My left hand clamps tighter on his wrist, using the leverage to bend it back until I hear something grind. Not enough to break, but enough to weaken his grip. He responds by raking his free hand — dirty fingernails and all — across my eyes, trying to blind me. I try to duck my chin in time, but his thumb jabs hard at the socket, and stars burst in my vision.
We lock up again, both of us straining. He’s drooling, sweat running in rivers, and the stench of desperation is so thick I could choke on it. Somewhere behind me, Viper’s getting his breath back, boots scrabbling for traction.
The man tries to knee me in the balls, but I turn sideways and my thigh takes the blow. It hurts, but not enough to register through the adrenaline. I drive my head forward, butting the bridge of his nose, just the way my sergeant taught us. There’s a crunch, a yelp, and blood fountains down his face, mixing with the sweat and grime. He reels back, but I don’t let go of the wrist.
Then Viper’s there, smashing a whiskey bottle over the back of the guy’s skull. Glass explodes everywhere, some of it catching my cheek with a thousand tiny stings. The man sags, but doesn’t let go of the knife. Instead, he puts an arm around my neck, dragging us both down in a heap onto the kitchen floor.
“Motherfucker, you just don’t get it, do you?” Viper snarls before bringing the back of his heel down on Miller’s head.
Crunch.
Miller slumps, unconscious. Blood on his face. Blood on mine.
For a second, all I can hear is our breathing — harsh, uneven, alive.
Then Viper laughs. “Still got it.”
“Yeah,” I manage, wiping my mouth. “Barely.”
He helps me up, and I pull him into a rough embrace. “It’s good to have you back, brother.”
“Damn right,” he says, clapping my shoulder. “It’s been too long since I’ve had someone watching my six who didn’t freeze when the knives came out.”
I look down at the man on the floor — another ghost in a long line of them. “What are you gonna do with him?”
“Turn him in, collect the bounty, drink to old times.”
I nod slowly. “And the second target?”
Viper’s grin turns colder. “Pike? We’ll talk about that monster later. First, let’s get this one loaded up.”
As we haul the man toward Viper’s truck, I can’t shake the way his voice shifted.
He slams the tailgate shut and looks at me, that same reckless spark in his eyes. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he says. “The fight. The blood. The hunt. I’ve missed this, brother. Haven’t you?”
I grunt something noncommittal.
Because what I feel isn’t pride. It’s something colder — the weight of an old version of myself clawing its way back to the surface in the presence of the living, breathing reminder of my old life. And the look that I see flickering in Viper’s cold eyes is as if he can’t wait to bring it out.
Chapter Fifteen
Riley
The night’s muggy, with a light drizzle, the kind that makes Ironwood Falls smell like pine and asphalt. Molly’s in full force — red curls bouncing, sunglasses crooked, moving from shop window to shop window like she’s running a mission.
Claire meets us outside the home-goods store downtown. She's tall, perfectly put together, with the kind of calm authority that makes men twice her size listen when she talks. The rest of the world might see Rabid's ol’ lady, but what I see is command in heels.
“Nice to finally meet you, Riley,” she says, shaking my hand firmly. “Molly’s told me you work hard even when life’s hard. We respect that around here.”
I smile, a little shy, a little proud. “I’m just trying my best.”
“Good. Try, then try harder, and you’ll fit right in.” It sounds stern, but there’s warmth underneath. Then she smiles. “None of us are quitters here, and if we see you’re trying, we’ll be behind you all the damn way. But let’s focus on getting you some things to make the clubhouse your home for the time being, first.”
She joins in as we wander through aisles of throw blankets and cheap picture frames. Claire picks out a candle that smells like cedar and rain. Molly finds a rug that’s too bright and insists it’shappy energy. It all goes into my quickly filling cart. They won’t let me pay for any of it.
“Consider it a starter kit,” Molly says. “Every girl deserves a space that feels like hers.”
Something inside me unclenches. Maybe it’s the laughter, maybe the easy way these women move through the world, sure of their place in it, and do so without looking over their shoulders for whatever’s lurking in the shadows. They’re calm, collected, confident… and they think of me as one of them. That thought zips through my head in such a foreign way that I have to hold on to it and turn it over in my mind again and again. I’m not used to being included.
