Extraits

Hot stuff smirks, crossing his large arms over his chest. “Girls’ got an awful big mouth, Jacks, best you put her in her place…”

“In my place?” I growl, crossing my arms too. “What am I? Some sort of dog?”

“If that’s what you want to be, sugar, then so be it.”

“You mother fucking…”

“Enough!” Jackson yells. “Addison, Cade, enough.”

Cade, that’s his name? Well, it’s a sucky name. I turn to Jackson and give him a look.

I’m not sure what I expected when I saw my dad again. I don’t remember him, so I had no idea what it was I actually thought would come from this moment. I guess knowing he is a biker, I expected a fat, ugly, smelly man with a beer belly. Not the handsome, well-groomed man sauntering towards me. My mother, God bless her trashy heart, had such poor taste in men that I have to wonder how she snagged him. I am sure my mother was once beautiful, but all I remember was the scraggly haired woman with rotting teeth and a foul temper.

“Addison?”

My father’s voice is husky, deep and…well…fatherly. I’m pissed at him though, I mean, how can I not be? He never tried to contact me. He never tried to see me. He never made an effort to pull me from the life I was stuck in. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for that. He left me to live in hell. He doesn’t know what my life was like, with those men she used to bring home. The dealers, the junkies, the trash off the streets. His life…the biker life…would have been a damned walk in the park. When he stops in front of me, I meet his gaze. For a moment, we just stare at each other, taking each other in, figuring out what we can say.

“Jackson,” I say. It’s the only thing that comes to mind.

His mouth twitches. Did he really expect I’d call him Dad?

“You look just like your momma,” he breathes as he takes me in.

My eyes widen and I feel a pinch deep in my chest. Forcing the feeling away, I cross my arms and snap, “That’s an insult, you do know that right?”

He tilts his head to the side, and his gaze narrows. “How so?”

I ignore him, I refuse to spell it out for him. Instead, I turn, looking around the large shed. “This is your life, huh? Very…interesting. Where’s my room?”

“How’d you get in?” he asks.

I raise my brows at him. “Jumped the fence. My room?”

“This your girl, Jacks?”

I turn to see an older man with a bushy grey beard and steely-colored eyes staring down at me with an almost sexual look on his face, yuck. I give him my best ‘if you look at me like that again, I’ll punch you’ smile, and turn back to my father.

“You jumped the fence?” he says, completely shocked.

“Girl’s got guts, jumpin’ the fence into a biker’s lot,” Old grey says.

When I step inside, it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to my surroundings. When I am able to focus more clearly, I turn my gaze to four men sitting around a wooden table. Two are smoking, all are drinking beer. One of the men stands as soon as he lays eyes on me, and I realize as he begins walking towards me, that he’s my father. I know because I see myself in his face, and I quickly realize where I got my dark brown hair and sky blue eyes. He’s tall and muscular. I’m tiny and petite – that seems to be the only difference between us. His arms are covered in tattoos and his dark hair is tied in a long braid that hangs over his shoulder. He also has a well-groomed goatee covering his top lip and his mouth.

Life isn’t easy when you have no one. Everything you do, you have to do alone. There’s no one to lean on. There’s one to help you out when you’re in trouble. There’s no one to cry with, and no one to share your laughter. You get tough, not because you want to, but because you have to. Who am I to complain though? What is it they say? Someone always has it harder than you? It’s true. It’s always true. No matter how bad you have it, someone out there has it worse. Is that a comforting thought? Hell no, but it’s a fact, and sometimes fact is all you need.

My family…what can I say? Not a great bunch. My father is some big-ass biker, and he hasn’t seen me since I was four. Yes, four. My other was some pathetic one-night stand of his, at least, that’s what I assumed she was because I couldn’t see why any man in his right mind would knock her up willingly. She certainly was not mother of the Year; she drank a lot as I was growing up and is now dead because of a drug overdose. I’m twenty-one, and while that’s certainly old enough to live alone, it’s not old enough to survive when you have your mother’s debts to clean up, and a crazy pimp after you. I have twenty dollars in my account, that’s enough to buy myself a McDonald’s meal two nights in a row.

I’m not a bitter person; well, I certainly try not to be. I don’t want to walk around with a bitter expression and a bad attitude because my life isn’t a picture of happiness. No, I won’t do that, because I’m a strong, determined girl. A strong, determined girl sitting on a train that’s taking me to a father I don’t remember, because he’s all I have left. He’s also the president of a huge MC club. I imagine he’s not overly happy to see me; he certainly didn’t sound happy when he found out my mother died. I hate being the child that isn’t wanted. It’s a shitty feeling to have no one in the world that wants to love you.

Not one, single person.