Introduction
Thank you so much to all my readers for your love and support. So many of you have been there for me through this difficult period in my life. There have been days where I’ve wanted to give up, but your messages of encouragement have kept me upbeat.
You’ll never know how much love I have for each and everyone of you. You are not just readers and fans to me, you’re friends, and if I could put into words what you all mean to me, I would.
Just know that you all hold a special place in my heart
– Alivia
Prologue
Hammer
I own everything I've been through in this life. The loss of my parent's when I was twenty. The loss of my fiancée two years ago. The men I've killed. The lives I've ruined. Maybe I deserve to lose so much for the things I have done. But that doesn't mean it gets easier to take.
Loss became normal to me at a very early age. It became part of my very being. I was prepared for it all. The life I lead doesn't leave much room not to be prepared for death. It becomes as much a part of living as existing.
What I wasn't prepared for was almost losing Willow the same way I lost Cindy, my fiancée. Kidnapped, throat slit and watching her die. The only difference is, I wasn't there when Cindy was killed. I had to watch it all through a video link. With Willow, I was right there. I saw the whole thing. I kept her alive until she was ripped from my arms.
Ain't no man on this earth could ever tell me that he wouldn't shed a scared tear seeing a woman that means the world to him almost lose her life like that. I don't give a fuck if you're a biker, a doctor, a lawyer or just a lazy all out fuckin' bum. We all eat, sleep, shit and fuck the same. And I did cry. By myself, I cried for her.
She's not just any woman. Willow was Cindy's best friend, mine also. She's the daughter of the President of the Snakes Henchmen, my president. The girl I have been slowly falling for over the past few months while trying not to at the same time. I already knew that I needed to stay away from her. I knew she'd be killed if she was ever to be with me. I'm cursed. I fully believe that. I would never risk it. I would never risk anything happening to her that would mean I lost her completely.
Trouble is, she was almost killed without me.
Willow is smart, beautiful, kind, and everything a man could ever dream of in a woman. Her long dark hair and big hazel eyes, those long legs, bubble butt, perfect pert tits – yeah, I've looked, any man with eyes can't help but look at her – drive me crazy.
I started noticing her when she reached the age of eighteen. Her body seemed to mature overnight. She walked into the clubhouse one day wearing the most beautiful, tight, white cocktail dress. Every curve of her body was emphasized. My fuckin' jaw dropped. I'd never seen her look so beautiful.
She was there to see her dad, our Prez, Shepard. Fuck knows what for, I didn't hang around long enough to find out.
Now, I could say I went out and fucked some slut to the image of Willow walking in the clubhouse that day. It wasn't the case. I wanted Willow, not a fake imitation. No, I went to the gym and beat the frustration and want out of me.
I couldn't approach her, tell her how she made me feel, Shepard would have killed me. Simple. He would have killed anyone of us who dared so much as look at his daughter that way. What father wouldn't? Sure, he's a proud biker. He also knows what a biker is like. Most of these men fuck anything that moves, and that included me once upon a time.
Not every man just wants to fuck a woman and walk away, but most do. I'd be a liar if I said they didn't. If they don't have a girlfriend or wife, who's to say they shouldn't fuck whoever they want?
But Shepard rightly wanted more than that for Willow. I couldn't fault him for it. So I stayed away from her.
A couple of years later, I met Cindy again, and she was soon the only woman I wanted. Hadn't seen Cindy in years, not since her sister's wedding. She was too young for me then, which was ridiculous when she was the same age as Willow. Eighteen at the time. But I had Willow on my mind back then, I didn't even look at Cindy, to be honest. But the day she came back into my life when she was twenty-one, she grabbed my attention and kept it until the day she died.
People often told me to go out, get laid, move on. But I never did. Hell, I haven't fucked anyone since Cindy was killed. Probably sounds crazy for a biker when fuckin' is what we do, among other things. But I can't even look at another woman without feeling like I'm cheating on Cindy.
I guess that's what I didn't understand. When it came to Willow, there was no guilt, no feelings of cheating on Cindy. I would hear her voice in my head sometimes, Cindy's. She'd be telling me, “It's okay to move on, handsome. It's okay to love Willow. She loves you. Believe me, she has always loved you.”
