Page 1 of Liv and Ripper

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CHAPTER 1

LIV

Iwas the only girl in my year that had tattoos. Perhaps because most of my classmates weren’t old enough, or perhaps because I got my first tattoo when I was sixteen. Unlike some, I didn’t have a traditional upbringing. I wasn’t born into a world that focused on bedtimes and rules. The only rule I had to withhold was not to get caught while I broke the laws that society entrapped us in, that told us how to live. My father never wanted children—in fact, if he had it his way, I think deep down he wouldn’t have had me or my sister, Lotte.

However, after serving ten years in prison, Dad got out and hooked up with my mum for a one-night stand and their story is much like one deserved a romance novel. He fell madly in love with her, and he changed for her. And no, I didn’t mean he changed his uncanny ability to break the law, but his heart changed—it softened and that one-night stand turned into twins. Charlotte (Lotte) and Olivia (Liv, myself).

I loved my parents, I loved how one day they could be furious with each other and the next, kissing in the corner. Didn’t matter they were old enough to know better, they still acted like love-sick teenagers with each other, childish fights and mad make out sessions were two things my parents had nailed.

I guess that as the bonus of having a mate. Someone you can always count on, someone who will love you no matter what. In what I mean, a world like ours—it is a blessing to be given a mate.

My mother is blessed with a body that most would go under the knife to have, and she passed those same killer curves to myself and Lotte, but it was our vivid blue eyes the camera loved the most. Which was why at the age of six, I started modelling children’s clothes. But my mum knew as much as I liked to pose and as much as I loved the camera, I loved to express myself more. Always knee-deep in paint and crafts.

So, it was natural that as I got older, I wanted my art to be expressed on my body. Now I was nine at the time and posing for an upstanding elite kid’s clothing line and crying to myself to sleep every night. Heck. I was nine, and I knew a depression that no one should because I wasn’t following my parent’s one rule—I had let society trap me in.

It was my dad who had overheard me crying in my bedroom one night. He burst in, very dramatic, demanding to know who had upset his little girl. Because it had just followed a MC BBQ family day, Dad just assumed one of the other members had upset me.

But that wasn’t the case. Nope, the case was that I wanted to dye my hair, but the elite modelling agency I was with wouldn’t let me. I had begged them. They told me that if I asked one more time, they would cut my contract. I knew the money I brought in wasn’t important, but I didn’t want my parents to have to explain how their daughter got ‘cut’ or ‘dropped’. So, I sucked it up.

Nine years old, and I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. If I had listened to my parents, it never would have happened. Because, like they told me when I was little, society tries to box us in and some people, like us, aren’t meant to be in a box—we are meant to be burning them.

Dad took me to the drugstore that same night. Standing in front of a range of colors, he said to pick one. And I did—a bright blue. What did my mum do when she discovered my dad and me dying my hair? When she realized I was throwing my chance of being on the cover for an elite fashion line? Well, she took over from my dad, and I was thankful for that because I was terrified Dad would get the dye in my eye.

From that day forward, my hair has never been a normal shade or color. I also learnt that society would never box me in again.

When I went back into modelling at sixteen, I went into the field that liked my dyed hair, piercings, and tattoos. Like I said, yep, I was sixteen when I got my first tattoo. And I reckon I’ll be over sixty when I get my last one, or till I run out of room.

Now at the blooming age of eighteen, everything was going perfectly. I still attended school but apart from that, my life was nowhere near normal. My dad rode for a motorcycle gang, and the club played a huge role in my life. Unity. Unconditional Love. Those were the two things the club injected into my life daily. The thing about the outlaw motorcycle club was that it was made up of rouge wolves. You know the wolves that are shunned by their pack—either kicked out for breaking the laws too many times or for disrespecting the pack. After that, some go feral, while most men end up joining a one percent motorcycle club. It takes a strong man to be able to control rouge wolves, not to mention ones that have the ability to kill without caring. Like Dad once said, ‘These men are cursed with a need to break the law. Not just the law of society, but also the law of the packs.’

My dad was relieving the President, as Tank was doing six years in prison for armed robbery. Still bullshit that he got charged—at least in my eyes and the club’s. Wasn’t like he hurt anyone . . ..

Still, he had a weapon on him. And while the pack would normally pull strings to get their members out, the club didn’t have that type of power. Like Dad said, ‘We were trapped by a human society at the best of times.’

So Dad was temporarily filling in the President role. But if you knew my father well enough, you’d know he liked being Vice more than anything else. He wasn’t a man to lead, he was the man to back up the leader. Nothing wrong with that—we all have our strengths, and Dad was one to follow his strengths.

Tri—short for Triangle—was Dad’s road name. He got it because of us, his family. We, according to the man that patched him in, and vouched for him, made him a triangle. Dad was twenty-six when he pledged. I think the bloke was trying to make fun of Dad, to be honest. But Dad took it on the chin and ended up burying that member a few years later. A bullet strayed . . . something to do with a traitor in the club. And by traditor, it was clear he was a pack traditor, a man sent by the pack to try and ‘guide the lost to found.’ I don’t know the details and try my best not to. Because once you are in that lifestyle, you don’t get out of it. It’s like quicksand, you sink into it and eventually, it will kill you. I was never going to fall into the trap.

I was on the back of Dad’s bike as we rode into the lot, and I had to say, it was a pleasure to be home. After a lengthy overseas trip—which I had made sure would be my last—I was back home and naturally, Dad had to stop at the clubhouse, something about Lotte causing trouble. Little did he know, I was a world of trouble on my own. I was slipping down a dark path and each pill was causing me to slip that little bit farther.

My mind flashed back to the last day of shooting.

“Could you centre yourself, Liv?” the photographer asked, giving me more directions. I repositioned myself on the bed. It didn’t matter that I was modelling underwear that cost an average person’s pay cheque. Nope, all I could think was that I sold myself out for fifteen minutes of fame. I felt cheap as I posed seductively.

I knew it was just work, that was how I had to look at this. It was work. Meg walked to my side with my secret power in hand.

She was feeding me drugs to keep me running. I was on my last day of a two-week shoot in Italy. It sounded glamorous but really, all it was, was me wearing very little, showing off the latest Tattoo Lines of clothing. It was grudge, it was edgy, and it was expensive as shit.

The photographer frowned when she handed me the pills with an energy drink.

“She has a headache,” Meg explained, while lying perfectly—something she always did. I threw back the pills with the drink and faked a smile.

“We can do this another day?” he hesitated. Both of us knew that wasn’t possible. I immediately shook my head.

“No, I’m fine, really.” I waved it off. I didn’t just take those drugs to stop now, then what would have been the point?

“Remember, after this you have to exercise, Liv,” Megan added and gave my stomach a look. “You aren’t pregnant, are you?”

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