There is a wide-open uncharted day ahead of me.

  A day that’s meant to be lived, and I’m about to take a major step for myself.

  A new career.

  New horizons.

  Anything can happen, and I want to be ready to live it to the fullest as it comes.

  And that’s the way it needs to stay.

  2

  Leo

  “Yo, Prospect.”

  I hear Dog’s familiar twang hollering at me across the lot as I roll my bike to a stop.

  “Hey, man.” I park in the spot designated for prospects, even though, at the moment, I’m the only one. I give Dog a chin lift, returning his welcome.

  Of all the guys, Dog has been the most welcoming besides Morris.

  Morris helped me, I helped Morris, and through it all, we ended up earning each other’s respect—even becoming friends. When the dust settled with his old lady Alice, I had a job, became a prospect with the club, and had a new roommate in Lia.

  Lia…I shake my head to clear the fuck fog that woman left me in.

  Thank God I have about an hour’s worth of shit to do here before my meeting with her dad. Sporting a semi while in a sit-down with Tiny would be the fastest way to get the prospect patch ripped right off my vest. Not to mention a punch to the throat or even worse.

  I follow Dog into the club where Midge and Sadie are standing in the kitchen drinking coffee, gossiping like they always do.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” Sadie says, tossing me her signature smirk. “And Dog.”

  Sadie is what the guys call a club whore. I’d never refer to her that way, but she sure has made the rounds with most of them. She’s got a good fifteen years on me—or maybe she just looks that way. It’s hard to tell, and I don’t ask. I learned months ago not to encourage Sadie unless I wanted to find her naked on my doorstep one day. And I sure as fuck don’t want that.

  “Morning,” I say, keeping any inflection that could be construed as flirting out of my voice. “Midge,” I say, nodding.

  “Baby biker’s here,” Midge says, giving me a wink. “The toilets are gonna be scrubbed real good this morning.”

  If Sadie’s a club whore, Midge is like the club grandma and was in Sadie’s place years earlier. She’s got a face like a deflated walnut, but her heart’s mostly in the right place. Her specialties are making shitty casseroles and putting up with our crap. But she’s part of the club, which means she’s family. I know she banged her share of bikers in her day, but now she mostly cooks for the guys and gets paid to do some light cleaning and the shopping.

  “Baby biker,” I laugh. “Midge, I would never take toilet duty off your hands. I’m gonna leave that crap to you today.”

  Midge raises a brow at me and pours a dash of something that smells like vanilla into her coffee. “Not today, sweet lips. Your list of shit to do today means Midge gets the day off. I might even get me a mani-pedi while you’re elbows-deep in Tiny’s toilet.”

  Sadie crows and cracks up, while Dog shakes his head with a grin on his face.

  I almost never get hazed anymore, but as a prospect, fuck… Everyone makes sure I feel the pain of being at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole.

  Having an older brother, I’m used to being shit on and getting leftovers and hand-me-downs, but prospecting an MC is next level.

  Tim, my brother, is the reason I know Morris at all. My older brother’s love affair with pills and God only knows what else nearly cost me everything.

  Thanks to Tim, the building we lost was bought by the club, and Morris hired me back to work at the same auto shop my family used to own. So, while Tim cost us the building, I have a job and I didn’t lose the house, so I pretty much owe my life to Morris and the club.

  But I don’t feel as if I’m in anybody’s debt.

  Being a prospect is a formality.

  This is my new family, and I’ve never been more grateful to have someplace to belong. Someone to belong to.

  Doing what I do around this place can take up a lot of time, but it’s time I want to give.

  I wish I didn’t have to keep any secrets from my brothers. I only have one secret, but if anything had the potential to get my ass tossed to the curb, fucking the club president’s daughter would probably be the thing to do it.

  “Keep it in your pants, ladies,” Dog barks. “Prospect’s not here to play.”

  I wink at Midge and take the cup of coffee she prepared for me. I nod my thanks to her before a grunt pulls my attention.

