Chapter 1
Chapter One
AYDA
We buried Harry on a beautiful spring day.
The sky was the most perfect shade of indigo with cotton clouds making it look endless.
It was the kind of day where he and I would have sat outside the pawnshop talking about stupid shit that really didn’t mean all that much to either one of us.
No one could shoot the shit quite like Harry.
He always managed to inject something poignant and full of wisdom in there, but he hid it well because he had a reputation to uphold and all that.
A day full of sunshine for his send-off was all wrong.
It should have been a dark day filled with cold rain.
A day that felt like the whole world around us was mourning this man with as much pain and grief as us.
We needed the rain to cloak our tears from one another, to hide from ourselves, but Harry wasn’t having any of that.
I could almost hear him coughing as he laughed sadistically at a bunch of road-hardened bikers being absolute pussies, unable to hide our emotions, while secretly loving the fact that every single last one of us was taking his death so damn hard.
His resting place was near Pete’s grave, his body encased in a shiny black casket with chrome handles and the club’s reaper and hounds etched into the highly polished surface.
Every one of the girls who attended dropped in a black-tipped rose and a pair of their favorite underwear, while the guys poured in enough whiskey to grow barrels at his tombstone.
All I could think as I looked down at his descending body was that Harry would have loved every second of this—the ceremonious goodbye to one of our own in the only way we knew how.
Saying goodbye wasn’t easy for anyone. In fact, it was one of the hardest days we’d collectively had since I’d fallen into the lives of these men and accepted them as my own. Our hearts beat and broke together, every one of us feeling that void in our lives so deeply that it scarred our souls.
Our goodbye didn’t stop at the edge of the grave that afternoon.
We sent Harry off in style that night, too.
We consumed so much alcohol that I was sure that the mosquitoes were drunk from being in our very vicinity.
Like a pack of wolves, we came together and turned off the outside world.
We forgot our enemies, we forgot our troubles, and we embraced one another as we howled at the moon
The day we said goodbye was a hard day for everyone involved, it was true, but I would give anything to go back there.
To that day.
That night.
That ritual.
That was the last time I’d seen any real trace of emotion on Drew’s handsome face.
Since that night, he’d become a ghost.
Drew did what was expected of him. He took care of the club and the businesses in a robotic way with only the barest of interactions and participation on his part.
I wasn’t sure what everyone else saw, but I knew he was slowly slipping farther from our grasps because behind those eyes there was a vacant space.
A face utterly desolate of emotion, even to the pain I knew he was feeling.
It was as if he’d chosen to hide the man he’d become in the wake of Harry’s death.
He kept himself clear of most of the guys when he could get away with it.
He’d escape their company by climbing on his bike and tearing from the yard, leaving nothing but dust for us to chew on as we watched him go.
At least he would interact with the guys, no matter how blunt those interactions were or how clipped his tone became.
He was still present, and he was still communicating with them.
The same couldn’t be said for me.
Drew no longer met my eyes.
Drew no longer kissed me with that urgency I so desperately enjoyed.
Drew didn’t even like being alone in the same room as me anymore.
I didn’t take it personally. Maybe I should have, but I couldn’t. I knew Drew too well to believe he was trying to hurt me purposefully, and I knew him well enough to know that this was his twisted way of protecting me.
Drew didn’t meet my eyes because he knew I would see what he was trying so hard to hide.
He didn’t kiss me with urgency because he didn’t want to let himself go and release the rage that would come so easily as passion.
He didn’t want to be alone with me because he didn’t want to use me in that almost violent way of his that fed his own needs, then lock himself behind those self-imposed walls again so I wouldn’t have to see how broken he was.
All of these things were used as tools, each one designed to push me away as painlessly as possible so the fissures that ran between us would eventually turn into crevices. Drew was counting on the fact that I would give up on him and walk away.
There was just one thing he hadn’t counted on…
I wasn’t that woman.
I wasn’t going to give up on him, not ever.
No matter how much Drew pushed, how cruel he became, or how ugly he acted toward me, I was always going to bob along again as the life raft he would eventually have to grab onto.
I knew being the quiet strength behind his pain wasn’t going to be easy.
Hell, I knew I would probably shed more than a few tears along the way, but I was going to let him do what he felt he needed to do, and I would be waiting for him to come back to me.
I was also ready to keep Eric as far away from the club as humanly possible because the bastard was already circling like the vulture he was.
“Drew?” I heard Jedd’s voice call from the bar as I flicked through another magazine filled with bike parts I had no interest in.
It was marginally better than picking up one of the nude magazines that these guys often paged through.
Sitting in the kitchen, I raised my eyes and peered out from the door as Drew ignored the hail from his VP and carried on to the back of The Hut to our bedroom, which he hardly ever used these days… especially when I was in there.
I only caught a bare glimpse of him as he passed the kitchen, and if it hadn’t been for the stirring of butterflies in my stomach that so often came with his appearance, I don’t think I would have identified him at all.
He wore black denim, a black hoodie, his black cut, boots, and gloves.
If I were a betting woman, I would have said there was probably a black bandana around his neck or in his pocket.
He was like a shadow carrying an air of intimidation as he moved.
You didn’t even have to make eye contact to feel the menace rolling from him like an advanced warning system.
Some days, he didn’t bother wearing his cut at all, and that wasn’t a fuck you to his brothers.
It was a way of hiding his identity from anyone who saw him.
A way of protecting the club when he was doing something he thought would jeopardize them.
Sometimes he would take one of the repossessed cars instead of his bike, and those were the nights no one saw him until hours later.
I stepped out from behind the stainless steel island in the kitchen and headed to the door, stepping into Jedd’s path before he could stalk Drew to our room and nag him again. When my eyes met Jedd’s, he sighed and shook his head in silent denial.
“He’s covered in blood again.” There was no judgment in Jedd’s tone, just concern for his friend and brother. “Sutton is trying real hard to avoid him, Ayda. He’s in a tough spot, and as much as he wants to help—”
“He can’t,” I finished for him, my arms crossing over my chest as I leaned against the doorframe.
We all knew how tight of a spot Howard Sutton was in.
We all knew how it was becoming increasingly more difficult for him to run interference when the club had a target on their backs.
“I know they’re putting pressure on him. ”
Jedd nodded and ran his hands down his cheeks until they trapped his beard between his fingers. “Drew ain’t talking to any of us. As Harry would say, he’s keeping all his bullshit buried, and it’s only a matter of time until that shit starts to stink.”
The sarcastic remark of and you think he’s talking to me?
was swallowed. I didn’t speak to any of the guys about our relationship.
I knew Drew wouldn’t thank me for it, and I had a feeling Eric would use that information to his favor, somehow.
The man was always hovering, his eyes continually taking everything in like he was just waiting for the opportunity to step in and save the club.
That was something that would only happen over my dead body.
I hauled out a breath and dropped my hands to my hips as I pushed from the doorframe and glanced in the direction Drew had disappeared. “Thanks, Jedd. Let me see what I can do.”
“Ayda.”
I glanced back and met his eyes again, but he didn’t say anything else.
He just shook his head, turned, and walked away.
There was a lot of that going around these days.
My name had become some weird anchor that seemed to replace whatever words they felt uncomfortable saying aloud.
Only I wasn’t sure I always translated them correctly.
I watched Jedd disappear into the darkness of the bar, and I closed my eyes to draw in more strength as the voices rolled from the room in a quiet rumble.
Everyone was concerned. They had seen Drew break before when Pete died at the hands of an enemy.
They understood that the fallout this time was going to be so much worse.
Their president wasn’t quite there yet, but he was heading to that edge, and they were looking at me to derail him.