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Chapter One

Adelaide

“ C ome on, Adelaide, it’s time to go,” Joey told me, a scowl settling over his features as I continued dancing on top of the table, not paying him a bit of mind. Hell, I was purposely ignoring him.

I was in a right fucking mood, and I really just wanted to forget what this day was and what it meant to me. And Joey was doing his best to shit all over that.

Joey was a control freak, and though I loved the man with every fiber of my being, he was overbearing. Too much for a woman like me that needed freedom and independence. Needed to be able to make her own decisions without the Sons of Hell’s president breathing fire down my neck all of the time.

Joey and I didn’t mix. We never really had, no matter how much we wanted to. We were oil and water. And Joey was the oil, always smothering me.

“You’re fucking wasted, pretty girl.” Oh, that sweet name. That name would forever melt my insides. “Get your ass down here now ,” he snapped up at me. I only continued to ignore him, and though I knew it was pissing him off, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I just wanted to be left alone, to forget the pain and heartache burning through my chest.

“Loosen up, Joey. Let the girl have fun,” I heard his twin, Jessie, snap at him. “You’re always up her ass. She’s not your girl. Not right now. You two ended that,” she reminded him.

Her words felt like a slap across my face. They were a sore reminder that Joey and I just couldn’t ever get it right when we were together.

“She needs a goddamn man to put her in line,” Joey snapped back at her. “This shit has gone on long enough.”

I clenched my jaw, my body momentarily stopping before I forced myself to start dancing again, forcing myself to block out the familiar pain of losing my best friend exactly one torturous year ago on my fucking birthday.

My birthday had become a series of tragedies, and it was now a day I longed to just forget about.

“Am I interrupting something?” A voice that I hadn’t heard in years asked us.

I abruptly stopped dancing so quickly that I instantly lost my footing since I was so wasted. A shriek left my lips as I fell forward, my arms flailing for something to grasp onto. Everyone turned to stare at me, and I screamed as the floor came closer to my face. With a muttered curse, Joey quickly caught me in his muscular arms before I could face plant on the floor. He was always there to save me from my own shit—shit that I tended to always get myself into.

Always my savior and my hero. Really the reason that I was still breathing today.

Despite the rage that I could see burning in his dark eyes, he gently set me on my feet on the floor before he released me, the muscle in his jaw ticking furiously. “I told you to get off of that table, Adelaide,” he snapped down at me, his frame easily towering over my shorter one.

Momentarily forgetting about our visitor, I grinned up at my for-the-moment-ex as I sloppily pressed my finger to Joey’s lips, wanting to silence him. He released a soft sigh, his eyes softening for the tiniest moment before they hardened again. “ Shh ,” I told him, drawing out the sound. He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re such a party pooper,” I slurred.

Joey rolled his eyes at me, but I saw a smirk twitch at his lips for a moment. He’d never been one for joking and messing around, but somehow, I seemed to kind of bring out the brighter side of his personality. But that was probably due to the sort of strange dynamic we had together.

Oil and water. Always smothering me, trapping me, holding me down.

But fuck if we didn’t deeply care about each other. I had never loved another man as much as I loved Joey Dirks, the president of Sons of Hell.

Joey was always so damn serious, but I was the woman who smoothed out his rough edges, who made him feel human again because, in our world, too many feelings could get one of us killed.

I was eighteen when Joey took me under his wing, giving me a reason to live and to fight. And it was my twentieth birthday when my best friend lost her fight to cancer and I started my downward spiral, getting deeper into the life of an outlaw.

But Joey had never left my side. He never left me to fight on my own. It didn’t matter if we were on the outs and not getting along. The man standing in front of me never let me down.

“It’s been a fucking year, Adelaide,” Joey snapped down at me.

I narrowed my eyes at him, fire lighting up my dark eyes. Joey clenched his jaw, a look of regret passing through his eyes before he smothered it, evenly meeting my enraged gaze, not intimidated by me in the slightest. Not like his other men would have been. “You really want to do this?” I snapped at him, my words still slurred but that one sentence from him had sobered me up a tiny bit.

It was my birthday today—my twenty-first birthday, at that—which meant it’d been exactly a year since I’d lost my rock to cancer. It had been an entire year since I’d walked into her apartment and found her dead—lifeless—on her couch.

Joey clenched his jaw. “We’ve all been waiting for you to come around, Adelaide, but enough is fucking enough.” I could have breathed fire at that moment as I glared up at him, my hands tightening into fists at my sides. “You’re twenty-one fucking years old today. It’s time to get your shit together.”

I sent a right hook against his face, not giving a fuck about the consequences. Joey could be violent if he wanted to. He’d never hit me, but he was an MC president, and shit like I’d just pulled couldn’t go unpunished.

His face swung to the left, and I instantly saw blood well up on his lip and trickle down his jaw. He turned his blazing, dark eyes to me, danger glittering in their angry depths. I swallowed thickly, knowing just how volatile Joey could be. Jessie quickly grabbed him, pulling him back from me before he could retaliate like I knew he wanted.

