“You’re standing under my roof. That makes you one of mine,” Gorgon insisted.
She let out a short laugh that held no humor. “That’s not how belonging to someone or someplace works.”
“With us, it is,” he said.
Kimi turned then, arms crossed over her chest, to face him. “You think you can just claim people and call it protection?”
His voice dropped low. “You think protection and claiming are two different things? In a place like this, they’re the exact damn thing.” They stood facing each other, still air between them thick as smoke.
Finally, Kimi said, “Buck told me there’s law enforcement up north, past the ridge. It’s an RCMP station. If Cole’s as dangerous as you say, I should go there, let them deal with it, and leave your club out of my mess.”
Gorgon shook his head slowly. “Law doesn’t deal with men like him. They take your statement, file a report, and tell you to move on. Then he finds you again. Cops don’t stop storms; they take the report after it’s leveled your house.”
She pressed her lips together, her jaw tight. “So what, you plan to scare him into staying gone?”
“It’s worked before,” he insisted.
She studied him. “And you’re not worried about dragging your people into someone else’s war?”
“This club’s been in worse wars. You just found a club that isn’t afraid to get our hands dirty.”
Something in her eyes flickered—anger first, then something he couldn’t name. Maybe heartbreak, or maybe recognition.
“You really believe that you can handle Cole?” she murmured.
“I don’t waste time believing,” he said. “I survive because I know what my club and I are capable of. We can handle your trouble for you.” She looked like she wanted to trust him, and he waited her out. Outside, an engine revved—someone testing a rebuild in the shop. The sound filled the gap between their words.
Then she surprised him. “I wasn’t lying,” she said quietly. “When I said I took something from him. It wasn’t cash, not jewelry. Just information.”
“What kind of information?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted to meet his, and for the first time, her voice trembled—not with weakness, but with the weight of what she hadn’t said. “The kind that could end him. And a few others like him. I didn’t steal it because I wanted revenge. I did it because I saw what they’d done.”
Gorgon’s jaw tightened. “So that envelope he’s after?—”
She nodded her head, “It has proof,” she finished. “Enough to ruin their names, money, and power. I thought if I brought it to someone who could use it right—” Her voice broke off before she forced herself to continue. “But nobody uses things like that right. They just trade the same power among themselves.”
He didn’t flinch. He’d learned a long time ago that truth always costs the most. “Where is it now?”
“In my car. In the trunk under my spare,” she admitted.
He nodded once. “I’ll have Buck move it.”
Her hand shot out, grabbing his sleeve. “No. It’s mine.” The contact made something raw spark between them. Gorgon looked down at her hand, rough knuckles against his leather. She pulled it back like the burn surprised her. “I didn’t save myself to hand over the one thing that proves I still exist,” she said fiercely.
He almost smiled. “Didn’t ask for your surrender. Just your trust.”
“I don’t have any left,” she admitted.
“Then borrow some of mine.” The words left him before he could stop them, and the sound of them startled them both. He wasn’t quite sure what he was offering her, but he was sure that they were both going to find out. “Just give me a chance to prove myself and my club to you, Kimi. I promise—I can keep your secret.” She nodded, and he let out the breath he didn’t know that he had been holding. She was finally letting him in, and he wouldn’t go and fuck that up now. He needed to figure out why she mattered to him, and he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like the answers that he came up with.
By afternoon, the temperature had dropped again, and the sky turned gray. The guys prepared the clubhouse perimeter just in case. The SUV tracks weren’t far, and Gorgon trusted his men to secure the clubhouse and the surrounding land. He watched his crew move with quiet efficiency, as Kimi stood near the porch with Trudi’s coat thrown over her shoulders. She didn’t speak, but her eyes tracked his men’s every movement. He caught her glance at him once, the faintest sign of something between defiance and gratitude, but it was enough.
As he walked the fence line one last time before dusk, Buck joined his side, his boots crunching through the snow. “You sure about this, boss?” Buck asked.
“No,” Gorgon admitted. “But I’m sure about the man chasing her.”
“What about him?” Buck questioned.
