Page 106 of Property of Chaos

THIRTY-SIX

CHAOS

Arm slung over my eyes,I lie on the concrete in front of the garages, reveling in the sun's feel on my skin and clothes. The morning rays heat the leather across my chest, warming the denim stretched over my thighs to the point that it burns dull against my flesh.

It’s only the second night I’ve spent at the clubhouse in weeks, and it fucking sucked.

I should be happy. Early indications are that the Fallen Aces can provide us with a contract for our weed, which means the club financials stay in the black for another year. But it’s not final yet. I’ve got a ride that’ll take me six hours to Lincoln, Nebraska, to nut out the details, andthatis the fucking thing that has me strung out thinking about how far from Vanessa that is.

She kept the camera recording.

She fucking let me stay in her life, but more than that, she goddamn set it up in her bedroom.

I damn near died and floated my obsessed ass right up to Heaven when I opened the feed to see that shit.

If only she’d played me harder.She changed in the goddamn bathroom. No peep show this time around. The microphonepicked up the shower sounds, and then she reappeared in her sleepwear.

MyT-shirt.

Yeah, I may have beaten one out to that image, but it was as fucking dissatisfying as having to leave her house last week with her taste still on my tongue.

I need more. So much more.

“You ready?”

I drag my arm aside and squint against the bright sky. “Sure.”

Selena continues past my shoulder, tugging her helmet on as she walks. She won’t tell me why she doesn’t want to walk the few miles to school anymore. And probably for good reason.

The girl cares too much about her classmates—assholes and all—to let me loose on them if they’ve mistreated her.

“You didn’t go out last night.”

I push to a seated position and twist to glance at her over my shoulder. “So?”

“Didn’t work out?”

Not that I owe a sixteen-year-old an explanation, but “Something like that.”

“Sorry to hear.”

I rise to my feet and dust off my ass as best I can. “Are you though?”

She mirrors my smirk with a smile of her own, partially hidden behind the helmet's chin guard.

Loki’s right: I haven’t slept anywhere but the club my whole life. And for good reason. When your first introduction to what happens outside the world that you play in is a club brother lifted onto the pool table, gunshot wounds to the abdomen and legs, you form ideas about what’s safe early on in life.

My five-year-old ass sat behind the sofa, watching his blood drip through the netting of the pocket as he died.

Nobody ever sat me down to explain what happened or why. Nobody ever asked if I was okay.

And so, my tiny brain concocted stories about the demons and dragons that walked the world at night, cutting down anyone who wore a skull on their back.

Fast-forward ten years, and sure, at fifteen, I knew those things didn’t exist. But when a school friend invited me out for a night in the woods with a bunch of peers, I turned him down.

Because my lizard brain still equated darkness outside our gates as danger.

And so, I became the loner. The brother who never went to rallies. Who always had his hand up first to hold the fort.

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