I knew that. I've always known that. Even when I fell for Cindy because I did fall for her. Shit, I feel so hard for her. I knew Willow loved me. The girl has loved me since she was a little girl. She never made any secret of her feelings for me back then.
I asked myself a couple times why I never fell for her in return. Why she never came to me and told me directly how she felt. I just put it down to the fact Shepard would never have allowed our pairing. He would never have allowed me to claim her.
Willow never held any ill-will toward Cindy because she was with me and not Willow. She was nothing but supportive. Not a malicious bone in her beautiful body. She was that kind of friend.
I try not to question it, I believe God has a plan for us all, and his plan for me was Cindy. He may have only given her to me for a short while, and I don't know, maybe he gave her to me and then took her away because my destiny is Willow. But I refuse to believe it. I refuse to be anything to that girl but a friend.
As I watch her sleeping, covered in bandages from her neck to her wrists due to the injuries inflicted upon her because of those motherfuckers who took her, I know I can't even be that to her now. It's true, I love her in my own way, and I love her enough to walk away. I'll always be there for her, in the background, making sure she's okay, and I'll make sure every damn day I'm alive that no one gets near her again. I'll kill anyone who tries to hurt her. Oh, trust me, I'll kill them in the worst fuckin' way!
I don't know where the hell I go from here. I don't even know yet if Willow will ever recover from what she's been through. What I do know is that she's strong, she'll pull herself back from this. And I will keep my distance. If for nothing else but to keep her from the curse that belongs to me.
I've spoken to her for a few moments today, day three of her recovery. She can't speak, her throat needs to heal. But she reached out her hand to me as tears streamed down her face. I kissed her knuckles, trying to hide my own emotions from her. It killed me to see her like that. So pale and so withdrawn.
She fell asleep quickly, but Shepard told me that she does that a lot. All the painkillers keep her drowsy. It's better for her if she sleeps. She'll heal quicker if she does. I should have left by now, I shouldn't be in this room alone with her. I didn't think my heart could possibly break anymore, but it's completely shattered now. But I didn't lose her completely, she's still alive, still fighting to survive.
It's just me and her, and I'm holding her hand and stroking the hair back from her forehead. It'll hurt her when I don't come around anymore. I just hope she understands that I can't go through all of this again. I can't allow myself to fall any deeper, it will only end up with her being killed. There won't be any saving her next time. She wouldn't survive it.
I lean down and kiss her head, not really wanting to pull away from her, but knowing that I have to. “You will always be in my heart, Will. And I will always be there to protect you. But I can't come around here anymore. Please understand.” I whisper, knowing she can't hear me in her sleep, but somehow hoping she can.
I'm outta there so fast, my feet don't touch the ground. I couldn't fuckin' breathe in there! I need to get the fuck on my bike and ride against the wind. I need to get my fuckin' dick wet before I explode! Maybe if I do, I'll finally get rid of these thoughts about Willow, these damn visions of her lying there bleeding out.
I see it so clearly every time I close my eyes, even when they're open. I'm going fuckin' crazy because of it. I need to beat this shit outta me. The gym, that's what I need. Adrenaline.
Chapter One
Willow
Four Months Later
He's beautiful. Amazing. Strong and smart. He's the kind of man a girl dreams about. Those deep brown eyes of his, those muscles, that scar across his hairline. I get wet just thinking about him. It's also wrong on so many levels. Not only because I have a fiancé, but because he's an outlaw biker. A killer with a bloodlust like I've never known.
So why am I not scared of him?
Because he would never hurt the innocent. I've known him all of my life, even more so since my mother fell in love with the president of the Snakes Henchmen MC. She fast became his old lady, then his wife, and Hammer, the man of my very wet dreams, came to live with us along with his kid brother, Tank. Road names, of course.
People have often asked why men like Hammer don't scare and intimidate me. The answer is simple. I grew up in this life of MC's, bikers, and outlaws. I don't know any other life. They all do bad things in order to keep the money coming in, to protect us, to make sure other MC's know not to mess with us.
The trouble with this is other motorcycle clubs want to make names for themselves. So they attack our club because we're one of the biggest around. We're not infallible, we're not immortal, we lose people in these futile wars. The men of this club are only human, after all.
