He looks vaguely familiar, but I’m not worried that he will recognize me. I’ve studied profiles of every active member of the Gypsy Brothers MC Venice Beach chapter and he hasn’t featured.

 “Can I help you?” he says, his deep voice like honey and butter.

 I plaster a fake smile on and stand a little straighter. My boobs are practically bursting out of my tiny singlet, but he doesn’t even give them a cursory glance. He isn’t pinging my gaydar, though, so perhaps he’s just a gentleman.

 “I’m looking for Mr Ross,” I say sweetly, delivering my words with a slight southern twang. One highlight of living in a shithole for the past six years is picking up the accent. I don’t want to risk anyone recognizing my voice. “I’ve got an audition.”

 “Wait here.” He turns, giving me a chance to appreciate his ass and…

 My heart freezes for a second when I see he’s got the Gypsy Brothers family crest on the back of his neck. The crest that’s reserved exclusively for the club president, his brothers, and his sons.

Oh fuck. Is he…?

 My worst fears are confirmed when he stops at the top of the stairs that lead into the office and shouts into the ajar door, “Pop! Some chick here to see you about a job.”

 Of course, it’s him. Jason Ross. Dornan’s youngest son. I almost choke as I remember the last time I saw him.

 The boy was screaming. Two of his older brothers held him firmly as he struggled futilely against them.

 “Are you going to take your turn, son?” Dornan addressed his youngest son. Jase had only been in the care of his father for a very short time – less than a year – and he had struggled to adjust to the MC way of life after his mother’s death. Everyone thought that Dornan had been the one to inject Jase’s mother with a deadly overdose of heroin – the woman had been clean for sixteen years, since she discovered she was pregnant with Jason and left the club life to raise her son in normality.

 I remember lying on the ground, splinters digging into my naked back, wishing I could just die already. Dornan and his six older sons had all taken turns – some, several turns – and my body was dangerously close to shutting down. I had been beaten within an inch of my life, I could taste blood in my mouth from where Dornan had broken my nose, and I was throbbing so badly between my legs it felt like someone was trying to rip me in half.

 I had never gone past second base before. It had been a gruesome and devastating way to lose my virginity –to have it stolen.

 I watched through blood-encrusted eyelashes as baby-faced Jase fought against his father, even as he knew he would pay dearly for it. 

 “Please, Pop, please don’t, they’re hurting her, please stop, STOP STOP STOP!”

 “Come on, son,” Dornan growled, and I heard the click of a gun being cocked. “Be a man.”

 Oh God, I remember thinking. This is it. They are going to kill me.

 I would have felt pity for Jason, had I not been close to blacking out from the pain. 

 I whimpered as something cold and metallic was forced between my chattering teeth. Dornan had his gun in my mouth. 

 I cowered in anticipation. This was it. He was going to shoot me, and I was going to die.

 “You better get your dick out and fuck this little bitch, or I’m going to shoot her in the face. Do you understand, son?”

 I was listening, but I was floating away at the same time. Little white spots started to appear in my vision as the unbearable pain began to recede.

 Jase lunged at his father and I heard a crash, followed by a scuffle and yelling. It was getting hard to hear, though. Everything was turning white and I floated away on that whiteness, relieved to finally be coming to the final moments of my suffering.

 “Pop,” I heard Chad say. “Pop!”

 “What?!” Dornan roared.

 “I think she’s dying.”

 “Bullshit.” Rough hands shook my body, and there was swearing and jostling as I was picked up and carried.

 The world turned white, and then it turned dark as I drifted peacefully away.

 When I awoke, the world was not white, but a depressing beige. The pain crept up and socked me hard in the stomach, winding me. I tried to sit up and failed miserably. Some of my ribs were definitely broken.

I felt a warm hand in mine and looked next to me, expecting my mother. Instead, I saw a nightmare that I thought I had woken from.

A scream died in my throat as Dornan gestured with a finger to his lips for me to remain silent. I never even considered defying him, I was so terribly afraid.

“The police would like to talk to you,” Dornan said gravely. “I told them my dear niece was going to need some time alone with family first.” I stared at him in disbelief, disgusted at what he was implying. Uncle Dornan, posing as a fucking hero in the wake of my father’s absence.

