1. Doc
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 explores distressing themes, including child abuse, sexual abuse and abortion. Please proceed with care and prioritize your well-being.
Secondly, this is the sixth 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 four stories too, I suggest you do that first, as there will be a lot of spoilers for them here. You can find the first 5 stories complete on my page:
1 - Broken Halos MC
2 - Broken Halos MC #2: Bruiser
3 - Broken Halos MC #3: Riot
4 - Broken Halos MC #4: Neon
5 - Broken Halos MC #5: Ink
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
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The silence in the clubhouse always felt like a held breath. It was the kind of quiet that didn’t mean peace; it meant the fuse hadn’t been lit yet.
I leaned against the bar, the scent of stale beer and motor oil clinging to the air like a second skin. For the first time in months, we weren’t cleaning blood off the floorboards or patching up holes in the drywall. It had been quiet—quiet in the way that meant no one had caught a bullet in weeks. But for me, that silence never lasts.
Every time I closed my eyes, I didn’t see the empty bar or the brothers playing pool. I saw the glint of sunlight on a barrel and heard the guttural, predatory thrum of the Vipers’ bikes. I saw the way the dust kicked up near my daughter’s feet when the lead started flying.
They tried to shoot Angel. MY ANGEL. My seven-year-old girl, who was all light and tangled curls and a brain that moved at a hundred miles an hour, had been a target. If it hadn’t been for Caroline throwing herself in the line of fire, I’d be visiting a grave. I owed Caroline a debt I could never repay, a weight that sat heavy in my chest every time I saw her managing the chaos of the club’s children.
But the clubhouse wasn’t truly quiet. There was a different kind of noise now—the kind that didn’t come from engines. It was the vibration of secrets.
First, there was Neon. Dante had gone and tangled them up with the feds, a move that would have gotten anyone else a one-way trip to the redwood forest if it hadn’t been personal. And then, Ink. He had followed suit, his life exploding into a mess of undercover agents and a past he’d tried to bury under layers of black ink. I didn’t know the full details, but I knew it was bad. The kind of bad that left a man looking over his shoulder even when he was home.
The heavy front doors of the clubhouse creaked open, the Pacific salt air cutting through the smell of exhaust. I straightened, my hand moving instinctively toward the knife at my belt until I saw the silhouette.
It was Ink. He looked weary, the usual sharp edge of his presence blunted by whatever hell he’d just walked out of. But it wasn’t Nate that made the room go still.
Trailing behind him was a girl who looked like she’d been plucked from a different world. She had a mane of ginger curls that seemed to catch what little light filtered through the smoke-stained windows. Her face was a map of freckles, her skin pale and appearing almost translucent against the dark leather of the clubhouse. She was tall but held herself with a petite, fragile grace, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she were trying to hold her own pieces together.
She looked around the room, her wide eyes darting from the scarred pool table to the patches on our backs, her expression one of pure, unadulterated terror.
Who hurt you, baby girl?
The thought hit me like a physical blow. I’d spent my life as the club’s medic, the one who stitched up the broken and the damned, and my internal radar for trauma was screaming. She looked like a bird that had forgotten how to fly.
The spell broke when Nate stepped further into the room, his hand settling protectively on her shoulder.
“This is my sister,” Nate announced, his voice gravelly and leaving no room for questions. “She’s seventeen. She’s going to be the star witness in the trial.”
The room stayed silent. Seventeen. She was a child in a room full of monsters.
Nate’s eyes scanned the room, landing on each of us with a warning that didn’t need to be spoken, but he said it anyway. “Stay the fuck away from her. All of you.”
I snorted, the sound rough in the quiet room. Seventeen. Jesus. Of course we’d stay away. I felt a sudden, sharp pang of guilt for even noticing the way the light hit those red curls. It felt inappropriate, like a stain on my own soul. I shoved the thoughts away.
“I have to get Angel,” I grunted, pushing off the bar. I didn’t need this. I didn’t need the drama of a star witness or the protective fury of a brother. I had my daughter, and between her and the club, my plate was already overflowing.
I walked toward the back of the clubhouse, heading for the playroom that Caroline had transformed into a makeshift classroom. Because of Angel’s ADHD, traditional school had been a nightmare of frustrated teachers and “problem child” labels. Caroline had stepped in, using her degree in Early Childhood Education to homeschool her in a setting where she could actually breathe.
The playroom was a controlled explosion of color and noise. Caroline was in the center of it, looking remarkably calm for a woman surrounded by the next generation of the Broken Halos.
Angel, my seven-year-old whirlwind, was currently mid-hug with her best friend, Grace, Neon’s six-year-old. Leo, Neon’s twelve-year-old, was tucked in a corner with a sketchbook, his face focused and quiet in a way that always made my heart ache for what that kid had survived.
Near the window, the babies were a pile of soft limbs and giggles. Bruiser’s son, Noah, was nearly two and already looked like he’d be a tank like his father. Stone’s girls, two-year-old Ava and five-month-old Ivy, were being watched over by Caroline with a practiced, maternal ease.
“Doc,” Caroline said, looking up with a smile that reached her eyes. She looked tired—her hands were definitely full—but she never complained.
“Hey, Caro,” I said, my voice softening as it always did in this room. I looked at Angel. She was thriving here. She was laughing, her energy channeled into games and learning instead of being stifled. After the Vipers, after everything she’d seen, she deserved this peace. “Ready to go, Angel?”
Angel looked up, her face lighting up. “Daddy! Grace and I built a castle! But Noah knocked the tower down because he’s a giant.”
I chuckled, holding my hand out for her. “Giants tend to do that. Tell everyone goodbye.”
After a chorus of messy farewells, we made our way out. I didn’t look at Ink or the girl with the ginger hair as we passed through the main hall. I had my eyes on the exit.
I hadn’t lived in the clubhouse since the day Angel was born. I’d needed something better for her, something with air and space. We walked to my truck, the fog beginning to roll in from the Pacific, cooling the afternoon heat.
The drive home was a winding path along the coast. The air here tasted different—cleaner, filled with the scent of damp earth and salt spray.
Our farmhouse was tucked away in a small valley a few miles north of Seaview. It wasn’t much—a weathered, two-story structure with a wrap-around porch and white paint that had long since started to peel. It sat on five acres of rugged land that was more scrub and rock than garden, but it was ours.
I pulled into the gravel driveway, the sound of the engine dying as the quiet of the forest took over. I looked at Angel in the rearview mirror, already fast asleep against the window, her brain finally finding a moment of rest.
The club was loud and messy. But here, as the fog swallowed the farmhouse and the ocean roared in the distance, I could pretend for a moment that we were just a father and a daughter, safe.
I just hoped the secrets Ink had brought home wouldn’t find their way up this driveway.
