more than enough time to pull away if she doesn’t want the gesture of comfort.
She sniffles, but instead of arching away, she leans forward.
My hand lands on her shoulder. It’s so delicate, her skin like velvet over dainty bones. She’s surprisingly warm.
The last thing I’m going to do is bring this woman into the clubhouse. Family time is long over. We’re decent as a club, especially as bikers go, but there is still plenty of debauchery going on in the lounge, copious amounts of weed being smoked, and whiskey flowing like it’s water.
“Can I call someone for you?” My deep baritone echoes confidently into the night, but I can’t remember the last time I felt so awkward.
The prospects behind me share a look with each other. I turn and wave them off. The gate slides shut behind me.
She shakes her head, sniffling so hard that she chokes herself. She coughs, clears her throat wetly, and swipes at her eyes and cheeks one more time. “N-no. Thanks. I- I came here to talk to you. Not because I’m in trouble or anything. I have something I wanted to ask you.”
I might be intrigued, but the alarms in my head are also going off.
I could use a chaperone, and what the fuck kind of Victorian era nonsense word is that?
I glance at the prospects who are disappearing into the clubhouse.
They’re too far away to call. Hopefully, the security cameras at the gate are capturing the video if she tries anything.
I take a step back from her just in case.
“If you don’t mind me asking, are you old enough to be out alone? I mean, is someone going to be looking for you? Do your parents know where you are?”
She shakes her head. She’s got some kind of designer purse looped over her shoulder.
Black, on a gold chain, with a fancy gold logo on the front.
She pops open the quilted flap and gets out her wallet.
She slips her license into my hand. I study it for a second, trying to discern in the streetlight if it’s fake or not, but it looks legit.
Twenty-four? How the hell?
I keep glancing back at the photo on the card to the real woman standing in front of me. Willow Rose Layton. Her name matches her wood sprite exterior. Her body, at least. Her face screams rebellious punk rocker princess.
Annndddd, there’s a good chance I need to stop looking and noticing shit like that.
I study her license for so long that eventually she snorts and even gives a shaky laugh before reaching out to pluck it boldly from my fingers.
“I know,” she says as she tucks her wallet back into her bag.
“There’s no way I can be twenty-four. I look eighteen.
Am I sure it’s not a fake? I’ve heard it all before. ”
I want to be a gentleman and ask her into the club to take her straight to one of the bathrooms so she can wash her face.
I’m already planning on the glass of water I can get her, and which one of the women I can get to come in and give her some comfort.
I’m not nearly as rough a man as I appear, but I have no idea what to do with a crying young woman who clearly has something going on in her life.
She takes a step and then another, walking away from the clubhouse.
She keeps going, passing her car, her pleated skirt swaying slightly over her thighs.
Her calf muscles push up with every painful step in those shoes.
I can’t see them being enjoyable with those stick thin heels.
She’s practically walking on the balls of her feet.
I don’t know where she’s going, but there’s no way that I’m going to let her do it alone. Not in that outfit, but also not if she was wearing thirteen layers of sweats and jackets either.
I cover the distance between us, my long strides outpacing her easily. I slow way down when I get close and fall into step beside her.
“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, bawling like a dumpster fire of a wicked hot messed up mess on your doorstep?”
“I guess that I am. You know Preston. Did he—hurt you?”
“Not in that way. We were engaged.”
What the fuck? I knew nothing about my own son getting engaged. I know that when Honey said zero contact, she meant it, but even she sometimes sent me an email with basic life updates. Graduation. College grad. Little things like that to let me know that they’re both okay every few years.
“We’re not anymore. Not since two nights ago, when I did the whole cliché thing of coming home early.
I’d gone to a concert with some friends, and I thought I wouldn’t be home until midnight…
” she pauses. “I found Preston balls deep in my mom on the living room floor. It wasn’t one of those oopsie, I slipped, and my pants ripped off, and my dick just happened to land in your mom and I’m really sorry about it things either.
They were really going at it. I was so shocked that I just stood there for a while, taking it in.
I went straight upstairs, packed my things—it was his house and my mom and I had moved into it, so I didn’t actually own much—I left my ring and the key by the front door, got in my car, and drove all the way here. ”
“Damn!”
She snorts. “I was pissed. How could they do that to me? I don’t want to be angry. I want to get it out of my system. That’s why I came up with a revenge plan, and I need your help. I came here to seduce you.”
I’m fairly good at picking out bad ideas when I hear them, but even if I had shit all for judgment, this one would be a clear, cut and dry, hard and fast, nope. “Whoa. No. No way!”
“Not for real,” she’s quick to assure me. “I just want a few damning photos made to look a little bit racy. Just enough that there’s zero doubt what I’ve done. There’s no other way to give him the middle finger of all middle fingers.”
It’s not often, I’m speechless, but right now I’m struck dumb for a few moments. Then I finally speak. “There are plenty of other ways.”
“I did consider sleeping with his stepdad, but uh, no thanks. They’re not that close anyway.
And then I considered his mom, but that’s a hard pass.
” She shudders so brutally that I wonder what Honey’s done to herself.
Then I wonder if this woman is actually batshit crazy.
“I’m not a bad person, I just want to hurt him.
I thought about his friends, but asking one of them to fake anything is just wrong.
Hitting him financially would be next to impossible.
