Page 1 of Ruined

Chapter One

Adelaide

“Come on, Adelaide, it’s time to go,” Joey told me, a scowl settling over his features as I continued dancing on top of the table, not paying him a bit of mind. Hell, I was purposely ignoring him.

I was in a right fucking mood, and Ireallyjust wanted to forget what this day was and what it meant to me. And Joey was doing his best to shit all over that.

Joey was a control freak, and though I loved the man with every fiber of my being, he was overbearing. Too much for a woman like me thatneededfreedom and independence. Needed to be able to make her own decisions without the Sons of Hell’s president breathing fire down my neck all of the time.

Joey and I didn’t mix. We never really had, no matter how much we wanted to. We were oil and water. And Joey was the oil, always smothering me.

“You’re fucking wasted, pretty girl.”Oh, that sweet name.That name would forever melt my insides. “Get your ass down herenow,” he snapped up at me. I only continued to ignore him, and though I knew it was pissing him off, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I just wanted to be left alone, to forget the pain and heartache burning through my chest.

“Loosen up, Joey. Let the girl have fun,” I heard his twin, Jessie, snap at him. “You’re always up her ass. She’s not your girl. Not right now. You two ended that,” she reminded him.

Her words felt like a slap across my face. They were a sore reminder that Joey and I just couldn’t ever get it right when we were together.

“She needs a goddamn man to put her in line,” Joey snapped back at her. “This shit has gone on long enough.”

I clenched my jaw, my body momentarily stopping before I forced myself to start dancing again, forcing myself to block out the familiar pain of losing my best friend exactly one torturous year ago on my fucking birthday.

My birthday had become a series of tragedies, and it was now a day I longed to just forget about.

“Am I interrupting something?” A voice that I hadn’t heard inyearsasked us.

I abruptly stopped dancing so quickly that I instantly lost my footing since I was so wasted. A shriek left my lips as I fell forward, my arms flailing for something to grasp onto. Everyone turned to stare at me, and I screamed as the floor came closer to my face. With a muttered curse, Joey quickly caught me in his muscular arms before I could face plant on the floor. He was always there to save me from my own shit—shit that I tended to always get myself into.

Always my savior and my hero. Really the reason that I was still breathing today.

Despite the rage that I could see burning in his dark eyes, he gently set me on my feet on the floor before he released me, the muscle in his jaw ticking furiously. “I told you to get off of that table, Adelaide,” he snapped down at me, his frame easily towering over my shorter one.

Momentarily forgetting about our visitor, I grinned up at my for-the-moment-ex as I sloppily pressed my finger to Joey’s lips, wanting to silence him. He released a soft sigh, his eyes softening for the tiniest moment before they hardened again. “Shh,” I told him, drawing out the sound. He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re such a party pooper,” I slurred.

Joey rolled his eyes at me, but I saw a smirk twitch at his lips for a moment. He’d never been one for joking and messing around, but somehow, I seemed to kind of bring out the brighter side of his personality. But that was probably due to the sort of strange dynamic we had together.

Oil and water. Always smothering me, trapping me, holding me down.

But fuck if we didn’t deeply care about each other. I had never loved another man as much as I loved Joey Dirks, the president of Sons of Hell.

Joey was always so damn serious, but I was the woman who smoothed out his rough edges, who made him feel human again because, in our world, too many feelings could get one of us killed.

I was eighteen when Joey took me under his wing, giving me a reason to live and to fight. And it was my twentieth birthdaywhen my best friend lost her fight to cancer and I started my downward spiral, getting deeper into the life of an outlaw.

But Joey had never left my side. He never left me to fight on my own. It didn’t matter if we were on the outs and not getting along. The man standing in front of meneverlet me down.

“It’s been a fucking year, Adelaide,” Joey snapped down at me.

I narrowed my eyes at him, fire lighting up my dark eyes. Joey clenched his jaw, a look of regret passing through his eyes before he smothered it, evenly meeting my enraged gaze, not intimidated by me in the slightest. Not like his other men would have been. “You really want to do this?” I snapped at him, my words still slurred but that one sentence from him had sobered me up a tiny bit.

It was my birthday today—my twenty-first birthday, at that—which meant it’d been exactly a year since I’d lost my rock to cancer. It had been an entire year since I’d walked into her apartment and found her dead—lifeless—on her couch.

Joey clenched his jaw. “We’ve all been waiting for you to come around, Adelaide, but enough is fucking enough.” I could have breathed fire at that moment as I glared up at him, my hands tightening into fists at my sides. “You’re twenty-one fucking years old today. It’s time to get your shit together.”

I sent a right hook against his face, not giving a fuck about the consequences. Joey could be violent if he wanted to. He’d never hit me, but he was an MC president, and shit like I’d just pulled couldn’t go unpunished.

His face swung to the left, and I instantly saw blood well up on his lip and trickle down his jaw. He turned his blazing, dark eyes to me, danger glittering in their angry depths. I swallowedthickly, knowing just how volatile Joey could be. Jessie quickly grabbed him, pulling him back from me before he could retaliate like I knew he wanted.

Large, calloused hands settled over my bare shoulders, sending a shiver racing down my spine as familiar cologne that I hadn’t smelled in three fucking years wrapped around me. I would know those hands anywhere, too. Could pick up the smell of that cologne in any setting. He hadn’t changed.

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