By the time I parked outside the Royal Bastards clubhouse, my body was running on fumes, caffeine, and the stubborn refusal to admit I was getting older. My bad knee clicked when I swung off the bike. Old injury from a wreck outside Flagstaff. I ignored it the way I ignored most things that complained.
Bullet peeled off toward his room, already yawning. River headed straight for his old lady.
Lucky bastard.
I cut my engine and sat there a second with both hands resting on the bars. Cooling metal ticked beneath me. My shoulders ached. My mouth tasted like dust and beer. There was blood under one fingernail that wasn’t mine. Normal end to a normal run.
Still, I didn’t move right away.
The clubhouse stood in front of me, rough and familiar, all concrete, steel, patched repairs, and security lights. Home, in the way a fortress was home. Loud when it needed to be. Armed always. Full of men who’d kill for me and annoy the hell out of me in the same breath.
I loved it.
I was also tired of sleeping with one wall between me and somebody else’s argument, orgasm, phone call, or blender at seven in the morning because Regan had decided we all needed antioxidant smoothies.
I dragged myself inside before that thought got too honest.
My room was small. Bed. Dresser. Gun safe. Bathroom. A stack of books on the floor I’d never admitted belonged to me because Bullet would never shut up if he found out I read old desert survival guides for fun. A chipped mug on the dresserfull of loose screws and pocket knives. Two black T-shirts over a chair. Boots lined up by the wall.
Enough.
That was what I told myself every time I looked around.
I stripped, dropped my kutte over the back of the chair, and turned the shower hot enough to sting. Water pounded over my shoulders and ran brown for the first minute, carrying road dust, sweat, bar stink, and somebody else’s bad decision down the drain. It washed my skin clean but didn’t touch the edge under it. That restless thing still sat between my ribs, awake and pacing.
I dried off, pulled on sweats, and dropped into bed.
Closed my eyes.
Nothing.
My body wanted sleep. My brain wanted a fight. Memories crawled where they weren’t invited—Rylee in my old kitchen, barefoot and laughing, wearing one of my shirts while sunlight caught in her hair. Rylee later, standing by the door with her purse over her shoulder, telling me she couldn’t keep pretending leather and loyalty were enough. Rylee’s ring finger six months after that, holding a champagne flute in a picture somebody showed me because some people had no survival instincts.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.
Twenty minutes later, I gave up.
I pulled on a shirt and followed the smell of coffee downstairs. Coffee and bacon, which meant Regan was awake and already turning the clubhouse kitchen into whatever half-feral version of domestic heaven she’d decided we deserved that morning.
She stood barefoot at the stove with her hair piled on top of her head, one shoulder of her sweatshirt slipping down, a skillet popping in front of her like it owed her money. Regan had married into this place and somehow taken command ofit without asking. She grew tomatoes behind a building full of guns. Made men with felony records argue about compost. Had us hauling organic soil three counties over because apparently dirt had standards. Half the clubhouse acted scared of her, and the other half actually was.
Tank’s kid sat at the table coloring with deadly seriousness, tongue poking out while she attacked a page with a purple crayon. Emily leaned against the counter stealing bacon off a paper towel, all long legs, attitude, and trouble wrapped in a face that still carried too much of her birth mother for anybody’s peace. Her middle name is Destiny and recently she’s demanded everyone start using it. She’s gonna be a hellion like her mother was. Not that I was around those days. But the stories were Club legend.
Mandy.
Even thinking the name left a bad taste. That woman had nearly burned half the club down playing Tarak and Edge against each other back when the world was already mean enough without her help. She’d hidden Emily, left wounds nobody knew how to name, then died before anyone could make her answer for the wreckage. Edge finding out years later that he had a daughter almost grown and furious had been the kind of thing that changed a man’s bones.
Regan had stepped into that storm and somehow become mama to the hellion. Not soft. Not saintly. Regan was a firecracker with flour on her cheek and a right hook I’d seen make men rethink their choices. But Emily needed somebody who wouldn’t flinch from her sharp edges. Regan didn’t flinch. She sharpened back.
Emily stole another piece of bacon.
Regan smacked her hand without looking.
Emily smacked hers back.
Same attitude. Same fire. Different blood, maybe, but family had never been that simple around here.
Regan glanced over her shoulder when I walked in. “Knew you boys would need food.”