Money can replace just about anything in his life.
The only good revenge plan I could come up with is you.
” She winces when she says it. “But just fake, because I can’t even go through with something like that, no matter how angry I am. ”
“But your mom—” I’m trying to ignore the part where she talks about fake seducing me. Because that’s making me think things I have no right to be thinking.
“She tried calling me with every excuse. I told her that I’d call her in a few days, when I cool off. Until then, if I don’t cut her out, I’ll damage our relationship beyond repair.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” I say.
“Do you have any idea how humiliating this is?”
It’s my turn to wince. “I don’t. I truly can’t imagine. I’m so sorry that this happened.”
“But getting even doesn’t make things right. That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it?”
She seems like a smart girl, and genuinely sweet.
I want to do everything I can to talk her out of this.
I figure it will only hurt her more than it could heal.
“I’ve lived a few more years and not all of them have been wise ones.
I’ve learned a few too many things the hard way, and if you don’t have to, trust me, it’s better that way. ”
“And you won’t help me because Preston is your son, no matter what he’s done, and you have to side with him or it’s equally a betrayal.”
“I didn’t say that. From all accounts, it seems like my son is a spoiled little prick, and a cheater to top it off. He hurt you, and if he doesn’t have the sense to apologize properly for that, then I want to do it on his behalf.”
I have to take a steadying breath to cut off the rage fest that wants to erupt inside of me on her behalf.
“I would like it very much if he didn’t hate his old man, but I guess I’ve never been more than a sperm donor.
His mother made that clear right from the start.
She’d take my money to ease my conscience, but she was never going to let me into his life.
I didn’t blame her at the time. I didn’t have my shit anywhere near together, but since moving here, I’ve wished things could be different. ”
There’s a vulnerability in my voice that even I don’t hear very often.
It might come out when I’m talking to Tyrant.
Our Prez is a good man. The kind made from the very earth he walks on, honed bright, with a heart of real fucking gold.
It might sound cliché, but he’s literally one of a fucking kind.
I look her in the eyes as I say, “I’ve been here a long time though, and it’s always been clear to me that it’s not going to be.
I’ve never met my son. Probably never will.
Maybe if I’d been in his life, things would have turned out differently, but maybe it would have been worse. It is what it is.”
Well, shit. She doesn’t need my whole sordid life story, now does she?
She eyes me hard, her thick lashes narrowing over stark blue irises. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”
It means the exact opposite. Why can’t I bring myself to say that?
Why can’t I bring myself to want to say it?
I truly do know a clusterfuck when one hits me right upside the head, and this one is hitting hard, so why can’t I just turn around and say no?
Why can’t I make sure she gets somewhere safe for the night and tell her that I’m sorry and that I wish her well?
“Just as long as you understand that vengeance never makes you happy.”
She reels back. I do the same. Of all the things that was supposed to come out, that wasn’t it.
“I get that. This isn’t about my happiness. It’s about shutting the door on five years of my life.”
Holy fucking balls. Five years? “I’m sorry.”
“Me too, but like you said, it is what it is.” She stands up so straight and crosses her arms in such a confident, stubborn pose, that her confidence is almost believable.
“They say you can’t control other people.
You can only control how you react. I want this to be how I react.
I just want one photo. Fully clothed. Not even suggestive.
As long as it’s with you, it doesn’t have to be suggestive or filthy. It can even be us giving thumbs up.”
“I have a better idea. Do you trust me?”
She laughs and I nearly tip right over into doing the same thing.
She very obviously should not trust me. “I actually spent a large portion of my life in some really bad neighborhoods, so no. Not at all. But tonight is a night for bad decisions. Everyone should have at least one night in their life that they don’t regret like that, so lead the way, Daddy. ”
“No, no, hell the fuck, no. It’s Odin. No daddy business.”
Her lips twitch. She’s sharp as fuck, alright. I can practically see her mind working. “Do you happen to have a pet raven?”
“No.”
“Can it see into the future?”
“I just said I don’t have one.” And she’s funny too.
“Other dimensions?”
I’m the one who crosses my arms this time, trying to be stern. It’s about as laughable as it gets. She seems to see right through me. “Aside from losing an eye and having to pick something sort of badass as a club name, that’s as far as it goes. Odin was better than Cyclops.”
“You could just make up a story. That would be fun.”
“I have plenty of stories more interesting than any amount of making stuff up. Maybe one day I’ll tell you. No. Probably not. It’s probably best that we cut ties after tonight.”
She sizes me up like she’s going to ask more Norse god stuff, but then she bites her bottom lip and nods.
It’s a reminder that I still very much need to find her a place to wash that smeared makeup off.
I’m out here, having a full on conversation that ended in a negotiation, when I should have been a gentleman and helped her out.
This is the kind of help she wants.
She doesn’t want a warm cloth and a hug.
She wants middle fingers, vengeance, and one photo she can move on. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t understand that myself.
“Okay. Whenever I get where I’m going, I’ll send you a postcard to let you know I made it safely.”
She’s dead set on doing this. She even takes a few steps back towards the clubhouse.
I’d be a double liar if I said that I don’t see this heading for a world of trouble.
I vowed to leave that behind me years ago, but here I am, getting ready to step right back into the thick of a terrible idea.
It’s already been decided. What choice do I have except to follow her and make good on words that never should have come out of my mouth?