Rabid clears his throat. His voice is as readable as a weathered tombstone. “Molly, we’ve voted. We’ve decided. After a long discussion, the ruling was unanimous…”
A crash so hard it shakes the front door on its hinges erupts through the room. Every head whips toward it in the same instant.
And whatever Rabid was about to say dies in his mouth.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Evan
I hit the front door hard enough to make the hinges cry out in agony. It doesn’t open. Inside, The Noble Fir is dead silent. No clinking glasses. No music. No laughter. Just a room full of patched men probably laying down judgment on the woman I started loving in high school and haven’t stopped loving since.
“Open this fucking door or I will fucking ram it open with my fucking Nissan Versa.”
After a moment, the door opens just a crack. I see Mayhem’s face through the slit.
“Hey, Evan. Good morning. What’s up? Are you really going to kamikaze our clubhouse with a Nissan Versa?”
“I will if I have to. Just let me in, Mayhem.”
“You know I’d shoot you if you tried anything with that car, right?”
“You know I want to shoot myself every time I get behind the wheel of that thing, right?”
“I don’t blame you.”
“You going to let me in? I’m not here to fight. I’m here to save your lives.”
“I kind of want to see what happens if you try to ram your way in with that car. I don’t know if it has the power you’d need to break the door down.”
“Do you really want to find out?”
“Yes, that’s why I said it out loud. But I don’t think Rabid would like that.”
“Why don’t you tell Rabid that I have information the club needs if you all want to stay alive, and I won’t give it to you until you let me in and let me see Molly.”
“Fine,” he says, the word coming out exasperated, like a foiled child. “Let me go check. Wait here, please.”
I wait.
Moments later, he returns. The door opens. “Come on in.”
I enter. I don’t stop to read faces. I don’t stop to find exits. I don’t stop to think about how fast I can die if Rabid inclines his head in the wrong direction. I walk straight in — past the tables, past the bar, past the long line of Devils eyeing me with a mix of curiosity, anger, and an absolute readiness to take my head off — and I see her.
Molly.
Standing like she’s waiting for an execution. Chin up. Eyes bright with pain she refuses to show.
My chest caves in on my heart, and I swallow it down and keep going.
Rabid is in the center of the room, shoulders squared, standing the kind of still that means violence is already decided. Goldie is a half-step behind him, arms crossed, gaze sharp. There’s a tattoo that says ‘Namaste’ visible just above his left wrist. Claire and Alessia stand off to the side, and both are watching me like I’m a grenade with a loose pin.
Molly’s eyes meet mine, and for one split second, I see it again — us at eighteen, pressed against the wall behind the gym, her red lipstick smeared, her fingers fisted in my shirt like she doesn’t know how to let go.
Then her expression hardens into something that could cut steel, and she looks away.
I deserve nothing else. Not after what I’ve done to her.
And what she’s about to face from the people she loves as family?