  If I wasn’t moving my ass before, I am now. Lia’s dad, Tiny, a man whose name is the definition of irony, clamps a hand on my shoulder. “Move your ass, kid. You got shit to do,” he says, no softness in his voice.

  “I’m on it,” I assure him.

  I know the drill.

  Normally, I’d have an hour of work to do around the club, but today, something else is up. Tiny texted me last night and told me to make sure I met up with him before I left the club to go to my job at the repair shop.

  While I would have loved to spend another hour in bed with Lia this morning, time at the club is something I’d never give up. I’ve been spending at least an hour a day at the club, seven days a week. There’s no set schedule or written-in-stone expectations for a prospect, but the goal of prospecting is simple.

  Build trust.

  Prove your loyalty.

  Get to know your club brothers better than you know yourself.

  Anticipate the needs of the club and fill them.

  This morning, there’s not a lot going on. Despite the early hour, Morris isn’t in his room. The door is closed, and when I knock, there’s no answer. I crack the door and see the bed is neatly made, so I close it back up again and head out to wash the bikes and assorted parked cars and trucks out back.

  By the time I finish, it’s nearly time to head over to the repair shop. Lia opens the strip mall for us in the morning.

  Thinking of Lia, I grab my phone and shoot off a message.

  Me: You make it out okay? Shop good?

  I’m sure she’s fine. Lia may seem like a hippie, but she’s responsible and really hardworking. She opens the shop like clockwork and is sweet and professional. I just… It’s been a couple hours, and as much as I love being in the compound, my mind keeps drifting to her body. To the waves of soft brown hair covering my face as I fuck her. The way she grunts, cries, and urges me on when I touch her.

  My dick hardens as I think about our morning. Then my phone buzzes with a reply.

  Lia: I made out great.

  She punctuates the play on words with a bunch of tongue-out emojis. I stifle a laugh and punch in a quick response.

  Me: About to meet with your pops. See you soon.

  I head toward Tiny’s office, taking a few deep breaths and thinking unsexy thoughts to encourage my dick to knock it off. I get a reply from her and swipe to read it before I go in.

  Lia: Give Tiny a big kiss for me.

  I shake my head and jam my phone into my pocket as I knock on the door to the club office, three quick taps even though the door is open.

  Dog is sitting in a chair across from an empty desk, leaning all the way back with a leg crossed over his knee. Whatever this meeting is about can’t be too bad if Dog looks that relaxed.

  “Dog.” I nod at him. “Tiny coming?”

  Dog nods. “On his way. He had to take a shit.”

  “Fuck you.” Tiny’s voice is loud and close behind me. He’s carrying an enormous plastic cup with a straw in it.

  I move out of the way so Tiny can cram past me and sit in the ergonomic office chair Midge got him last year.

  “Come on,” he says, so I follow him into the office and take the open seat across the desk from him, next to Dog.

  “Morris comin’?” Dog asks.

  Tiny shakes his head. “He’ll be late. Kid business something or other. He texted.”

  “Zoey all right?” I ask.

  Last year, when Morris got together with Alice, Lia and I spent a ton of time with Alice’s kid, Zoey. She’s a sweetheart and a real firecracker now that she’s out from under the clutches of her shit-for-brains stepdad.

  Tiny nods. “Yeah, it’s nothing. Lice outbreak at school or something. Looks like Zoey brought the buggers home. The whole class got ’em. He and Alice had to stop by the school to sign some kind of form for her to be allowed back in class.”

  “Jesus… Kids.” Dog shakes his head. “Who knew fucking lice was still a thing. Didn’t we blot that shit out like we did with polio?”

  Tiny coughs, a weird, raspy sound that makes me a little queasy. “Beats me, man,” he says, chugging a huge sip from what looks like a half-gallon–sized pop cup. “My only contact with kids is with grown ones.” He shoots me a look.

  “No lice in our house,” I say, trying to lighten the death stare Tiny’s got aimed at me.

  “Right,” Tiny says, coughing again.

  “You all right, man? That cough sounds…sick.” Dog tips his chin at Tiny, who waves a hand in the air dismissively.

