The grease on my hands was still warm when the phone rang.
It wasn’t a ringtone I heard often. In fact, I’d only heard it once before, the day I married her mother three years ago. It was the specific, default chime I had assigned to Lily.
My stepdaughter.
Lily is sixteen. She is everything I am not. She’s quiet, artistic, loves watercolor painting, and she is terrified of me.
I get it. I don’t blame her.
I’m six-foot-four. I weigh 280 pounds, mostly muscle and scar tissue. I wear a leather cut with a patch on the back that makes most people cross the street to avoid me. I’m the Sergeant-at-Arms for the Iron Reapers MC here in Ohio. My face has scars that tell stories I don’t share at the dinner table.
