My phone blared under my pillow; five in the morning had come way too fast. Raine shifted in my arms, rolling over to sleepily kiss me. Just as our lips brushed together, I felt my entire world fall into place. She was my home, my world, my everything.

“Good morning.” Her sweet voice melted me while she rested her head on my shoulder.

“Good morning, baby.” I shifted a little, reluctantly ready to get out of bed before Abel knew I was in the house.

“Don’t go yet.” She hugged me tighter, burying her head into my chest. Her messy, dark hair was everywhere as I fought to find her gorgeous face.

“I have to. If Abel sees my bike in the driveway, he’ll have me hanging in the tree out back before his morning coffee.”

She sighed, sitting up in bed. “I just hate this so much. Why can’t he just understand that no matter what, I want to be with you?”

I grabbed her shoulders, looking dead into her soft eyes. “Come hell or high water, I will prove myself to your father, Raine. I promise. I will be the man you deserve and he will see it.”

She shook her head, tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes. “I just don't know if that is even possible, babe. My dad is the most stubborn jackass in the entire fucking world.”

“But, Raine, I’ll give it all up for you if that is what it takes. The club, this place, my job—none of it matters to me without you. I need you. I want you. You’re my forever. I don’t care about the rest.” 

She let her head fall onto my shoulder. “You’re my always, Ryder. You have my heart.”

“Then I will make this all work. Promise.”

My phone started blinging with text after text, half of them from Abel.

“Shit babe, I have to get home and then deal with these.” I showed her the name that kept scrolling across my screen. Raine kissed my cheek and followed me to the window.

“I love you.”

I ducked out the window while saying, “I love you, too.”

Hopping down from the second story roof, I heard the worst possible sound I could in that moment.

“Well, good, you’re already here.” Abel’s face was red with fury as he trotted down the front steps. “So fucking help me God, boy, you’re testing my patience.”

I threw my hands in the air. “I just needed to see her. Nothing happened.”

Raine came flying out the front door. “He’s telling the truth, Dad. We just slept.”

Crickett followed on Raine’s heels, trotting down the front steps. “Fuck.” I heard her say it as she cinched the belt of her dark blue robe tighter around her waist. “Everyone get the heck inside now,” Crickett yelled and by the look on her face, she meant fucking business.

Abel spun around, ready to pick a fight with his old lady. She threw one hand in the air. “That means you too, Abel. I have fucking had it with all this bullshit. We’re going to settle it now, because there is far bigger shit going on than who your twenty-one-year-old daughter decides to love.”

Reluctantly, we all filed into the house.

Crickett poured cups of coffee while we all sat around the dining room table, silently waiting for all the shit to finally hit the fan.

“Start talking.” Crickett glared at her husband, arms crossed.

“There ain’t anything else to say. They cannot be together. And that is fucking final.” He slammed his fist onto the table.”

“That’s crap, Abel. You’re just scared that you won’t be her protector forever. It’s not Ryder; you would feel this way about anyone.”

I stared at my hands, gripping the steaming mug of black coffee. Raine was sitting next to me doing the same thing. After a few seconds of chewing on her lower lip, Raine spoke up. “Dad, have a fucking heart.” Raine flew up from the table and started to pace. “Don’t you see how much Ryder cares about me?”

With wide eyes, Abel shoved up from the table and grabbed his daughter, midstride. “Nothing gets in the way of taking care of this family.” He growled. “Especially not something as fucked as my heart.”

Crickett put her hand on Abel’s shoulder. “Look, he’s still here.” She pointed over to me where I sat like a coward, slumped over. “After everything he has gone through. His fucked up home life with his mom, moving in with his dad—who, until a few years ago, was a stranger—and now he’s finally finding his place in the club and this family. Doesn’t that sound fucking familiar? If Ryder doesn’t deserve to be part of this family, I have no right to be here either.”

Abel’s shoulders fell and he took a seat at the head of the table again. “There’s a fine line between being a club member and being a fucking criminal.” I could feel his gaze boring into my skull but I never looked up.

I nodded. “I know.”

“You’re going to have to prove to me that you’re an outlaw, but not heartless.”

“Done.”

“All right then.” Abel got up, his hand outstretched to me. I grasped his hand and we locked eyes for the first time in days. “I still don't like this shit one fucking bit.”

