Chapter 1
STEEL
College is terrible; cheap cologne, dreams, and desperation all rolled up in ramen noodles and late-night regrets. I wasn't like the rest of them. Most had something. I had nothing. Orphanage kid who became adopted son of the sheriff. I know how fast the world will devour you if you don't beat it to the punch.
I was never destined to be here, least of all leading anything. But over the course of a semester, I wore the captain's band as if it were forever. Soccer was not a game to me; it was war with lines demarcating the battlefield and the referee's whistle a call to battle and I always played to win.
My name? Steel. Not the one I was baptized with, but one I'd earned. Today the president of Vikings MC, then just a nineteen-year-old junior attempting to bulldoze his way through a college business degree with more tattoos than textbooks.
And then she walked in.
It was orientation day, summer before last. The campus was warm and buzzing, freshmen rolling in with big eyes and bigger dreams than comprehension. I wasn't supposed to be paying attention. Already had girls waiting like a damn parade. But I felt it; her arrival caught me before her outline did.
She walked in wearing sin in sunshine form – curvy, red hair, blue-eyed, and so fucking gorgeous she didn't have a place within our reality. Her hips swiveled as if temptation had performed on stage herself. The boys started to whisper, dripping like they never laid eyes on a girl.
"Bro… that's sin walking," one of the soccer boys complained beside me.
The nickname stuck before she gave her own.
Liza.
First-year design and fine art student. Seventeen years old and not yet legal.
And the moment she batted that sweet-as-pie, clueless smile at the welcome booth, I was cooked. This girl was going to be the force that would destroy every rule I had set for myself.
I was stuck between the boys by this time. "She's out of bounds. I'm claiming dibs."
They insulted me first, but one look from me and they sliced that shit in two seconds.
"Come on, Steel, this isn't high school," one of them tried.
"Right. You boys should know better." I snarled behind her, jaws clenched. "She's mine. She just doesn't know it yet."
I followed her across the entire campus, like she was a mystery I had yet to unravel. She didn't look my way. Not yet. But I could sense something. A pull. Like she'd been created for me, shaped by whatever twisted joke the universe had up its sleeve.
It turned out it wasn't a joke, Destiny.
And destiny's a cruel mistress.
I didn't realize then her name wasn't actually just Liza, that it was also Angel Mark and that one time, in high school, I'd had her heart in my coarse-skinned palms.
I didn't realize she'd vanish one day, taking with her more than her memory.
And I would not have known eighteen years later my feet would be standing in front of dead ringer replicas of her twin babies, and she would have some other guy's last name and a diamond engagement ring he hadn't worked for.
But on that day, in that heat of summer with her captive in my sights and her curves storming through my blood, I made the decision that would turn the world around.
Sin was mine and I never relinquished what's rightfully mine.
I didn't wait.
The next day, I followed her to Art and Design class like a creep, all the way to the pillar, arms crossed, biker-cut jacket around my broad frame. She left with her sketchbook clutched against her body, side-glancing the hallways as if evading something or someone.
"Hey, Liza."
Nothing.
She walked past me like I was invisible. No glance. No spare moment. I wasn't used to that. Girls flung themselves in my way, ready to take the kind of risk that I represented. But her? She didn't even see me.
I couldn't tell if I was enraged or amazed.
So I continued on.
Went three days in a row without being responded to. I offered her my seat at the coffee shop. Attempted small talk in the hallway. Went so far as to leave a compliment on the raven drawing I saw sticking out of her folder.
Nothing yet.
That was until Thursday when everything changed.
I was on my way to the gym for soccer practice, so I cut through the back hallway behind the arts wing. It was quiet there, too quiet.
And then I heard it.
A muffled "No".
Low, desperate, trembling.
I stood frozen, all senses at the ready. The kind of "no" that gets adrenaline pumping through your veins.
I followed the sound and burst through the door at the end of the hallway.
She was.Liza.with her back to the wall, held down by one of the Fine Arts profs. The son of a bitch had his hand over her mouth and his other hand was pulling up her skirt, threatening her like the goddamn coward that he was.
I did not think so.
I tackled him, fist to his jaw so hard he knocked into the easel racks and fell like a bag of garbage.
Liza stepped back, breathing hard, tears running down her face, blouse ripped at the collar.
"You okay?" I snarled, voice sore and raw, chest heaving.
She shook her head but didn't say anything. Her eyes were big. haunted.
I touched her gently. "Hey… you're safe. I've got you."
She withstood it. Barely. My hand wrapped around hers, holding her in place.
Campus security arrived. Hadn't much to say. Just flipped over the scumball and had my arm wrapped around her the entire time. She didn't let go.
Later, on the admin building steps, during sunset, she spoke up.
"I know who you are."
I looked at her. Her voice was low but firm now. "You do?
She nodded. "We went to the same high school. I was a freshman when you were a senior. You were already in trouble with the sheriff for driving without a license and fighting the principal's son."
I laughed. "Sounds about right."
"You don't remember me?"
I glanced at her face. Something flashed. A memory. A bashful pair of eyes behind thick glasses, always sketching in the corner at lunch.
"Wait. You're—"
"Angel Mark," she said. "But I'm Liza now."
I took a breath.
Angel Mark.
Her.
The one girl I'd been intimidated by in high school. Of course I remembered but pretended not to. The one I'd catch glancing at me when she didn't even realize I was staring. The one I wanted to talk to but never did because I was too wrapped up in my own mess.
My heart tightened. "You were the one with the small raven tattoo on your sketchbook."
She blinked. "You remembered that?"
"Yeah." I smiled, softer than I meant to. "I remember you."
For the first time since she'd appeared on campus, she smiled back. A trace, but it was enough. Enough to be aware that whatever the devil this was, it was only just beginning.
I wasn't going to let her get away from me this time.7
