Chapter One
Diesel
Someone's in my cottage.
I kill the Harley's engine fifty yards out and coast the last stretch of gravel, headlights off. She growls low, then goes silent. I reach for the knife at my hip before my boots hit the ground.
The kitchen window glows where I left it dark this morning. Locked tight. Only Helen knows where I hide the spare, and she knows I don’t like visitors. Helen must've let someone in. Club business, most likely.
Or trouble.
I circle wide, staying in the tree line. There’s no car in the drive. Whoever's inside got dropped off.
The cottage isn't much—one bedroom, one bath, a kitchen I've spent eight months gutting and rebuilding because working with my hands keeps me sane. I traded Murphy a full restoration on his '69 Chevelle for the place. Worth every hour under that hood. It's where I go when the clubhouse gets too crowded with all the shit I'm never going to have.
Vargan's hand on the back of Savvy's neck when they walk into a room. Crow checking every exit before Maya sits down. The way Ash and Nova communicate in looks instead of words when shit's about to go sideways.
That's not in the cards for me.
Loving someone is a liability. Especially when that someone is human. They're fragile. One wrong move and they break. And they take pieces of you with them.
I learned that lesson young, and I learned it permanent.
I reach the back door and press my ear to the wood.
Someone's humming in my kitchen.
I know that voice.
I sheathe the knife and shove through the door hard enough to slam it against the wall.
Maya Johnson doesn't flinch. She's standing at my stove, stirring something that smells like garlic and butter and ulterior motives.
Crow's woman in my kitchen. Cooking.
"You're late," she says without turning. "I expected you twenty minutes ago."
"Funny thing about showing up uninvited. The other person doesn't know to be on time."
That makes her glance over her shoulder. Black hair pulled back, scrubs swapped for jeans and a sweater.
"Helen told me where to find the key."
"Helen had no right."
"Helen thinks you work too hard and eat like a feral raccoon." She turns back to the stove. "Her words, not mine. Sit down. Dinner's almost ready."
I don't sit.
I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms. Maya doesn't make house calls. She doesn't drive out to the middleof nowhere on a Tuesday night to feed a grown orc who's been taking care of himself just fine for thirty-two years.
She wants something.
"I wanted to thank you," she says. "For fixing the autoclave at the clinic last week. And my car the month before. And the generator before that."
"Could've sent a card."
"I could have." She starts opening cabinets—first one's mugs, second one's nothing but protein powder—finds the plates on the third try. Pulls two down and dishes up pasta. "But I wanted to do something nice. Is that so hard to believe?"
