The Jilted Biker Heiress's Spectacular Comeback

Sloane POV:

The headlight of the Sportster cut a yellow cone through the darkness as I pulled into the Tucker driveway. The house was a sprawling brick compound on the edge of town, a place built on club kickbacks, but mostly kept afloat by nine years of my silent labor and my dead father's money.

I killed the engine, let the kickstand drop into the dirt.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, walked into the bedroom I had shared with Beau, and stopped in front of the walk-in closet.

Neat rows of pastel sundresses, silk blouses, and soft cardigans hung on wooden hangers—clothes Judith had picked out to make me look like a tame, respectable little housewife who knew her place. I didn't touch a single hanger.

Instead, I dropped to my knees, reached into the deepest corner under the king-sized bed, and dragged out a battered, scuffed leather trunk.

I unbuckled the brass latches. The lid creaked open, releasing the familiar scent of motor oil, copper, and aged cowhide.

My chest tightened as my fingers brushed over the top item—a faded black t-shirt bearing the original insignia of the Iron Ghosts MC, the flaming skull flanked by dual wrench-bones. Beneath it lay a bundle of hand tools wrapped in oily canvas, and a 4x6 photograph in a cracked plastic frame.

I pulled the photo into the faint moonlight filtering through the blinds.

My father, Marcus Keller, sat on the frame of his custom chopper, his beard thick and graying, his arms covered in black ink. I was twelve years old in the picture, sitting on his broad shoulders with grease smeared across my forehead, grinning like I owned the entire state of Nevada. Behind him stood eight patched members of the Iron Ghosts, laughing with beers held high. They were all my brothers.

All of them were dead.

The official story fed to the county sheriffs was that the Vultures MC caught them off guard during a territorial dispute at Rattlesnake Pass and burned the lot of them alive. But the nightmare didn't end there. After slaughtering my father and brothers on the highway, the Vultures had tracked down our mother compound. I survived only because my mother, Catherine, stuffed me inside the secret cellar beneath the memorial room before the bullets started ripping through the stone walls.

I heard every gunshot. I heard the screams. They butchered my mother, my sister-in-law, and even my two-and-a-half-year-old nephew. They left nothing but blood and shattered bones.

When the smoke cleared, the Tucker family stepped in. They called it charity. They claimed they were honoring my father's memory by taking in his orphaned brat.

But now I knew, they took me in to siphon off the massive life insurance payout and the hidden trust fund my father had left behind.

I set the photograph down on the mattress. The agonizing grief that used to choke me had hardened into cold, tempered steel.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Ruby Foster's number. Ruby tended bar at a dive joint three miles outside the club's perimeter. She wasn't club property, didn't answer to any patch, and hated Beau Tucker with a passion that rivaled my own.

"Sloane?" Ruby answered on the third ring, her voice raspy and sharp. "It's past two in the morning. Did that bastard do something?"

"He patched Farrah in as his Old Lady tonight," I said, my voice flat and completely devoid of tremors. "At the clubhouse. In front of everyone."

A string of vicious curses poured through the speaker. "I'm gonna take a tire iron to his teeth. Sloane, pack your shit. I'm coming to get you right now."

"No, not right now," I cut in. "They're still riding the high from the party. I only want two things from that place: my father's tool chest and the bike under the tarp in the garage."

Ruby went quiet for a beat. "The Ghost? Beau has sworn up and down that bike belongs to him now. He's got the garage locked up tight."

"The bike belongs to Marcus Keller," I said coldly. "And the title is inside the safe in the study. I know the combination. But I need a major diversion to get them out of the house."

"Say less," Ruby said, a wicked, predatory grin evident in her tone. "When and what kind of noise do you need?"

"Tomorrow morning at seven," I replied. "I'm going to drop the house keys and the ledgers right on Judith's breakfast table. When I do, I need a noise loud enough to drag every Tucker out to the front gravel. Bring your truck."

"I've got an aluminum bat in the bed and a grudge to settle," Ruby said. "I'll be there at seven sharp."

I ended the call, and walked over to the vanity mirror. In the dim reflection, my green eyes looked sharp, a world away from the quiet girl who had poured Judith's morning tea yesterday.

They thought Marcus Keller raised a pet.

They forgot that before the Iron Ghosts burned, my father taught me how to rebuild a four-speed transmission with my bare hands, how to throw a hook that shatters a man's jaw, and how to wait in the weeds until the target steps into the clearing.

I closed the leather trunk, hauled it to the window, and set it down.

The Ghost was coming with me tomorrow. And the Tuckers were going to learn exactly how much they owed the dead.