“Didn’t take long, either,” I shot back.
He glanced at Damron, then at me, then at Melissa again. “We’re here for the girl.”
Melissa’s voice was a rasp. “Fuck you, Dad.”
Cutler didn’t blink. “You always did have your mother’s mouth. And her sense of timing.” He stepped forward. Three Scythes at the bar rose in unison, hands at their sides, but Cutler ignored them. “Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he said, and the whole room leaned in to hear it. “You’re going to return my daughter to Leatherback territory in two days. If you don’t, we burn your clubhouse to the ground and salt the ashes. You got me?”
He locked eyes with Damron, waiting for a flinch. He didn’t get one.
“I don’t take orders from turtle soup,” Damron said, calm as a preacher. “And you don’t walk into my house and start making demands.”
Cutler smiled—a tight, sharklike thing. “You want a war, St. James? Because this ishow you get one.”
“I want you off my property,” Damron said, and the two men sized each other up, years of mutual hate simmering between them.
Cutler’s gaze cut over to me. “I didn’t come here to kill anyone. Not today. But if you think you’re gonna keep her, Augustine, you’re dumber than you look.”
I felt Melissa press into my back, fingers digging through the leather of my cut. Her breath was sharp, frantic. I didn’t move.
“She stays,” I said.
Cutler’s eyes went narrow. “I’ll give you one warning. I don’t expect a second.”
“Don’t need one,” I said, and that was it. Every man in the room tensed, fingers flexing, feet edging wide for balance. The Scythes and Leatherbacks squared off, each side measuring distances and targets, all of them calculating how many would walk out if things went hot.
Damron was the only one who didn’t go for a weapon. He stepped between Cutler and the rest of us, palms out, like a referee at a dog fight.
“Nobody wants blood on the floor,” he said. “Let’s keep it professional.”
But Cutler was already moving. He took a hard step forward, crowding my space, his six backup dancers flanking him with matching sneers. Melissa shrank behind me,but I felt her straighten, like she was ready to throw hands herself.
Cutler glared at her, then at me, his voice low enough to rattle my teeth. “You sure about this, Augustine? You want to die for a Leatherback whore?”
I drew my Glock in one smooth arc, the click of the safety off echoing louder than the jukebox in the corner. Instantly, a half dozen guns leveled at my head—Leatherbacks and Scythes both, all of them locked in a dead man’s geometry.
Nobody breathed. Nobody blinked. My finger curled around the trigger, and I counted the heartbeats—one, two, three. Damron’s eyes were on me, warning me without a word that if I pulled, everything would burn.
Melissa’s lips were at my ear. “Please don’t die for me,” she whispered, and I realized she’d started to shake.
I kept my eyes on Cutler. “She stays. Two days, or you come back with more bodies.”
He studied me, as if he could will me to crack. Then, all at once, the threat drained out of his posture. He spat on the floor, holstered his piece, and nodded to his goons.
“You’re a dead man, Augustine,” he said. “But I respect the play.”
The Leatherbacks backed out, guns still up, and the second they hit the porch, the Scythes droppedtheir aim and let out the breath they’d been holding. Cutler lingered at the doorway, eyes drilling into me.
“This is personal now,” he said.
Then they were gone, the sound of their bikes tearing the silence to shreds as they peeled away from the clubhouse. Nobody moved until the last engine faded. Only then did Melissa let go of my jacket, her hands leaving sweat prints on the leather.
Damron turned to me, his voice barely above a whisper. “You just wrote our death sentence.”
I shook my head. “He was never going to let us walk. Now at least we’ve got time to prepare.”
Melissa stared at the floor, her face pale and drawn. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice barely audible.
I touched her arm. “You didn’t start this,” I said. “But we’re going to finish it.”
