Page 8 of Biker Daddies

Bane’s jaw ticks with frustration and I can tell Colt is getting worried as he takes a step forward.

“I’m fine,” she says, just as something shatters and the line goes dead.

My heart drops and my stomach turns. “Harlow?” No answer. “Harlow!” I yell, but the call has ended. “Something’s wrong. Something broke in the background.”

“Let’s ride,” Colt says as if we’re going on a regular run.

This time, I place my phone in the front jacket pocket and hop on my bike. The rumbles of the engines sing throughout the night, the road disappearing into the thick of the darkness.

We ride it anyway.

Harlow better be okay.

Prez will kill us if she isn’t.

I have to keep that in the forefront of my mind. She’s my best friend’s daughter and it doesn’t matter how beautiful I find her. Loyalty to my friend means more than Harlow does.

That’s how it is and that’s how it has to be.

3

BANE

I’m fucking furious.

One, I’m sick of being a babysitter for a grown woman. Prez needs to back off and let the girl have her own life. Two, what the hell is Harlow thinking? How can she be so irresponsible? I know I said people her age do this, but she’s better than other people her age. She’s smarter and I thought she had way more common sense.

This proves Prez is right and she isn’t ready to be on her own. She needs to be taken care of or she gets herself into trouble like she is now. Not that I want to take on that responsibility. I don’t know how to take care of people.

I don’t even like people. I only like the club. They are my brothers. Everyone else can fuck off.

I’m worried Prez is going to skin us alive if he finds out we didn’t tell him about Harlow, especially if something is wrong. Something broke on her end of the call, Alto said. What if she’s lying there in a pool of her own blood?

Blood.

The sight of it always makes me drift into my past and what happened to me as a child.

“You stupid fucking bitch!” My father backhands my mother so hard, blood flies from her lip.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she sobs, wailing as she tries to crawl away from him.

“I told you not to go outside and talk to the neighbors. I told you that. Are you too fucking stupid to understand me?” He kicks her in the stomach next.

I’m ten years old, hiding behind the wall, peeking around the corner.

“You’re a fucking whore.” He spits on her. “I bet you fucked the neighbor, didn’t you?”

“No! No,” she denies with a shake of her head. She lifts her hand to try and stop him. “No, I’d never do that to you. I was cooking and I ran out of sugar. I swear. I swear,” she weeps.

“Sugar? Fucking sugar?” He picks her up by her throat and pins her against the cabinets.

Her lip is bleeding, her cheek is bruised, and there are black smudges around her eyes.

“Sugar?” he repeats, tossing her to the side while he opens every single cabinet, grabbing the pots and pans and throwing them onto the floor.

When he gets to the pantry, he dumps all the flour on the floor, then the rice, trying to prove that we have sugar.

The kitchen is a wreck when he’s done. His chest is heaving, and my mom is shaking. All I want to do is run to her, but I know better than to interfere or he’ll hit me too.

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