Chapter One

Tyson

My parents made sure I learned from every mistake and every success. It wasn’t like I was a walking success. I was far from a success story. But the thing with my family was that we weren’t a typical family.

There was one rule the five of us lived by. The one rule that Dad and Mum enforced into us. The only thing they expected us to follow. Our one rule was: never follow the rules. Sounds simple, right? And maybe a bit funny that our one rule was to not follow the rules. But we stuck by it.

Us as a family all stood for something most people wouldn’t understand. We didn’t stand by the law. Dad lived to break as many laws as he could, encouraged it even; the best part of it was he usually always got away with his crimes and the club’s crimes, apart from one time during my whole childhood.

When I was ten, Dad did go to prison for a year for assaulting a few police officers when they raided the club. Dad was used to the raids. It was common. He kept the club clean for that reason.

They were questioning Dad hard, like always, but it took him awhile to realize they weren’t just raiding the club, but for the first time they were going to the house as well.

Mum wouldn’t let the police in. One, because Dad kept the books there. Two, she wouldn’t let them near us kids. From what I remember, Mum was dragged out of the house by the police. They got physical with her and that’s when Dad showed up.

All I remember was Dad beating those men till they were lying motionless on the ground.

Next thing I knew, Dad was sent away for a year, and apparently that was a good deal.

When it came to Mum, Eve, Hannah, and, hell, even me, Dad would stop at nothing to make sure we were safe and happy.

Most parents wouldn’t encourage their son to join a motorcycle club, but Dad was proud when I became a prospect. I didn’t see following my Dad’s example as a poor move. I actually think the best decision I ever made was becoming a member.

As a family, we functioned well. I would say I was close to both my sisters. And had a better relationship with my parents than most. But my unconditional love for my sisters often was a weakness, like right now.

My sister was making it her mission to annoy the hell out of me. I went to the garage before school for peace. But I knew I was in for it as soon as she spotted me. She had me cornered as I was working on my motorbike. And while I was ignoring her complaints, I knew she wasn’t leaving till she got what she wanted.

I groaned, finally giving up, and I got up off the ground and looked at her. Eve and Hannah were stunning with their long blonde hair and blue eyes—they were the spitting image of Mum. I think that’s why Dad could never say no to them when they asked for something.

Like the other night when Hannah wanted some book she couldn’t afford. She gives one look at Dad and he hands over the credit card. That was Hannah for you; she would ask for books while Eve… oh, how do I even explain Eve’s personality? She might have mum’s looks, but she had Dad’s need to break rules at her core.

She would be blowing Dad’s money on clothes, parking tickets and her latest thing was her car, which she totaled when she convinced Dad to let her drive to it. I had never heard Dad really yell at her, but boy did she get yelled at when they got back.

Dad said he was lucky to escape with his life and he thought it best for the rest of the human population that Eve stayed off the road.

“So, what is it that you want, Naughty?” I said finally, looking at the grin on her face. ‘Naughty’ was Eve’s nickname I had given her. Hannah was ‘Nice’. Most people couldn’t tell them apart. But I could with one look. It was small things, but to me they might as well have had a label on their forehead of their names. It wasn’t just their personalities that gave them away; small personal traits like how Hannah would give you a sweet smile while Eve would be smirking about a plan she was about to do or a plan she had done—and gotten away with.

“Money.” She rested against the workbench. “To fix my car.”

“You shouldn’t be driving it.”

“You’re sounding like Dad. One little accident and I’m never allowed on the road again!”

“Talking about Dad.” I crossed my arms. “Why aren’t you hitting him for the money?” Dad had been firm on not helping her get the car back on the road for the first few months, but I was sure he would cave now.

“Because he won’t give me a cent,” she pouted—her pout usually got her what she wanted.

“What have you done now?”

“Nothing!” Her voice went up, which was a dead giveaway she was lying—and poorly at that.

“Dad never says no to you.” I looked at her a bit closer; she was lying but I didn’t know why. “Unless you’ve done something.”

Eve pouted. “I may be cashing in my good deeds for something else.”

I laughed. In other words, yes. “This is about the party you want, isn’t it?” I pointed a finger at her, knowing my sister too well. “As if Dad is going to let any teens in his clubhouse.”

“You had a party for your eighteenth!”

“You’re turning seventeen and that was a club party. With members and their women. Key word there being ‘women’. As if Dad is going to let you have girls there that are underage around his men.”

“Why should it be my problem if his men won’t keep their hands off girls that have no interest in them?” She crossed her arms still with a pout on her face. Well, she could pout at me all she wanted, I was only stating facts. Dad wasn’t going to let her have the party of her dreams.

“Because those girls will have an interest in them. I’ve seen your friends. They’re basically drooling at the chance to get with one of them.” I accidentally dropped the spanner I had in my hands and picked it up in time to see her expression.

