Chapter One
Tigger
I can’t believe I let her get away.
I had her in the palm of my hand, I had her in my arms and bed, and yet I didn’t get the girl.
Why does this shit always happen to me?
Why can’t I find a woman who will love me for just being myself?
I seem to always attract the wrong kinds of women.
I’ve dated them all.
The women who chase men on motorcycles, the ones who compete to see who can catch a man like me first. I’ve dated crazy women, clingy women, women with trust issues, and women who just didn’t live up to the standard of what I have for my ideal woman.
Maybe it’s me that has the problem?
I would’ve thought that if not for the last two.
Donna was a crazy ass bitch who fell in love with me and almost killed the woman I was in love with to get to me. I entertained the idea of Donna for a couple of months, she was my favorite girl here at The Dragon, but the more time I spent around the woman I’m in love with, she fell to the shadows. Lost and forgotten.
Kara.
The one that got away.
When I first met Kara, I thought she was one of those types of women. The ones that just like the thrill of the chase because I ride a Harley and am a member of the Dragon Skulls Motorcycle Club.
But as time went on, I fell for Kara, and I fell hard. I’d never been in love before. I thought I had, but after spending so much time around Kara, I realized I didn’t know what love was.
She was the one who captured my heart.
She is the one who changed me.
She’s also the one that got away.
I allowed it to happen.
I’m happy for her and Dean. Deep down I am. Dean is one of my best friends, my brother at arms, my family. She couldn’t have picked a more loyal man, and he loves her, I can see it every time they are together, and their family is beautiful and perfect.
I wish I were enough for her, but Kara likes to live on the edge of her seat, she loves the dangerous element that Dean has going on. As Sergeant at Arms, she couldn’t have picked a more dangerous man amongst the lot of us. He’s even more dangerous than Drag and Thunder, and they run this club. But that’s what makes him so perfect for her because he’s so dangerous, he’ll also protect her with his life. He’d protect every last one of us if he needed to.
Kara is also the one who saved my club. If Kara hadn’t come along and shown up on our doorstep, our club would’ve been finished. Who would’ve thought I would end up following in love with one of our enemy’s old ladies?
Kara was once married to an infamous member of our enemy club, the Nomad Jokers. Those fuckers are one of the most dangerous clubs in the country, and yet, they somehow managed to have Kara is their mist, and she still came out the other end loyal and pure.
Kara had a notebook that her husband, Filthy, kept hidden amongst his belongings and they almost killed her to get that book back. They nearly killed all of us to get that book back. I don’t regret going to save her, I don’t regret the lives that we lost that day, I only feel sadness for her because when Satch died, I had to hold her at his funeral when she fell apart.
Don’t get me wrong, it was hard on all of us when he died, but Kara felt it the worst, she blames herself for what happened to him. It’s not her fault Lefty kidnapped her. It’s also not her fault that she married a monster that would’ve done anything to destroy us.
To this day, I don’t know the entire contents of that notebook we now have in our possession. The only three people that know what that book contains are Drag, Thunder, and Dean. I’m not important enough to know what it holds.
The extent of my knowledge is that The Captains MC is also mentioned in there, and for that reason, I cannot get involved. Some of us have too many secrets to get involved in those types of things. I just got lucky my connection to them wasn’t mentioned in that book. Everyone else’s secrets were in there, mine were mysteriously left out. For that, I thank the lords above, and I know Drag does too, he’s the only one who knows my secret.
That’s why he made a bullshit position for me as Treasurer and allowed me to take over the daily operations of The Dragon. All my brothers assume I did it because I love free pussy and couldn’t say no. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting to watch women take their clothes off all day long, but that’s not why I do it. I do it because that was the only way to keep The Captains from discovering I am here with the Dragon Skulls.
My name is Tom Young, but my secret is that my real name is Tom Rayo and I was forced out of my home in Kent, Washington and into hiding. I couldn’t stay far away from home, my mom is still there, and I fear for her life. But the only way to protect her was to run.
My dad died a few years ago, and my mother was stupid enough to marry the new Captains MC President, Connoly Peppers, and he destroyed our lives. I still mourn the death of my sister Emerson. Emmy was the only thing left that was pure in my former life. I have no proof, but I know he killed her and had his sights set on making me his next victim.
That’s why my mother told me to run.
That’s why I had to leave her there with that monster.
That’s why I now live the life I live.
I don’t regret coming here to Maple Valley, I only regret what I lost and had to leave behind to be here today.
That was six years ago, right after I turned eighteen, and I’ve been hiding amongst this club ever since. I only leave town when necessary, using The Dragon as my excuse to stay here and hide.
I know my brothers suspect what my reasons are for staying behind all the time, but I don’t care and have no intention of ever telling them the reason. They’d kill me for being a traitor.
Wouldn’t matter to them that I was just a victim of circumstance.
That’s why I lost her.
That’s why I wasn’t enough to keep her by my side.
That’s the reason my brother was able to win her.
That’s the only thing I regret about my past life.
I’ve been forced to watch her hug and kiss him, I was obligated to attend their wedding and watch the woman I love more than my next breath marry someone else, and now I’m stuck with her here in the club.
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking when I suggested she come to work here as a trainer to the women. That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but when Drag suggested it, I couldn’t exactly say no. I can’t train those women to dance, and Kara is the best dancer we’ve got.
Dean almost killed me when he found out I’d hired her. He thinks I did it because I want her closer to me. But that’s not it, she needed the job, and the club loves her. Does he really think I want her here day in and day out shaking that juicy ass of hers in my direction and teaching the other women how to be better strippers?
That’s like being in front of a candy store and not being allowed to go inside and buy a single piece of candy. It’s the worst torture I’ve ever known in my entire life.
Losing her broke me.
Watching her fall in love with someone else shattered my heart.
It changed the man I am today.
I no longer take joy in women the way I once did, I only fuck out of necessity and throw the women away like yesterday’s trash when I’m done using them.
I thought I was broken after Emmy and my father died.
But I was wrong.
Losing Kara was the last straw and changed the man I am now. It doesn’t matter that it happened more than a year ago, it’s almost like it happened yesterday and still guts me. Like a new wound that just continues to fester and grow as more time passes.
I’ll never love again.
Kara shattered what little hope I had left for love in my life.