“I know, sir.” It was the breakthrough I had thought would never come.

Raine ran to us, hooking one arm around each of our necks. “Holy fuck. That is not how I thought this was going to go.”

“Thank your mom,” Abel whispered into his daughter’s ear.

Crickett stood leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. “Tough guys, my fucking ass.” She let out a chuckle and poured herself more coffee. “Don’t y’all have some damn club business to handle?”

Abel looked down at his phone, lighting up with message after message. “We need to get to the table.”

“We?” I pulled my jacket on.

“Don’t make me think twice about this. We voted last night. Congratulations, kid.”

* * *

I took my seat at the table with my brothers hooting and hollering around me, yelling their congratulations for me finally being patched in. I had been waiting for this moment for so long, I couldn’t believe it was finally here.

My father handed Abel his gavel, and he slammed it down onto the mahogany. The crack of the wood on wood pierced the room and everyone shut up instantly.

“All right, men. Yes, it’s exciting that Ryder finally made it, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Jesse was able to sweet talk that skutbag that helped get Trent fucked up last night. He’s doing fine. The doc decided to keep him overnight to detox and he will be released later today. In the meantime, I need Ryder and Red to head over to a Sinners’ hideout in the next town over; that’s where the son of a bitch should be hanging low.”

The group rumbled like they knew exactly what was going on and why the fuck the Sinners member would have drugged our guy. My eyes darted around and Abel took notice.

“I’ll fill you in a little more after all this is said and done, kid.” 

I nodded once in response and Abel continued with the meeting. Once everything was finished and discussed, Abel took me aside before sending me off on a wild goose chase with Red, an older club member that had barely said two words to me since I’d ridden up the mountain three years before.

“Are you ready for this, son?” Abel took a long drag from his cigarette, walking me out the back door.

I dug for my pack. “Born fucking ready.”

“Well there’s some shit that went down before your time that you might need to be aware of before you head out today.”

I lit up and braced myself for the worst. “All right.”

“The day that you rolled into town is the day our last president was run off the road and killed. We had no idea who’d done it.”

“That was Crickett’s dad and your stepdad right?”

Abel nodded before continuing his story. “It took me about a year to figure out that it was all because the Sinners wanted to get Rave out of the way so they could swoop in on a guns trade deal my old man had been working on for a while, completely without us knowing. Apparently, from the journals he was writing in to keep organized, he was worried about a snitch in the club and he didn't trust anyone with the information because of how badly the Sinners wanted to take it from us. He had good reason to hide it, but if he had let me in on the deal, I might have been able to help and protect him.”

He paused, took a few long drags, and then continued. “The snitch my old man was worried about was Trent. He knew that while Tre was using, he’d never be able to be completely loyal. So after the old man passed and I figured all this shit out, I got Trent sober and threatened him within an inch of his life that if he ever used on my watch again, I’d fucking gut him myself.”

“But why would they fuck with Trent now, after all this time?”

Abel smiled a bit. “Because a few months ago, I found the bastard that murdered Rave. I hogtied him to the hitch of my truck and dragged that fucker all the way to their club’s front door. No one talks about it, but it started a war, and I have been waiting for their retaliation ever since. What happened with Tre was the beginning, a warning that they know about our shit and they will play to our weaknesses. It’s not something to be taken lightly. That’s why I need you to go with Red. Out of all of us, the two of you will be the least noticeable.”

“Anything you need, Abel, I’m your man.”

He flicked his cigarette butt onto the ground and stomped out the ember with his steel toed boot. “That’s what I am scared of.”

“You can trust me.”

He dug his hands deep into his pockets. “I know that, son, and that is what scares me the most. My fucking baby girl is going to go through what her mother, Crickett, and my mother went through, that never-ending fear of whether or not their man will make it home at the end of the day.”

“I’m not going to let her down.” I gritted my teeth. There was no fucking way I would put Raine through the pain of losing me.

“You can’t fucking promise that, Ryder. No outlaw can. Our women fight alongside us every goddamned day and there is no way to ease their minds. That’s a burden we all must carry.”

“Until my last breath, I am going to fight for her.”

Abel grabbed my shoulder. “I know. Now let’s go catch a fucking bad guy.”

“Hey, Raine!” Keira started to walk through the front doors of the bar for the night shift.

“Hey girl, how’s it going?”

