Page 13 of Gonzo’s Grudge (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Dreadnought, NC #1)
IvaLeigh
W hen Gonzo told me he’d be “on a run,” I didn’t ask questions.
Part of me wanted to. I wanted to know what that meant, what he did when he disappeared for days, what kind of business could take him away with nothing but the roar of motorcycles fading into the distance.
But the way he said it—the finality in his tone, the weight in those words—told me it wasn’t something I had the right to pry into.
So I just nodded. And then I allowed myself to miss him.
I missed him more than I should have, more than made any sense.
I barely knew him, yet the silence of my apartment felt heavier without him there to break it.
Darla seemed scarce and I wasn’t complaining about that.
My classes dragged. The library lost its comfort.
Even the walk across campus felt emptier without wondering if he’d be leaning against his motorcycle, waiting with that patient, dangerous calm.
Darla noticed, well as much as she was capable. She was too wrapped up in Collin most days to care about me, but even she raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been staring at your phone like it’s going to sprout legs and kiss you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m just waiting on a call.”
“From who?” she pressed, smirking.
“No one,” I lied.
But it wasn’t no one. It was him.
When he finally called, I nearly dropped my phone fumbling to answer.
“I’m back.” His voice rumbled, low and steady.
My chest squeezed. “Oh.” I was confused because inside my whole chest was leaping for joy at the idea of seeing him, even kissing him again. And then the reality washed over me again. I was a fool to get tangled up with him. Yet, I couldn’t deny myself of even this moment of attention from him.
“Oh,” he repeated, amused. “That’s all you’ve got for me?”
I swallowed a laugh, my pulse racing. “What do you want me to say?”
There was a pause. Then: “I want you to come to a party tonight.”
“A party?” I repeated, unsure.
“Clubhouse,” he said simply. “My people. My world. You don’t have to stay if you don’t like it. But I want you there.”
The way he said it, like it wasn’t a request but an invitation to something deeper, made it impossible to say no. And if I was honest with myself, I was curious about him and his world.
“Okay,” I breathed.
The clubhouse swallowed me whole the second I stepped inside.
Bass rolled through the floorboards, thick enough to feel under my shoes.
Neon bled across walls layered in framed photos, old patches in frames, a crooked “NO SNITCHES” sign, and a lineup of dented helmets that looked like trophies.
The air was a cocktail of smoke, whiskey, leather, fryer grease, and something electric—like the sky right before lightning strikes breaking through.
I stayed close to Gonzo without meaning to.
He didn’t touch me at first, just ghosted a hand at the small of my back, guiding me through bodies the way a tide guides a boat.
Heads turned. Chin lifts from men, quick once-overs from women, a couple grins so shameless I felt my cheeks warm.
No one said my name, but I felt it in the look they gave him then me like being beside him mattered.
A prospect hustled by with a tub of ice on his shoulder.
Two women were perched on the bar like queens, their boots braced on a barstool rung while a tattooed guy poured shots down their throats.
Somewhere to my left, a pool game popped and a woman cackled, hips rolling against the guy lining up his next shot.
“Rack ’em,” she told him, and he did, hands lingering on her waist like they’d been there a thousand times.
Everything was too loud, too close, too much—and weirdly, for a second, I liked it.
Nobody was pretending. Nobody smoothed themselves down into something polite.
If they wanted a drink, they got it. If they wanted attention, they commanded it.
If they laughed, it was loud. If they swore, it rattled the light fixtures.
It should’ve been vulgar. Instead, it felt like… honesty.
“Gonzo.” A man with a scar through his eyebrow clapped him on the shoulder. “You back in one piece.”
“Always,” Gonzo said, and the corner of his mouth tipped in what passed for a smile.
The man looked at me. He paused studying me. “You her?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, because what was I supposed to say? Who was her? Me? I’m the college girl who can’t stop answering his calls. Gonzo saved me. I felt like a fool.
“She’s with me,” Gonzo explained without actually answering, and let his fingers settle light at my hip. It wasn’t possessive. It landed like a promise. “IvaLeigh, this is Pull.” He gave me a smirk, a nod, and passed on by.
There weren’t pleasantries exchanged of nice to meet you. Those words people shared but didn’t mean.
