PROLOGUE
EVERLY
I wish Oakridge were as beautiful a place to me as it is to everyone else. It’s a charming town full of colorful trees and winding roads. Families love to visit the parks and the lake year-round, even in the cold and snow. It’s picturesque. On the outside.
Within the heart of Oakridge, dirty secrets and buried truths fester like a hidden wound. No one knows all the things that happen in the dark. The blackmail and drug deals. There are rumors of course, and speculation, but no one dares to speak the truth out in the open. No one wants to own the fact that this quaint tourist town has ‘ghosts’ hiding in the backwoods.
My mother’sbusinessis one of those secrets. Well, it’sa rumor.Everyone knows who she is and what she does. They all know the truth, but no one will speak openly about it. For the most part, they pretend her clients are out of towners passing through on their way to somewhere else. I mean, who wants to admit their husband is a cheating bastard who pays for sex in a small town where you live? No one wants to admit they look their man’s whore in the eyes every time they pass each other in the aisle at Johnson’s Grocery store.
There was one time when a man in our neighborhood threatened to have Child Services come and take me away and put me in foster care. But Mama invited him over for dinner one night and offered him a few of herspecial favors,and the threat mysteriously went away.
Not that I’d want to go into foster care. I may not like my mother most days, but she’s all the family I have. Besides, if anyone would’ve taken me away, I’d have lost my Mason, my only friend in the world, too.
No, small-town folk like to keep shit tucked up under the rug and talk about it behind your back, but no one ever really confronts the issues. Turn a blind eye and make back-alley deals. That’s the motto in this town. Unless you’re a biker. Then everything becomesclub business, and they handle what they see fit, how they see fit. Whatever the hell that even means. All I know is it’s what the men who come to collect their money and make their weekly exchange with Mama have always called it.
“Hello, gentlemen. What can I do for you boys tonight?” I hate the way my mother pretends she’s hosting a dinner party whenever hermencome to visit. Her clients, as she calls them, are nothing more than scummy older men and drug-using assholes. They don’t deserve to be made to feel special. It’s bad enough I know what she’s about to do, but to hear her act as though this is some classy event makes it so much worse.
God, I can’t wait to get away from this town. Away from her.
“We were hoping you’d be interested in a two-fer special. Is your daughter around?”
I can hear the irritation in my mother’s voice when she explains, “My daughter is off the table. She’s too young, and her soul is not for sale.” Mama may not be the best parent on the block, but she’s never put me in harm’s way when it comes to herlifestyle choices. She’s always done her best to protect me and keep me hidden away when her malefriendscome calling.
“Can’t blame a guy for asking. She’s a beautiful girl with a nice, tight little body. But if she’s not available, then I guess we’ll settle for paying you double if you can take us both.”
“At the same time? That’ll cost you more than double, and I’ll need a little bump beforehand. You know the way this works, Fred. Extra favors come with extra fees,” my mother demands, sweetly of course.
Gross.
“I’ve got your money and your booger sugar right here. Picked it up before we came.” I hear him say. “When are you going to talk that pretty daughter of yours into letting me have a go at her? You said you would at least consider it now that she’s about to turn eighteen. It would be legal, sort of.”
Not fucking happening.
“My daughter is not for sale. I may have chosen to lay in hell with my demons, but Everly still has a shot at getting into Heaven, and I won’t let any of you take it away from her. Ask me again and I’ll send Torch and his men around to explain things to you in their own words.”
Mama has always said no when it comes to me and her clients. And anyone who doesn’t accept that, she threatens with telling some man named Torch with my father’s motorcycle club.
Apparently, my sperm donor was a badass who held some level of importance for the Devil’s Order Motorcycle Club somewhere around here. Whoever he was, he was a big deal at one time. The men who visit Mama all speak highly of him.
I know he wasn’t friends with the Kings of Fury, because when I asked her about them once and she told me to never speak of my father around them. She said they were the reasonhe was now buried in the ground somewhere. Rumor is his club killed someone they loved, and the Kings evened the score.
I never knew my father. So, it didn’t much matter to me how or why he died. If Torch and the others are anything to go by, my bio dad was a low-life biker who didn’t give a shit about anything but himself and his club. According to Mama, he threw a fit when he found out she was pregnant. He didn’t take any responsibility for the fact that it washisbaby. He didn’t care about any of that. All he cared about was the fact that she couldn’t make him any money if she was knocked up, and that made her of no real use to him anymore, so he left.
The way I see it, he never cared about me. Why should I give a shit about him?
Unfortunately, after I was born, the stress of raising a kid with zero support from him and only the small amount of help the state gave, it wasn’t long before Mama turned back to the club for help and their answer was to put her back to work.
For a few years, Mama did it sober. She tried to stay clean for my sake, but eventually, she was asked to do things she couldn’t stomach without something to numb her mind and body. Once in a while became once a day. It wasn’t long before the demons became too much to bear and Mama fell back into her old habits again. It wasn’t until recently that she started talking about wanting to get clean and maybe get herself a regular job in town somewhere. Of course, that’s when we’re alone and she doesn’t have to think about fucking two men at the same time to pay her dues to Torch and his club.
Mama’s laughter rings throughout the house, and I know they’ve started their little party in the living room.
That’s my cue to leave.
I crawl out my bedroom window as quietly as I can, leaving a pack of gum in the bottom to keep it cracked open. My bike is already here in the bushes where I left it last time. I walk itdown the driveway until I get to Fred’s old pickup truck. Making sure no one else is around, I squat down and make quick work of letting the air out of Fred’s back tire. It won’t hurt him, but it will make him late getting home to his wife and kids.
Cheating bastard.
Pleased with my petty self, I take off for the lake where I know Mason will be waiting for me. It’s our special place we’ve been going to since we were nine years old. It’s where we go to get away from our parents and talk about everything under the sun.
