Dog held Tack’s eyes. Then he nodded sharply and looked away.

The rest of the Club came in, had words, and voted.

It was unanimous.

Carson Steele was a recruit. A recruit that would shortly after be christened Joker.

And if he did his time, took his shit, proved his mettle…

He’d be Chaos.

* * *

It took him a year and three months.

And he did.

CHAPTER TWO

All I Wanted

Carissa

“AARON, REALLY, I’M in a bind.”

I tried not to sound like I was begging. It didn’t feel good to beg.

But he’d heard me beg and I’d learned begging didn’t work.

“You bring Travis to my house in forty-five minutes or we’ve got problems, Carissa,” Aaron said in my ear and then disconnected.

I stood there in the filthy grass on the verge, looking down at the phone, my baby boy at my hip, the crawling rush hour traffic of Denver on I-25 in front of me, along with my old, ugly, worn out, mostly kinda still red Toyota Tercel with its flat tire.

Aaron, my ex-husband, drove a black Lexus SUV.

Aaron, my ex-husband, had also just refused to come and help me change the flat tire even though I had our son with me and I was on a stupid interstate during rush hour traffic.

I couldn’t believe this.

I should, with our history, all he’d done that I’d turned a blind eye to and all he’d done that I eventually couldn’t. Nothing should surprise me. And I was hanging on to a slim thread of hope that it still did. That I could be surprised. That I hadn’t lost that ability. That I still believed that people could be decent. Even Aaron.

I hated to admit it but I figured I would soon lose the ability to believe Aaron could be decent. Especially after he just hung up on me.

I couldn’t reflect on this.

My lip was quivering and I bit it to make it stop, but I didn’t try too hard to hold back tears as I stared at my car.

I’d cried a lot the last year and a half. And I will admit, no matter what this made me, I often cried to try to get my way. This always worked with my dad. For a long time it had worked with Aaron.

A year and a half ago, it stopped working. At least with Aaron.