I just nod, my breath catching in my throat. I wrap my arms around myself. The quiet is a weight, a held breath. My eyes are glued to the closed door to the back hallway, my heart hammering a frantic, trapped rhythm against my ribs. “What’s going to happen to him?”
East sits on the edge of the coffee table in front of me, his posture creating a barrier or private space just for us. “We need to know what he knows.” He’s direct, honest. “It’s necessary for us to grasp the depth of this. We’ll get it from him.”
He doesn’t say how. He doesn’t have to. The words hang in the air, a promise of violence. A cold shiver races up my spine, and I can't suppress it. He notices, and his expression softens with a pain that looks like his own.
“Hey,” he murmurs in a rough rasp. He leans in, brushing a strand of hair from my face, his fingers warm against my cold skin. “It’s okay to be scared. But you’re safe here. No one is going to touch you. I won’t let them.”
His words are a comfort, a solid, steady thing to hold on to. I look at East, at the fierce, unwavering protection in his eyes. It’s not Trent’s possessive grip or my father’s calculating control. This is something else entirely. This is a promise, not a price tag. And I trust him.
The tension is a high-pitched ringing in my ears. To break it, to anchor myself to something that isn't this terrifying present, I reach for the only thing we share that isn’t soaked in blood and fear: the past.
“Remember that summer Declan dared us to climb the town water tower?” The words are a whisper, a ghost of a memory. “We sat up there for hours, talking about getting out of Willowridge. All the places we’d go.”
I watch the memory hit him. For a single, breathtaking second, the boy he used to be flickers in his eyes—a ghost of a smile, a flash of carefree light. Then the wall slams back down, the grief and the years between us extinguishing the light completely. He looks away, his jaw tight.
He was so different then. All easy laughter and reckless energy, the kind that promised adventure, not just survival. I’d had a crush on him so intense it felt like a fever, a secret I held close while Declan, oblivious and wonderful, forged the bridge between us. That night on the water tower, under a blanket of stars, I had felt the first stirrings of a future I wanted. Then one gunshot had turned that future to ash, and the boy I knew wasburied with his best friend. The man left in his place is a fortress of pain, and I’m not sure he even knows how to lower the gate anymore.
“I never thought,” I mumble, my voice thick, “that this is where we’d end up.”
His throat works as he swallows. “Me neither.”
The air between us is charged, thick with everything we can’t say, with the history that is both our anchor and our shackle. He looks like he’s about to say something more, something real, when a voice cuts through the quiet from the back hall.
“East.”
It’s Malachi. His voice isn’t loud, but it slices through the room with clear command. It’s not a request. It’s a summons. The intimate bubble around us shatters. I watch East’s posture shift, the muscles in his back and shoulders tightening. The man sitting with me vanishes, and in his place is the Outsider, ready to face whatever darkness lies ahead. He looks at me, his eyes a silent apology, a promise to return, then he stands. He follows Malachi down the hall, and the door clicks shut behind them, leaving me utterly, completely alone.
The silence that follows is worse than before. It’s not empty; it’s listening. My eyes dart to the front door. Kyle and Rider are still there, unmoving, their presence a stark reminder that I am irrevocably a part of this new, violent life. It’s a terrifying thought, but as I look at them, I realize the feeling in my chest isn't fear. It's safety. In my father's house, the protection always felt like a cage. Here, the guards aren't here to keep me in. They're here to keep the monsters out.
Then it starts.
A low murmur of angry voices, too indistinct to make out words. Then a sharp, muffled shout that makes me flinch so hard my whole body jerks. I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my palms against my ears, but I can’t block it out. There’s a sickening thud,a wet, heavy sound of flesh meeting something hard, and my ribs ache in a sharp, sympathetic spasm. My mind flashes to Trent’s fist, to the cold shock of pain, and a wave of nausea rolls through me.
This is what justice sounds like. It sounds like the violence I just escaped.
My mind flashes not to Trent's fist, but to Candace. The man in that room is her father. This brutal reckoning isn't for me; it's for her. The thought is a dizzying paradox. I need this. I need them to rip the truth from him—the truth about my father, about the society that was ready to swallow me whole. But hearing it, being a party to the brutality required to get that truth, makes my stomach churn, and I am complicit in something dark and horrifying. Am I becoming one of them? A person who sees violence as the only answer? The moral ground shifts beneath my feet, and I’m left clinging to the cold, hard fact that this is the only way forward.
The sounds stop. The abrupt silence is more terrifying. I hold my breath, my muscles rigid with anticipation. After what feels like an eternity, the door to the back hall opens. East emerges, looking strained. There’s a darkness clinging to him that wasn’t there before. He doesn’t say a word, just crosses the room and sits beside me on the couch, his presence a solid, grounding weight. He pulls the blanket from the back of the couch and drapes it over my lap.
Before I can voice my question, footsteps echo from the stairs, pulling my attention. I turn just in time to see Frankie, Ruby, and Sloane step into the common room, but the lively energy I expected is absent. Their faces are pale, tight with a weight that feels all too familiar. Of course. I realize with a jolt they must have been upstairs with Candace this whole time, giving me space. Their sudden appearance now, in unison, feels like a shift, as if they were all waiting for the same silent cue. Frankie’s faceis a stony mask. Ruby’s usual sparkle is extinguished, replaced by a cold fury. They don’t look at me; their focus is aimed like a weapon toward the back hallway. One by one, the rest of the club seems to materialize—James and Maggie, other members whose names I don’t know. A silent, grim-faced army assembling.
I look at East, my eyebrows raised in a silent question. He just shakes his head slightly, his eyes telling me to wait. This is no longer just about me. My crisis has just collided with a deeper, older tragedy within the club. I am entwined in the fabric of this moment, swept up in the tempest of a family's private grief.
Then I see her. Candace.
She comes down the stairs with Malachi behind her, and the pain on her face is so raw it steals the air from my lungs. She looks broken and remade all at once. I see Frankie step forward, pressing something heavy and metallic into Candace’s palm. I watch them all—this fierce, loyal family—form a silent honor guard as Candace and Malachi walk toward the back room. Toward her father. Toward the man whose betrayal is a dark, twisted mirror of my own.
I am sitting in the common room when I hear it. Not a scream, not a struggle.
Just a single definitive gunshot.
It echoes in the sudden, profound silence. A full stop at the end of a tragic sentence. A collective, shuddering breath seems to wash over the room.
After a few moments, East finally turns to me, his voice a low, rough whisper. The full story of what just happened isn't his to tell. That belongs to Candace. But he gives me the truth that belongs to me.
“Chuck was a traitor,” he says, his eyes holding mine. “In the worst way possible, he betrayed Candace, along with the club. He’s gone.” He lets the finality of that settle, his gaze never leaving my face. “But before he died, he confirmed things for us.”
My breath catches and my heart stumbles. “My father.”
