Chapter 1

Myla

“Y ou should’ve come with me,” I sang into the phone, running my hand along the side of the building so I didn’t go ass over teakettle on the uneven ground.

“I still feel like shit,” my best friend Lou mumbled, laughter in her voice. “Having a good time?”

“I’ve been dancing for an hour,” I confirmed. “I haven’t been this sweaty in at least a year.”

“That guy.” She snickered. “What was his name?”

“John,” I replied with a shudder. “But thankfully, this time it’s my own sweat.”

“Sweaty John,” she said with a laugh. “Right.”

“Everyone is here but you,” I complained. “Frankie was doing shots with my brother, and he puked.”

“Which brother?”

“Dumb question.”

“Rumi.”

“Yep. You should’ve seen Nova’s face. She was torn between laughing her ass off and punching him. It was awesome.”

“Where are you now?” Lou asked, her voice muffled like she’d pressed her face back against the pillow.

“Going back to my tent,” I said with a sigh. “I was feeling the need to sit down—”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “If I passed out and one of my brothers had to drag me out of there—”

“Or your dad.”

I shuddered again.

“Yeah, they’d never let me hear the end of it. So, I’m attempting to find my way back.”

I stopped at the edge of the building.

I’d gotten to the clubhouse early to help my mom and grandma with food and setting everything up, so when my brother Mick had set up the tent for me and my other best friend Frankie, it had been pretty much empty field out back. That was no longer the case. There had to be at least forty tents.

“Shit,” I mumbled, trying to remember where my little blue tent was. It was so dark out that I couldn’t even tell what color any of them were.

“What’s wrong?” Lou asked.

“Can’t find my tent.”

She laughed. “I believe in you. Call me in the morning. I’m going to crash.”

“Fine,” I grumbled good-naturedly. “Love you. Feel better.”

“That’s the plan,” she confirmed. “Love you, too.”

After she’d hung up, I dropped the phone from my ear and ran my gaze over the tents again. There were a couple of guys sitting in lawn chairs, keeping an eye on things. They were passing a joint back and forth, and I squinted, trying to figure out who it was.

There were so many clubs in town visiting—I had no idea why, but I was always down for a party—that there was an entire area in the far field with more tents. The ones in front of me were only for Aces and their women. I wasn’t either of those, but I was the grown daughter of a member…and the granddaughter of one, and the sister of even more of them, so I had a sleeping spot right out the back door.

It would’ve been freaking ideal if I knew which tent was mine. There were only a couple sleeping bags and backpacks in ours, which should’ve narrowed it down…but there was no way in hell I was going to start poking around. That was a good way to see people naked that you never wanted to see naked. There were only so many rooms inside the clubhouse, and most of the boys had brought tents. Most of the boys were also related to me in some way.

Looking down, I fumbled with my phone, trying to turn on the little flashlight, when a pair of unfamiliar fingers wrapped around my hips.

I looked at them dumbly for a moment, my mind not quite catching up before lips hit the back of my neck.

“What the fuck?” I snapped, yanking at the hands.

“Just me,” the guy said with a laugh.

Stumbling a step away, I turned on him. He was vaguely familiar. Tall with light hair and a smile I’d clocked earlier in the night.

“You should probably go back inside,” I said with a little shooing motion. I just wanted to find my sleeping bag and crash for the night.

“Right,” he murmured, still chuckling. He reached for me again.

“I’m not kidding,” I insisted, glancing toward the Aces in the lawn chairs. They hadn’t noticed us, and one of the chairs was empty.

“You’ve been dancin’ on me all night,” he said, his hand wrapping around my waist.

Now, I’m not sure if it was the liquid courage racing through my veins—that I was on club property and I’d always been safer there than anywhere else—or the fact that he wasn’t aggressive but just seemed to have a hard time recognizing a brush off, but I wasn’t scared.

Annoyed, yes. Scared, not at all.

“I was dancing with everyone,” I replied, reasonably, I thought, as I yanked on my arm.