At the bar, a woman with violet hair handed me a beer without asking what I wanted. “On the house,” she winked. “First time in? Pace yourself. And don’t drink the jar even if someone dares you—that’s the pepper shine, it’ll have you seeing colors that don’t exist.”
“Pepper shine?” I repeated, because apparently that was a thing. Sure we lived in the mountains of North Carolina which some consider the home of moonshine, that didn’t mean I was well-versed in these things.
She laughed. “Trust me, rookie.” Her rings clinked against the glass as she slid it closer. “I’m Kate.”
“IvaLeigh,” I replied, feeling overwhelmed by all of the noise and experiences going on around me.
“Pretty,” she decided, and moved on, already shouting for limes while she shoulder-checked a guy who reached for a bottle without asking.
Across the room, a jukebox lost an argument with someone’s playlist and surrendered to a guitar riff that made the floor vibrate. A woman with sleeve tattoos and a scalp undercut used a marker to scrawl something obscene across a man’s chest while her friend howled.
I clung to the bottle Kim had given me, the wet glass sweating against my palm. If I focused on the cold, I could breathe. I tipped it back and took a swallow I didn’t taste.
“You good?” Gonzo asked, low enough for only me.
I nodded, which was a lie and also somehow true. I felt spread open, vulnerable in a way and weirdly seen and understood, accepted even. The two emotions fought inside me.
He bent, his mouth almost at my ear. “We can leave whenever you want.”
“I don’t,” I said before my brain caught up to my mouth.
“All right,” he said, like it didn’t surprise him at all.
We did a circle around. Brothers greeted him with the kind of simple, weighty respect that told me exactly who he was here.
Some introduced themselves to me—Shanks, Disciple, Clutch, Chain, Nails—names that sounded like tools until you saw the men wearing them.
The questions were light—school, classes, was I having fun—but underneath I worried if they had questions they weren’t asking.
Who was I to Gonzo? Well, if that wasn’t the question plaguing me as well.
Maybe that was the thing, I had questions without answers and it wasn’t them but me.
I found I breathed better with his hand at my back. That scared me a little.
Looking around, taking it all in, this wasn’t what I expected at a biker party.
Sure there were some over-the-top things like the woman in a cherry-red dress grinding on a man’s lap while he massaged her breasts making me wonder if she was going to orgasm right here.
Or the man with a mohawk that dropped to his knees to scoop another woman up, dropping her thighs over his shoulders while diving face first into her vagina.
She was riding his face like a wild woman on a rodeo bronco.
Ten seconds flat she was crying out in ecstasy.
A prospect refilled waters without being asked.
The way everyone moved together was magic.
People looked out for each other in the way they breathed.
Everything felt automatic. Consent lived here in a rough language: it looked like a chin lift, a hand withdrawn, a laugh that turned real or didn’t.
Everyone seemed fluent in unspoken words between them.
I relaxed enough to let the corners of my mouth lift. That’s when she approached just as Gonzo stepped away to go talk to someone he called Tower.
She had Barbie-blonde hair and the kind of dress you had to be brave to wear. Lips painted perfect murder-red. Eyes narrowed like she could see weakness. “Hey,” she said sweetly, which somehow felt like an insult.
“Hi,” I responded carefully.
“You must be new,” she purred. “I’m Shay.”
New what? New here? New girl? New problem? “I’m IvaLeigh,” I answered, because that was all I had.
Her gaze skipped past me to where Gonzo stood five feet away, talking to Tower. An almost-smile tugged her mouth. “He brought you to a party. That’s cute.”
Something prickled at the back of my neck. “Cute,” I echoed, flat. What was she setting me up for?
“Has he told you?” she asked, tilting her head in Gonzo’s direction. Her perfume was thick enough to taste—jasmine and sugar. “About how he is?”
“He’s told me plenty,” I muttered, feeling myself step onto a trap I couldn’t stop from falling into.
Shay’s smile widened. “Mmm. He’s intense. You don’t strike me as…” She paused. “Skilled.” Her voice went lower. “Rough, if you want it.”
Heat flashed through my face so fast it hurt. “That sounds like you’re trying to tell me something.”
She leaned in like we were sharing a secret. “I’m saying I’ve had him. More than once.” Her manicured nail tapped the bar between us in a rhythm that made me want to break it. “And he always finds a new one, sooner or later.”