Chapter 1

Chloe Decker sat on the park bench outside of school, waiting for her father to pick her up.

She didn’t know why she bothered waiting for him. It wasn’t like he ever showed up on time. More often than not, he forgot, but that’s what she got all the time from her dad. Her father, Kurt, was none other than a Satan’s Crew MC lackey. They would never give him prospect status. Whenever she was near any of the MC club members, she always heard the lingering insults of “coward” thrown his way.

She tried hard to spend as little time as possible around the club. It helped that her mother didn’t like it and would often avoid the family gatherings her father kept trying to pull them into.

“Look at it, if it’s not fatty Chloe sitting on the bench. I bet the wood will bend and snap.”

Chloe stared down at her book. She didn’t need to look up to see it was Alfie Pace and his other MC brat goonies who were near her. They liked to take their time making her life a misery, and she had no doubt it was because of who her father was.

Ignoring them was easy. Most of the time they moved on, but not today.

Today she had a banana skin thrown at her, and she groaned, getting off the bench. She didn’t need to wait for her dad. He was supposed to be taking her out to get new boots, but she’d rather walk home than have to put up with this kind of crap.

“What’s the matter, fatty? Don’t want to eat it? Shouldn’t a fatty eat everything that’s thrown at her?”

Forcing herself to look up, she stared into Alfie’s sharp blue eyes. She hated this guy more than anything else in the world. For as long as she could remember, he’d been mean to her. He never had a nice thing to say to her, and part of her often wondered if he thought he was better than she was. His father, Eagle, was the president of the Satan’s Crew MC, and he was a merciless bastard.

She’d seen him hit his son a few times. One of the first times she saw Alfie, he’d been thrown across his father’s knee and spanked so hard. He’d screamed the clubhouse down until he finally apologized for whatever misdemeanor he’d done.

When she’d asked her father later that night what could have possibly earned such a harsh

punishment, she’d been told “club stuff.”

Which probably meant her father didn’t have a clue what was going on either, but he liked to pretend he had a place.

She didn’t say anything, but she’d have to pass them to make her way home. The last thing she wanted to do was get anywhere near those guys. There was no way she was going to be able to avoid it.

Heart racing, she stepped on the path and began to walk toward them.

“Whoa, be careful, the ground is shaking,” Ian said.

“Look at everything wobble while she moves. Be careful. She’s going to eat you,” Riley said.

There were only two other guys with Alfie, so she should really count herself lucky.

When she was only a couple of steps away from him, she stopped.

“Seriously? That’s all you got? You’re going to bully me on my weight or how about my looks

next? You think I haven’t heard this all before? You guys are pathetic,” she said. She spent way too much time trying to get along, pretending they weren’t horrible people, but she was done being nice. She was done being the girl that allowed them to get away with shit. Tonight was the last night she ever trusted her father to actually pick her up and take her to get boots. Once her mother heard what happened, there would be fucking hell to pay, but until then, Chloe was pissed off, angry, and just wanted someone to scream at. But why go and throw herself on her bed and allow the pillow to take the blame when she had three men standing right in front of her? They weren’t men.

Throwing her bag to the ground, she let her book fall on top of it and stared straight at the men. Her hands shook with rage, and she felt a sickness in the back of her throat as if she wanted to throw up, but she didn’t back down.

“Go on. What else have you got to throw at me? Or better yet, why not use me as a punching bag? I hear dickless assholes like to do that, so you must be all for punching a girl. How about it, Ian?”

“What the fuck?” Ian asked.

She had always taken their shit without causing any waves. Sure, they’d thrown her into her lockers, or shoved her over desks, or even tripped her. All the bullying bullshit they liked to do, she’d taken.

She’d even had the tampons fall out of her locker, and it was all courtesy of a club whore spilling the details of Chloe’s first period. Alfie had taken it upon himself to let the whole school know she was menstruating. Never in all of her life had she been so embarrassed. She’d never trusted the club whore again, and in fact, unless it was with her own mother, she never spoke to anyone. At the earliest opportunity she wanted out of Satan’s Croft, living far away from any small town or MC.

She had a life plan, and this place wasn’t part of it. Her mother, who she loved more than anything, loved her and had told her to fly. To find her dream, and just go for it. To never look back and allow anyone to take her dreams from her.

“You’re fucking crazy,” Ian said.

