Lottie starts organizing a fundraiser for the missing girls’ families, not club-branded, not flashy, just a barbecue plate for ten bucks at Heck’s kitchen and raffle tickets and a donation jar at the diner, and if Hell has one religion everybody follows, it’s food.
Brittany doesn’t hide in the back. She stands at the front table, taking envelopes from women who used to whisper about her, thanking them by name, looking them in the eye like she remembers their faces and ain’t afraid of their shame.
When someone mutters, “That’s the girl who stabbed Bethany,” Brittany doesn’t shrink. She doesn’t rage, either. She just turns her head, meets the speaker’s gaze, and says, plain as truth, “Yes. And I’d do it again if somebody tried to carve my face open.”
There’s no pride in it. Just fact.
By the end of the night, the jar is full, and so is the room, and even the folks who don’t like her have to admit she didn’t make herself small.
Derby tells me quietly, almost like he’s surprised by it, “She ain’t weak.”
Holler laughs, low and mean. “Girl’s got potential.”
Even Sophie pulls me aside one evening when she’s dropping something off for Lottie and says, “She didn’t blink atthat funeral,” like she’s reporting weather, like she’s measuring what kind of woman Brittany is.
Legend doesn’t comment. He just watches, and the way he watches tells me enough.
A cookout happens two weeks later, no ceremony, no announcement, just a Sunday afternoon behind Heck’s Kitchen with smokers running and music low and kids chasing each other between trucks while old ladies set out bowls of potato salad like nothing in this town ever bleeds.
Brittany’s laughing with Lottie and Becki near the grill when I walk out, and she looks… lighter, just for a second, like she forgot to brace, and that makes something in my chest go tight and dangerous.
The cut hangs in my locker.
Black leather.
New.
The patch stitched clean across the back: Property of Oaks.
I stare at it for a long minute because this ain’t about claiming her like a damn object, and it never has been, no matter what Pearly Gates wants to preach about bikers like me.
In this world, that patch ain’t decoration. It’s a shield. It tells the town, the club, and anybody looking to test boundaries exactly where she stands, and more importantly, who stands behind her when somebody decides she’s an easy target.
I carry it outside, and the yard hushes without meaning to, conversations dimming the way they do when a storm rolls close and everybody feels the pressure change.
Royal clocks it first. Legend’s gaze sharpens. Holler’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to say something unhelpful. Derby goes still. Sophie’s eyes lift, curious and soft in a way she doesn’t offer often.
Brittany turns when my shadow hits her. Her laughter fades. Not fear, not exactly. Awareness. She knows what that leather means even if she pretends she doesn’t, and for a second she looks like she might bolt, not because she doesn’t want it, but because wanting it is a doorway you can’t un-open.
I don’t kneel. I don’t make a show. I don’t give the yard a speech it can gossip about.
I hold it out.
“You sure?” I ask.
That’s it. No big display. Just the question, because this has to be her choice, not mine, not the club’s, not the town’s. I don’t want her to feel pressured.
She looks at the leather. At the stitching. At my name on the back in thread that’s meant to last. Then she looks at me, and there’s no dazzled nonsense in her eyes, no childish dream, just the kind of steady that tells you she’s already decided.
“Yes,” she says.
One word. Clear. Certain.
Lottie presses her lips together like she’s trying not to smile too wide.
Holler mutters, “About damn time.”
Royal studies the yard, gauging reaction, cataloging faces, counting who stiffens and who relaxes, because Royal does that the way other men breathe.
