Unfortunately for me, it was still early in the night, so when I pulled up to the front of my dorm with three members of The Exiled Eight MC behind me, there were a million pairs of eyes at their windows.

I groaned as I climbed out of the driver’s seat, the introvert inside me suddenly wanting to crawl under a rock and hide, pretend none of this was happening. I fought that feeling, reminding myself this man could be the other half of my DNA, and if nothing else, at least I would have that.

“Can we get this done?” Braid man asked. He looked almost nervous, or uncomfortable as the three men approached. “We have places to be.” His attitude was bad, and the creepy way he watched me made me feel uneasy. Like he was imagining ways in his head to off me and hide the body where no one would find it.

A breeze swept by me, and I shuddered, whether it was the cold air or the feeling of his eyes on me, I still wasn’t sure.

“Brew,” Huntsman hissed. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

Braid man—or Brew as I now knew his name—glared at the club president in a way I wouldn’t like anyone to ever look at me, but kept his mouth shut. I led them forward to the double doors which lead to Dakota’s and my dorm room.

The few students who were floating around in the hallways took one look at the men behind me and ducked inside their rooms, doors slamming closed behind them. I could hear whispers and not so subtle comments. Some students nervous and others strangely excited.

This was a bad idea.

I’d come to U of A with a fresh start. No one knew me. No one here had heard the rumors that Nick spread around school about me. I was finally in a place where people weren’t whispering and giggling or pointing and laughing in the hallways.

I was constantly paranoid about what people were saying about me, or what rumor Nick was going to make up next to make me look like some crazy bitch or a total slut. I’d finally left that behind, and now, it was about to start all over again. All it would take was one of these people to start something. Maybe say I had three bikers in my bedroom and wham—the looks, the whispers, the judgments.

We finally reached my doorway, and I ducked inside, tapping my foot impatiently as the three bikers followed. Slamming the door shut, I jogged over to my side table where I had the picture tucked away between the pages of my favorite book—Alice in Wonderland.

Pulling out the book, I held it tightly in my hands as I turned around to face them. “Here,” I said, whipping the photo out and holding it up in the air.

Huntsman stepped forward and plucked it from between my fingers.

Brew for once wasn’t interested, making himself at home in mine and Dakota’s room and heading for my dresser which was covered in photos and knickknacks. The way he studied the pieces of my life somehow made me feel almost violated.

“Do you have to be so nosey?” I fired in annoyance at this man who I couldn’t quite figure out.

His eyes flashed, and suddenly, he was coming at me.

Instinctively, I reached back into the drawer where I could see my gun, drawing it to a perfect position with the end just six inches from the center of Brew’s chest. He froze, his eyes widening but staying focused on me.

“That was a stupid move, little girl,” he growled, the top lip of his curling and his fists clenching at his side.

Huntsman stepped closer as did the younger club member who still had yet to speak. I could see them in my peripheral vision, but I didn’t dare move my gaze from the man in front of me.

“It would only be stupid if I was a bad shot,” I replied, my finger gently brushing against the trigger. “Bit of information for you… I’m a really good shot.”

Hadley always told me, never to put your finger on the trigger of the gun unless you intend to shoot it. In this case, I was fully willing to fire if he came any fucking closer, knowing I had a good chance of hitting all three of them before they could get to me as long as I kept the distance between us.

“You came at me,” I stated, hoping Huntsman was listening closely, and wouldn’t think I was being some dumb bitch and waving a gun around for no reason. “I know what a man looks like when he’s gonna throw a punch. I’m just letting you know what a bad idea that would be if you ever get that feeling again… in the future.”

“You little who—”

“Enough,” Huntsman growled, taking another step forward. “Put the gun down, girl.”

“I’ll put it down if you tell your lackey here to take a step back,” I reasoned, trying not to let it show I was actually trembling, and this tough talk I’d somehow managed was a huge damn act.

My eyes never moved off Brew, but I heard Huntsman snort as if he found my words funny. “Brew, stand down. Leave the girl alone.”

I could practically feel the waves of anger rolling off him as he took three small steps backward. He wanted to kill me. It was a frightening realization that I was standing just a few feet from a man who would have no problem ending my life and burying me in a shallow grave to decompose.

It was a feeling I’d never really experienced before.

I’d been around men like my uncle and his brothers, who I had no doubt had taken a fair amount of lives in their time, but I was protected there. There had been moments where I’d felt scared, but I’d never felt it could be the end.

This feeling was very real, very scary, and awfully fucking confronting.

“Carly is your mom?” Huntsman asked finally, and my heart skipped.

He remembered her name.

“Yes,” I whispered, finally lowering my gun, but refusing to put it down until I heard more of what Huntsman had to say. I could tell he was a hard man. He hadn’t thought twice about putting his hands on me when he thought I might have been lying to him or a threat. Yet, when I looked at him now, I noticed his gaze was glued to the picture he held. His features had softened slightly, which only made my heart race even faster.

“Brew, Orion, go wait outside for me,” Huntsman ordered, much to Brew’s horror.

