1. Dante
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 a couple of things.
First of all, this story is heavy. It explores distressing themes, including child abuse, sexual abuse, and homophobia. Please proceed with care and prioritize your well-being. Writing this was a very emotional process. I found myself rewriting many of these scenes several times, trying to do justice to the characters and their experiences.
Secondly, this is the fourth 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 three stories too, I suggest you do that first, as there will be a lot of spoilers for them here, especially for the third story. You can find the first 3 stories complete on my page:
1 - Broken Halos MC
2 - Broken Halos MC #2: Bruiser
3 - Broken Halos MC #3: Riot
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
_____________________________
Three months.
That’s how long it had been since I finally cut the cord with Caleb. For three months, my phone hadn’t buzzed with a 2:00 AM “I need you” or a cryptic photo of the Arizona desert that was supposed to mean I’m thinking of you but I’m too much of a coward to say it.
Until tonight.
“Miss you, D. This place is empty without my school friend.”
School friend. That was the label Caleb had kept me under for years. Not the boyfriend. Not the guy he’d spent every secret night with since junior year of high school. Just the “school friend” who was allowed to hang around his father’s clubhouse because we went to school together.
Caleb was destined for the gavel; his old man had built that club in Arizona on a foundation of “traditional values” that didn’t include a son who loved men. I’d offered him everything. I’d told him I’d move back after graduation. He still couldn’t even tell me he loved me without a blood alcohol content of .15.
I didn’t reply. I just tapped his contact, scrolled to the bottom, and hit Block.
The silence that followed was suffocating. I needed noise. I needed the smell of exhaust and the heavy thrum of a bass line that vibrated in my teeth. I needed to feel like I wasn’t just a secret kept in a desert closet.
“Get up, Cara,” (Dear) I announced, sweeping into the living room like a whirlwind. I knew I looked impeccable—I’d spent an hour on my hair just to feel some semblance of control—but the dark circles under my eyes were a dead giveaway that I’d been staring at my phone for too long. “We are going out. Now.”
Caroline looked up from her laptop, pushing her glasses onto the top of her head. She’s been my roommate and my anchor since freshman year at Seaview, but our bond was forged in the fire of being outsiders. We’d both moved to the States just before high school—her to New York, me to Arizona—and we’d spent our first year of uni bonding over the shared culture shock of American life. But while Caroline has an American dad and a Danish stillness that helps her blend in, I’m Italian through and through—loud, restless, and far too dramatic for the quiet life. Tonight, I needed her to help me survive the ghost of Caleb.
“Dante, I have a three-hour seminar on literacy development tomorrow morning,” she protested, pushing her glasses up.
“And you have a soul that is currently shriveling into a raisin,” I countered, snatching her highlighter. “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.”
To her credit, it didn’t take much more convincing. Caroline was the anchor to my kite, but even anchors liked to feel the current sometimes.
“Ten minutes!” I called out as she headed toward her room. “And wear the boots, Caro! The ones that say you’re a Dane who knows how to break a heart.”
Half an hour later, we pulled up to a fortress of corrugated metal and neon. The rumble of engines was so deep I could feel it in my marrow. It felt like home and a panic attack all at once.
“Dante,” Caroline said, leaning close as we approached the door. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this a biker clubhouse?”
“It’s a public bar, Cara,” I said, flashing a grin at the massive, scarred man working the door. My heart was hammering against my ribs. I knew the rules of these places. I knew the danger. But I also knew the freedom. “They just happen to have very specific tastes in transportation.”
“Are you looking for a biker dick that isn’t he-who-shall-not-be-named’s?” she whispered.
I shrugged her off, my 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.”
We wove through the crowd, the air thick with smoke and bourbon. I saw the “Broken Halos” insignia everywhere. It was a different patch than the one Caleb wore, but the energy was the same: lethal, territorial, and hyper-masculine.
Caroline spotted Lex—her old freshman roommate—tucked into the side of a man who looked like he was carved out of granite.
“Oh my God—Lex???”
The table went silent. The men went still. I watched the man beside Lex—Stone, the President—tighten his grip on her waist. I’d seen that move a thousand times in Arizona. Possession. Protection.
As Caroline and Lex had their emotional reunion, I stood back, letting my swagger mask the way my hands were shaking. I looked at the men at the table. Stone was a wall of muscle. Bruiser, the VP, looked bored and dangerous.
But then my eyes drifted to a man sitting further down, tucked between a guy with tattoos snaking up his jaw and another who was buried in a tablet. My eyes dropped to the white embroidery on his leather vest, reading the name stitched there: NEON.
He wasn’t like the others. While the rest of the Halos felt like heavy, immovable objects, Neon felt like electricity. He was clearly tall, his caramel-colored skin glowing under the neon lights, and his build was leaner than the powerlifter frames of the men around him. He was handsome—billboard handsome—but there was a restlessness in his eyes as he watched us.
He didn’t look at me with the same “threat-assessment” glare the others used. He looked at me with curiosity.
I felt a spark of something I hadn’t felt in three years of chasing Caleb’s shadow. It wasn’t just the tequila-fueled need for a hookup. It was the realization that in this club, in this city, I didn’t have to be the “school friend” anymore.
“In my defense,” I said, stepping forward to charm Lex and the table of outlaws, “the dorms were a prison. I merely staged a rescue mission.”
I caught Neon’s eye as I spoke. He didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched, his gaze lingering on the fit of my jeans and the defiant tilt of my chin.
For the first time in months, Arizona felt a thousand miles away. And Caleb? Caleb was officially a ghost.
I sat down at the table of the Broken Halos, and as I reached for a shot of tequila, I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t leaving this club alone tonight.
