1. Caroline
Author's note:
Hey everyone ❤️
Thank you so much for being here, I hope you'll enjoy this story!!
Before you start reading, I would just like to mention that this is the third story in the Broken Halos MC series. While you can read this story as a stand-alone, if you think you might want to read the first two stories too, I suggest you do that first, as there will be a lot of spoilers for them here. You can find the first 2 stories complete on my page:
1 - Broken Halos MC
2 - Broken Halos MC #2: Bruiser
If you want to stay up to date with the series or my other work, remember to follow - I post regularly what I’m working on, changes in publishing schedule and more ❤️
As always, please react, comment and review - it helps me so much! ❤️
Hugs!
- Bee
_____________________________
My life has always been a study in tranquility—a quiet, steady stream that never threatened to overflow its banks.
I was born in Denmark to a mother who defined hygge and an American father who treated our safety like a sacred vow. We lived there because my parents decided it was the best place to raise children, far from the grit and noise of the New York legal world where my dad had been a partner at Carter & Brown. He still consulted for them back then, but he wanted us wrapped in the soft, safe embrace of a Danish childhood.
I still feel more Danish than American most days. I carry that stillness with me. It’s a literal part of my DNA, born from a country where you are never more than thirty-two miles from the sea. I grew up with the constant, salt-tapped reassurance of the water.
When we eventually moved back to the States so my older sister, Kathrine, could pursue law school with Dad’s guidance, we landed back in New York. It was supposed to be a homecoming for him, but for me, it felt like being dropped into a centrifuge. The city was too loud, too gray, and most importantly, the water was wrong. The Hudson isn’t the North Sea; it doesn’t breathe the same way.
I lasted exactly as long as I had to before I picked a college as far west as I could go. I needed the Pacific. I needed a horizon that didn’t end in skyscrapers.
Now, I’m at Seaview University, working toward my degree in Early Childhood Education. I’m currently prepping for my student teaching observations, focusing on the four-to-eight-year-olds. There’s something honest about children that age; they haven’t learned how to build the kind of walls most people spent years perfecting.
My life is perfectly on track. Safe. Boring. Easy.
I am the girl who provides the comfort, the one who knows how to fix a scraped knee or soothe a tantrum. I’m the one who carries the “safe” foundation my parents built for me. And honestly, I don’t mind the quiet. It’s a luxury I’ve never had to question—mostly because I get all the chaos I can handle through Dante.
Dante is my roommate, my best friend, and the absolute antithesis of a Danish winter evening. We met during the first week of freshman year, two international souls trying to navigate the artificial gloss of California. He’s Italian, and like me, he’d been dragged through an American high school experience before landing at Seaview University. We bonded over missing real bread, the absurdity of American portion sizes, and the shared feeling of being from elsewhere.
When the housing department told us that a guy and a girl couldn’t share a shoebox-sized dorm room, we didn’t even argue. We just waited two weeks, packed our things, and moved into a sun-drenched apartment off-campus. My father’s success at Carter & Brown meant I didn’t have to worry about the rent, and Dante… well, Dante always seemed to have the means, though we rarely discussed where it came from.
He’s the only person I know who can make a Tuesday morning feel like the finale of a soap opera. While I’m color-coding lesson plans for my upcoming student teaching observations, Dante is usually pacing the living room, trailing the scent of expensive cologne and cigarette smoke, arguing with his on-again-off-again boyfriend.
His life is a tangle of complications that would make my father’s head spin. He doesn’t say much about his family back in Italy or the “business” connections they supposedly maintain, and I don’t ask. But the drama he brought with him from Arizona—where he lived before college—is harder to ignore. His ex is a patched member of an MC out there, a desert-based club that seems to have a permanent, jagged grip on Dante’s heart.
They’ve been “broken up” for three months now. For them, that’s a lifetime. It’s the longest stretch they’ve ever managed without one of them folding and catching a flight or sending a desperate, late-night text.
