I call his cell phone. Again. He sends my call straight to voicemail, and I glare as his voice barks out orders to leave him a message. He calls himself Soar, and all of his little buddies call him that too. I’ve even got it tattooed on the front of my hip—some misguided act of love and encouragement.
God, I’m such a fucking idiot.
Soar.
How stupid.
His name isn’t Soar. It’s Sloane McKinley Huntington, III. I doubt any of his brothers know that, though. Just like none of them know that my name isn’t Genny, it’s Imogen. We’re frauds, the two of us. I’m not some badass biker bitch. I’m Imogen Carolina Stewart-Huntington.
We’re both from well-to-do, upper class families. Not just upper class. No, more like elite. Our parents are trust fund babies, as are we. Neither of us has to work a day in our lives. We could both spend to our hearts content and still have plenty of money to give our children.
I met Sloane when we were in high school. We went to a private school, where we were famous for our parents’ titles, our hand-me-down last names, and our breeding lineage.
Sloane was a bad boy. He was beautiful in every way a boy could be beautiful to a fifteen-year-old. His blond hair was never out of place, yet he looked as if he couldn’t care less about it. His leather jackets were expensive, yet looked like he beat the shit out of them—his jeans the same.
He started running around with the club right after he graduated high school. During the week, he would stay in Shasta, a couple hours from San Francisco, where the club was based.
He always reserved his weekends to spend with me. I loved it. I felt so special, considering I was in high school and he was older than me. I thought I was really something. He even took me to all of my formal dances after he left school.
When I turned eighteen and he was twenty-one, we were married.
That’s when things started to change.
I didn’t know what being a Notorious Devil meant.
I didn’t know about the women, the booze, the drugs, and the constant parties.
I didn’t know about being left at home, all alone, for days at a time.
I didn’t know that my husband would sleep with other women while he went away on runs, whatever that meant.
“Sloane, where the hell are you?” I snap once his greeting is finished. “I’m not taking this shit anymore. I’m done.”
I always say that too.
That I’m done.
Then he comes home and sweet-talks me into accepting him back. I hate myself a little more because I allow it, and allow him into my bed, every single fucking time.
I stay with him instead of leaving and going home to my parents. They were pissed when I married Sloane. They didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go after someone else, anyone else. His reputation for being a bad boy was known far and wide in their circle of friends they surround themselves with. Unfortunately, I’m extremely stubborn, and have no problem suffering for my pride.
Now, fourteen years later, I see exactly why they were so angry. Sloane hasn’t grown up; he hasn’t changed; he hasn’t taken on the responsibility of his father’s company. He’s still running around, getting high, fucking whores, and has zero ambition in life. At this rate, his little brother will be running his father’s company, and everything will completely bypass him.
I hear something in the next room, and I know it’s Cleo. She’s been staying with me for a few days while her man and Sloane have been gone on this run together. I feel like a bitch for ignoring her, but I’m so angry that I’m not good company anyway—not that I ever really am these days.
The phone rings in my hand, but it’s not Sloane on the other end—it’s MadDog, his president.
“Need you to come down to the clubhouse, darlin’,” he murmurs on the other end.
MadDog. Now he’s a member of the club I can respect. One of the only ones. He has ambition, he’s in charge, and he doesn’t take shit from anyone. He’s also fiercely loyal to his woman, Mary-Anne. God, they’re so cute and perfect; they make me sick and bitter.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, my heart racing inside of my chest.
“Just come on down here. Bring Cleo, too,” he says and then ends the call.
“Cleo, we’re being summoned to the clubhouse,” I call out as I walk out of my room. Her head jerks and she looks at me, giving me a sad smile and a nod.
We take separate cars, probably because she thinks I’m a bitch. I am. Or at least I am now. I wasn’t always. When I was young, I was fun, always down for a good time, and always smiling.
Sloane used to call me his Sunshine.
He hasn’t called me that in at least ten years, and for good reason. I don’t feel very happy and sunny anymore.
I walk into the clubhouse and MadDog tells me, with regret swimming in his eyes, that Sloane’s been arrested.
“What did he have?” I ask.
“I’m sorry, babe, I don’t know. I only know they hooked him up and carted his ass off,” Torch, Cleo’s man, says, keeping his voice soft and gentle, like I’m some kind of wounded animal.
I nod, understanding filling me. He’s gone. I’m done. The entire room watches me like I’m some kind of freak show, waiting for me to go insane. I look around until my eyes catch MadDog’s.
“I’m leaving. I’m not coming back. I’m going home to my family, and I’m sorry, but I’m divorcing his ass,” I announce.
“Now, Genny, we don’t even know if the charges will stick,” MadDog murmurs.
“No, fuck that. He doesn’t give a fuck about me. He cares about the club, the drugs, and the whores. I’m not on that list anywhere. So he can have it all, and he doesn’t have to worry about me anymore,” I state as I tamp down my emotions. I’m on the verge of tears, so I take a step toward the front door.
“Babe, you know that’s not true,” Colleen says.
“Do I?” I ask, arching a brow. “I know he doesn’t come home for days, sometimes even weeks. I know he’d rather fuck those whores then come home to me. I know that what I want—it doesn’t fucking matter.”
“What do you want?” Colleen asks.
I shake my head. No way am I telling this room full of people what I want out of my husband. No way am I telling them that I want him to come home at night, to hold me, to whisper to me that he loves me, again.
No way am I telling them that I want him to slide inside of me bare, make love to me, and fill me with a baby. No way am I going to be that vulnerable in front of these people. These people who have it all. No way in hell.
I’m thirty-two years old.
I want a family.