  Every time Tiny sees me, he finds a way to bring up his daughter. It’s like he’s got some father-radar and he knows we’re fucking.

  It shouldn’t matter to him either way. Lia’s a grown woman, for fuck’s sake, and it’s not like I’m some lowlife. Tiny only really got to know Lia a year ago when she found him after her mom retired and went off to live on some boat with her rich husband.

  If I didn’t know what it was like to have deadbeat parents and a brother who shot our only stability into his arm, I probably wouldn’t begin to understand having kids you barely know. But the last year has taught me more tough lessons than I ever dreamed I’d have to learn.

  Moral of the story? Everybody’s family’s got shit.

  It’s clear to me he doesn’t like the fact that I live under the same roof with his daughter, no matter how “new” their father-daughter deal is.

  I’m sure everyone does assume that we’re fucking because we live together, but Lia tries to make it crystal clear we’re not. To everyone, including me.

  What we do behind closed doors, under the sheets and shit…ain’t nobody’s business. Especially not her dad’s. But that doesn’t mean I don’t do my part to keep him from suspecting anything.

  “Fucking hot wings,” Tiny says, gulping down more soda. “Garlic pepper sauce is burning a hole in my throat.”

  “You ate that shit for breakfast?” Dog guffaws and shakes his head. “Jesus, man.”

  “All right, shut the fuck up,” Tiny says. “We got shit to do, and we don’t need to wait for Morris. This has to do with you,” he says, his beady eyes boring into me.

  Fuck.

  “Fingers says we need cash.” Tiny looks at me as though our cash flow is my problem.

  Dog asks the obvious question. “Why’s our lawyer involved? I thought the property we bought was straight. Insurance money and shit?”

  Tiny shook his head. “Insurance money paid to rebuild the parts that burned, but inspectors found a shit-ton of code violations.” He glared at me. “Your brother managed not only to drive the building into bankruptcy, but he greased the palms of a few city inspectors over the years. Hid the fact that underground storage tanks weren’t handled properly, all kinds of amateur bullshit.”

  “The fact that my brother’s a no-good douchebag is old news, Tiny,” I say before he can say it. Every chance he gets, he loves to remind me that I come from nothing. It’s almost as if he’s afraid I’ll forget. “Why is this a problem now?”

  Tiny’s beady eyes look me over. “We’re finally ready to lease the space, but if we don’t raise the rental prices and lock in at least a couple new tenants for two years, we’ll be running in the red on the place for at least another five.” He shakes his head. “Club can’t sustain those kinds of losses that long.”

  “Fuck.” Dog whistles between his teeth. “We bought that dump to turn it over fast and cheap.”

  “And if it hadn’t been for that asshole ex of Alice’s trying to burn it to the ground, we might have been able to get away with none of the defects coming out,” Tiny says.

  A sinking feeling hits me low in the belly. “You thinking about selling the place?” I ask.

  Tiny shakes his head. “We can’t. Once the fire damage was repaired, that shithole strip mall was about 65% new. An upgrade that size meant we needed to comply with all the codes in effect for new construction. Fingers worked some magic with the fire inspectors. Got us grandfathered in despite the reno and saved us five figures in mandatory upgrades to bring the property up to current code. But he made sure we knew that if we try to sell the place, they won’t sign off on the sale unless we implement the upgrades.”

  “Goddamn,” Dog says. “So, we’re in the red on the reno, and if we want to sell and cut our losses, we’ve got to put another, what, fifteen to twenty grand into the place even to list it?”

  “More than that,” I say. I huff a frustrated sigh. My brother was a decent businessman before he became an addict, but he’d been an addict a long time. “Tim got estimates to install sprinklers in the place about four years ago, right before everything started going to shit for him. Back then, the price—even using some firefighter buddies who were licensed to do installs on the side… I think north of thirty G’s, if I remember it right.”

  “Thirty grand?” Dog slaps his hands on his thighs. “Fuck. The club oughta prospect in somebody in construction. We could use that kinda cash.”

