Always (Next Generation The Skulls 1)

Her real dad would be easily killed by the club, and he should have been a long time ago.

“Yeah, he called. It’s fine. I’ll deal with it. You know.”

“Tell him to fuck off. He can’t keep taking money from you. Piece of shit that he is.” She hated him and didn’t hide it.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. We should be focusing on what these guys are going to do.”

“Ignore them. I do so often,” she said.

Daisy chuckled.

Tabitha tended to know when her best friend was having a hard time—she turned bitchy. Between the two of them, Tabitha was more than happy to wear the crown of queen bitch, and Daisy was normally the sweet one. The one holding books, reading, and not getting into fights. They each had their roles to play and they did it well.

Arriving at the Quad, she saw it was busier than usual.

The moment they paid their entrance fee, Tabitha went on high alert. A crowd this big was dangerous, but it also meant the cops had been bought off.

“Dogs own this territory tonight,” Mitch, the guard at the door, said. “You’ve entered at your own risk.”

Keeping together as a group, they moved toward the main fighting ring. Ned had come to see this place with her a few years ago, and Tabitha had been addicted to it. Of course, neither her parents nor the club knew that Grandpa Ned had looked it over as a possible site he wanted to use.

Ned dealt in fighters back in Vegas. He was notorious for finding the meanest motherfuckers around. She also knew he wasn’t a nice guy either, and so there were some fights that had a lot more odds on them, a fighter’s life.

Those freaked her out. She couldn’t ever imagine fighting for her life, nor did she want to. Still, this was fighting. It was fucked up, dangerous, but that was the way that it was.

“What are you thinking?” Daisy asked.

They pushed their way up to the edge of the ring. It was on a concrete pitch that was higher up as if on a pedestal. There had been wooden posts secured with rope to try to keep people inside. The trick was to not get slammed down. There were some rules to the fighting, seeing as it was mostly kids who took to the Quad. Some college boys as well. Those were the fights the club often went for. It meant bigger money as there was often some pansy-ass rich boy who thought he was the shit and got beat down a great deal because of it.

Anthony didn’t go for fights he knew he could win.

Tabitha just loved to fight, and the thing about the Quad was they didn’t care if you had a dick or a pussy. A fight was a fight. You win, you get paid. You lose, you go home empty-handed.

The club had yet to lose a fight. Out of the whole club, Daisy didn’t fight, though. It wasn’t that she couldn’t fight, it was just better for everyone if she didn’t.

Staring up at the two competitors, she spotted Luke facing off with a guy twice his size. Both had no shirt on. Luke was covered in ink. His arms, chest, and as he turned to dodge a ram, there was also ink on his back.

“You want him?” Daisy asked.

“Don’t be absurd.” She didn’t want Luke but that didn’t mean he didn’t want her. Nope, she’d noticed Luke watching her. He was also the one who tried to keep things nice between the clubs. It was Dickface Ryan she had trouble with.

Luke was the President’s son, and there was no denying he was a badass. He was also a bully. An asshole bully, but he didn’t turn that shit on her, and when she caught him, she stepped right up into his face for it.

His technique was flawless. He hit hard and took no punishment.

It was good.

The guy finally went down and waved his hand in defeat.

The Dogs roared with victory.

Luke was embraced with open arms and then Ryan ran onto the pedestal. He was smaller than Luke. Still had plenty of ink, but he was a complete and total dick. There was no getting away with it. He believed his patch was what made him the shit, but it didn’t.

If anything, it made him even more of an asshole. The guys couldn’t stand him.

She certainly couldn’t. It was bad enough having to deal with another MC, seeing as they’d been able to avoid it most of their school lives, but now, it made it even more so. Especially since some people considered The Skulls as sellouts or weak. They weren’t. They had just reached their end of horseshit and wanted a break.

Simple as that.

Ryan held his fisted hands in the air as if he was already going to be victorious.