The silence of our home is shattered when the front door slams, followed by the heavy thud of designer boots on hardwood.
“Get up, Cara,” (Dear) Dante announces, sweeping into the living room like a whirlwind. He looks impeccable, as always, though the dark circles under his eyes hint that he’s been staring at his phone for too long again. “We are going out. Now.”
I look up from my laptop, pushing my glasses onto the top of my head. “Dante, I have a three-hour seminar on literacy development tomorrow morning.”
“And you have a soul that is currently shriveling into a raisin,” he counters, snatching my highlighter out of my hand. “Three months, Caro. Three months without him. I need noise, I need overpriced tequila, and I need to see you looking like something other than a very organized librarian.”
I laugh, leaning back in my chair. Most people look at my parents—still holding hands over breakfast after thirty years—and assume I’m looking for the same thing. A white picket fence, a stable partner, a “safe” love. But seeing the quiet perfection of their relationship has actually had the opposite effect. I know what the endgame looks like; I’m in no rush to get there.
I’m a free spirit by design. I want to be the one who knows how to soothe a child’s nightmare, but in my own life, I want to chase the light. I haven’t had a serious relationship yet, and I’m perfectly content that way. I like the experimentation. I like the lack of weight.
“You’re right,” I say, closing my laptop with a satisfying click. “My brain is officially full of phonics. Where are we going?”
Dante’s eyes spark with that familiar, dangerous mischief. “Somewhere loud. Somewhere where the bass is high enough to drown out my thoughts and the men are pretty enough to make me forget Arizona.”
“Fine,” I grin, standing up and stretching. “Give me twenty minutes to transform from student teacher to human being.”
“Ten minutes!” he calls out as I head toward my room. “And wear the boots, Caro! The ones that say you’re a Dane who knows how to break a heart.”
I shake my head, a smile tugging at my lips. I’m the anchor, and he’s the kite. I’m happy to let him pull me into the wind.
We pull up to a place that looks like a fortress of corrugated metal and neon, surrounded by a sea of gleaming chrome and heavy leather. The rumble of engines is so deep I can feel it in my marrow.
“Dante,” I say, leaning close to him as we walk toward the entrance. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this a biker clubhouse?”
“It’s a public bar, Cara (Dear),” he says, flashing a grin at the massive, scarred man working the door. “They just happen to have very specific tastes in transportation.”
I raise an eyebrow, looking at the “Broken Halos” insignia on the wall. I know Dante. I know his history with the desert-based MC in Arizona. “Are you looking for a biker dick that isn’t he-who-shall-not-be-named’s?”
Dante just shrugs me off, his eyes already scanning the room with a practiced, hungry intensity. “I’m looking for a distraction. This place has the best tequila and the least amount of judgment. Don’t think so much, just drink.”
The place is packed. The air is thick with the scent of smoke, expensive bourbon, and something primal that makes the hair on my arms stand up. It’s a world away from the quiet, structured life of lesson plans and primary colors. We’re weaving our way through the crowd toward the bar when I see them.
There’s a massive table tucked into a corner, shielded from the main floor by a literal wall of intimidating men. These aren’t just guys at a bar; they’re soldiers. Several of them have women tucked protectively into their laps, the body language so possessive it’s almost stifling.
Then I see her.
Tucked into the side of a man who looks like he could snap a person in half with one hand is a girl with chestnut hair and familiar green eyes.
She looks different. More grounded. More relaxed.
I grab Dante’s hand, dragging him toward them before my brain can tell me it’s a bad idea to approach a table full of outlaws.
“Oh my God—Lex???”
The entire table goes silent. The “soldiers” go still, their eyes narrowing as they assess us. The man Lex is sitting with doesn’t move, but his grip on her waist tightens, his protective instinct flaring instantly.
Lex blinks, squinting through the dim light. When she recognizes me, her jaw practically hits the table. “Caroline?”
