Chapter 1

Amelia’s POV

"Oh! He could at least show a little courtesy..."

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm and make excuses for him, before leaning down to finally retrieve my phone.

"Are you going to keep getting on my nerves, kid?"

Oh, it looked like his patience was running thin. I bit my lip and kept searching through my bag.

"Listen, get out of here right now if you don't want any trouble."

If he thought that cliché movie line was going to scare me, he was dead wrong.

Fine. Seeing that my damn phone refused to show up, I decided to go with Plan B. I rolled up my window without giving him a single glance, and slammed my hand onto the horn with all my strength to force everyone out of their lair.

I flinched as a loud commotion echoed from inside the property. Direct confrontation always gets the job done faster! The gate’s indicator light turned on, and the heavy doors slowly swung open. A group of men clad in leather jackets emerged, stepping forward in unison as if they were a single unit... Did they actually rehearse that entrance?

"Damn it, Slade! What’s with all the noise out here?"

My eyes locked onto the man who had just spoken. Standing at the front, his face clearly showed his annoyance, his fists tightly clenched. For a second, I thought I was hallucinating; the man radiated an incredible aura. Tall, broad-shouldered, with his blonde hair tied back at the nape of his neck...

"I don't know, Fear, the girl isn't answering!"

While I was still staring at him, his gaze suddenly met mine as he stepped forward, narrowing his eyes.

"Amelia?"

I swallowed hard and nodded.

"Alright, let her in."

I let out a sigh of relief and drove toward a parking area packed with motorcycles. After parking and cutting the engine, I mentally berated myself to regain my composure. Leaning down toward the passenger floorboard, I slid my hand under the seat and finally retrieved my phone.

With it in hand, I walked toward Fear while typing a message. Assuming he knew who I was since he had spoken my name, I asked him through the screen:

"Where is my brother?"

His eyes shifted between me and the phone screen. He gave me a brief, unreadable look before bellowing at the top of his lungs:

"Honor!"

I stood there stunned in front of him for a few seconds. Who on earth was Honor?

Frowning and letting out an annoyed sigh, I started typing a new message, only to be interrupted by a voice I would recognize anywhere without even looking:

"Yeah?"

I froze. Striving to maintain a composed expression, I turned around to see my older brother stepping out of the building. A surge of warmth washed over me as I watched him run a hand through his hair. Dark-haired just like me, Alex wore it short with a few strands falling over his forehead, standing a full head taller than me. A wave of nostalgia sent shivers down my skin.

This journey was the longest and most painful of my entire life.

I felt as though I was abandoning my family by leaving Louisiana, the place that had witnessed the height of our happiness and the depths of our ruin.

The tears had stopped flowing after three hours on the road. Since then, I preferred focusing on driving with a single goal in mind: reaching my destination.

I had texted my brother before setting off to let him know I was coming, to which he simply replied with a brief "OK."

At eighteen, Alexander joined a motorcycle club in North Carolina. To protect me, he never really talked about his work or his club. He wasn't much of a talker under normal circumstances anyway, but I knew he was the one person I could rely on whenever I was in need.

Still, I had to remain extremely vigilant. My brother was sharp and observant despite his quiet nature. There was no way he could find out what happened; if he ever discovered the truth, his rage would be so destructive that it would completely ruin my plan. I had to come up with a plausible story to explain my arrival.

Alex and I were close, but we had rarely reached out to each other lately. I remembered how, when we were younger, he could spend hours in our parents' garage fixing all kinds of broken vehicle frames, at least until their deaths.

The first tragedy of my life... A fire caused by a faulty electrical circuit left us orphans.

I was barely eighteen when it happened. So, after pulling myself together from the grief, I quickly showed him that I could be independent. I knew he would have stepped up as my guardian, but I refused to be a burden on him. Alongside my student grant, I picked up a job to cover my expenses, constantly proving to him that I was doing fine until he finally felt reassured enough to follow his best friend, Liam—a guy I had never met—to start a new chapter in Walnut Cove.

Suddenly, a painful memory forced its way into my mind...

"Hugo!"

I chided myself mentally, fighting not to fall back into that misery.

Don't dwell on it... but don't forget it either.