Then he was gone, and I was alone in a room that smelled like him, trying to convince my body to calm down.
The common room was busier than last night.
Morning light streamed through high windows, illuminating a space that looked less intimidating in daylight. The bar was closed, but a coffee station had been set up, and the smell of bacon drifted from somewhere that might have been a kitchen.
Bikers clustered in groups—some nursing coffee, others working on laptops like this was a particularly leather-clad coworking space. They looked up as I entered, assessed me with varying degrees of interest, and went back to their business.
One of them didn't.
He was young—early twenties, maybe—with sandy hair and an eager expression that reminded me painfully of the new residents at St. Mary's. Nervous energy radiated off him in waves. No patches on his cut except one that read PROSPECT.
"You're Kai, right?" He appeared at my elbow, practically vibrating. "Axel's... uh... friend?"
"That's one word for it."
"I'm Jake." He stuck out his hand, and I shook it. Strong grip, callused palms. "I'm supposed to make sure you have everything you need. Axel's orders."
"Axel ordered you to babysit me?"
"He ordered me to 'keep an eye on the asset.'" Jake made air quotes. "But you don't look much like an asset to me. More like a person. So I figured I'd just, you know, be helpful instead of creepy about it."
I liked him immediately.
"Coffee would be helpful."
"On it." He led me to the station, poured two cups with the efficiency of someone who'd done it a thousand times. "Cream? Sugar? We've got that fancy oat milk stuff too—Tank's girlfriend brought it, says regular milk is murder or something."
"Black is fine."
He handed me a cup, grabbed his own—more sugar than coffee, I noticed—and gestured to a worn leather couch in the corner.
"Best spot in the house. You can see all the exits from here." At my raised eyebrow, he shrugged. "Axel's not the only one who pays attention."
We sat. The coffee was strong, bitter, exactly what I needed.
"So." Jake stretched out his legs, trying for casual and not quite landing it. "You and Axel, huh?"
"Is this the part where you warn me not to hurt him?"
"Nah." He grinned. "This is the part where I try to figure out how you got the scariest man I've ever met to look at you like you hung the moon."
"He doesn't?—"
"Dude." Jake's expression was somewhere between amused and pitying. "I've been prospecting for six months. I've never seen Axel smile. Not once. Then you show up, and suddenly he's grinning like an idiot and threatening to murder anyone wholooks at you wrong." He shook his head. "It's honestly kind of terrifying."
I didn't know what to do with that information, so I drank my coffee and changed the subject.
"What's a prospect, exactly?"
"Probationary member. I do grunt work, prove I'm loyal, and eventually—hopefully—I get patched in." He touched the empty space on his cut where a full member's patches would go. "It's been six months. Most prospects take a year, minimum."
"You want this life? The danger, the violence?"
"I want the family." Something flickered in his eyes—old pain, carefully buried. "I grew up in the system. Aged out with nothing and no one. Phoenix gave me a place to belong."
Foster system.The words hit close to home.
"I grew up in the system too," I heard myself say. "After my grandmother died. Bounced around until I was eighteen."
