I’D NEVER WANTED to cook. Ever. It had just been one of the only chores I could do, something that made sense without me having to think about it. When it boiled down to it, I could either cook or clean, and I hated cleaning more than I hated cooking.
Then, of course, I’d learned I had a knack for it.
Wasn’t life a bitch?
Where creative shit was concerned, I couldn’t paint, didn’t know how to write anything fancy like poetry, and sewing? What was this? The eighteenth century? Who the fuck sewed nowadays? Cooking was the one creative thing I could do, and I hated it, but it was useful. Always had been, always would be.
When Mom had tossed me out, I’d found work in a diner, and it had kept a roof over my head for a little while before I’d started temping. So, with it being something I could fall back on and with my brothers wanting to prospect for the MC, I’d known one way to stick around them. They wanted to get back into the life because, to them, this was what they’d always wanted to do. And me? I just didn’t want to be far from them. Not so soon after Mom’s death, at any rate.
They were dumbasses, but they were mine.
Trouble was, in an MC, there were literally two roles for women. Either be a biker’s bitch or be their cook and maid. Neither notion filled me with glee, but I was, I’d admit, on shaky ground.
With only a small amount of money saved up, getting an apartment near my brothers would cost a fortune I didn’t have. Here at the MC, I could stay rent free, bills free, and if I was good—which I was—then maybe they’d pay me, and I could save up until I could get away from this place.
The Sinners’ compound was my brothers’ dream, and there was no way in fuck I was going to let them leave me behind in Dipshit, Utah, when they were all the way over here.
I knew them. Well… knew that in barely any time at all their weekly phone calls would diminish to monthly, and then yearly, as the life creeped up on them and took most of their time.
They were the only family I had left, and they loved me and I them—even if they were forgetful as fuck.
So, I compromised.
I, Giulia Elisabetta Fontaine, compromised by agreeing to cook the council a decent meal.
And from the state of their fridge? They fucking needed it.
“Who are you?”
The whiny voice was more than just irritating—it was rude. The sneer was audible, and fuck, it had me gritting my teeth, even as I ignored the bitch and kept my focus on what I was doing.
God, I’d always hated clubwhores. They seemed to think their pussies were made of gold when they weren’t. If anything, they were disease-ridden slatterns who caused more shit than anything else.
My mom had always hated them too, and I knew most of the Old Ladies merely tolerated them because it was part of the life.
‘Part of the life’ was one of the sayings you heard often in these shitholes. Those four words excused every biker’s bad behavior, not just to their women, but to society itself, because it was the way of it.
It was ‘part of the life’ to beg, steal, and borrow. ‘Part of the life’ to kill and deal drugs. ‘Part of the life’ to fuck around on the woman who loved you, and ‘part of the life’ for said woman to just deal with that shit as though it was their man’s right, hell, his privilege to be a cunt.
My jaw clenched as I remembered just how often my mom had argued with my dad when he’d come back covered in the scent of some other woman or his cheek dotted with lipstick—yeah, I wasn’t predisposed to like any of the bitches, but them sounding like a snotty PITA wasn’t going to make shit easier.
Rather than take my head out of the fridge where I was running an inventory on the scraps they had in the industrial-sized behemoth, I carried on with my work.
“Hey! I’m talking to you. Who the fuck are you?”
If they’d just carried on being bitchy, I wouldn’t have done it.
I’d have behaved.
This was my first day, and I didn’t need the MC to know I had more attitude than height… not until they tasted my pasta puttanesca, at any rate.
But she didn’t just bitch at me. Nope, she made things physical. So when she grabbed my ponytail, I froze, especially when she pulled my head back and tried to turn me around to face her in the same move.
I let her roll with it, let her think she had me, but the second I could, I twisted around and gave her the same shit back. Smashing my forehead into hers, I headbutted her like she was a soccer ball. The second our skulls bounced off each other, she burst into sobs and began wailing. Me? I just reached into the freezer and grabbed a packet of peas that I placed against my crown.
The plastic burned where it touched, but it was worth it.
Round one to me.
“What the fuck is all that wailing about?”
I didn’t need to turn around to see that Nyx was here. That voice. Fuck. It was deep and raspy enough that he could have been a smoker, but he was a biker and therefore, off limits.
I wasn’t about to end up like my mom. Knocked up at seventeen, three kids in tow when she finally realized her dumb fuck of a husband was never going to change.
It pissed me off that I recognized the voice period. And it pissed me off even more that a quick glimpse of him over my shoulder, scowling and grumpy but still so goddamn pretty, made butterflies take root in my stomach.
I didn’t get butterflies over anything. Not a job interview, and certainly not over something with a dick.
The attraction I felt for him came as a massive surprise to me, and it was totally unwelcome. He was everything I didn’t want in a man. Well, kind of. Take off the cut, and I’d date him in a heartbeat because, oy vey, the man was fine. In a ‘my ovaries hurt’ kind of way. In a ‘come to mami’ kind of way.
Sheesh.
“S-She h-hit me, Nyxy.”
My lips curved at that, and I couldn’t stop a laugh from escaping. Nyxy? Fucking Nyxy? When I thought about the bruiser I’d met last night, the one who’d scowled at me for most of the time he’d had his eyes on me, I didn’t think he’d appreciate being called ‘Nyxy.’
I stopped hiding in the cooler, and instead, with glacial eyes that I knew would express just how little of a shit I gave about this bitch’s opinion of me, I stated, “She pulled my hair to get my attention. This isn’t grade school. If I don’t want to talk to the club snatch, then I don’t have to.”
Nyx’s eyes narrowed and, fuck me, if he didn’t look even more beautiful. His hair was rumpled again, but this time, it was more like he’d gotten out of bed and hadn’t had time to style it. There were shadows under his eyes from a lack of sleep, and it didn’t take much to figure out why that was… Some bitch was probably walking around bow-legged thanks to him. He wore his cut, another Henley like last night, dark jeans, and heavy boots. Standard MC brother fare, but holy hell, there was just something about him.
Maybe it was the sharp cheekbones and the carved jaw that looked as though it were made of stone—hell, make that diamond because his jaw tensed even harder the longer I glowered back at him. That razor-thin nose that led to an expressive mouth… or those eyes. A beautiful green that made me think of shamrocks and emeralds. Even when they were laced with a warning that his temper was close to breaking. Whatever the reason, all I knew was he was beautiful.