2. Declan
DECLAN
My vision blurs, black spots dotting my line of sight as I push up onto my elbows. Blood pours from my nose, so I wipe it with my sleeve before straightening to my full height.
“That all you got, Miller?”
The man in front of me—all fuck-ton pounds of him—rears back and swings again, his fist connecting with my jaw this time. My head flies back, blood spraying across my cheek and onto the onlooker standing across from me.
“Say one more fucking word about my sister, Astor. I swear to God.”
I put my hands up as if to signal surrender.
“I’m done,” I pant, attempting to get air into my lungs.
I think the bastard may have punctured one.
He eyes me skeptically before stepping closer and spitting in my face.
His saliva slides down my chin, no doubt mixing with the blood that’s already there.
I finally catch my breath as he turns to walk away, but I can’t keep the next words from falling out of my mouth.
“I definitely won’t tell you how she screamed my name while I was balls deep in her ass. ”
Miller slowly turns around and the bar becomes eerily quiet.
Even when he was kicking my ass earlier, the hum of the crowd only died down a little.
The patrons of the Motor Cade are used to brawls.
Even the owner, Cade Jensen himself, doesn’t bat an eye when a fight breaks out.
As long as no guns or knives are pulled, he doesn’t give a shit.
Usually, the fights are between rival MCs or someone fucked someone else’s girlfriend or sister or brother—sometimes all three.
I don’t pay much attention to any of it.
I come here for one thing, and Cade turns a blind eye to it.
That’s what I like about him. But right now, he’s looking at me from across the room like I’ve been carefully constructing my coffin for hours and am only now getting to that final nail.
I shrug, shooting him a semi-apologetic glance before turning my attention back to the mess I’ve created.
“Miller,” Cade warns from behind the bar, but the man gives no indication that he heard his name.
“This stupid fucking thing.” Miller jabs a finger in my face, his voice dripping with disdain, and it takes a second to realize he’s referring to my lip ring.
“I think it needs to go. What do you think, boys?” Several of his friends have now joined him, flanking his sides as if he’s the leader of the fucking Sharks.
I half expect them all to start snapping their fingers and break out into song.
Instead, they snicker as he reaches into his pants pocket and produces a switchblade, which he promptly flicks open.
“That’s enough,” Cade’s voice booms as he hikes his legs over the bar and slides down the other side. For a man in his fifties, he’s agile as fuck. As he starts toward us, the front door creaks open and a heavily tattooed man walks in carrying a stack of papers.
“Oh shit,” he mutters, causing Cade to look up.
Miller takes Cade’s moment of distraction to lunge at me, but I rotate my body just in time, and he trips over his boot.
Unfortunately, he catches himself before he can fall on his own damn knife.
That would have been too poetic. Cade jumps into action, grabbing Miller by the jacket before spinning him around and snatching the knife from his hand. “You know the rules, man.”
Travis Miller has been coming to this bar since he was in diapers.
Literally. His father was president of one of the most notorious MCs in the tri-state area.
So, yeah, I’d say he knows the rules. Miller Senior is actually a decent guy, or so it would seem to the outside world.
Guess you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.
He still comes by the bar now and then to check up on his fuck-up of a son who couldn’t figure out how to run a bath, let alone a motorcycle club.
There are a few biker bars between my hometown and Manhattan, but the Motor Cade is my favorite because it has the best people-watching.
Being able to read people is a blessing and a curse.
It means I have inside knowledge of shit I don’t necessarily want to know about, but it also means I can figure out what makes people tick, which comes in handy when I’m goading someone into a fight.
Miller is easy—almost too easy. He’s brash, hot-headed, and always looking to start shit.
I have no idea if he actually has a sister or not, but I knew the second I said it, he’d start swinging.
Messing with someone’s sister is usually a safe bet, followed closely by insulting their girlfriend or intelligence.
If all else fails, calling someone a pussy usually gets the job done.
The point is that Miller knows he’s about to be banned from the bar for at least a week.
