Chapter 7
Sarah
Within twenty minutes, every patched member of the Feral Sons crowds into the meeting room at the clubhouse.
I hover in the doorway, expecting Knox to wave me toward the great room with the other women, but instead his hand closes around my wrist and he tugs me forward, pulling out the chair beside his. The brothers file in around the massive table—Garrett folding into his seat with his arms crossed and his horns scraping the low ceiling, Finn dropping into the chair across from us with his easy charm stripped away, all hard edges now. Rex, Colt, Bruiser, Chain, Diesel. They fill the room with leather and barely leashed violence, and not one of them questions my presence.
Rex spreads a folder across the table. "Peter Mitchell. Old money Connecticut. His father's a judge—retired now, but still connected."
My stomach lurches at the sound of his name in this room, spoken by these men, making everything real in a way it hasn't been until now. I've spent weeks trying to convince myselfI'd outrun him, that three thousand miles would be enough. Hearing Rex lay out the facts strips that illusion bare.
"History of domestic complaints," Rex continues. "Eight of them. All disappeared before they hit court. Witnesses changed their stories. Evidence went missing." Garrett's massive fist tightens on the table and the wood groans beneath his grip. "He's currently on leave from his finance job at Henderson & Drake. Last credit card hit at a gas station outside Salt Lake City. Four days ago. Heading west."
The room goes quiet—not uncomfortable silence, but something colder and more deliberate. I look around the table at these men, monsters technically, though the word lost all meaning weeks ago.
Finn breaks the silence first. "So some trust fund piece of shit beats his wife, buys his way out of consequences, and now he's hunting her across the country."
"That about covers it." Rex leans back in his chair, arms crossed. "I've got eyes on his credit. Moment he surfaces again, we'll know."
These men don't tolerate predators. I can see it in the set of their jaws, in the way their hands curl into fists. Whatever else they are—outlaws, monsters, men who operate in the gray spaces between legal and not—they don't tolerate predators. Period.
"What are our options?" Knox's voice carries no inflection.
"Legal route." Colt adjusts his reading glasses. "I've already contacted our lawyer. We can push the restraining order violation, get local law enforcement involved. Create a paper trail that makes it harder for his family's money to disappear things."
"And the less legal options?" Finn asks.
"We handle it ourselves." Garrett's voice rumbles low—he speaks so rarely that when he does, everyone listens. "The human never reaches Nightfall Cove."
Knox's jaw tightens, but he doesn't dismiss it. I should tell them to stand down, to let the system handle it, to trust the process. But I've trusted the process too many times. The process failed me eight times—eight complaints filed, eight investigations opened, eight times Peter's family lawyers made it all go away. I'm done trusting the process.
"I won't let him use me against you."
The words escape before I can stop them, and every head turns toward me. "This is my problem," I continue, surprised by how steady my voice sounds. "Peter's dangerous, and if he thinks I'm connected to your club, he'll use that. His family has resources. Lawyers. Private investigators who know how to make things look like accidents."
Knox's hand covers mine on the table, his palm engulfing my fingers completely. "You protect me by staying where I can protect you." His voice drops and the brothers lean back, giving us space. "You're moving into my quarters until we know where this bastard is and what he's planning."
I should argue. I should insist I can handle myself, that I've been handling myself for three years of marriage and weeks on the run. But Knox's eyes hold mine and I see it there—not just protectiveness, but fear. The orc president who faces down threats without flinching is afraid of losing me.
"Okay," I breathe.
An hour later my belongings fit easily into Knox's space—one duffel bag and a few books. I expected to feel trapped, boxedin by another man's walls the way I'd been boxed in by Peter's. Instead something in my chest loosens as I hang my shirts beside Knox's leather cuts, as I set my toothbrush next to his, as I claim a drawer in his dresser. Anchored. That's the word. Not trapped, but anchored.
Imogen appears in the doorway with a tea tray and a stack of paperbacks. "Thought you might need provisions."
I accept the cup she offers—chamomile and honey, steam rising between us—and settle onto the edge of the bed. The room smells like Knox, leather and motor oil and something wilder underneath, I find myself breathing it in like it's oxygen.
"Knox Stone," Imogen says, half-smiling as she surveys the room. "Of all the men in this town."
"He's not like anyone I've ever met."
"No." Imogen settles beside me, her fae-touched eyes knowing in a way that makes me wonder exactly how much she sees. "He wouldn't be."
Knox returns after sunset with a white envelope in his hand. I notice the seal first—ornate, pressed in dark wax, bearing a symbol I don't recognize. Something old and formal, the kind of seal that belongs on documents signed by kings or priests. Knox's face shutters the moment he sees me looking, his expression going carefully blank. He's hiding something. Protecting me from something.
Without a word he crosses to the fireplace, and the flames leap as he feeds the envelope to them, seal and all. I watch the paper curl and blacken, watch Knox watch it burn, and the tension in his shoulders tells me everything I need to know about what that letter contained.
"Knox." I rise from the bed. "What was that?"
