I fold my arms tight. “My dad sold the house.”
Something shifts in his expression. Not pity. Not sympathy either. Something heavier.
Silence stretches.
This basement suddenly feels too small, too close, too temporary, and the worst part is the only place I got left is the same place he does.
Lottie clears her throat upstairs. “Y’all can either fight it out or fuck it out,” she calls down, like she’s announcing last call. “But I got a toddler. I ain’t got time to watch.”
Oaks looks at me.
I look at him.
Time in Hell doesn’t move straight. It loops.
And somehow, even when I try to walk away, I end up right back in the same room with the same biker.
Only now there’s nowhere left to run.
Chapter 16
Oaks
The root cellar is thick with mildew, old bourbon, and the kind of secrets the Kings of Anarchy MC buries when they can’t stomach daylight. Legend’s in front of Elijah, all a rage, asking about Sophie, the letters, Reverend Crowley, all of it, and I stay where I am with my back to the wall and my arms crossed, watching.
Elijah he keeps that church-boy calm wrapped around him like a clean shirt. He talks careful. Gives a little, holds a little. Says he was only there to scare, to “shake the branches,” like terror is just another Sunday chore if you soften the wording enough.
He swears on the Book with blood in his teeth. He drops the Reverend’s message like he’s delivering weather, not a threat. And the whole time, he keeps looking at Legend, never once acting like the dark down there scares him half as much as it should.
I remember that look later when I catch him too close to Brittany, standing polite by her car with his hands visible and his voice low, playing safe while Hell chews on her name. Same posture. Same careful mismatched eyes. Same clean edges over something rotten underneath. She’s inside. He’s waiting for her. He starts to say her name, starts to step in like she belongs to him, and I move into him before he finishes the breath.
“Listen real close,” I tell him, low enough nobody else gets the words but him. “I seen what you are when the room gets dark. You go near Brittany again, you look at her too long, you give her one more pretty warning with your church manners, I’ll put you in the ground and let your uncle preach over what’s left.”
His jaw jumps, but I don’t give him time to answer.
“Break this off with her,” I order him. Just to be clear.
That’s how it starts, me trailing her so close. Because I know exactly how a man like Elijah works when he’s been sent to test a door before somebody else kicks it in.
That’s why I’m stretched out at Holler’s place, on the upstairs couch, boots off, cut folded over the back like I’m staying a night instead of trespassing in something fragile. Holler told me I could crash here after Bethany threw a glass at my head and told me to get the hell out. Lottie didn’t ask questions. She never does when it comes to club business.
It was a good excuse.
Place ain’t small, but it ain’t built for secrets either. The floorboards creak like they got opinions. The vents carry sound whether you want ’em to or not. Mason’s white-noise machine hums down the hall like a tired generator, and somewhere in the basement Brittany’s breathing under a borrowed quilt in a room that used to store Christmas decorations.
Still don’t mean this feels right.
I don’t sleep much. Every time the house shifts, I open my eyes. Every time a car passes on the road out front, my hand flexes like I’m reaching for my weapon. I’m not worried about Bethany. I’m worried about the other thing.
Shit’s been nuts at the club.
The missing girls.
Three in the last year. All early twenties. All with some kind of loose connection to Pearly Gates. One body. No ransom. Just gone like the earth swallowed ’em. And now they’re behind Sophie’s disappearance. When we found her, we also found the Reverend’s in bed with our rival club, the Depraved Sinners MC.
Everything came to a head, and I’m just lucky Brittany was staying here and missed the action so completely that she’s oblivious.
Now, Royal’s got a prisoner down at the Lockup, Becki Crowley, Reverend’s daughter turned liability. Girl too close to Prez and our Secretary. I don’t trust her for nothing. And Royal’s at my throat because I tested her.