I can’t let my own husband have sex with me without a condom because I literally do not know where his dick has been. No way am I telling them that I don’t want to lie awake at night, crying because my husband doesn’t want me.
The only man I have ever been with doesn’t want anything to do with me. The man I love with everything that I am can’t stand to look at me. Fuck that.
“Everything,” I whisper, giving them that and nothing else.
Colleen’s eyes widen, “That’s too much.”
“Then. Fuck. Him.” I growl before I turn and walk out the door.
“Genny,” Mary-Anne calls out, chasing after me.
“What?” I ask, whirling around and giving her a dirty look. I don’t mean to be a bitch, but it’s basically just my personality anymore.
“Don’t leave. The club will help you out. We’re your family,” she says, reaching out to wrap her hand around my forearm for comfort.
I know that she’s been really sweet, helpful, and kind, but she doesn’t know shit. I let out a humorless laugh and shake my head.
“I don’t need the clubs help,” I snort.
“Don’t leave like this,” she whispers.
“I envy you. A man like you’ve got, who obviously loves the hell out of you and would do anything to keep from hurting you, it’s more than I’ve ever had. I want to hate you, but you’re too damn sweet,” I laugh softly. “I’m glad you have MadDog, but please, don’t put Soar in the same category.”
I open my car door and slide inside, start the engine, and drive to my parent’s house. I leave everything in Shasta, not wanting one single memory to come with me. Sloane’s fancy ass muscle car is in the garage of our house, as is everything else of ours. He can throw my stuff away, or give it to one of his whores. I don’t give a shit anymore.
Sloane McKinley Huntington, III, is nothing but the past.
“I’m sorry, man,” MadDog says as he sits across from me.
It’s visiting day. I’m stuck in fucking prison for a minimum of the next three years on a drug charge. It’s my own fault. I knew how much was too much to have on me, but I did it anyway. I was high and cocky. Now that I’m in forced sobriety, I can see a bit clearer.
I fucked up.
Big time.
“Why? Because I’m in here? Brother, I did this shit to myself,” I laugh humorously as I lean back in my chair.
“No, Genny,” he says. I sit up a bit straighter.
“She okay?” I ask as my heartrate speeds up and panic begins to consume me.
I haven’t heard from her, but that doesn’t surprise me. My woman, my wife, she’s a bit temperamental, high strung, and high fucking maintenance, among other things. I’ve known her since she was a pretty little fifteen-year-old, and I snatched her up quick. I saw the way the other thoroughbreds in school were eyeing her. No way would she be with them. My blonde-haired sunshine needed wild freedom.
I just didn’t know that we’d eventually be semi-miserable together. Love her, but the woman grates on my goddamn nerves sometimes. I hide out until she’s over whatever snit she gets into, then I sweet-talk her down, and it’s all good again for a while.
It’s a cycle.
“Don’t know. The day Torch came back and said you’d been hauled away, she said she was getting shot of you and she left. We’ve been keeping eyes on your place, but she hasn’t come back, not even for her shit. We’ve had to up our security on the Old Ladies, shit is in limbo. Brother, we got no clue where she is.”
I close my eyes for a beat. She wouldn’t need her shit. She has enough money to buy herself a new outfit every day for the rest of her life and never repeat it. I know where she’s gone. She’s gone back to Frisco, back to her parents, back to society.
Fuck.
“Don’t worry about her,” I say with a shrug, trying not to look as affected as I feel.
“Soar…”
Clearing my throat, I mutter, “Seriously, Prez. She’s got so much fuckin’ security where she’s at, she’s safer than the fucking president.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, Prez. I’m sure.”
MadDog leaves a few minutes later, leaving a photograph on the table. I snatch it up before I’m taken back to my cell. I look at the photo. It’s a picture of Genny. Imogen. She’s about twenty-one in it. She’s smiling, but the expression doesn’t reach her eyes.
That’s my fault.
She hasn’t been happy since the day she walked in on me fucking a whore while I was high off my ass. It’s not that I want to hurt her, but fuck, nothing I ever do has made her happy.
I bought her a house. It’s about a quarter of the size house she grew up in. It’s not fancy and perfect, but honest to fuck, I don’t give a shit about that material stuff, so I didn’t think she would either. She started complaining about it almost immediately. She wanted to build something bigger and fancier, but I told her no.
Then she wanted me to come home every night. I have shit to do at the club, I couldn’t come home every night. I was young, and I wanted to party—she didn’t, so I left her ass at home. She’d accuse me of cheating constantly, and started holding out on me as a form of punishment. I hadn’t actually done anything with another woman, until she kept accusing me of it. We’d been married for two years when she started that shit.
That was when I actually started fucking clubwhores.
I hadn’t been with another woman in over five years. I stooped, I fucked the bitch out of spite and anger. I didn’t get caught, so I kept doing it. It was just another high for me to chase. When she caught me, she threatened to leave. I charmed her back to me, and she stayed.
It became a game; it was a high. I played her, and played with her. I pushed her as far as I could, manipulated her anyway that I could. The fucker of it all was that I liked it. She didn’t show emotion, she was cold as ice sometimes, so I’d push, and push until she was at her breaking point. Then I’d reel her ass back in, with a fucking victorious smile.
Now that I’m sober, I realize that it wasn’t rational or even fucking nice, but I did it nonetheless. I was high, and the drugs, the women, and fucking with her were all highs I chased.
Fuck, I’m always chasing the next head change.
Always.
The realization that I’m so much like my own father, it slaps me in the face and makes me sick. He does the same shit, just in a different way. The fucking apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I hate myself for it.
Now, Genny’s gone and I’m stuck here. No charming her, or sweet-talking her back home anytime soon—at least not for the next three years.
Fuck.