I don't agree with murder, but I'm not going to lie and tell you that I think about the people this club has killed over the years. I know they deserved to die. People who hurt women and children, people who never pay for what they've done deserve to be taken out. That's what my father used to tell me as a young girl. He also told me not to think about it all, it would only drive me crazy.
I used to think that no one could get to me because I'm the eldest daughter of the president of the Snakes Henchmen's. How naïve is that? Of all the people belonging to the club, myself and my sister are the ones most in danger of being hurt because of who we are related to. Most would attack at the top. Get the president's daughter's, get to the president.
There is one thing I know now. Never think I'm safe from harm. Always believe that hell is right around the corner waiting to cut me down.
If it wasn't for Hammer, I'd be six-feet under right now. He literally saved my life after an enemy of the club cut my throat. Hammer was a friend to me when no one else could be. A friend to me even if he did distance himself from me. He thought he was doing it to protect me, I know that. It hurt that he wasn't around, but he will always be there should I really need him. I know that deep in my heart.
Four months ago, I was kidnapped by members of a rival motorcycle club who thought I was my sister, Nova. How they could have mistaken us is beyond me when we look nothing alike. She's dark-haired, blue-eyed, has an amazing figure that most women, if not all, would kill for. The kind of figure that would take someone like me six years in the gym to achieve. The woman has a child and you'd never be able to tell.
If I ever had a child, I imagine I'd balloon like a beached whale and stay that way until the kid was ten and probably longer.
Me, I'm the full-figured, wider hipped kind of girl. I have a lighter shade of brown hair, hazel eyes, my skin is just a shade darker than Nova's. I get it from my no-good Puerto Rican birth father. The man abandoned me when I was two years of age because of the fact my skin was too light for a half Puerto Rican child. My hair and my eyes were too light, according to him.
He told my mother that he knew she'd cheated on him and had some other man's child, a child he would not raise. How could I be his when he was dark and I was practically white?
I never understood that. Was he so stupid to believe I couldn't be his just because my skin was lighter? I obviously took after my mother, the idiot.
My mother was only eighteen years old when he left, just sixteen when she gave birth to me. Yes, my father was much older than she was, she was a minor when she got together with my twenty-something-year-old father.
She was frightened of raising me alone. She tried to make him see that he was my father, that my eyes were hazel because his were brown and hers were green, making mine lighter because of the mix of colors. That my skin tone may have been light, but that was because she was so fair skinned.
But he beat the crap out of her before telling her that none of his family believed I was his child, they were all as dark as him. His nephew had a white mother, but he was dark like his father. He told my mother how neither he nor his family ever wanted to see either of us again. I not only lost my father that day but everyone I'd ever known. My mother has no family, so it was just us. Not that I would ever remember them as I got older.
Mom met Shepard when she was newly pregnant with me, she had a thing for him, but always kept it to herself. She knew she couldn't do anything about her feelings when he was ten years older than her and she was with my real father at the time. She didn't want to cause Shepard any problems. He saw her as a kid, he was a man. But she once told me how she used to dream about a life with a man who would never beat her, never cheat on her. Shepard was a biker, aren't all bikers low down dirty cheating, murdering bastards?
Don't they stand for the w
orst things in this life?
No, not all of them. There are some clubs out there who fight for the rights of the innocent. No matter what you believe. Yes, they will intimidate you to get what they want. However, Shepard's club never has and never will rape and beat women. Okay, they might beat a woman if she's a fucking crackpot and means to cause them harm. But to be honest, that's a rarity.
Anyway, Mom was friends with Shepard's old lady, had been for years since she was around ten. Celia was obviously older than my mom, lived across the street from mom's parent's until she left and met Shepard. When mom ran away from home with my so-called father, they found Celia, who helped them until mom was old enough to actually be with my father without him going to prison for sleeping with an underage girl.
I don't remember Celia at all, but I remember when she took off with Nova, leaving Jett behind. Jett being Shepard's son and now the VP of the Snakes Henchmen.
Shepard became tougher, meaner. He was desperate to find Nova but always failed to do so. He has told me on more than one occasion that if it wasn't for my mother's friendship back then, he is sure he would have gotten himself killed.