The kid looked relieved and worried all at once. Pretty much how everyone looked around here lately.
I glanced at the closed door, and something twisted low in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or just… all of it. Being back home. Being back in this building. Walking halls that heldevery version of me… toddler, teenager, the college kid who tried to run, the adult who’d come back anyway.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and shifted the tray under one arm so I could knock.
Then I paused.
Just a heartbeat. Just long enough for the truth to slip through.
I missed my dad. Even if he was distant. Even if he was stubborn. Even if he was president first, father second, and everything else a distant third.
I still wanted five minutes where he was just my dad.
I knocked before I could talk myself out of it, then turned the handle and pushed the door open.
It was the usual scene, Dad’s heavy desk, the old territory map pinned to the wall, the mix of cigarette smoke and beat-up leather hanging in the air. Nothing new… except the tension.
And another scent that didn’t belong.
It slid under my skin before I understood what I was smelling. Darker. Sharper. It hit the back of my throat, and I swear the room tilted for a second.
A man stood near the desk, broad back to me. Black leather cut. Shoulders like he carried his own weather system.
Silas “Lock” Lachlan.
President of the Crimson Havoc MC. My father’s rival. Even though he was younger than my dad, he somehow felt… heavier. More dangerous.
I’d seen pictures. I’d glimpsed him once on the highway, all speed and chrome. None of that prepared me for him standing here… in our office. In our world.
He turned at the sound of the door.
One quick, assessing look. A sweep of bright blue that took me in and went straight through me.
My fingers tightened on the tray.
Lock had the kind of presence that pulled oxygen out of the air. Taller than I’d expected, shoulders filling out the black leather, rough stubble along a hard jaw. But it was the eyes that got me—sharp, cool, steady. Like he saw everything and missed nothing.
Something low in my stomach went soft and hot. Heat crawled up my neck, completely inappropriate and absolutely unstoppable.
“Didn’t realize you were running a diner out of here now, Wrecker,” Lock said, voice low and rough, sarcasm easy and sharp.
My dad stood behind the desk, jaw clenched. “Conversation’s over. You know where the gate is.”
Lock’s gaze lingered on me for half a heartbeat—unreadable—then he turned and strode past. Close enough that the air shifted. Close enough that his scent—dark cedar and something sharp—brushed my skin when I breathed in at the wrong time.
My knees almost gave out.
I didn’t breathe again until the door slammed behind him.
For a second, I honestly thought I might be sick. My hands were damp, my heart sprinting like I’d just run stairs, and there was this weird buzzing in my chest that wouldn’t shut up. It didn’t feel romantic or swoony or any of that crap—more like my body had been yanked sideways without warning. One look, one breath, and my nervous system decided to freak out. And I had no idea why.
“Kellan.”
My dad’s voice cut through the fog.
I looked up.
Rowan “Wrecker” Roe stared at me from behind the desk like a man ready to break something in half. The air still felt charged, like Lock had left static behind.