Large, calloused hands settled over my bare shoulders, sending a shiver racing down my spine as familiar cologne that I hadn’t smelled in three fucking years wrapped around me. I would know those hands anywhere, too. Could pick up the smell of that cologne in any setting. He hadn’t changed.

Tristan Groves.

My dead best friend’s brother that I had once been madly in love with.

But that was before he shattered my heart on my eighteenth birthday.

After last year, I was beginning to think my birthdays were cursed.

“Why don’t you go cool off, Joey?” Tristan suggested from behind me, his voice filled with so much coldness that some of the people around us stopped dancing and turned to see what was going on. They never paid Joey and I much mind. They knew we fought all of the time. But someone daring to stand up against Joey, another MC president at that?

It was very possible that blood was about to be spilled.

I flung Tristan’s hands off my shoulders, stepping closer to Joey. He reached out and turned me, pulling my back flat against his chest, his left arm wrapping around my shoulders, holding me protectively to his body. We might have been oil and water, but he didn’t rip my goddamn heart out of my chest. I could always count on Joey when it came down to it.

Tristan? He took one of the worst times of my life to fuck me up.

“How about you get the fuck out of my clubhouse, Grim ?” Joey snarled at him, using Tristan’s street name. “And keep your fucking hands off of my woman.” His arm flexed around me. I slid my hands over his forearm, trying to keep him calm, to get him to hold me with him.

That was the one promise he made to me—that I would always be able to keep him with me, no matter what happened between us.

I squeaked in shock when Tristan quickly grabbed me and pushed me behind him before he stepped toe to toe with Joey, both of their heights evenly matched, though Joey was just a bit more muscular—and a little older. “I was here to make a deal, Joey,” Tristan snarled at Joey. “But I can always change my fucking mind and instead spill blood all over your fucking carpets.”

What the hell was Tristan talking about? A deal?

Joey had cut ties to the Sons of Death as soon as he found out what Tristan did to me. I hadn’t even been under Joey’s care for a week when he found out, but Joey quickly cut all connections, and they’d been enemies since.

Before I could begin to voice my questions, to try to figure out what the hell Tristan was on about, I leaned over and vomited all over the floor.

“Fucking hell, Adelaide!” Joey snapped as Jessie quickly gripped my shoulder and held my hair back out of my face. “You’re cleaning this shit up!” he barked at me.

“Ignore him, sweetheart,” Jessie told me softly, rubbing my back soothingly as I retched again. “You alright?”

I nodded at her, not admitting weakness. I never would, especially not in front of Tristan. Standing back up to my full height and taking a step away from my own mess, I glared up at Tristan. “Why are you here, Tristan?” I demanded. “This club doesn’t make deals with the Sons of Death. They’re actually loyal to the people they care about.”

Pain momentarily flashed in Tristan’s eyes, but honestly, I didn’t care. “I’m here to make a deal with Joey.” He turned his gaze to Joey, ignoring me. “In exchange for us leaving your crew and your territory alone, I want Adelaide. You deny me this and I’ll fucking wipe your goddamn club off the face of the earth.”

Joey’s face lit up with an almost uncontrollable fury, as did my own. This was my home. My family. My fucking crew just as much as it was Joey’s. “Over my fucking dead body, Grim,” Joey snarled. “Adelaide is mine. ”

I swallowed thickly. Why the fuck did Tristan want me? He’d tossed me aside three years ago as if I had never meant shit to him.

Tristan’s eyes darkened with rage. “Let me make this clear, Joey,” Tristan said with chilling softness. My heart pounded hard in my chest, my eyes nervously flickering to Joey. This wasn’t the Tristan I remembered. This was a monster . “I will be leaving with Adelaide tonight with or without your consent.” I narrowed my eyes at Joey in a silent warning. He better fucking protect me. I would not be fucking leaving with Tristan.

An understanding passed between us as Joey flicked his eyes to me. Joey would do what he could to keep me with him. And that was all that I could ask for.

“We can do this civilly, or I can start dropping bodies until you give in,” Tristan snapped, not missing our silent exchange. “Which is it?”

“Hold on!” I shouted, holding up a hand. “Don’t I get a fucking say in this?” I snarled up at Tristan, my eyes blazing with rage.

Tristan shook his head at me. I sneered at him, and his lips twitched up into a smirk at my rage. I couldn’t fucking believe his audacity. I didn’t want him, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to be with him.

He had fucking ruined me. Because of him, I was a mess of a fucking woman.

He turned his attention back to Joey. “Well, which is it?”

Suddenly, something hit me hard in my temple, and I let out a cry of pain, my vision quickly darkening as I began to crumple to the floor.

“Adelaide!” Joey roared.

The last thing I remembered was gun shots and Tristan’s muscular arms wrapping around my body before I could completely drop to the ground.