Rabid steps forward.
The space between us becomes a line on the ground. Cross it wrong and you die.
He looks at me like he’s weighing whether I’m worth the oxygen in the room.
“You put enemy boots in my house,” he says, voice low and even. “You fed them code access. You handed them intel about our businesses, about our home, about us and our families. Men, women, children could’ve died.”
“They almost did,” Goldie adds quietly. “It was really fucking uncool, bro.”
I nod once. There’s nothing else to say.
Rabid’s eyes harden. “Give me one reason we don’t finish what Midnight started and put you in the dirt.”
June makes a small sound behind me.
My eyes find Molly. She's not looking at Rabid. She's looking at me. Her jaw is tight and her hands are at her sides, and she hasn't moved. That's enough.
I lift my chin anyway. Meet Rabid’s eyes without blinking. “Because I didn’t run. Because I came to you and I put myfucking life on the line to protect your clubhouse, to protect my sister, to protect Molly. You can do whatever the hell it is you’re going to do to me and call it justice; I don’t give a damn now that Molly and my sister are both safe. I won’t run.”
Silence.
A silence that stretches on while my sister quietly cries and Molly looks at me as if she doesn’t know whether she wants them to kill me or whether she wants Rabid to step aside so she can kiss me.
Rabid doesn’t move. “Where does your real loyalty lie?”
“I’m not Sons of Sorrow,” I say. “Never was. I was fucking independent. They only targeted me because of my connection to Molly, and my sister’s connection to their club. My loyalty belongs to the people who matter: my sister, and Molly, if she’ll have me. The rest of you? Fuck, I’ll make amends, however that works. I’ll work. I’ll bleed. I’ll take whatever punishment you want to hand me. But I’m done being someone else’s dog.”
Goldie’s mouth twitches like he almost believes me and hates that fact.
“And Molly?” Rabid asks, like her name is a blade. “You hurt her. You dragged her into it. You gonna tell me why I shouldn’t run you out of town just for that?”
My chest tightens. I glance at Molly again. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t soften.
“I think you should give that choice to her. She’s the one I hurt… and the one I love. Whatever she decides, I’ll accept.”
Rabid watches her for a beat, then nods. “Molly?”
Molly is silent for a time. A long time. Her eyes on me, and within them is a battle that makes what happened in the Devil’s clubhouse look like a playground fight between kindergarteners. She may have forgiven me in the moment, when it looked like the Sons of Sorrow were about to mow us down in a hailof bullets, but it’s another thing entirely to forgive me with everyone in her family watching.
I look back at her and smile. It’s small, meant only for her.
Finally, she releases a sharp, exasperated sigh. “You bastard, why are you smiling?”
“Come here and I’ll tell you.”
“Just say it out loud.”
“You sure you want everyone to hear?”
The normally unflappable Molly hesitates, looks around at everyone else — all the people staring at her — and her cheeks color the shade of her hair. She comes in close and brings her lips to my ear. “What the fuck are you smiling about, you handsome son of a bitch?”
I whisper in her ear and can smell her hair as I do so. It smells of strawberries, liquor, and cordite. “I’m smiling because I love you. If you want them to kick me out, kill me, whatever, it’s fine. I hurt you, and it’d be your right. I love you enough that I’d die for you. You and June are all that matter to me, and since you’re both safe, I can die a happy man.”
“Really?”
“I mean, I’d be happier if I lived and could take you out to dinner sometime, but, yeah, I do.”
“You’re impossible, you know that?”