“You know that’s not true.” He chuckled as he pulled me closer.

“Not interested, bud,” I said, finally getting to the point. “Find someone else to hook up with.”

“Nah, I want you,” he replied, yanking me the last few steps until I collided with his chest.

“This is not going to go well for you,” I tried again, twisting my arm out of his hand.

“Agree to disagree,” he replied easily.

“Yeah, that’s not how this works,” I snapped, done with his shit.

I’d grown up with a dad that taught me to take no shit, four older brothers, and about a million boy cousins. So, I’d been wrestling with males since I could walk. Unfortunately, I was pressed so tightly against him that I didn’t have a lot of room to move as he shifted us toward the wall of the clubhouse.

“Come on, baby,” he murmured, leaning toward me.

“You get your face anywhere near me and I’ll bite the shit out of you,” I warned, pushing at him.

“I could get into that.” He grinned.

Jesus, the guy was persistent.

I knew I couldn’t let him get me against the wall, because then I’d be stuck. Thankfully, he shifted just enough as he was maneuvering us that I could get an arm between us, and that was all I needed. Reaching down, I ignored his moronic groan of happiness as my hand grazed his belly. The high sound he made as I grabbed his balls and twisted filled me with satisfaction.

“When a woman says she’s not interested,” I said, taking a quick step back as I let go. “She means it, fuckwad.”

“You cunt,” he breathed. He was bent in half, one of his hands cupping his junk, but he still had the capacity to reach for me, and I could tell by the furious look on his face that he’d changed his mind about how the next few minutes would go.

That was when the fear finally kicked in. A little late, but whatever.

I jerked backward, losing my balance.

As my arms began to pinwheel, very familiar hands wrapped around my waist and set me further away from the asshole. He’d straightened up, but one of his hands was still cupping his junk as he glared.

“You good?” Cian asked quietly.

He’d turned his back completely on the guy, unconcerned.

“I’m fine,” I said, tugging my shirt straight as I glanced over his shoulder. The stranger was still staring at me like a psycho.

Cian’s eyes roamed over my face for a moment, and he ran a thumb over my cheek before he turned back to the guy.

“Bitch tried to fuckin’ castrate—” Those were the only words that made it out of Dancing Boy’s mouth before Cian’s fist connected with his face.

I watched, flinching as every punch landed with unerring accuracy. It wasn’t even a fight. Cian handed out a well-deserved beating like it was his job. Maybe it was—I wasn’t super clear on his role in the club.

“Cian,” I called, too freaked out to move any closer as the man fell. “Cian, that’s enough.”

My words must’ve penetrated, because the man I’d been circling for the last year lifted both hands in front of him as he took a step back.

“Overstayed your welcome. Soon as you can move, get the fuck off this property,” he said, his voice low as he kicked the guy for good measure. “I see you again, this’ll feel like a fond memory.”

“I was handling it,” I said as Cian stomped angrily back toward me.

“Let’s go,” he growled, lacing his fingers with mine. He tugged me back toward the sleeping area. “Where’s your tent?”

The men who’d been watching the area were nowhere to be seen, but I knew they couldn’t have gone far. If they left their posts, they’d be in deep shit.

“I have no idea,” I replied, stumbling after him. “I was looking for it.”

“Looked like you were hookin’ up with some dipshit from Arizona,” he snapped, yanking at my hand.

“Fuck off,” I hissed, digging my heels in as I twisted my fingers away from his. I glared at the side of his face. “He followed me outside like an asshole.”

“Why the fuck are you outside by yourself?”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I be?”

“Are you fuckin’ stupid?” he barked, leaning forward.

My eyes widened in surprise and everything inside me went quiet. We’d fought before—that happened when you put two stubborn people in close proximity—but he’d never called me names. “You want to repeat that?”

“We’ve got six different clubs on the property. Only half of those are boys we can trust, the others are allies in the absolute fuckin’ loosest sense of the word,” he replied through his teeth, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “And you’re gettin’ hammered and wanderin’ outside alone in the dark.”

