She has his eyes. His fire. His stubborn refusal to quit, even when the world burns down. And I just lied to her. Not directly, but through omission. By not telling her that I'm the reason Alex was on that roof in the first place. I promised it was safe, and that’s the part I can’t say out loud yet.
"Forgive me, brother," I whisper to the ghost that's haunted me for four years. "I'm trying to protect her. That's what you wanted, right?"
The wind doesn't answer.
I shouldn’t have let her walk into my life. But whenshe said his name, the past reached out and tightened its grip around my throat. For the first time in a long damn while, I’m not sure I ever truly walked off that roof alive.
We ride toward her clubhouse, toward whatever comes next. Toward the woman who has every right to hate me. Toward the moment when Rebel finds out the truth and I lose her before I even really have her.
The engine roars, the city swallows me whole, and Alex’s ghost rides pillion, silent as judgment.
6
REBEL
My hands are shaking, but I blame the adrenaline. The port burns behind us, with orange flames licking the fog, while Carter’s silver bike roars ahead of mine. The night tastes like salt and smoke.
We don’t speak as the road between Long Beach and Los Angeles is black and endless, a scar cutting through the dark. The engines thunder side by side, the sound a war cry and a warning.
By the time the city lights bleed into the horizon, my ribs ache from tension. I veer off the highway, rolling into a rest stop wedged between a gas station and a half-dead diner. Carter follows, killing his engine beside me. We sit for a beat, helmets off, breathing hard.
Then he breaks the silence. “You always meet new people in ambushes, or was tonight special?”
“Depends,” I snap. “Do you always babysit women who don’t need saving?”
He gives a dry laugh, the sound rough and low. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Didn’t ask for it.”
“No,” he says, stepping off his bike, “but you’d be a lot more ventilated if I hadn’t stepped in.”
The wind catches my hair, whipping it across my face. I shove it back and glare at him. “You think I don’t know how to handle myself?”
“I think you’re bleeding.”
I look down, and sure enough, there’s a dark streak soaking through my jeans, high on my thigh. The graze must’ve happened during the scramble. The denim sticks to my skin, warm and damp, and the pain finally hits me.
“Son of a…”
He smirks. “Don’t worry. You gave better than you got.”
“You’re not exactly spotless either.” I nod toward the slash across his bicep, a deep cut just beginning to clot.
He follows my gaze, shrugs as if pain’s an old friend. “We can argue, or we can not bleed out on the asphalt. Your call.” I hate that he’s right.
We ride the last stretch back to the compound in tense silence, the sky trading bruises with dawn. Pale light cuts through the fog, gilding the fence line in steel and throwing exhaustion across everything it touches. The closer we get, the more the world shifts. Streetlights give way to chrome fences and the faint glow of the Royal Harlots' crest, shining like defiance carved in metal.
Carter slows at the gate, taking it all in. Razor wire,motion sensors, the hum of Divine’s surveillance grid. The bar and tattoo shop sit near the front, open to the public, but behind them, the clubhouse towers in new brick and steel. The shelter glows faintly in the distance, tucked behind reinforced walls.
He whistles low. “You run a fortress or a kingdom?”
“Both,” I mutter, swinging off my bike. “Follow me.”
“Didn’t realize you took strays.”
“Only the wounded ones.”
That earns me a small, genuine, dangerous half-smile.