  Tiny shakes his head. “We’re not putting in a sprinkler, and we’re not selling. That’s why you’re here,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Whatever it is Tiny has in mind, I’m ready for it. I’ve cleaned toilets, done light carpentry, fixed bikes, boats, and trailers.

  Shit, I even walked Midge’s dogs when she gave herself food poisoning with one of those damn casseroles last year.

  I’m ready to do something that can make a real impact on the club.

  Tiny shoves some paperwork at me. “You know the building better than anyone,” he says. “Your record is clean, and you’re running an honest business. We need you to find somebody to rent that last space. We’re raising the rent, and we need a two-year lockdown.”

  “Wait, I thought we needed two tenants. The nail salon’s confirmed?” Dog asks.

  Tiny nods. “We’ve gotta throw them some perks because we upped the rent from what we initially proposed, but we worked something out,” he says.

  I know what that means.

  Kickbacks.

  The nail salon is a match made in heaven, but that leaves one space to rent out.

  “So…I’m looking for what?” I ask him. “It’s not like I’m at church on Sundays having donuts or hosting community ice cream socials. I spend all my time with you assholes. What kind of business am I supposed to find to rent the space?”

  Tiny glares at me. “Telling you what to do is my job, Prospect. How to get it done is your problem.”

  I sigh. Right. “How much time I got?”

  “A month, tops,” Tiny says.

  “Anyone I can’t rent to?” I ask. “Sex toy shop, adult film shoots, gun store?”

  “If they have cash and sign for two years, I don’t care if you film old ladies using flaming grenade dildos on each other while they smoke a bong,” Tiny says. “We want a tenant who pays money. That’s it.”

  “That’s it,” I echo. “Got it.”

  “Don’t fuck this up,” Tiny says and pushes back from the desk, grabbing his gallon of drinkable chemicals.

  The threat is implied, but it’s still there. I’m not a member of the MC yet, and nothing is guaranteed. If I want to earn my place in this brotherhood, I have a lot more ground to cover. And Tiny handed me a destination but didn’t give me a map.

  “I’m not my brother, man.” I feel the need to say it for the thousandth fucking time. “I’ll get a tenant.”

  Tiny nods and wheezes his way out the door.

  Once we’re alone in the office, I go to stand, but Dog puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

  “Hey,” he says. “Speaking of…you heard from that brother of yours?”

  I shake my head. “Not a peep. He could be dead or in prison for all I know.” At this point, I didn’t give a shit either.

  “Tough.” Dog nods as if he knows, has been there. Maybe he has. “Don’t mind Tiny,” he says. “You know the drill. Prospect bullshit. It’s how it goes. And you living with his kid…”

  I nod.

  I know how it goes. I’m the asshole shacking up with Tiny’s daughter.

  I’m in his club, I’m in his daughter… Although thank fuck no one knows about that.

  3

  Lia

  When I roll into the parking lot at work, there is a truck parked right up front and a huge guy standing in front of Leo’s repair shop. Ever since Alice’s insane lunatic ex tried to burn this place down, we’ve had a really basic security system in place, motion-activated cameras that take still pics when something moves.

  Alice and I both have panic buttons connected to the system too. Even though Alice’s ex-husband is locked up for arson and assault, we work alone out here often enough that all the men in our lives—Morris, Tiny, Leo—feel better with us having panic buttons.

  I finger mine, which dangles along with clear pink plastic beads and cartoon character charms on my key chain as I turn off the car.

  The truck is nice, big, but nothing special about it, and the guy looks harmless enough. He’s sipping coffee from a thermal tumbler and checking his watch like he’s waiting for the shop to open. I get out of my vintage VW van and leave the door open so Pixie, Violet, and Agnes can run out. They charge from the open back of the van toward the driver’s side door, barking and panting up a storm.

  “Morning!” I call out. “We’re not open yet. Can I help you with something?”

  The guy shoves a pair of dark sunglasses onto his head and nods. “Morning,” he calls back. “You work here?”

  I close the door to the van and lock it up while the girls run in mad circles up to the guy. They surround his ankles, and I grin, thankful the dogs have my back.