“Well, maybe if you guys told me anything, I’d know that I should be steering clear of—”

“Common sense should tell you that.” He cut me off, staring at me in disbelief. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”

“Oh my god,” I ground out. “Fuck you, Cian.”

“Not tonight, sweetheart,” he replied sarcastically. “I’m a little tired.”

It was a low blow. My hands curled into fists, and I briefly wondered if I would be able to escape after I punched him.

He jerked to a stop and unzipped the door of a tent. “Get in.”

“This isn’t my tent.”

“Know that,” he replied, gesturing for me to move. “It’s mine.”

“I’m not sleeping in your tent.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I’m not gonna spend half the night searchin’ for yours,” he countered.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“Get in the tent, Myla.”

“I don’t know any other way to say this, but fuck all the way off, Cian.”

He didn’t even bother to reply before wrestling me into the tent and onto the sleeping bag.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screeched quietly; way too aware of the sounds of people in the tents around us. Some of them were not sleeping.

“I’m fuckin’ beat,” he replied, letting go of me to zip the tent closed again. “I’m goin’ to bed.”

I gaped at him.

“Sleep it off,” he ordered, lying down on the ground with his head propped against his duffel bag.

“I might murder you,” I muttered conversationally. “I mean, I’m sure my brothers know where to hide a body.”

Cian huffed and closed his eyes.

“I’m not staying in here,” I announced, reaching for the door.

“Not gonna be happy if you touch that zipper,” he said, his eyes still closed.

“Like I give a shit,” I snapped.

My hand got within an inch of the zipper when I was gently tossed back onto the sleeping bag.

“Quit it,” I hissed, smacking at his head and shoulders.

“Jesus Christ,” he ground out, pinning my hands. “I’m fuckin’ tired , Myla. Go to sleep.”

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because you’re a dick!”

“And?”

“And I’m pissed at you!”

“Congratulations. I’m pissed at you, too. That it?”

“I don’t know why I ever wanted to be with you,” I ground out, so angry I wanted to scream. “You’re an asshole.”

“Right,” he said with a sigh, like he was done with my shit. “You done?”

I could feel tears stinging the backs of my eyes, but I refused to cry. I’d never been so frustrated in my life. At any other moment, I would’ve been ecstatic that I was laying in Cian’s arms, his face barely visible in the dark, but the fear that I hadn’t felt when that random guy wouldn’t take no for an answer was finally hitting me hard. Cian was being a dick, and I needed some privacy to get my shit together.

And there was no privacy in that goddamn tent.

“Just let me go find my bed,” I whispered, letting my body relax against his hold. “There has to be at least twenty boys from the club around us right now. I’m totally safe.”

“You got no clue where your tent is,” he replied, his voice as low as mine. He rolled to his side and gently brushed my hair away from my face. “Is it really that bad to sleep in here?”

“I’d rather sleep in my own sleeping bag.”

“Mine’s clean.”

“So is mine,” I argued. I shook my head. Not the point. “I’d just rather sleep there.”

“I’m beat, love,” he murmured. “Wasn’t kiddin’ about that. You really want me out there searchin’ for your tent for the next hour?”

“You don’t have to help me find it,” I replied immediately.

“You’re not leavin’ this tent without me.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you’re drunk.”

“And?”

“Myla, I’ve been with you when you’re drunk. You’d plan on lookin’ for your tent, then you’d see someone smokin’ and you’d go over to say hello, and when you were done with that, you’d forget where you were headed in the first place. So, you’d head back into the clubhouse, and an hour later, you’d be back out here, searching for your tent again.”

I just looked at him, annoyed that he wasn’t wrong.

“And the entire time, I’d be in here, not sleepin’ because I’m worried about you.”

“Fine,” I conceded, looking away from him. “I’ll sleep in here.”

“Thank the good Lord,” he muttered under his breath, the words laced with an accent that I rarely heard. He reached for his bag and dragged it under his head again.