Orion gave me one last curious look before heading for the door. Brew being smart, he kept his mouth closed and followed, but not before giving me that one final look which was full of dark and painful promises. Almost like he knew I was hiding some secret, and it was just a matter of time before he figured it out.

I wasn’t hiding a secret, but I was pretty sure he was going to find one anyway.

When the door closed, I finally allowed myself to breathe. Taking a seat on my bed, I put the safety back on my gun and slipped it into my bedside drawer. While the state of Arizona wouldn’t let me conceal and carry until I was twenty-one, at eighteen, I was still allowed to own a handgun, and Hadley and Leo had made sure I had one which was perfect for me and that I was confident in using before I left Athens.

I was pretty thankful for that now.

Huntsman was quiet.

He leaned against my window frame, his eyes still stuck on the photo of him and my mother.

“So you do remember her,” I murmured, not wanting to disturb the moment he was having, but impatient and needing to hear what he had to say about the whole thing.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I remember her,” he admitted, his brows growing a little sterner when he looked up at me. “I ain’t the one who left her high and dry, though. We spent… time together. Then the minute I got called away to deal with some club business, she fucking disappeared into thin air.”

The nostalgia had passed, and now he was pissed.

He obviously had a different idea of what happened between them than my mom did, or at least, he didn’t know the whole story. “My grandparents… her parents were killed in a car accident,” I told him, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and upset. It was hard for me to miss people that I’d never met, but the emotions I felt were for the pain I knew my mom and my aunt had gone through. The same pain that I knew Ham had gone through when his parents were killed. One I couldn’t ever imagine I’d ever be able to come back from.

Huntsman tossed the photo on the ground with a flick of his wrist, and my mouth dropped open. “I don’t fucking care if her damn dog died. She walked away without a single word. Then she had my child, and never fucking bothered to tell me? She’s just like every other bitch.”

Flying to my feet, I shoved him in the chest, hard enough to have him move onto his back foot to stabilize himself. There’s no way in hell I was about to let him get away with talking about my mom that way. “Before you start throwing the word bitch around, maybe you should listen to the whole story,” I spat, picking up the photo off the floor and slamming it against his chest. “My mom went to the clubhouse to find you, but do you know what she found instead?”

His face had hardened again, his fists clenched by his sides as if he was barely controlling himself, and if I didn’t step lightly, I was probably going to earn myself a black eye.

Yes, I was pretty sure my so-called father wasn’t one of those I’ve never hit a woman type of men. My mom was right when she said these men, they weren’t like Uncle Leo and his brothers, they were different. More intense. Less give a fuck. I wasn’t saying they weren’t capable of love because I could hear the hurt in his voice, not just the anger when he spoke about Mom leaving without a word. I just had that feeling if I spoke too far out of turn, I was going know about it, and it was probably going to hurt.

If there was one thing I’d learned spending time with the club, it was that respect went a long way, and right now, I’d thrown all my respect for Huntsman on the floor, and I was treading all over it.

“No guesses?” I threw in sarcastically. “She found your wife.”

He didn’t look even slightly shocked, but I did catch a twitch in his features, one that told me he wasn’t all that happy with this information.

I gave him a chance to speak, to explain, or tell me that he didn’t know. But when he continued to just stare me down, I gave up. I was done.

“You can leave now,” I ordered, folding my arms across my chest, trying to be strong and not let the tears that were welling, fall and have him think that he’d won. “Go back to your wife. I didn’t come looking for you. I didn’t search you out. But what I’ve figured out during this very informative but brief meeting, is that I’ve done perfectly well without you in my life. Learned to drive a car without you. Learned to shoot a gun without you. Learned to respect myself without you.” I stomped toward the door, yanking it open in anger and holding it, hoping he’d just leave me the hell alone so I could break down in peace.

It was a Mexican standoff—neither one of us moving an inch.

The kids who were milling around the hallway, trying to figure out what I was doing in here with the president of one of the scariest motorcycle clubs around, they all scattered in fear.

I was a mask of strength, and I wore it pretty fucking well.

It was just that though—a mask—a part I was playing to try to get out of this situation possibly unscathed.

When he finally moved, the air in the room shifted around him like a tumultuous storm filled with all kinds of different emotions. He stopped at the door, and in a moment of weakness, I looked up finding his eyes staring back down at me. No, not his eyes—my eyes. Eyes that I’d seen in the mirror every morning for the past eighteen years. I’d never doubted once that what my mom had told me might not have been true, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t either.

We both knew he was my father.

It was now just going to be about what he was going to do about it.

“I’ll send one of my boys around with a DNA test. His name’s Shriek,” he stated firmly. “You do it. You give it back to him… and him fucking only, and we figure this shit out the right way.”

My mouth fell open as he stepped out the door. I was preparing myself that this was it, this was the defining moment in my life which told me that having my father, just wasn’t ever going to be a thing but that and I’d be okay with that.

Shaking the confusion from my head, I leaped out into the hall as his figure retreated. “Can I have my job back?” I called after him.

He didn’t even turn around, but the deep, husky laughter I heard in response washed over me, warming through my body right down to my toes.

I didn’t even care he hadn’t given me an answer, because that was worth so much more.

This was going to be one hell of a ride.

I could already tell.