"When I first came here," Kai's voice dropped, intimate despite the noise, "I thought I was going to die. Chen's people were hunting me, and I'd just watched my apartment burn, and I was so sure that this was temporary. A pause before the end." He turned to look at me, and his eyes held something I recognized—the particular weight of someone who'd learned to expect loss. "Then I stopped waiting for the end. And it was the scariest thing I'd ever done."
"What changed?"
"Axel." The name came out soft, reverent. "He made me believe I was worth fighting for. That I deserved to want things, even if wanting meant Icould lose them." Kai's shoulder pressed harder against mine. "You deserve that too, Tyler. Whatever you're running from, whatever you think you don't get to have—you're allowed to want to stay."
I didn't know how to respond to that. So I just stood there, drinking my beer, watching the family that had somehow started to feel like mine.
Across the room, Tank was loading a plate with methodical efficiency. He didn't look up, didn't seem to notice me watching, but I felt the awareness between us anyway—a thread stretched taut, invisible but present.
Kai followed my gaze. I felt him notice, felt the question forming in his mind.
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"Can't help what I think." But he let it drop, which was more mercy than I probably deserved. "Come on. Maria will be offended if you don't eat."
We pushed off the wall and joined the chaos, filling plates, finding seats, letting the noise and warmth of the room wash over us. I sat between Kai and Ghost, answered questions about my riding progress, laughed at Irish's increasingly implausible stories about his youth.
Tank sat at the far end of the table, eating in silence, occasionally responding to Hawk with a word or a nod. He didn't look at me.
I told myself that was fine. Told myself I didn't want him to.
The lie sat heavy in my stomach, harder to swallow than the food.
The envelope was waiting on my bed.
I'd gone back to my room after dinner, pleasantly tired, still carrying the warmth of the common room in my chest. The hallway had been quiet, most people still downstairs or drifting toward the back lot for the nightly gathering around the fire pit.
I opened my door. Reached for the light switch. Froze.
Plain white envelope. My name on the front in careful block letters. Sitting on my pillow like it belonged there.
No return address. No postmark. Someone had delivered it by hand.
Someone had been in my room.
The warmth I'd been carrying evaporated, replaced by something cold and familiar—the particular alertness of a man who'd spent too many years expecting violence. I stepped inside, closed the door, locked it. My eyes swept the space automatically, checking corners, closet, the narrow gap between the bed and the wall.
Empty. Whoever had been here was gone.
I crossed to the bed and picked up the envelope, feeling its weight. Heavier than paper alone. My fingers were steady—I'd learned to control that response a long time ago—but myheart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
The clubhouse was secure. Prospects watched the gate, cameras covered the perimeter, and no one came or went without being seen. Which meant whoever had left this had either slipped past security with professional skill or been allowed through because they didn't look like a threat.
Cross had always been good at both.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and opened the envelope.
Two items inside. I pulled out the first.
A photograph. Me, three years ago, standing outside the Sacramento field office in my cheap suit and ambitious smile. My FBI credentials were visible, clipped to my belt, and Cross stood beside me with his arm around my shoulders. We were both grinning at the camera, two partners celebrating a commendation ceremony that had felt meaningful at the time.
I remembered the day with painful clarity. The afternoon light, the same gold as the light that had painted Tank's garage this morning. The weight of Cross's arm, proprietary and warm. The way he'd insisted on the photo, had kept a copy on his desk until the day I'd requested the transfer.
I'd loved him, once. Or thought I had. Before I'd learned what he was capable of.