Cade takes his ‘no weapons’ rule pretty seriously.
It is absolutely my fault, but I don't feel bad. My lips turn up into a bloody grin as I brush past Miller, who is now being escorted out by Cade and another bartender. The look in his eyes tells me he’s not done with me.
Good. He’ll be even easier to manipulate next time.
“What the fuck was that?” a familiar voice interrupts my internal self-sabotage.
That’s when I get a better look at the man who walked in earlier.
Luke Collins. He owns a custom bike shop in Emberfield and is the only person I trust to take care of my baby.
The problem with pissing off bikers? Sometimes they take their aggression out on your Ducati rather than your face.
That’s where Luke comes in. He also happens to be engaged to Emory, an ER nurse who used to date the man my mother had an affair with.
It’s an elephant in the room that neither of us cares to acknowledge.
“Just another afternoon at the Motor Cade.” I clap him on the back as I make my way out the door and out to the parking lot. Stepping into the frigid air, I scan the rows of chrome. Thankfully, it looks like no one fucked with my bike today.
“He had a knife, Declan.”
Jesus, he followed me out.
Luke’s intense blue eyes scan my face, concern etching his brows as he takes in the shiner on my eye and the split in my lip. Not to mention the blood I still feel trickling out of my nose.
“I’m good,” I assure him.
Like I said, I can read people. I’ve always been able to.
It’s how I knew at the age of eight that my parents didn’t love each other, probably never had, and how, when I was only ten, I realized that my mother hated her life.
She only stayed for me and my sister, which brought on more guilt than my underdeveloped brain could comprehend.
It’s how I knew what it meant when older girls started to notice me.
They only wanted a quick fuck behind the bleachers while their boyfriends were at practice, or in the bathroom at a party, which was fine with me.
I may have developed a reputation as a manwhore at the ripe age of fifteen, but it worked. Until it didn’t.
Right now, it’s how I know that despite his concern, Luke wants nothing more than to put the flyers from his shop, still clutched in his hand, on the bulletin board and get home to his girlfriend and kid.
The problem is he’s a good guy. He’s only a couple of years older than me, but he has his life together and genuinely cares about helping people.
He’s a fixer of more than just motorcycles, so he won’t leave me here without at least trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
“Seriously, man,” I say when he doesn’t move. “It was a misunderstanding.” I grab my helmet, shoving it over my head, wincing at the pressure it creates on my swollen cheek.
This is what I wanted, right?
Pain to numb the pain.
Luke shifts his attention to my bike. He knows I’m lying. He’s had to replace too many smashed parts to believe I didn’t bring this on myself. He’s never once questioned it, but I guess he draws the line at bodily harm. “That clutch working out okay?”
Grateful for the subject change, I flip my visor down and nod as I kick my leg over the seat of the bike.
I turn the key, the engine roaring to life beneath me, and give Luke a quick salute before tearing out of the parking lot.
The last thing I need is a heart-to-heart with a tatted-up superhero.
I already have one meddling best friend who harps on my choice of coping mechanisms. I don’t need another.
As the trees blur beside me, my mind drifts to the conversation I had with Ashton earlier today—the one that brought on this particular outing.
There’s not a whole lot I wouldn’t do for him, so I know when he asked me to do the one thing that could make me hesitate, he saw no way around it.
I owe him one for going to a charity event last year in my place when I couldn’t stomach the thought of having to entertain a woman all night only for her to storm off when she realized she wasn’t going to get anything from me.
Even if I didn’t owe him a favor, I would still do it. Ashton wants both of his best friends at his wedding, and as much as it’s going to tear me up from the inside out, I won’t back out of this.
You see, I may have fucked my way through high school, but I’ve only ever been in love once. And when I pissed it all away? When I let the fear festering at the bottom of my cold heart take over? Ashton stepped in and did what best friends do. He dried her fucking tears and didn’t ask questions.
For that I owe him everything.