She narrowed her eyes and actually looked slightly pissed off with me. “No, they’re normally drooling after you and hoping you’ll give them a chance.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “If they’ll do it to me, they’ll do it to them.”

She groaned. “Well, if I can’t have your support for the party, can I have money for the car? You’re earning now and it’s not like you’re spending it on alcohol or weed, cause you get both of them for free.”

“Not giving you money, Naughty.”

“You are a useless older brother! You know that! What can I use you for?” Eve threw her hands in the air, frustration in her voice.

“I was useful the other day at school.” I was talking about when Eve decided she would get into a fight. Why she chose to take on a boy, I didn’t know.

“He touched me.”

“You should have come to me.”

“I don’t need you fighting my battles and I didn’t need you to step in.”

“Naughty, my right hook is meaner than yours.” I think that boy regretted even looking at Eve when I was through with him. “Now, shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?” I took in the fact she was still in her pajamas.

She and Hannah were the only girls I knew that walked around the clubhouse in pajamas. All the other girls cared too much what men thought of them. Eve and Hannah couldn’t care less, though. And if a man so much as looked at them for longer than a second, Dad’s fist would be reshaping their face.

“I’m not going to school.”

“Naughty, you really want to get Dad worked up this early in the morning?” This was Eve for you; she lived to test Dad’s limits. Dad forced us to go to school. I didn’t see why I had to. I was already a member and I would be working my way up the food chain.

I wouldn’t be going to university, which is what he had planned for Eve and Hannah.

So I just scraped by at school. Did enough to keep the teachers off my back so they wouldn’t call Dad into the school.

“I’ve already sweet-talked mum. Told her I had a heavy period.”

“EW YUCK!”

“Calm down. I don’t really.”

“Why would you even tell me that?!” Disgusted. That’s how I felt. Eve had given me way too much information. Who the hell says that to their brother? I shook my head at her, disgusted.

She grinned at me evilly, like she had done it on bloody purpose. “I don’t lie to you,” she said innocently.

I scoffed. “Sure, you don’t.”

I walked off, leaving my troublemaking sister in the garage along with my bike, which I hadn’t finished fixing in time, thanks to her. Looked like I was taking my car to school.

Eve skipped to my side. “So, about the money?” She still wasn’t giving up on it.

“You aren’t getting a cent from me.”

“Why do you have to sound like Dad?”

I pulled open the clubhouse door. She was giving me a headache. Now I knew how Dad felt dealing with her. How did he put up with it?

I spotted Dad at one of the tables, and Hannah was sitting to his right, chewing on toast. She was wearing her flannel pajamas even though it was the middle of summer. She always went on about being cold.

“Why are you here and not at the house?” I snapped at Hannah. Wasn’t like her to be out of the house early in the morning. “And why aren’t you dressed?” I added. Eve’s excuse ran through my mind, making me cringe.

Dad looked up from his phone and then glanced at Eve, suppressing a smile. He would know my bad mood was thanks to her.

“I have a doctor’s appointment.” Hannah tilted her head, staring at me. “Why are you in a bad mood?” Her voice was gentle like always. Though it had concern in it as if she was worried she had done something to upset me.

It wasn’t her; it was all thanks to Eve.

“Your twin.” I shot a glare at Eve who was walking to Dad’s other side.

Hannah smiled. She knew I didn’t have a problem with her and went back to munching on her toast.

So I was the only Wilson spending their life in hell today. Eve and Hannah both had got out of it. Well, if Dad let them off, I was sure as hell going to try too.

“I’m going to work on my bike.” I crossed my arms, seeing if he would stop me.

Dad’s eyes shot off Eve and on to me. “You’ve got school.”

I groaned. Why! Why must I waste my life at school! Bloody school!

The clubhouse door burst open and mum stormed in. “I’m not going. You hear me, Reaper? I’m not going.” Mum came to a stop at my side. “I’m not putting up with one more smartass remark. I’m not going!”

Looks like Mum was picking up an argument she had been having with Dad, till he escaped to the clubhouse. I smirked. I knew for a fact he hated fighting with her.

Dad rolled his eyes, looking frustrated. “Abby, we have already had this discussion. You are going.” Seems like Dad thought the argument had ended when he’d escaped to the clubhouse.

“No. We don’t need the money. I’m not going!” Mum stood firmly next to me and she was the only living person on this planet that would face down the Reaper and win an argument. Not even us kids won an argument with Dad.

Mum was a professor at the university and she lectured on art culture as well as other fields. She was really smart and I often wondered what made her so driven. She had to be driven to finish a bachelor, then a masters, and then go on to a doctorate.

I didn’t get her love for school. Or wanting to further my education. I took after my father. Hannah, however, took after Mum.

“Abby, you can’t stop going halfway through a semester! You can’t just quit!”

“Watch me.”

Dad got up. “Think of the example you’re setting for the kids. If things get hard, quit? Is that what you want to teach them?”

