Holden’s expression softened. “Dutch, man...”
“I was going to give it to her at the Halloween party. Make it official.” I stared at the box like it might explode. “Had it all planned out. Thought I was being romantic, waiting for the right moment.”
“If she’s the one, why wait?” Colt asked quietly.
“Because I was a coward.” The admission came easier than I’d expected. “I wanted all the benefits of having an old lady without actually committing to being the kind of man who deserved one.”
The room was quiet for a moment. Then Holden leaned forward. “Why you showing us this, Prez? This ain’t exactly club business.”
I looked around the table at my brothers—men I’d led, fought beside, bled with. They deserved honesty.
“Because I want you to know how much she meant to me. That I wasn’t just fucking around with her. I had her cut made. I was ready to make her my old lady.” I ran a hand over the box. “And I want you to know I’m serious about being a different man. Not just with the club girls—with everything. The way I treated her, the person I let myself become... that’s done.”
I picked up the box and carried it back to the safe. “This stays here. Reminder of what I lost because I was too much of a fuckup to appreciate what I had.”
“Maybe you could—” Handful started.
“No.” I slammed the safe door shut and spun the lock. “She’s gone. She’s building a life without me, and she deserves to do that in peace.” I turned back to face them. “Just wanted you to know, brothers. That’s all.”
Church ended twenty minutes later with assignments for the Montana expansion. I was reviewing route maps with Holden when Glitch approached my desk.
“The Montana run tomorrow,” he said. “You sure you want to handle the supplier meeting personally? We could send someone else.”
“Why would I do that?”
Glitch shrugged. “No reason. You just got back. Thought you might want to ease back into things.”
But there was something in his expression that made me suspicious. Like he knew something I didn’t. “I’ll handle it,” I said firmly. “Time to get back to work.”
?
The next evening, I found myself in a dive bar called The Rusty Spur in Whitefish, Montana, waiting for our ammunition supplier to show up. The place was exactly what I’d expected from a ski town watering hole—dim lighting, cheap beer, and walls covered in vintage ski equipment and taxidermied animal heads. January in Montana meant the place was packed with tourists in expensive parkas and locals who could spot an outsider from a mile away.
I’d chosen a table in the back corner where I could see the whole room. Professional habit. Always know your exits, always watch the crowd.
Which is how I saw her the moment she walked in.
Indira.
My heart stopped. Actually fucking stopped, then started beating so hard I could hear it over the music.
She was with three other women, all of them flushed from the cold, unwrapping scarves and shaking snow out of their hair. One of them was wearing a plastic tiara and a sash that read“BRIDE TO BE.” Bachelorette party. Of course. They claimed a table near the fireplace, ordering drinks and laughing about something that had happened on the slopes.
The slopes. Indira had been skiing? That caught me off guard. In all the time we’d been together, she’d never mentioned skiing. Never mentioned wanting to try it.
She was laughing at something one of her friends said, and the sound knocked the air right out of my lungs.
She looked... incredible. Different. She was wearing a cream-colored sweater that hugged her curves, her cheeks still pink from the cold, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders. But it was more than that. She moved differently. Confident. Like she owned her space in a way she never had when she was with me.
She looked happy.
The rational part of my brain told me to leave. To finish my beer, text the supplier to reschedule, and get the fuck out before she noticed me. She was building a new life, and the last thing she needed was me showing up to complicate it.
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop staring at the woman who’d once been mine and now so clearly wasn’t.
“Dutch. Well, I’ll be damned.”
I looked up to find two women standing beside my table. Blonde, early twenties, the kind of club groupies who hung around MC events hoping to catch a president’s attention.
