AllFreeNovel
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I’m putting away the last of the dishes. My dad is sitting in his usual spot in the clubhouse. He’s the mirror image of Liam aged up thirty years. The same red blonde hair, but dad’s is streaked with grey. His features are broad and rough, like he’s carved out of wood. His hands are grizzled from decades of working on motorbikes.
Right now, working on his laptop wearing his old wire-rimmed glasses, he looks more like a businessman than an outlaw. Dad is the president of the Dullahans, an outlaw biker gang named after the Irish headless rider. Boston’s very own Hell’s Angels.
He’s proud of me for breaking away from tradition and wanting more out of life than becoming someone’s old lady. Liam isn’t so fortunate. But he too wants me to have a normal life. A safe life.
“What are you working on?”
“Books. For the club,” dad grunts. He doesn’t glance up from the screen.
“Cooking ‘em?”
“Aurora,” he scolds.
“Sorry, dad.”
“How’s school?”
I have to give him credit. He is a good dad. Sure, he isn’t normal, and he spends his days doing things that make the hair on my neck stand up, but he cares about me and Liam.
“It’s alright,” I lie. He doesn’t need to know I’m about to fail digital marketing. I hate worrying him.
Liam walks in, running his fingers through his hair. Dad slams his laptop shut, furious at Liam’s arrival.
“You just woke up from a fucking nap?”
Liam shrugs, yawns and sits down across from dad. “I was up all last night doingyourdirty work.”
Dad shoots me a look I know too well. ‘Clear out. We’re going to discuss club business.’
And unless the Dullahans open up their memberships to include women, I’ll never be one of them. Not that I want to join up or, as bikers call it, patch in. I like my secret Harley, but I’m not spending my life as an old lady. I do what all the wives and daughters of the MC do and clear the room. But I linger in the hallway like always, wanting to hear some morsel of information.
“I need you to step up, son. The O’Connors killed three guys from the Miami charter last week.”
“I know, I know, and I’m fucking trying.”
Dad sighs. “You can’t sleep the day away. The club’s struggling. We’re losing manpower and turf to the O’Connors. What’s next? The Bratva rolling into Boston?”
There’s a twinge of worry in my stomach. The club has never struggled. Sure, the members are in and out of jail. Occasionally, a member catches a life sentence, but business continues. If they’re struggling, something has changed.
Heels click on the floor behind me. I turn around to find Hannah watching me. Hannah is one of the club’s old ladies. She’s been around since the Dullahans came into existence in ‘87. And now she’s caught me eavesdropping.
These days she’s a prison widow. My dad’s partner, Jamie, is one member who caught a life sentence. But Hannah stayed loyal to the MC, and she’s unofficially in charge of the women. She likes to think she’s training me to take her place one day. No way, no how, am I looking at my future when I look at her. “What are you doin’?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I lie. I do that more and more, it seems.
Hannah looks me up and down, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Nothing, huh?” She snorts. “That’s club business in there, which means it’s none of yours. Get that skinny butt of yours into bed before you land it in a heap of trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am.” My tone is sarcastic, but Hannah is gracious enough to ignore it. This time.
I get away with a lot the other daughters don’t. Especially with Hannah. She might have seniority, but my blood relation to the president and VP protect me.
I walk past her, making my way to my bedroom. I’m the only woman with a room of my own at the clubhouse. The women that are allowed inside are old ladies, daughters, or old lady wannabes.
I pity those women. Most have no self-esteem and no options, agreeing to be passed around by the men. It’s gross, and honestly, it makes me question if dad and Liam are good guys underneath it all.
But that isn’t my problem. I’ll get my degree, and I’ll be out.
???
