Jaxon - Olivia T. Turner Page 0,2

against a swarm of cruel muscular men a few decades younger than him.

I glance through the hole in the wall where T-Bone hands us the food and my heart goes cold.

They’re everywhere.

The Outlaws kick the door down to the Heartlands’ President Troy Conley’s office and flood inside as Bulldog finally gets brought down to his knees with a broken chair to his back.

These bastards caught the Heartlands off-guard and unaware and they’re making them pay for their sloppiness.

Three Outlaws come into the kitchen and grin when they see me and the old man huddled in the corner.

“Get the fuck out of here,” T-Bone warns as he grips the knife with wrinkled knuckles. “Or, I’ll gut the lot of you and serve you in tomorrow’s meatloaf.”

The three bikers laugh as they advance on us. One grabs a couple of French Fries from the bin and eats them as he approaches.

They’re so big. We don’t stand a chance.

But my boys, even the cook, never back down.

T-Bone swings the knife at the closest one, but he’s too slow. The Outlaw grabs his wrist and lands a hard punch on his nose. The knife falls to the floor with a clatter.

I lunge for it, but a backhand comes out of nowhere and knocks me onto my ass. Pain shoots through my brain as my eyes water and my hands shake.

I’ve never been hit before and it just pisses me off. I reach for the knife again, but the asshole kicks it under the stove.

My watery eyes narrow on the name stitched onto his leather cut. Gunner. President.

The three guys kick T-Bone as he huddles on the ground, slamming their boots into his body. I lunge onto him to protect him and squeeze my eyes shut as I wait for the boots to hit me, but they never come.

Someone in the bar is hollering that it’s time to go.

The three grab whatever they can on their way out and throw it onto the floor. I grit my teeth as a huge jar of olives gets smashed against the stove.

It’s over as fast as it started.

The bikes roar back to life and they disappear down the street.

“Are you okay?” I ask T-Bone as he falls onto his ass.

God, my hands are trembling.

He spits out a wad of blood and nods. “They fucking cracked a tooth. It’s not my first broken one and it won’t be my last.”

I help him to his feet and then rush into the bar. The boys are laid out everywhere. Buzz is out cold on the pool table. Bulldog is on his knees, hacking up blood.

The bar is destroyed. There’s broken glass and smashed wood everywhere.

This is the only home I’ve ever had.

And it’s been attacked.

I rush over to Bulldog and drop to my knees in front of him.

When he sees me, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for a fierce hug that almost crushes me.

“It’s okay,” I whisper as I run my hand up and down his back. “It’s over.”

He leans back and I shiver when I see the ferocity in his dark eyes.

“It’s not over,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “This is war.”

Chapter Two

Stella

“Wow!” Roxanne says when she walks into the bar the next morning. “This place is fucked up! What the hell happened?”

I can’t walk anywhere without the crunching of broken glass under my feet. The bar looks even worse in the sunlight. I don’t think there’s one thing they didn’t smash.

The Heartlands’ President Troy is hissing out angry breaths as he looks at the huge sign of The Heartlands’ logo on the wall. The Outlaws is spray-painted over it in red.

“The Outlaws think we’ve gone soft because we’re trying to stay right,” the Vice President Gage tells him.

Troy grits his jaw as he yanks the sign down. “Well, they’re about to find out just how fucking hard we really are.”

“What happened?” Roxy asks as she comes behind the bar. Cat and I are starting to clean up all of the broken glass. Everything is sticky from the alcohol and Cat already cut herself twice.

I tell her what happened and she’s in tears by the end of it. We all love this club. It’s our only family and the men treat us right. This whole thing sucks.

“I heard Bulldog is in the hospital?” Roxy asks. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah,” I tell her. I called Ranger who is the manager of the bar and a Heartlands member to tell him what happened and he came over immediately.