Mike

She sighs her satisfaction, and I slide one arm under her knee, lifting her leg and putting it on my shoulder.

Daisy squeaks quietly.

“You don’t like it?” I ask.

“No, I mean—“

“Just relax. Everything is fine.”

I put her other calf on my shoulder and move my hips. It feels good. So good I focus on my own release. She’s tight and hot and so fucking nervous that I selfishly take my pleasure so as not to prolong this for her and then I crawl off her.

Right. This part of our marriage will need a lot of work.

A thought whips me. I’m going to be a faithful husband. If this part of our marriage doesn’t work, I’ll have to find myself a hobby. Living a life of celibacy can’t be that bad. Catholic priests can manage. So can I.

Another thought slices my brain. She should be with someone her age. She should go on dates—she should have fun. She’ll have all these things when I send her to university. Anger and sadness clash in my chest. I know I can’t keep her for myself and I can’t give her to anyone else.

“We are setting off early,” I say, rolling on my side.

Maybe I should talk to her, but I have no fucking idea what to say.

I drop off into oblivion. Daisy wakes me as the day is about to dawn.

“Sleep,” I growl.

“You said early, Mike.”

Fucking hell. She’s going to change every tiny detail of my routine or of the lack of it.

“Alright,” I bark.

I get up and slide into my jeans as Daisy gathers our stuff up. Something is wrong, but I don’t know how to make it better so I decide to ignore it.

We jump on my bike and two hours later, we eat breakfast. Daisy looks like life has evaporated from her. I’m used to be on the bike for many hours, but she isn’t.

“How’s your ass, Daisy?”

“Fine.”

“Your back?”

“Fine.”

“Your marriage? Could be better, huh?”

She glances at me as her eyelashes flutter. Her chin trembles and she looks like she’ll burst into tears at any moment.

I think feverishly what to say to calm her. “Marriages are never perfect. They mainly suck. That’s a common experience. Make peace with that.”

Daisy freezes like an ice sculpture. tilts her head and shows me her middle finger. Then she rises to her feet and walks out of the café.

I guess, it means that her marriage really sucks.

I don’t know how to make it better so I follow her and grab her arm. “It looks like I’m not your prince charming, right?”

“You are,” she says, her eyes strangely imperceptive.

“But that’s not enough?”

“It is, but I’m the only person trying.”

“I’m really trying, Daisy.”

“No, you’re not trying at all.”

“Maybe I should start showing my middle finger?”

She sniffles and pulls away from me. “I hate you.”

“Really?”

“I hate you like hell.”

This is getting really funny.

“Get on the bike,” I say. “Now.”

I have no experience on teens, but my impression is that I shouldn’t continue this conversation. She’ll calm down and maybe some higher force will enlighten me on how to deal with her.

I’m losing her, but I don’t know how to fix it so it’s better not to worsen the situation by absurd conversations.

We continue our journey as a wall of ice rises between us. I’ve been there before. I can manage. Can she?

Daisy

I’m exhausted. Everything is falling apart. He didn’t say he loved me. Not even once. It means that he doesn’t love me.

I crawled into his arms so he just availed himself of me. His honour forced him to marry me. He is a good man. A very honourable man, yet it hurts even more. I should be his beloved wife, but I’m only an honourable deed.

He doesn’t even want to have sex with me regularly. I know why. I’m like a piece of wood in bed. Mike wants to enjoy sex. He wants a woman who knows how to make him feel good.

I stifle my urge to go back to Spain. I’m only eighteen. I know nothing about being an adult or being a wife. Or pleasing a man in bed.

A sense of humiliation floods me like fire and incinerates my insides. There’s nothing more humiliating for a woman than failing to please their man in bed.

I sigh and heaviness presses against my chest.

I know everything about being impulsive and immature. Right. My marriage has just stopped existing. My dreams have crumbled into pieces.

Mike hates kids and I’m behaving like a kid. It’s just a matter of time before he gets rid of me. But maybe it will be for the better.

It’s like two forces are yanking me in two opposite directions—my desperation to save my marriage and my urge to burn it to ashes.

Six hours later, we eat burgers at a petrol station, and I shuffle to a motel room. I fall asleep while Mike is taking a shower.

We set off after breakfast and reach the airport in Germany in the early evening—the members of our club never use the same airport twice—we never use the same hotel twice. Our enemies lurk in the shadows, waiting for our mistake so we have to be careful even though we have to travel very long distances.

Well, the wall between Mike and me concerns me more than the ache in my muscles. We’re strangers to each other. No, I’m a suffering humiliated human and my husband is a predator that’s watching me with morbid satisfaction, like he has fun watching our marriage crumbling piece after piece.

I want him to say something positive to me. Yeah, one positive sentence that would make me feel better, but he doesn’t say anything. I’ve already said too much so I keep quiet.

We settle ourselves inside the plane. I feel like I’m a volcano that’s going to explode.

“People talk to each other when they have problems,” I say in my desperate attempt to fix things between us.

“So showing your middle finger is like some means of communication?” He stares out the window.

“You just growl and growl.”

God, tell me you love me.

Tell me you want this marriage to last as much as I do.

Tell me everything’s gonna be alright.

