Wiping Out My Ex's MC: The Mechanic Heiress and Her Reaper King

Danielle Byers POV:

"Three years of marriage, and you forgot who gave you everything you have, Jarret."

I ran the oiled cloth along the serrated teeth of my father's custom Damascus folding knife, keeping my breath steady and my voice dead even. A cold, humorless smile touched my lips as the tempered steel caught the dim light of the garage.

My husband was bringing a pregnant bitch home today.

The distant, low-frequency rumble began as a vibration in the concrete floor beneath my steel-toed boots. Within seconds, the heavy roar of fifteen twin-cam Harley engines rattled the cracked windowpanes of the Iron Cross Clubhouse. The air in the valley was thick and suffocating, rolling off the California highway carrying the stink of scorched motor oil, burning rubber, and dry desert dust.

Inside the common room, three unpatched Prospects scrambled across the grease-stained floorboards. They kicked over empty Coors bottles and rushed to heave the heavy double oak doors open before the road pack pulled into the gravel lot.

I slid the knife into the reinforced pocket of my canvas work pants, wiped my grease-stained palms down my heavy leather apron, and stepped onto the raised wooden porch.

At the head of the formation sat a customized matte-black Street Glide.

Jarret Aguirre, my husband and the President of the Iron Cross MC, swung his heavy leg over the saddle. The worn leather of his cut creaked under the weight of his three-piece patch. The top rocker read Iron Cross, the bottom read California, and right over his chest gleamed that arrogant One-Percenter diamond badge he loved to flash like a medal of honor.

He didn't look at me.

He completely ignored me - the woman who had built his custom six-speed transmission by hand, tuned every fuel map on his bike, and, last winter, handed a Riverside bail bondsman thirty-two thousand dollars in cash to get the men closest to him out of county lockup.

Instead, Jarret reached toward his passenger peg.

A pair of bright red platform wedges touched the dusty gravel.

A blonde girl in shredded denim shorts and a tight vest slid off the rear fender. She rested one hand over her softly rounded belly, which looked about six months along.

She couldn't have been older than twenty-two. From the look of her, she was just another fan and roadside admirer Jarret had picked up while riding through the Sonora scrub, someone who had followed his reputation long enough to become his latest mistress.

A fresh tattoo of a black rose wrapped in barbed wire curled up the side of her sunburnt neck.

She hooked her acrylic nails through the armhole of Jarret's cut, leaning into his side with practiced, theatrical helplessness.

Behind them, several older patched members exchanged uneasy glances. A few hang-arounds began muttering under their breath, sensing the storm brewing in the yard.

I stood at the top of the timber steps, my spine rigid, the midday sun burning the back of my neck.

"Jarret."

My voice cut through the fading engine idle like a shotgun blast.

Jarret flinched. His shoulders tensed beneath his cut before he slowly turned his head. His eyes darted away, stepping sideways to block half the girl's body.

"Dani..." Jarret stepped forward, reaching out a hand to pat my shoulder like I was a stray dog.

I took a half-step back, letting his hand slap empty air.

The blonde curled further into his ribs, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. "Oh, Jarret baby... is this the Dani you told me about? The one who sweeps the shop while the real men ride?"

She drawled out the word sweeps like she was tossing spare change at a motel maid.

I looked down at her smeared mascara and cheap gold chain. "Shut your mouth, Sweetbutt."

The girl gasped, cowering into Jarret's chest. "Jarret! Make her stop! She's threatening me!"

"Watch your mouth, Dani!" Jarret barked, stepping up the first stair with his brass rings flashing in the sun. "She saved my life in Sonora!"

"Saved your life?" I scoffed. "By bouncing on your backseat with a swollen belly while cartel scouts shot out your taillights?"

A dry snicker broke out among the older veterans by the fence, though a sharp cough quickly swallowed it.

Jarret's face turned purple. "I took shrapnel to the skull! The blast scrambled my memory-I lost chunks of the last three years! Dariana hauled my ass out of the ditch and nursed me when I didn't know my own name. She's carrying my blood, and she's getting patched in as my primary Old Lady today!"

Dead silence fell over the yard.

I stared straight into his sweating, bloodshot face. There wasn't a single surgical scar on his thick skull.

Over the last eighteen months, thirty-two thousand dollars had been siphoned in clean wire transfers from my business account to an offshore debit card in Tijuana. He hadn't lost his memory. He had found a young whore to flatter his ego and faked an injury to shove me aside and steal my workshop.

"Amnesia?" I let out a single, venomous laugh. "In your goddamn dreams, Jarret."

I turned my back on him and walked toward the heavy steel fire door of my private workshop, Iron Forge Customs.

"Dani! Get back here! We need the shop safe combination!" he roared.

I stepped inside, slammed the three-inch industrial steel door, and threw the deadbolt.

The familiar smell of motor oil and welding flux greeted me. I walked straight to the primary breaker box mounted on the brick wall. My fingers curled around the heavy red master lever that controlled the primary power grid feeding the Clubhouse, the bar taps, the industrial freezers, and the compound water pumps.

With one hard yank, I slammed the lever down.

Outside, the stereo system died instantly. The heavy hum of the central generators cut out with a dying whine, followed by a chorus of furious curses echoing through the sweltering desert heat.