Kyle straightens in his seat, his eyes flickering with hope. There’s a quiet pride in his posture, the kind that says this is the moment he’s been waiting for. Found family isn’t just blood and bullets. It’s giving them a reason to laugh in the dark.
He’s been grinding for that patch for nine months. He’s earned it. The others? They filter out one by one, boots thudding, voices echoing down the hallway, laughter starting to return. Kyle stands and goes with them, his steps lighter than before.
But I stay seated. And James does too. The room grows still again, all that noise gone the way smoke disappears into wind. He studies me, doesn’t push. Just waits.
“What’s weighing on you, son?” he asks finally.
I watch him for a long beat. My throat works around words that feel fossilized inside me. Ancient. Sharp-edged.
“Did Donovan have anything to do with my brother and sister disappearing?”
James doesn’t answer right away. His eyes darken, drifting toward the far wall, trying to stare through it. The past might as well be etched there in blood and regret. A storm builds behind his expression. He turns away.
I don’t rush him. I let the silence stretch, tight and aching. The air gets heavier, harder to swallow. When he finally speaks, the words come quiet. Steady.
“I don’t know everything. But yes. I believe he did.”
The floor tilts. It might as well crack beneath me. My blood runs ice cold, then hot again. Truth is a blade. And I just took it straight to the gut. I run a hand through my beard, fingers catching against the roughness, hoping pain will ground me.Trying to settle the sickness curling in my gut. Something hard lodges behind my ribs. A scream that never got to be born.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
James leans forward, resting his arms on the table, setting the truth down the way someone might finally release a burden.
“Cornelius did everything he could. He worked with Connor. Tried to clean the rot out without dragging the club through the fire. He wanted the people to know we weren’t Donovan’s dogs. We were their shield.”
I was just a patch back then. Just a kid clawing to survive. Never thought I’d lead. Never thought I’d want to. Never thought the ghosts I buried would start whispering again.
“Did Cornelius die trying to get them back?” My voice is low, scraped raw.
James doesn’t flinch. Just a pause. A breath.
“Yes,” he says softly. “He did.”
It hits me the way a blade slips between the ribs—silent and sharp. I close my eyes for a moment. Let it settle. Let it sting. Because now I know. And this doesn’t end with grief.
This ends with reckoning.
I’mleaningagainstmybike outside the country club, arms crossed as though I’ve got all the time in the world. I don’t. Not when it comes to her. The sun hangs low behind me, casting long shadows that stretch across the parking lot, fingers reaching for something they can’t hold. Asphalt radiates leftover heat, the faint scent of warm tar mixing with pine and engine grease. A bead of sweat trails down my spine, caught beneath the collar of my cut, but I don’t move. Not even when the door opens.
When Candace steps outside, the rest of the world blurs.
Late sunlight glances off her curls, turning them to spun gold. A breeze lifts the hem of her shirt, brushing cool air against sweat-slicked skin. The scent of wildflowers and gasoline rushes past as a breeze cuts between us. It’s her scent, that same warm-sharp blend of sweetness and steel I can’t seem to forget.
She’s ditched her uniform for ripped jeans that cling to her legs the way a second skin would and a cropped black tee that leaves nothing to the imagination. She doesn’t walk so much as saunter, moving with authority that claims every inch of ground her boots touch and dares anyone to question it. Confidence poured into curves. Fire wrapped in flesh.
Candace looks every bit the embodiment of trouble dressed in temptation. All wild blonde curls and sun-warmed skin, eyes that could freeze fire, and a mouth I’ve dreamed of ruining. There’s no softness in her. Except maybe her lips, and even those carry the kind of edge that promises danger.
She doesn’t move for anyone. Doesn’t pose. Doesn’t preen. She doesn’t have to. She’s magnetic without even trying, and I’m the idiot already pulled into her orbit.
Candace stops in front of me with that raised eyebrow and tight-lipped smirk, carrying the smug awareness of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing to me. Maybe she does.
I hold out a helmet and a leather jacket that’s a size too big. My hands brush hers and I don’t miss the way her fingers linger. Warm. Steady. And fucking lethal to my self-control.
The second our skin touches, heat licks up my wrist. A silent dare. My thumb grazes the callus on her palm. It’s rough from work, from training, from life. She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t say a word. Just lets that contact hang there for a breath too long.
She doesn’t argue. Just takes the gear, straps on the helmet, then shrugs into the jacket like we do this every day.
Last time I offered her a ride, she looked at me through the eyes of someone staring down a blade she didn’t want to touch.Now? She slides behind me and wraps her arms around my waist—and that’s it. That’s the moment I lose all sense of rational thought.
