"Your car needs a new transmission," I say without turning around, keeping my eyes on the dim hallway ahead. "We'll have to order the parts special. It's going to take a week, maybe two."
It's a lie. A complete fabrication. Gears could have the damn thing purring like new by tomorrow afternoon if I gave him the order and the go-ahead.
"Oh." Her voice is small behind me. Uncertain and lost. "I can try to find somewhere else to stay while I wait. I don't want to impose on you all."
Now I do turn, pivoting to face her fully. She's standing in the middle of the cramped storage room, surrounded by the organized chaos of her own making, bathed in the weak light from the single bare bulb overhead. She looks like she's bracing herself, like she's expecting me to throw her out on the street.
"You're not imposing." I hold her gaze steadily, letting her see I mean it. "Stay as long as you need to."
"But I can't just?—"
"Sparrow." Just her name, firm and final, but she goes quiet immediately. Her lips press together. "Stay."
She stares at me for a long moment, those ocean-blue eyes searching my face for something—truth, maybe, or sincerity. Then, slowly, like she's testing the weight of the decision, she nods.
"Okay."
That single word settles something in my chest. Something that's been restless and prowling like a caged animal since the moment she walked through my door yesterday with bruises on her throat.
She's staying. She's safe here. She's mine to protect. And anyone who tries to take her from this place will have to go through me first.
I leave before I do something stupid, like cross the room and pull her into my arms. Like bury my face in her hair and breathe her in. Like make promises I'm not sure I know how to keep.
But I make them anyway, silently, to myself.
I'll keep her safe. I'll make her smile. I'll destroy anyone who ever tries to hurt her again.
And when this is over, when Garrett Ashworth is nothing but a bad memory, maybe she'll look at me like she did this morning. Like I'm something good. Something worth wanting.
Maybe I'll even start to believe it.
3
SPARROW
One week at the Iron Saints, and I'm starting to forget what running feels like.
My car is still "being fixed." I put that in mental air quotes because I overheard Gears tell Whiskey three days ago that the transmission arrived early. No one's mentioned it to me. No one's asked when I'm leaving.
I've stopped asking too.
The days have fallen into a rhythm I didn't expect. Mornings start with coffee in the kitchen, Mama Rosa already bustling around the stove before the sun is fully up. She doesn't talk much, but she feeds me like she's trying to make up for every meal I've missed in the past six months. I've gained three pounds. I can feel it in the way my jeans fit, the way my face looks a little less hollow in the bathroom mirror.
Afternoons, I work. Gears pointed me toward the storage room that first day, and I've been tackling it ever since. Four years of neglected paperwork, invoices shoved in boxes, receipts stuffed in folders with no rhyme or reason. It's a disaster, and I love it.There's something deeply satisfying about creating order from chaos. About proving I'm useful.
Evenings are for watching. The bar opens around five, and I've claimed a corner booth as my own. I nurse a beer and observe this world I've stumbled into, trying to understand the rules.
The bikers terrified me at first. All that leather and ink and barely contained violence. But now I know their names. Their quirks. Whiskey flirts with everyone who walks through the door, male or female, but he's never pushed past a friendly wink. Gears checks on me every day with gruff kindness, asking if I need anything, if the room is comfortable, if I want to call my parents. Preacher still scares me a little, because those dark eyes see too much, but he's also left three books on my bed, slipped under my door without comment. He noticed what I was reading and decided to share.
The women are my revelation. Tessa, Gears' wife, took one look at me that second day and decided I was her project. She's loud and funny and fiercely protective, the kind of woman who would claw someone's eyes out for looking at her wrong, but she's also the first person to hug me when I start to shake during a thunderstorm. Jade is quieter, Preacher's old lady, with sad eyes that tell me she's been where I am. She squeezed my hand once and said, "I know. It gets better." She didn't have to explain what she meant.
And through it all, there's Jett.
He's everywhere and nowhere. I catch glimpses of him across the bar, in the doorway of the shop, watching from his office window when he thinks I'm not looking. He rarely speaks to me directly, just those brief exchanges about practical things. Food. My room. Whether I need anything.
But I feel his attention constantly. It's like standing in the sun, that awareness of being watched, being tracked, being known. It should unsettle me. With Garrett, the surveillance was suffocating. Every move I made was catalogued and used against me later.
With Jett, it feels different. It feels like safety.
