He Cheated With His Ex, So the Club President Claimed Me novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Back Door
Hallie hears Brock and his ex through the clubhouse door, records it, and walks out in front of the whole yard. Brock says Eli stays with the club.
At noon on Saturday, forty bikers were drinking in the yard behind the clubhouse, and I walked through them carrying Brock's lunch.
His text was still open on my phone.
"Stuck at the shop, babe. Don't come by. The cook has our boy."
His bike was parked at the back door.
I noticed that, and I told myself it meant nothing.
Through the kitchen window I could see the club cook with my two-year-old on her lap, feeding him crackers.
He looked up at me with his gray eyes and waved a cracker.
Nobody in my family has gray eyes, and nobody in Brock's does either.
Brock always says our son got them from a great-uncle.
I waved back and went to the back door.
It was open a crack, and I heard voices.
"What's wrong, babe?" a woman said.
"We shouldn't have done that." That was Brock, and he sounded hard and guilty.
"You weren't thinking about your old lady or your kid ten minutes ago."
I knew that voice.
I had never met her, but I knew it from the brothers, who only said her name low.
Rae Cutler.
She was the one who left Brock six years ago, and she was back in town this month.
Something hit the wall inside.
"What a mess," Brock said.
"You kissed me first! You came to my room that night! You've been fucking me every day for a month, Brock. I'm the one you really want."
Every day for a month.
I pressed my back to the brick, still holding his lunch against my chest.
Three years ago I had stood in this same building, shaking, and told him I was pregnant.
I had expected him to walk away.
Instead he pulled me into his arms and made me his old lady in front of everyone.
I had thought that was love.
I had thought he was choosing us.
Now I wondered if he had been looking at someone else the whole time.
My hands were shaking, but I got my phone up and hit record.
I held it to the crack in the door.
"Say that again," I whispered to nobody.
Rae said it again, louder.
"You're mine, Brock. You always were. She's just the one who got the ring."
I didn't have a ring.
I had a leather vest with the club's patch on the back and a line that said PROPERTY OF BROCK.
I had worn it every day for three years.
I stopped the recording and saved it twice.
A prospect had come up behind me with a case of beer, and he stopped dead when he saw my face.
"Hallie?"
"Go get Dot," I said. "Tell her to bring my son to the door."
He ran.
Then I pushed the door open with my foot.
The back room was a storeroom with a couch, and Brock was on it, shirt open, belt undone.
Rae was sitting next to him in her bra, with her boots still on.
She looked at me and smiled.
Brock stood up so fast he knocked over the lamp.
"Hallie. Baby. It's not what you think."
"You said you were at the shop," I said.
"I was. I just came by for a minute."
"Your bike is outside."
"Hallie."
"She says it's been a month."
Brock looked at Rae, and Rae looked at the ceiling.
Behind me the yard had gone quiet.
I could feel them at my back, a dozen men from the party who had walked over when the prospect ran.
Dot stood in the kitchen doorway across the hall, with Eli on her hip.
She had her hand over her mouth.
I put Brock's lunch on the table next to the couch.
It was a turkey sandwich and the cookies he liked.
"Eat it yourself," I said. "Or give it to her."
"Hallie, listen to me, we can talk about this at home."
"We don't have a home."
I reached up and took off my cut.
The leather was heavy and warm from my back.
I folded it once and dropped it on the sandwich.
"Last week you told me Rae was nothing," I said. "Three years ago you told me I was yours."
"You are mine."
"I'm not anybody's."
I said it loud enough for the yard to hear.
So I walked out on him.
I turned around and the brothers stepped aside to let me through, and nobody said a word.
I held out my arms and Dot put Eli in them.
His small hand grabbed my collar, and I felt something in my chest hold together.
Brock came up behind me, and he wasn't sorry anymore.
"Put him down, Hallie."
"No."
"You can walk out," Brock said. "You can't take him."
The yard went even quieter.
"Eli's a club kid," Brock said. "He stays with the club."
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