“Oh, so you are going to try and tell me I’m a bad parent now? All because I don’t want to stand up and give a lecture and just have boys drool at me!” Mum did not look her age; if anything, she could pass as early twenties. She was beautiful. Men, and it would seem boys as well, noticed that. “I have more male students than I do females!”

Mum was the only hot professor at that university. Made sense that boys enrolled in her class just to stare at her.

Dad knew that too. Which was why it was killing him to come up with another excuse on why she shouldn’t quit. He hated men staring at Mum. I don’t know how many fights he got into over it. Like at the club party this weekend. A man grabbed Mum by the arm and Dad nearly killed him.

No one touched Mum. Everyone knew that. Even other charters knew that. But we hadn’t been partying with our charters; another motorcycle gang we were at peace with had rode in. Dad put them up and was putting up with them till one of them touched Mum.

“Abby, drop it. You are going.” Dad laid it down like it was law. “I already have Eve and Hannah home for the day. I won’t be having you as well.”

Dad knew when it came to the three of them they would gang up on him, wasting his day. Eve and Hannah liked nothing more than to drag Dad to the cinema room and force him to watch movie after movie.

I don’t know why he sat through the movies or put up with it.

“Fine.” Mum’s eyes narrowed. “You can come.”

“What!”

“You can come and they can all meet my husband. Change into a t-shirt, I want them to see all your tattoos.” Mum crossed her arms, looking rather smug with her plan. “And vest, the whole deal. I want them scared to the point they won’t even glance in my direction.”

“You want me to scare your students?” Dad said, not believing it.

“Yep.”

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“So that’s the deal, Reaper. I go if you come with me.” Mum was not backing down. “Remember, you want to set a good example for the kids,” she mockingly added, using Dad’s words against him.

“I have shit I need to do today! I have men riding in this week! All who are meant to be riding my drugs across the border. Drugs that still need to be packed. I have a gun shipment due and I’m taking Hannah to her doctor’s appointment. You want me to drop all of this to scare your students?”

“I don’t need anyone to take me to my doctor’s appointment,” Hannah quickly interrupted, piping up and sounding slightly panicked. “I can take myself.”

Had Hannah forgotten an important fact? I looked at her as she did her best to convince everyone she was going to take herself. “You can’t drive, Nice.” I pointed out what everyone was thinking.

“It’s a sunny day and a walk won’t kill me,” she said confidently.

“See, Abby. Now you’ve got Hannah walking!” Dad snapped at Mum. We all knew Hannah didn’t exercise and walking was her least favorite thing to do. She would complain and complain about walking up our stairs and nearly had Dad at the point of putting in an elevator just for her.

“Tyson can take her.” Mum settled the argument and I grinned. That got me out of school.

“He has school.” Dad wanted to remind Mum of this fact. Bloody school; a place where I was forced to be bored to death.

“The appointment is at nine, so Tyson will be at school by ten. One hour off won’t kill him. As for your drugs and guns, it can wait. Unless you are backing down on the whole ‘I can’t quit’ thing.”

Dad swore under his breath and pushed the chair back. “Fine, I’ll just cancel my day!” It did sound like Dad had plans today, plans he now had to cancel. I glanced at Mum. Yep, she was deadly serious on this one. She wasn’t backing down.

“Good. I want you to be in a foul mood because that will scare them more.” Mum smiled smugly at him, like her purpose was to piss him off.

Dad’s eyes narrowed at her, and some would say he was glaring, but if you knew Dad you would know he can’t glare at mum. But he was trying right now. “Well, mission fucking accomplished.” He walked around the table and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Mum said to his back.

“To change into a fucking t-shirt!” he yelled back at her before slamming the door closed behind him.

Mum was grinning. “And that, kids, is how you get your father to do anything.”

The girls grinned. If Mum was giving lessons, she had just given a great example to the girls on how to get Dad to drop his day.

***

I watched Hannah exit the doctor’s clinic. Why did she look so worried? She wouldn’t even tell me what the appointment was for. I thought it had just been an excuse to get her out of school. But as I saw her expression on her worried face, I knew that wasn’t the case.

She pulled open the car door and got in.

“So, how was it?” I asked, lighting up a cigarette and not acting like I had seen her face before she wiped it clean of an expression.

She didn’t answer.

“What’s that?” I asked, trying to get a look at the piece of paper in her hands. She folded it up and slid it up the sleeve of her hoodie. Again, she was dressed like she was freezing when it was a nice sunny day.

“Nothing. Can we go to school?”

“You’re going to school?” I didn’t believe her. I just assumed she was having the day off.

“Yep.”

“What about having the day off? You shouldn’t go to school if you are sick.”

“It’s just a cold. I’m fine and I have advanced math. Don’t want to miss it.” Hannah was always too smart for her own good.

I looked at her harder; I couldn’t work out if she was lying or telling the truth.

“Stop looking at me and head for the school already.” She buckled in and glanced at me. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

I nodded my head and started the car up. She would tell me if something was wrong. She always did.