Chapter 4
Knox
Grease coats my hands up to the wrists. It's good, honest work. The kind that shuts up the voice in my head—the one that keeps replaying the moment she touched my tusk and everything inside me fractured.
I dig deeper into the engine block, hunting for the gasket leak that's plagued this vintage Indian for weeks. Behind me, the garage fills with the usual noise—wrenches clinking, compressors hissing, someone cursing at a stubborn bolt.
"So." Finn doesn't look up from the carburetor he's cleaning. "Tonight's the big night."
I don't look up. "Hand me the torque wrench."
"Jessica's been cooking since yesterday. The women are acting like it's Christmas, all because you're bringing a guest." He pauses, waits, lets the silence do the work. "A human woman. To family dinner."
"Torque wrench, Finn."
He slaps it into my palm and the weight feels right, solid and useful—unlike this conversation.
"Just saying." Finn leans against the tool cart with his arms crossed, studying me the way he does when he's about to say something I don't want to hear. "Twenty years I've been your VP. Never once seen you bring a woman to Sunday dinner."
"Betty can't feed her every night. Drop it."
Garrett's shadow falls across the engine bay—seven feet of minotaur, silent as fog. He says nothing, just raises one eyebrow. The one that calls bullshit louder than words.
I tighten the gasket with more force than necessary and the metal groans in protest.
"Club business," I say. "We need to talk."
Finn straightens, the teasing vanishing from his face. Garrett steps closer. Rex wipes his hands on a rag and moves in, and suddenly we're not four brothers shooting the shit in a garage anymore. We're officers. Leaders. The men who keep this club breathing.
"Humans First," I say. "What's the latest?"
Rex pulls out his phone and scrolls through notes. "Getting bolder. Red caps showing up in the next county, targeting orc-owned businesses. No violence yet, but the rhetoric's heating up."
"I saw three of them at Betty's yesterday." My grip tightens on the wrench. "Harassing a mother and her kid. Sarah stepped in. She stood between them, told them off. She didn't back down."
Finn whistles low. "Heard about that. Whole town's talking about the human woman who told off Humans First."
I don't answer. I watched the whole thing through Betty's window, watched this small human woman plant herself in front of three men who could have hurt her. Watched her shakeafterward when she thought no one could see. Walked in and sat at her counter because I couldn't stay away anymore.
She's got steel. And it terrifies me how much I want to wrap myself around her and make sure no one ever tests that steel again.
"There's something else." Rex's voice drops. "Ran a background on Sarah."
I set down the wrench. Every brother goes still.
"Got more on the ex-husband," Rex continues. "Peter Mitchell. Investment banker, old money. Multiple domestic violence charges that never stuck—expensive lawyers, scared witnesses, you know the drill. He's escalating, Knox. Three more PIs hired since last week. And he's not just tracking where she went—he's narrowing down where she is."
My jaw locks so tight my tusks ache.
"Dig deeper." My voice scrapes gravel. "Bank accounts, travel history, associates. I want to know when he takes a piss."
Rex nods. "Already on it."
"I want brothers on her. Not just drive-bys—actual eyes on her building, her commute, the diner. She doesn't go anywhere unescorted."
"She know about this?" Garrett's voice rumbles.
"No. And it stays that way until I decide otherwise."