“I am, or maybe I’m sick and tired of the same old shit. ‘Chloe’s fat. Look the earth is moving because she’s so fucking fat it has to move’!” She yelled the last words, tired of the same old bullshit. These boys, they were not men. To even call them men was an insult to the opposite sex.

She also wouldn’t ever trust her dad again. Not ever. This was the last time he humiliated her.

She wouldn’t put it past him to actually be having a drink with Eagle, or trying to work his way into the good graces of the club. That was the kind of man he was. He’d fucked up years ago, and rather than accept it, he did nothing but try to get back into the club by any means possible. The truth was, no one was ever going to accept him. They didn’t want him back because he was a total fuck up.

The club lived by two values, trust and loyalty. She knew it extended out to other traits, but those were the two main words she always saw and heard with the guys. The women knew it as well, the old ladies and club whores. With her father running away years ago when times got tough, or something like that, he’d permanently cemented himself in the category of “hanger-on.” She hated it.

The men treated him as lesser of a being, and she had to sit back and watch it tear him apart.

Not to mention her mother. “You’re fucking crazy,” Riley said.

“Am I? Come on. You’re such big, tough men. Bring it. I’m tired of this bullshit. You want to throw stuff at me, fine. You want to push me against lockers, hurt me. Then do it right in front of my face. Let me see you be the big, tough men you claim to be.” She stepped up to them and slammed her hands against Riley’s chest. She didn’t know which one had thrown the skin, and she really, really didn’t care.

Pain filled her body, but it wasn’t physical. This kind of pain was something she couldn’t

control. She could only stare in the faces of those around her.

She was tired of being second best to the club, but more than that, she was fed up of these guys getting to her. This was her last year of high school, and she wouldn’t allow them to hurt her.

“Don’t put your fucking hands on me.” Riley shoved her hard, but she only went back a step.

Flicking her long blonde hair over her shoulder, she used her entire body, and rammed him hard in the abdomen, and Riley went tumbling. Hand clenched into a fist, she struck out at Ian, who looked positively shocked by her.

Next she turned to Alfie, who merely smirked at her.

“You think I’m not going to hit you because you’re a girl.”

“I’m counting on it,” she said.

This guy was on her shit list, would always be on her shit list, and right now, she was sick of him. She hated him with every single fiber of her being. She’d never considered herself a violent person until this very moment, and knowing it was because of him, it made her angry at herself. She should have just grabbed her stuff and leave, but they’d thrown rotten banana skin at her. She deserved better.

Not once had she ever fucked with them, or taken her anger out on any of them. She didn’t beg for their attention the way her father did.

There were plenty of girls already throwing themselves at them, and she wasn’t going to be one of them.

“What’s the matter, princess?” he asked.

“Leave me alone.”

“You see, my two buddies are winded. Are you giving up? A coward like your father.”

“I’m not a coward.” She stepped up to Alfie, but unlike with Ian and Riley, she didn’t know how to play this hand with him. He’d hated her for a long time, far longer than she had him.

Taking a deep breath, she waited, one, two, three, wondering what she should do. In the back of her mind she saw the boy screaming, begging for his father to stop as he got his ass smacked. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen Eagle hit his son, and she had no doubt it wouldn’t be the last, but right now, at this very moment, she didn’t want anything to do with more violence.

Glancing away from Alfie, she saw what she’d done. She’d actually attacked them. Feeling shame flood her body, she shook her head. No, no more.

“You know what? You’re not worth it. None of you are.” She reached out to grab her bag.

“I’m not doing this.”

She went to walk away, but suddenly her bag was yanked from her hands and she was thrown to the ground, and Alfie on top of her.

“You think you’re better than us, is that it? You think you can throw your weight around, act all

tough and when it suits you walk away? You touched two of my boys. Two of the club, and you will fucking pay.”

“You’re not even president yet. You’re not patched in members. Not even prospects. I’m not touching the club. I’m touching their property. You’re nothing more than property.”

“And you think you’re not? You think with your father sniffing around my father’s ass all the

time, you’re not club property? You are. He can use you and discard you whenever he sees fit.”

“Get off me.”

“Or what? What are you going to do? I don’t see any problems happening here. I’m just a guy putting you in your place. You think anyone’s going to stop me? This town is full of cowards. The club, we’re the ones that rule it, not you.”

“Fuck you.” Chloe yelled

“No, but I get a feeling you really want to fuck me, Chloe. You want me to slide my dick in that fat cunt of yours. Show you what a man can do. I can make your dreams come true. Blow your freaking mind, but first, you’ve got to give me something that I want.”