My gaze flicks to the bar, and I see him, striding for me.
My cowboy.
Sawyer.
And immediately, I relax because he’s got me.
I know he does.
And that?That’s everything.
Chapter 21-Sawyer
The minute I step out of the beer line, four bottles in one hand and Bit’s grapefruit beer in the other, I feel it.
Thatshift.
It’s the kind of stillness you only notice when you’ve lived through the wrong kind of chaos—the kind that makes your instincts roar awake before your mind catches up.
The tent’s too quiet.
The easy laughter from a few minutes ago is gone.
I push through the crowd, scanning faces, searching for hers first—because that’s always where I look now.
And there she is.
Bit’s sitting rigid at the table, her fingers white-knuckling the edge.
Micah’s already on his feet, moving slow, his stance careful but ready.
Benji shifted too, braced like a man who’s just waiting for the order to swing.
Then I seehim.
The big, greasy son of a bitch standing just inside the tent flaps, leather cut stretched over a sweat-stained T-shirt.
His eyes are too bright—high on meth or something just as stupid and deadly—his grin is too wide, and his whole body hums with that twitchy kind of aggression you can smell before it hits.
At first, I tell myself maybe it’s nothing—just another loudmouth cowboy after a long day of drinking.
But then I see the patch.
Black and red.Skulls and fire.Hellbound Heathens.
And I recognize his features, though it was dark last time we met.It’s the same soon-to-be-dead motherfucker hunting my woman.
Everything inside me goes cold.
That patch might as well be a target.
I don’t need to ask who he is.I can see it on Bit’s face—the flash of fear, the way her eyes dart to me the second she realizes I’m back.
The world narrows to a pinpoint.My heartbeat slows, sharp and deliberate.
My grip tightens on the bottles until the glass threatens to crack.
Every part of me is shifting into focus, calculating angles, exits, how many people are in the way.