“You just squeak and squeak,” he says. “You squeak the whole monologues. I don’t fucking understand what you want from me.”

God, how I hate him. “No wonder your wife wanted to get divorced.”

He leans towards me. “You sneaked into my bed, remember?” He rearranges his body and closes his eyes. I hear him snore.

Tears well up in my eyes.

The plane takes off so I grab a magazine and read it. Mike is asleep. God, he is snoring like a bear.

So this is it—the ridiculous end of my fairy tale.

He is a hard case.

He is frozen emotionally.

He has no ability to communicate.

I’m too immature to cope with the rising pile of our marital problems.

Maybe I can’t communicate either.

Maybe he never wanted me. Yep. This is our main problem. He wanted to fuck not get married.

Twelve hours later, we get off the plane and shoot towards the Devil’s Tears’ compound.

Anxiety fills my veins, and I forget about my crumbling marriage. As the high concrete wall of the compound rises in front of us, primal energy fills me. My soul resonates with the dangerous vibes radiating from this place, but my rationality screams to retreat. My eyes flick over the barbed wire top of the wall then over the metal gate and two bikers guarding it. They let us in.

As we ride inside, I feel like I belong in here and I don’t. I remember those times when the Shadow Wolves lived like this. We owned a little town that sat on the edge of the desert. We ruled over that town. Now, we’re on the run.

Mike stops and two other club members greet us. They look like Grandpa Boulder.

“What is it?” one of them asks, pointing his finger to me.

“My wife,” Mike says.

“Where do they sell wives like her?” the other biker asks.

“Far from here, Ace.” Mike jumps off the bike.

Ace takes a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket in his jeans, and Mike lights one as I slide off the bike.

“Do you smoke, Mike?” I squeak.

The warning in his glance makes me freeze.

Okay. I know the rules. I’m not stupid. I’ll show that jerk of a husband I can cope in this compound. I was born in an MC. I’m President’s daughter.

“Lizzie has passed away,” Ace says. “The funeral was yesterday.”

Mike’s jaw muscles twitch. “Is Thunder drinking?”

“A lot,” the other biker says. “Rebel’s had three fights with the boys and was on drugs once. Gabriel will exclude him if he causes more trouble.”

“He’s only seventeen, Buzz,” Mike says. “He’s just a kid.” He looks at me with pity and crushes the cigarette under his boot. “Right. Time to show my wife around her new home.” He smacks my ass with his hand, shoving me towards the bike.

I yelp as my hands jerk back to cover my ass. It burns like hell.

Ace and Buzz guffaw as I settle myself on the bike. My cheeks heat up and my throat pulses.

I’m an Alekseev Bratva princess. I think Mike has forgotten about it.

He jumps on the bike and we ride along an asphalt road then stop in front of a caravan. A former factory profiles behind it—the metal, glass and concrete used to build it give the area a grim aura. Bikes are parked in the parking lot around that building and the echoes of music drift to my ears from inside so I assume this must be the clubhouse.

Memories enter my head.

The sign ‘Jilly Jet’—the music in the bar—my dad playing snooker with Sol’s dad—laughter, growls, chants and a homey atmosphere. Then smoke, gunshots, screams. Blood.

I shake my head and hide these memories deep into my subconscious where they belong.

“Home sweet home, darling,” Mike says.

I stifle my urge to say ‘fuck off’.

We stand in front of the stairs leading to the glass front door of the caravan as a tall figure approaches us. It’s a young man.

“Hey,” he growls, but this is not a greeting—he sounds like he’s furious.

“What can I do for you, Rebel?” Mike says.

My eyes slide over the young man. A sense of familiarity surges through me. I know him and I don’t. I know his eyes.

“She’s dead,” Rebel says in a cold voice, but his eyes ooze a hell fire.

“I heard,” Mike says. “My sincere condolences.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, man,” Rebel growls.

Our glances meet, and Rebel rolls his fingers into fists. The air thickens around us.

“I didn’t kill her, son,” Mike says as his voice falters.

“No, you didn’t,” Rebel says. “But maybe you should have.”

Something about that sentence sends ice into my veins.

The men glance at each other like two predators that steel themselves before the fight, but there’s something familiar about them standing together. It grips my heart and squeezes it with pain and beauty.

“Mike,” I shriek.

“I’m gonna put a bullet into your skull,” Rebel says. “Soon.”

Mike grins like he has fun at his expense. “Try me, boy.”

“Soon, asshole.” Rebel thrusts his chin out and backs up.

Mike sweeps his hand furiously then shakes his head. “Kids.”

“Mike,” I say.

“Be quiet, Daisy.”

“Mike,” I growl.

“I said be quiet. What part of this sentence did you not understand?”

“Mike, listen to me. Rebel has your eyes. And your fury. Who is Lizzie?”

“What?”

“He looks like you when you were younger. Like I remember you when I was a young child.”

“What?”

“Mike, who is Lizzie?”

Mike puts his hands on the back of his neck and looks up at the sky then he glances at me. “Go inside the caravan.” He points his finger to the door.

“But—“

“I said something. Now, Daisy. And stop talking. No damn talking.”

“But—“

“I’ll smack your ass, I swear. Inside. Now.”