She threw her purse next to mine under the counter. “Eh. Trying to get used to the slow pace of small town life.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, it’s a far cry from a big city, that’s for damn sure. Where are you from again?”

“Chicago, the windy city—good fucking riddance to that shit hole.”

I started counting out my tips from the day shift to get our drawer ready for her to jump in with me. “How are you liking Vilas so far?”

Her face lit up a bit with crimson. “To be honest, I don't know if this town is for me, but I think I met someone.”

Girl talk time! Fucking FINALLY!

Being surrounded by bikers for ninety percent of my life, it was a breath of fresh air to have another person with tits and a vagina who was remotely close to my age and wasn’t so far into the biker lifestyle yet to talk to.

“Spill. How’d you meet him?”

The flush on her cheeks deepened as she bit her lip. “Tinder.”

She said it so shyly and I had no idea what the ever loving fuck she was talking about. I raised an eyebrow and Keira gasped. “Girl! You haven’t used Tinder before?” She whipped her sassy, perfectly curled, bleach-blonde hair around her boney shoulders.

I shook my head. “I have a guy so I haven’t been on dating sites before.”

She grabbed her phone. “Well, it’s this magical app for your phone where you just scroll through pictures of hot guys and if you like them and they like you, you’re able to chat with them.”

She went through a couple of guys, all of them not anywhere near my type, showing me how the stupid thing worked.

“That’s interesting. The marvels of modern day technology. So when are you going to be meeting this dude?”

She bit her bottom lip. “I kind of told him that I am working here tonight and he said he was going to swing by after work.”

Strange dude, hitting on a club member’s family member in the bar—yeah, that sounded like the worst idea ever, but who was I to tell her no? For all I knew, this guy could be the salt of the earth, but then again, he could be the devil in disguise.

“Well, that’ll be interesting.”

Keira started moving the beer bottles around to make room for restocking. “I figured it was better for him and me to meet for the first time in public.

She did have a point there. “I am looking forward to meeting him.”

She shrieked a little, pouncing with excitement. “Me too!”

The beginning of our evening shift went by smoothly with mostly regulars coming in to shoot pool or darts after finishing up their day shifts and other secret bullshit club members did with their days.

Keira grabbed my forearm lightly as her eyes darted to the door opening. 

“Is that him?”

She smiled with gritted teeth. “It is. I’m so fucking nervous.”

The tall, broad shouldered guy made his way over to the bar, both his arms covered in patriotic tattoos. He took a seat and smiled a sweet toothy grin at Keira. “You’re more beautiful than your pictures.”

Her grip tightened quickly on my arm before she released it. “Dereck, this is my coworker, Raine.”

We shook hands. “How you doin’, darlin’?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Dereck. Excuse me.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my own hunky man belly up to the bar.

Going over to where Ryder and Red took seats, I couldn't help but notice how thick the air felt. Something was definitely off with the two of them.

“Hey Ryder, Red. How’s it goin’?”

Red nodded to me. “Hey sweetheart. I’ll take a Coors.”

“Babe, I need a shot.” Ryder’s eyes were hollowed as he glared down at the bar top.

After grabbing Red’s beer, I poured him a double of Jameson, neat. “Everything okay?”

He threw it back in one swift motion. “It will be once I take care of it.”

I looked down at this cut, noticing that it finally didn't say prospect any more. My blood ran cold. I knew there couldn't be anything good coming out of his mood on the first day of him being an actual member.

“Do I need to be worried?”

He growled. “Never.”

I wiped the bar off in front of him as he looked around, eyeing Keira’s Tinder match at the other end of the bar. “Who’s the new guy?”

 I glanced over to see Keira, elbows on the bar, making goo-goo eyes at her new fella. “He’s a guy Keira is talking to. Met him on some dating app. Timber or some shit like that.”

Red’s nasally voice chimed in. “We’ll get someone in here to keep an eye on that jackass. Something looks a little too familiar about him.”

I threw my towel down. “Holt is in the back. With all of the guys that trickle through here on a nightly basis, I think we got this covered.”

Red shrugged. “Suit yourself, sweets.” He slammed the half-empty bottle down. “We need to head out, kid.”

“Yeah. It’s about that time.” Ryder looked up at me. “See you later?”

I leaned over the bar to kiss him quickly. “You know where I’ll be.”

They threw some money down and headed out the door.