Grit: A Spartan Riders Novel - Chapter #1 - Free To Read

There were two things in life that Blake Mahone hated: cheaters and liars. As luck would have it, he was staring at both in the middle of his living room in the form of his rabid now-ex-girlfriend who he’d, crazily enough, considered marrying once upon a time.

He must have been drunk the last decade, because no way in hell would he ever consider such a life-altering mistake if he hadn’t been living his life looking through a pair of rose-colored glasses the whole time.

Jodi was so enraged she was practically foaming at the mouth. And for what? Because he’d asked her where the fuck she’d been the last two days?

When a woman like her—a self-proclaimed wild child—ditched out on her boyfriend and kid without so much as a fuck ya later, there was shit that wasn’t being said.

He didn’t have to strain to figure out what she’d been up to.

The two days’ worth of grease matting the thin, platinum-streaked hair that made her look like one of the house bunnies who preferred working a stage rather than something more fitting of a mother, suggested that, wherever she’d been, she hadn’t bothered to shower. The dark makeup smudged beneath her eyes and the remnants of cheap, frosted-pink lipstick staining parts of her chin and right cheek painted a rough picture that he didn’t have the time or inclination to bother considering.

Put it all together with the extreme weight loss and toddler-sized clothes, and what he’d been trying to avoid for months was finally too garish to ignore.

In truth, it’d been a long time coming and, at this stage in the game, all Blake needed to know was that his bank account had been drained to nothing, and the woman who should have been home caring for their son was now standing in front of him looking like something from a George A. Romero flick, screaming her head off like a lunatic while their son slept not twenty feet away.

At least he hoped he was sleeping.

“Keep your goddamn voice down, Jodi.” Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to hold steady. The last thing he wanted was his kid witnessing this train wreck. Some things in life shouldn’t be seen, especially by kids.

“Quit fucking telling me what to do, Blake!” Jodi’s shrill voice ripped through the room, piercing Blake’s ears.

Instinctively, he looked to the opening of the hallway, praying like hell his son stayed put.

“What’s your problem, Jodi? Haven’t I already given you every damn thing?”

With an indelicate snort, she scoffed. “You call this”—she waved her hands around to encompass the house he’d busted his ass to buy for her— “giving me everything? If I wanted to live like a hillbilly, I could have just stayed at home with my parents.”

“You mean that shithole you were so desperate to leave that you practically leaped onto the back of my bike?” He should have left her to rot in that damn trailer.

“That should have been your first clue. Anytime a girl throws herself at a man’s feet, it’s not for his heart.”

“Actually, my first clue should have been how fast you hit the grass and spread your legs.”

“You’re such a bastard, Blake,” Jodi chortled, her voice too high, her eyes wild. “You think that just because I let you fuck me for ten years that makes me yours?”

Taking a long, hard step toward her, Blake leaned in with narrowed eyes, his tone lethal. “No, I thought pushing my kid out that shriveled snatch might have done the trick, but that was before I realized you were nothing more than a common whore.”

The slap she landed on his left cheek turned his head sideways, but he deserved it. Still… “That’s the one time you get to do that,” he growled. “Do it again, you’ll regret it.”

A touch of fear flashed across her face before she reclaimed some of the earlier brawn she’d stormed in with. “What are you gonna do, huh, Prez? Beat me bloody then have your boys put a bullet in my head and bury me in a shallow grave?” Her laugh was grating. “Oh, but I forgot, you’re too good for that now. Can’t get your hands dirty,” she said with a mocking wave of her hands.

“Keep pushin’, I might make an exception.”

“Empty threats, Blake. You and your club are too fucking pussy to do a damn thing.”

The fine thread that held his temper in check snapped. “Then why the fuck are you still here?”

Leaping into his face, she surprised him with her quick reflexes. “Because I wanted to see the look on your face when I told you that I’m leaving your sorry ass! That’s right, baby, I found me a real man. A man who has more money and more balls than you ever had, and he’s going to take care of us.”

It took Blake a moment to catch up to what she’d said. She hadn’t made it more than two steps toward the hallway when he’d wrapped his hand around her stringy bicep and towed her in front of him. Chest to chest. Eye to eye. So she could feel the heat of his anger and the depth of his warning when he spoke.

“Don’t. Even. Think it. Bitch.” She raised her free hand to slap him again, but he caught it mid-air and twisted, pushing her arm behind her back and up between her protruding shoulder blades until she cried out. “Ash stays with me.”

“He’s my son,” Jodi said through clenched teeth.

Blake twisted her wrist harder, taking pleasure in the sudden wetness in her eyes. “You forfeited the right to call him your son when you decided to leave him alone while you ran off to get doped-up for two days.” When he’d come home from a long ride to find his son home alone, soiled, living off whatever he could reach from the kitchen cabinets…There weren’t words strong enough to describe the level of outrage he’d experienced. Blake had never been the kind of man to put his hands on a woman, but for her, for what she’d done, he was willing to consider it.

“Fuck you! You can’t stop me from taking him. I’ll call the cops!”

Pressing his nose to hers, Blake’s voice pitched so low and rough, it bordered on animalistic. “I wish you would, bitch. One look at you and your ass will be behind bars, and you know it. So don’t. Fucking. Press. Me.”

Watery eyes darting between both of his, she must have read the truth, because after a minute, he felt what was left of her muscles go slack. With a violent wrenching motion, she shrugged him off.

“Get the fuck off my property,” Blake told her with more calm than he felt. “And don’t let me see you around here again.” Her gaze darted in the direction of Ash’s bedroom, the course of her thoughts clear. “You’re dead to him. To us.”

Licking her dry, cracked lips, she asked, “What will you tell him?”

“Whatever the fuck I want. Now go.”

She lingered by the front door, appearing to think it over. Second thoughts? Too fucking late. She’d made her choice, now she’d have to deal.

But where Blake was thinking of their years together and the son they shared, it turned out she was still only thinking about herself.

“What about my stuff?”

Incensed by the question—hell, the grating sound of her voice—Blake strode toward her with purpose, crowding her out the door. “See that?” He pointed beyond her toward the curb. “Trash pickup is in two days. I suggest you get here early.”

If looks could kill…

“I can’t believe I wasted my life on you.”

“Me either, darlin’.”

Making a sound of disgust, she spun around and stormed down the porch steps toward a dark SUV with heavily tinted windows waiting for her at the end of the long drive, calling over her shoulder, “You can’t keep me away from him forever!”

“You bet your boney ass I will,” he muttered to himself. Filling the doorway, arms spread out and palms pressing hard against the jambs, Blake stared into the driver’s side windshield, feeling the heat of whoever sat behind the wheel’s stare and giving it back tenfold.

He didn’t break his stance until the vehicle was out of sight, and when he finally turned to head back inside, he found himself staring down into a pair of upturned, gunmetal-gray eyes that matched his own.

With a thumb stuck in the corner of his mouth, his short, Toy Story pajama-clad legs pressed tight together at the knees, he said in a small voice, “Daddy, where’s Mommy?”

Expelling a heavy breath, Blake ran a hand over his face, a feeling of helplessness sliding through his chest like motor oil. In all his years, he’d never once considered his life heading in this direction, but there he stood, a single father with no idea where to start or what came next.

But when he managed to open his eyes, he realized one thing: There would never come a day that he would lie to his son.

Shutting the door behind him, he scooped his little boy up into his arms and held him snug against his chest as he carried him back to bed. “Okay, little man, it’s like this…”