“Fuck me,” he said, not loud. He took a drag, stared at the ceiling. “Is it yours?”
I couldn’t stop my laugh. “We’ve been together nonstop. Yeah, it’s mine.”
Damron let the smoke out slow. He was thinking a dozen moves ahead, already cataloguing every disaster scenario. He flicked ash into the mug, then shook his head. “That’s a new one. Hell of a time to start a family, Williams.”
I shrugged, but the muscles in my neck felt like piano wire. “It is what it is.”
He watched me a long time. I could tell he was measuring—how much I cared, how much I’d fight, whether I was going to go off the rails and get half the club killed over a Leatherback girl and the baby she might be carrying.
“You tell her old man?” he asked.
“No.”
He barked a laugh, humorless. “He’d shoot you himself, then feed you to the coyotes.”
“Probably,” I agreed, but my voice was empty of fear. “But if you think he’s pissed now, wait till he finds out he’s about to be a grandfather.”
Damron’s jaw flexed. He ground out the cigarette, then leaned forward, elbows braced on the edge of the table. “You think this makes it easier, or harder?”
The question hung there, like a slug waiting in a chamber.
“Harder,” I said. “He’ll never stop now. Not until he’s put us both in the ground.”
Damron nodded, satisfied with the answer. “That’s what I thought.” He went quiet again, this time longer, then stood up and paced to the window. He looked out at the street, where prospects were loading crates of ammo into the back of a van and the women of the club were pulling their kids inside, locking every door and window that didn’t already have a board over it.
“Cutler’s a piece of shit, but he’s not an idiot,” Damron said, voice still facing the window. “If he finds out she’s pregnant, he’ll leverage it. Use it as a fucking flag to rally every psycho from here to El Paso.”
I bristled at that, fists clenching on the table. “Not if I kill him first.”
He turned back, just a little, and I saw the glint in his eyes. “You gonna do that, Augustine?”
“If I have to,” I said.
He grinned, but it was more of a snarl. “Good.”
He left the window, walked back over, and dropped into his chair. He leveled me with that look, the one that said you’re mine until I say otherwise.
“You wanna be a father?” Damron asked.
It wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t small talk. It was a real question, maybe the first one that mattered since I’d put on the patch.
“I didn’t think I did,” I said, and it was true. “But now—” I trailed off, trying to imagine a world where Melissa and whatever tiny thing she was carrying could be safe. “Yeah. I do.”
He nodded, once, and in that moment I could see the weight of all the years, all the brothers he’d buried, all the times he’d had to pick up a gun and decide who got to seetomorrow. It made him look ancient and more dangerous than ever.
“Fine,” Damron said. “You get her through this, and we’ll figure it out. But you listen to me—if you fuck up, if you blink, if you get sentimental when you need to be savage, I’ll kill you myself. And I’ll raise your kid to hate your memory.”
I didn’t flinch. “Deal.”
He stood up and reached across the table, grip like rebar around my wrist. He pulled me in, until our faces were inches apart, and for a second I could smell the whiskey and smoke and the raw, chemical stink of rage rolling off him.
“We protect our own,” Damron said, voice low and deadly. “That includes you, and her, and whatever bastard comes next.”
He let go, then smiled, something almost like pride flickering behind the threat. “Go tell her she’s family now. For better or worse.”
I stood there for a second, pulse in my neck thumping like a nail gun. Then I nodded, turned, and walked out, the sound of my boots lost in the hammering of my own heart.
The hallway felt longer than it ever had. Every inch between me and my room was a chance for the world tochange, for a bullet to find its way through the cinderblock walls, for history to repeat itself. But I kept walking, kept my head up, kept the promise I’d just made to the only man I’d ever truly respect.
