Page 7 of Savage Loyalty

“Come here, Delilah,” he said, holding out his hand. “You want to sit on it?”

I blinked up at him, my heart pounding. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” he said, crouching down so we were at eye level. “You’re a Cruz, aren’t you?”

I nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. He lifted me onto the bike with ease, his hands steady and strong as he settled me on the seat. The leather was cool against my legs, the handlebars wide beneath my tiny hands. I felt... powerful. Important. Like I belonged.

“Look at you,” Dad said, his voice filled with pride. “You’re a natural.”

Axel leaned against the bike, grinning. “She looks like a baby biker.”

“Am not!” I shot back, glaring at him.

“Are too,” Axel teased, tugging on my braid.

Before I could retaliate, Dad’s laughter boomed through the air, deep and genuine. It was a rare sound, one that seemed to make the whole world brighter. He ruffled Axel’s hair and then mine, his calloused hand lingering on my shoulder.

“You’re going to be something special, Delilah,” he said, his voice quieter now, almost thoughtful. “I can feel it.”

The words stuck with me long after the moment passed. For the first time, I felt like I wasn’t just Axel’s little sister or Javier Cruz’s daughter. I was Delilah, and I mattered.

That memory was one of the few I clung to. As I got older, those moments—the rare glimpses of tenderness, of love not weighed down by expectations—became fewer and farther between. Dad stopped lifting me onto bikes and started teaching Axel how to run the club. I’d watch them from the doorway of the garage, the smell of oil and grease thick in the air as Dad walked Axel through every detail: how to balance the books, negotiate deals, and keep the Vipers in line.

Axel soaked it all up like a sponge, standing taller with every lesson and every nod of approval from Dad. He lived for those moments, the fleeting ones when Dad’s sharp eyes softened just enough to let you know you’d done something right. For Axel, those moments were everything. For me, they were a reminder of everything I wasn’t.

I tried to follow. Tried to prove I belonged. I helped around the clubhouse, cleaned bikes, and memorized the names of the club’s key players. I listened to Dad’s stories, asked questions about the club, and even sat through Axel’s long-winded explanations about the ins and outs of Viper business. But no matter how hard I tried, it was never enough.

“Family comes first,” Dad used to say, his voice sharp with authority. “Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve built—it’s for you and Axel.”

But that wasn’t true. It was a lie he told himself, a story he used to justify the sacrifices he made—and the ones he demanded from us. Everything he’d done, the empire he’d built, the power he wielded—it had all been for him. And the cost of it? That was on us. Axel bore it willingly, desperate to make Dad proud, to step into his shoes and carry the weight of the Vipers. I carried it like a burden, one I couldn’t wait to put down.

It wasn’t just the constant comparisons to Axel that crushed me—it was the knowledge that I could never be enough for Dad. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, it always felt like I was playing a part in a show where the script had already been written, and my role was insignificant. The rare times Dad did acknowledge me, it was with a vague, detached approval. “Good job, kid.” “Not bad.” But there was never warmth behind the words. Never pride. And that warmth I desperately craved? It never lingered long enough to matter. His praise was a dangling carrot, always followed by a reminder of how much farther I had to go.

I’d hear him in the garage with Axel, their voices low and serious as if the world depended on whatever plans they were sketching out together. “This is yours to carry someday,” Dad would say, his tone reverent in a way it never was with me. “You’re going to make me proud.”

Every time I heard it, something inside me would twist. I’d sit in my room; the door cracked open just enough to catch bits of their conversation and wonder why he never said those things to me. Why he never looked at me and saw someone capable, someone strong? Why he never asked me to carry anything—not even a small piece of the world he’d built.

And then one day, it hit me. He never would.

It wasn’t anger that filled me in that moment, though I’d felt anger so many times before. It wasn’t sadness, either, though it was always there, an undercurrent in every conversation, every silence. What I felt instead was resignation. A hollow, aching understanding that I could give him everything—my time, my effort, my love—and it still wouldn’t make a difference. I wasn’t Axel. I wasn’t his legacy. I wasn’t enough.

It would’ve been easier to hate Axel if he’d rubbed it in, flaunted his position in Dad’s world, or sneered at my attempts to measure up. But he didn’t have to. It was in the way he carried himself—the way he stood straighter when Dad was in the room, the way his voice always seemed to ring louder and clearer. He took up space effortlessly while I shrank into the corners, invisible and unnoticed.

Axel didn’t have to fight for Dad’s approval because he already had it. He was everything Dad wanted: strong, decisive, capable. And me? I was the spare part. The backup plan no one ever intended to use. Axel was born for the spotlight, and I was destined to live in his shadow.

I wanted to hate him for it. Sometimes, I thought I did. But the truth was, I envied him more than anything. I envied the way Dad trusted him, respected him, and believed in him. I envied the way Axel never seemed to question his place in Dad’s world, the way he fit into it so seamlessly like he’d been molded for it from the start.

And then there was me—always on the outside looking in, trying to convince myself that the scraps of attention Dad threw my way were enough. That I didn’t need his approval or his love, even as I ached for it with every fiber of my being.

One night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood outside the garage, my fists clenched at my sides, as Dad and Axel talked inside. Their voices were low and steady, the weight of their words pressing down on me even though I couldn’t make out everything they were saying.

I wanted to walk in there, to demand that Dad see me, hear me, acknowledge me. I wanted to tell him that I was strong too, that I could carry some of the weight if he’d just let me. But I couldn’t move. My feet felt like they were glued to the ground, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.

And then Dad’s voice cut through the night, clear and certain. “You’re going to make me proud, Axel. I know it.”

Something inside me broke. It wasn’t loud or dramatic—it was quiet, like the slow shattering of glass under pressure. I turned and walked away, the lump in my throat so heavy I thought I might choke on it. By the time I made it back to my room, the tears were spilling over, hot and unstoppable.

I buried my face in my pillow, my body shaking with sobs I couldn’t control. I cried for all the things I wasn’t, for all the ways I’d tried and failed. I cried because no matter how much I loved Dad, no matter how much I wanted to make him proud, it would never be enough.

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