“I can’t believe you brought a pillow,” I grumbled, smooshing it under my head with a huff. “Even I didn’t bring a pillow.”

“Guessin’ you brought makeup and hair shit, though,” he replied, amused.

Ignoring him, I kicked off my shoes and shuffled into the sleeping bag, pulling the heavy fabric all the way up to my chin. The inside flannel was fuzzy and soft like it had been used and washed a thousand times before. I shifted as a rock dug into my hip. The ground wasn’t nearly as flat as the space that Frankie and I had chosen for our tent.

Laying there, I listened as the field around us grew quieter. We could still hear the quiet rumble of different conversations, but whoever had been getting busy had finished, thankfully. I’d been trying to ignore it, refusing to even let my mind wander to recognize the voices.

“You’d worry about me?” I joked as my eyes grew heavy. “That’s cute.”

“Shut it,” Cian ordered.

I slept so hard that I didn’t even notice the lumps and bumps beneath me. Between the cool night air and the heat trapped inside the sleeping bag, it was probably the coziest I’d ever been. I woke briefly sometime later when Cian let the cool air in as he slid under the sleeping bag and yanked it toward him, making me roll almost on top of him, but the position was even more comfortable, so I fell right back to sleep.

It wasn’t until hours later that I fully woke up to a bright light shining in my face.

“Found her,” my brother Otto called loudly.

“What?” I blinked at him in confusion.

“You’re in deep shit,” he replied darkly. “Get up.” He looked at Cian. “You, too, fucker.”

“Great,” Cian muttered.

I followed him slowly out of the tent, wrapping his sleeping bag around me for warmth. The sky was growing lighter, but the sun hadn’t risen yet, and it was cold as hell.

Outside was chaos.

No one should’ve been awake at that hour unless they hadn’t gone to sleep yet, but there were people blearily exiting their tents all around us, wondering what the hell was happening. Some sort of sixth sense had my head turning back toward the clubhouse to see my dad and brother Micky stomping toward us, and another brother Rumi moving to intersect them, all of their expressions like stone.

“What the fuck?” I whispered in confusion.

“Brace,” Otto advised, just as Dad reached us.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked quietly. The volume could’ve made someone assume that the words were said gently, but the tone was as icy as I’d ever heard it.

“What do you mean?” I asked dumbly, gesturing toward Cian’s tent.

“Woke up an hour ago to Frankie poundin’ on my door,” he said, pointing back at the building. “Sayin’ that she went back to your tent and couldn’t find ya. That you’d left hours before sayin’ you were goin’ to bed, but there was no sign of ya—”

“I couldn’t find—”

“So, we start callin’ your phone,” he continued, not letting me speak. My hand went instinctively to my back pocket, where I usually kept my phone, but it wasn’t there. Dad held it up. “Found it outside next to the clubhouse along with what I’m guessin’ isn’t your blood.” He looked me over carefully.

I felt my shoulders slump. Shit.

“I must’ve dropped it,” I whispered.

“You dropped it,” he said flatly.

“Yeah, I dropped it.”

“And the blood?”

“Well,” I hedged. I’d already dealt with Cian turning into a raging asshole. It was too early in the morning to deal with my dad and brothers becoming lunatics, too.

“Some motherfucker—” Cian began to say.

“Talkin’ to my daughter.” My dad cut him off. “You’ll get your turn.”

“Some idiot followed me outside,” I said quickly. “I don’t think no was a word he recognized.” The tension around me ratcheted up considerably, and I swallowed hard. “So, I made it very clear that I wasn’t interested.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know his name,” I replied honestly. I really couldn’t even remember his face.

“And you bloodied him up?” my dad asked doubtfully.

“Well, no,” I said slowly.

“Myla.”

“I practically twisted his balls off his body,” I muttered, my cheeks heating.

My brother Rumi let out a quick bark of laughter that immediately cut off.

“The blood, Myla.” My dad was losing what little patience he’d had to begin with.

“That was Cian.”

