Page 1 of Xander (Soulless Outlaws Motorcycle Club #2)

Xander

“Hey, nice to meet you.” My new daddy said.

“What’s up?” My new daddy said.

“He won’t be here for this. Right?” My new daddy said.

Age 7

“Best if you cover your ears, son.” My new daddy said.

Age 8

My new daddy just stared at me.

Age 9

“Find somewhere else to be, scamp, yeah?” My new daddy said.

Age 10

“Here’s a twenty. Go somewhere else.” My new daddy said.

Age 11

Wasn’t a child supposed to only have one dad?

Well, two if they were a bonus dad.

Not fifty-eight.

Age 12

I watched as my mother got that smile on her face.

That smile told me all I needed to know.

So, I beat her to her normal line of speech.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s your new client. Need me gone for a few hours?” I asked.

She didn’t react to my words.

Not that I ever expected her to.

Age 15

“Can I get a two-for-one special?” Her new client asked.

I held in the sneer.

The revulsion as he eyed me up and down, his gaze lingering below the waistband of my sweats.

I expected my mom not to react.

She never did when it came to me, or anything about me.

Just introduced them as my new daddy.

But this time, she didn’t do that.

She got that look on her face that told me she was thinking.

And I knew what she was thinking.

I said one word, “No.”

And that night, as the man tried to come into my room... I’d had enough.

I sat with my back pressed to the door as he tried to shove his way in, and when I saw his fingers, I slammed my back into the door.

Hard.

His yelp of pain fueled me.

Age 16

“Good for nothing piece of shit,” she muttered as she took another sip of her whiskey.

I scoffed, “I’m not the one who decided to keep me. That was you.”

“I prayed you were a girl.” She sneered.

I knew what she meant.

She prayed that I was a girl so she could use my body to her advantage.

And that point drove it home that my mother was the lowest of the low.

Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, my mother OD’d two days later.

Foster home-bound for the boy that no one wanted.

And that was the start of how I kept myself guarded.

***

And I stayed guarded as I bounced around for the next two years.

Until a man in the shadows saw me snap a piece of shits neck who had just been pinning a teenage girl to the brick wall in an alley.

I caught that flicker of red from a cigarette and stood strong with the man at my feet as the shadow crept back and a man stepped into the light.

He had short-cropped black hair, a goatee, a black tee, dark jeans, black motorcycle boots, and a leather vest.

I had seen him around town.

Heard the rumblings.

This was the president of the Soulless Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

“What did he do?” he asked with a tilt of his chin towards the man at my feet.

I locked my gaze with his, and with zero hesitation, I said, “He was in the process of raping a teenage girl.”

The man nodded, then took a puff of his cigarette, and asked, “How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” I told him.

He nodded, then held his hand out to me, “Nuke.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and then crossed my arms over my chest and waited.

He dropped his hand and snickered, “Introducing myself is a gesture of common courtesy.”

I didn’t reply.

I watched as he hardened his jaw, and then he said, “Killed men for a lot less.”

“Killed men for staring at me too long,” I said.

He chuckled, “Point made.”

“Could use you. You want to join a brotherhood, come by the clubhouse,” he said as he pulled out a card from his kutte and handed it to me.

I looked at the card, then back at him, “Why?”

He snorted, “I like men who stand up for the weak and aren’t afraid of the consequences.”

I jerked my chin, then I took the card from him.

***

Two weeks later, after watching the clubhouse trying to get a read on it, my mind had been made when I watched three of the brothers beat the shit out of a man they had witnessed backhanding his woman in town.

A year after that, I was a full-fledged member of the Soulless Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Two weeks later, after they had all witnessed a certain set of skills that just came easily to me, I was promoted to Sergeant at Arms.

And for the next seventeen years, I’ve done my job with relish.

But never letting anyone fully in.

That lasted until her .

***

Like the storm that rolled in the night before she arrived, I should have read the warning.