I press a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.
She's here. She's safe. That's what matters.
But the woman at the café—Sol—she's still out there.
And she knows exactly where to find us.
Runes is in his office when we find him, and I’m starting to realize this man is an early bird.
He looks like he hasn't slept—dark circles under his eyes, stubble shadowing his jaw, a half-empty bottle of whiskey on his desk next to a stack of papers covered in his cramped handwriting.
The man carries the weight of this club on his shoulders, and right now that weight looks crushing.
When he sees us in his doorway, his expression shifts from exhaustion to alertness in an instant.
The tired father disappears, replaced by the MC president.
The man who's kept this club alive over forty years of wars, threats, and enemies.
"What's wrong?"
I tell him everything.
The coffee cup.
Dalla sneaking out.
The woman at the café—Sol.
Every detail Dalla can remember about the encounter.
I watch his face as I speak, looking for any sign of recognition, any hint that he knows more than he's letting on.
By the time I finish, Runes' face is carved from granite.
His hands are flat on the desk, knuckles white with tension.
"Describe her again," he says to Dalla. "Height, build, any distinguishing features. Everything you can remember, no matter how small."
"Average height, maybe five-six or five-seven. Slim build, athletic. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail—it was long, past her shoulders when it was down, I think." Dalla closes her eyes, concentrating, trying to pull every detail from her memory. "Dark eyes. Angular face, high cheekbones. She had this way of tilting her head when she looked at me, like a bird studying something interesting."
"What else?"
"She had a small scar near her left eyebrow. I almost didn't notice it, but when she tilted her head a certain way, the light caught it. It was thin, old. Like she'd had it since childhood." Dalla opens her eyes. "And her hands. When she shook my hand, I noticed her fingers were calloused. Like someone who works with them—or fights with them."
Runes goes very still.
Something in his expression shifts—recognition, maybe, or the ghost of a memory he'd rather forget.
"What?" I ask. "Do you know her?"
"Maybe." He opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a worn folder, the edges soft with age.
He flips through papers—old reports, faded photographs, handwritten notes—until he finds what he's looking for.
A photograph, old and grainy, of a woman with dark hair and sharp features.
She's younger in the photo, maybe early thirties or late twenties, but the resemblance to the woman Dalla described is unmistakable.