Then, I guess it was Cian’s turn to speak. “The blond fucker from Arizona,” he said when Dad turned to him. “Fucked him up and sent him on his way.”

“How fucked up?” my dad asked.

“You find any of his teeth?” Cian asked, jerking his head toward the side of the building. “Guessin’ he’s missin’ a few.”

“And you didn’t think you should let someone know?” My dad sounded frighteningly calm.

“Took care of it,” Cian replied steadily. “Didn’t think I needed to announce it.”

“And then what?” Dad asked, still using that calm tone that was freaking me the hell out. “Brought Myla back to your tent for a little after-action?”

“Dad,” I snapped, glaring at him.

“No,” Cian said. He was holding his body so still, he barely looked like he was breathing.

Dad looked at me from head to toe and lifted his eyebrows.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I spat, dropping the sleeping bag.

More than one of my brothers slapped their hands over their eyes.

“I’m fully dressed, you morons!” I yelled.

There were so many people watching our little conversation, I figured I might as well give them a show. It wasn’t as if I was going to wake everyone, my dad and brothers had already done that.

“She was sloppy drunk,” Cian said, ignoring me as I spun in a slow circle to show everyone that I was dressed. “Didn’t know where her tent was and sure as fuck wasn’t going to find it herself.”

“I was not sloppy drunk,” I argued.

“Figured she was safer crashin’ in my tent than lettin’ her wander.”

“I’m not a fucking child,” I hissed, glaring at Cian.

“You got so fuckin’ hammered, you couldn’t find your tent?” my dad asked in disgust, looking back at me.

“It was dark.” I threw up my hands. “Jesus!”

“You know better,” he replied quietly, disappointment and anger clouding his expression. “You’re at this club, especially now and especially when we’ve got visitors, you keep your shit.”

“Oh, like everyone else was?” I asked sarcastically.

“Your brothers,” he replied, pointing at them, “were awake in seconds when we thought somethin’ happened to you.”

“Good for them.”

“Myla,” Cian murmured, his hand landing lightly on the base of my spine.

“Oh, fuck off,” I spat at him, taking a step away. “I wasn’t that fucking drunk, and you know it.”

He just looked at me.

“This is such bullshit,” I announced, stunned. “I was having a good time, everyone was having a good time, and because some asshole follows me outside and Cian decides to play white knight, suddenly I’ve done something wrong? Fuck that.” I threw my arms out toward the surrounding tents. “I wasn’t even that drunk! Micky set up my tent before everyone got here, so I couldn’t figure out where it was in the dark.”

“Frankie didn’t have a problem findin’ it,” Dad replied flatly.

“Frankie also went back to the tent last night before it got dark to change her shoes,” I countered. “ She knew where it was in this mess.”

“You were walkin’ around, drunk, by yourself—”

“No,” I replied, jerking my chin up. I could see my mom coming out the back door of the clubhouse. “The six of you can stand around in your little circle jerk, bitching about how I did something wrong. I’m done listening to it.”

“Don’t take one fuckin’ step,” my dad warned, more pissed than I’d ever seen him.

“Maybe you should be thinking about why I wasn’t safe on club grounds, Dad ,” I ground out. “Or at least why you didn’t let me know that I wasn’t.”

I ignored him as I pushed past my brothers and strode toward my mother. She was hurrying across the grass, a long, flowy robe wrapped around her body, and with every step she took, it opened all the way up her thigh. She didn’t even seem to notice.

“They’re idiots,” I called out angrily.

“Jesus, Myla,” she said, wrapping her arms around me as I reached her. “I saw some of that. You’re lucky that you’re the only person on the planet that can talk shit to your dad. He would’ve laid your brothers out.”

“So can you,” I mumbled against her shoulder. “I’m never talking to him again.”

“Who? Your dad?”

“No, Cian.”

Mom let out a small huff and patted my back. “There, there, sweetheart.”

I slumped against her. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

“Sure is,” she whispered, her voice laced with amusement.