I tried to wrench my hand away but he squeezed tighter, cutting off the circulation and forcing a gasp from me.

“What are you going to tell them, Julie, baby?”

I slumped against the bed, defeated. “Nothing.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Nothing!” I said a little louder, and snatched my hand back as he released his grip.

“Good,” he said, standing up and straightening his leather cut. “I’d hate to have to do to your mother what we did to you.”

I cringed at his not-so-subtle threat and shuddered as he planted a kiss on my forehead. “Don’t act like the victim,” he whispered in my ear. “I know you loved it.”

He plastered a fake smile on, tossed a bunch of flowers on the bed next to me, and left the room.

It was the last time I saw him.

And, ironically, the thing that had burned at me the most, more than the betrayal, was the reasoning. I wanted to know why. But then, Dornan murdered my father two days later, shot him in the head at point-blank range with a shotgun. Blew his head clean off. 

After that, after Elliot told me my father was dead, I stopped wondering why.

 Jase comes back down the stairs, taking them two by two, as if he’s in a hurry to be away from the office. He returns to his spot behind the bar and picks up his polishing cloth. “He’ll be down soon.” I don’t answer straight away, and he looks at me from beneath those gorgeous black eyelashes that I used to tease him about. I must look dreadful, because he jerks his head up and frowns.

“Are you okay?”

I nod my head slowly, gripping the bar with both hands.

“Are you sure?” He lifts the cut-out section of the bar counter and comes around to where I am, a glass of iced water appearing in his hand as if by magic.

“You look like you’re about to pass out,” he says, placing the water on a cardboard coaster in front of me. He brings a bar stool over and sets it down behind me.

I take the water and the seat gratefully, my entire body suddenly aching and tired.

 You knew there was a chance you would see him. You knew this was part of the deal.

 I shrug and take a sip of water, attempting to pull myself together. If my plan is going to work, I have got to keep it together.

 “It must be the sun,” I say, smiling innocently. “I’m not used to this heat.” I hope he doesn’t ask me where I’m from. Nebraska is even hotter than California. I feel my story already beginning to crumple under the weight of its artifice.

 “Well, take it easy,” he says, going back to his side of the bar.

 “Thank you,” I say meekly, the words tasting like bitter lies on my tongue.

 Dornan appears a short time later at the top of the stairs, whistling loudly. “Come on up,” he says, beckoning to his office beyond. I look around, unsure if he is even speaking to me.

“Yes, you. Hurry up, I ain’t got all goddamn day.” He disappears past the doorway and I slide off my stool. I take a deep breath. This is my moment of truth.

 This is my one shot to get onside with Dornan and bring this motherfucking family to its shattered kneecaps.

Three

He is somehow less frightening than I remember him, and I have to remind myself that I’m taller and stronger than I was when I was fifteen. Back then, I was still so young. Plus, I’m wearing ridiculous heels which make me even taller. Dornan sits behind a desk – my fathers old desk – and sifts through paperwork, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I’m standing there. I use the time to take in my surroundings. Nothing special – a generic particle-board desk, a dead pot plant, a couple of tall metal filing cabinets behind the desk. The only item that looks expensive is the painting on the wall, a beach scene that looks like it’s from Hawaii or someplace equally beautiful. It doesn’t fit in with the room at all, and I wonder if it once belonged to my father.

“Looking for the safe, sweetheart?”

I snap my attention back to Dornan, who is smirking as he pounds numbers into a calculator with his long, thick fingers.

“Looking for the stage,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. My entire plan hinges on him hiring me as a dancer for the club. If he doesn’t, I’ll have to go to plan B. Which I haven’t thought of yet.

 He leans back in his chair and surveys me properly for the first time. I wait patiently, knowing that I tick all of his boxes – brunette, tanned, big tits and young enough to fuck and employ without getting arrested for employing a minor in the club. I bat my eyelashes and study his face. He is older now, but still bears the strong features that made each of his seven sons unmistakably his. He had no daughters, and that could only be a small mercy fate had delivered.