PROLOGUE
VALENTINA
I can’t believe I’m in the situation I’m in. Okay maybe, I can to some extent. That still doesn’t take the sting away. It also doesn’t help that my father is a grade-A asshole. I should have known better than to come back to Ely, Texas, with my tail between my legs, but after a hellish divorce, leaving everything behind except clothes, toiletries, and a few mementos that mean the world to me sounded like a good idea.
I left it all, not wanting a single thing that reminded me of my now ex-husband. He wasn’t abusive in the physical form, but definitely emotionally, verbally, and mentally. There was no denying it. I still wear the scars in my heart and soul. Never mind my head, which seems to have the hardest time catching on to the fact that Brock is gone, all ties severed.
The memory is still firmly at the front of my mind over a year later. That’s also how long I lasted without needing someone to lean on. I tried my hardest to make it on my own and not go home or beg my father for help. Not that it would do any good. For the most part, he’s an okay guy, but he’s also cocky, arrogant, and thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips. He wasn’t always like that, though. There were times when he had a caring and loving side. That ended the day we buried my mother. I was twenty-one, still going to college, coming home daily, helping take care of Mom, who was battling brain cancer. Somehow, she held on for two years and countless surgeries. There were times I’d pray for God to let her go peacefully in her sleep, just so she wouldn’t be in pain anymore. I gave my dad as many breaks as I could between everything else. It was like his light switch turned off shortly after she took her final breath. I mourned, God did I mourn, not only my mother but also my father because of the drastic shift in his personality. It’s also why I moved out. I never did finish my college degree and instead worked at the bottom of the totem pole in an affluent city. Fell for the first guy who gave me attention, married him, and lived in harmonious bliss.
Yeah, right. They say you marry your father. Apparently, I took that phrase to heart because at first Brock, was sweet and attentive. I didn’t want for a thing. That changed when he realized I was going to continue work at the local chain hardware store. Each year I was there only paved my way further. Years, that’s how long it took until the final straw broke the camel’s back. I could barely eat, my hair was falling out, the weight diminished from my body, and I got so sick that even brushing my teeth was making me hug the porcelain throne.
Fortunately for me, I was able to transfer within the chain store to here in Ely. Waiting was hell, as I struggled to keep an apartment that was a shoe box yet cost a freaking mint. That’s why I’m living back home at the age of thirty-two, a failed marriage behind me, working my ass off to get the heck out of my father’s house because the way he talks to me, it’s like I never left Brock.
“See you tonight,” I tell my friend from work. There’s a biker rally on the outskirts of town, and she’s invited me to go since it’s open to the public. It’s my first time getting out since I’ve been back in Ely for a few months, and I’m more than ready. Thankfully, this weekend, dear old dad is out of town for something work related, so I won’t have him breathing down my neck.
“You sure will. Make sure you dress to impress,” Aly says in response. I laugh knowing full well what tonight will be like in the way of the motorcycle club world, and I can’t wait.
1
BULLET
“Now that we have shit hammered out, you sure you’re okay to do this?” Shovel asks. We’re all sitting around the table. After listening in on the tracking devices Shadow planted before he headed back to Louisiana to be with his woman, we sat and waited. Not one single brother was prepared for a woman to enter the picture. It took longer than anticipated to come up with a plan of attack.
“Yeah, kinda tired of sittin’ with my thumb up my ass, watchin’ my back non-fuckin’-stop,” I reply from my usual spot, standing off to the side, legs spread apart and arms crossed on my chest.
“I get that. Doesn’t mean we need to go off half-cocked. You’re lucky the girl is a looker and is playin’ into our hands without taking a lot of effort,” Ruger chimes in.