Just for a heartbeat.
Just enough to show the horror underneath the steel.
“Baby,” he whispered.
Destiny’s eyes fluttered.
“Dad?”
The word was barely there.
Edge made a sound I never wanted to hear from a man like him again.
Regan sobbed and reached for her, then froze, hands shaking in the air like she was afraid touching Destiny wrong would shatter her.
I stepped down from the truck with Destiny cradled tight, keeping her close against my chest so her head didn’t loll. Edge moved with me, one hand hovering near her back, the other clenching and unclenching like he had to physically stop himself from grabbing.
“She’s my daughter,” he said again, softer this time, as if I didn’t know. As if the whole yard didn’t know. As if the words were the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why she’s here and not in the back of a cop car.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
There it was.
The shift.
Not suspicion.
Not blame.
Understanding.
He knew there was more.
Nate climbed out behind me and slammed the door. “Before anybody starts swinging, maybe hear the part where we covered your ass.”
Callum cut him a look.
Nate lifted both hands. “What? He needs to know.”
Edge didn’t take his eyes off Destiny. “Talk.”
“That scene out there?” Nate said. “Wasn’t some little senior party gone bad. It looked like a war zone. Cars were burning. A Bronco blew. Kids were running half-naked, clothes burned, glass cuts everywhere, high out of their minds, screaming about Mandy’s ghost like somebody dosed the whole graduating class and handed them gasoline.”
Tarak appeared at the edge of the floodlights.
I hadn’t noticed him before.
That was probably because Tarak was the kind of man who didn’t need to announce himself. He stood near the clubhouse steps, jaw locked so tight I could see the muscle ticking from twenty feet away. His eyes were on Destiny. Not me. Not Edge. Not the truck.
Destiny.
Like he had seen the dead walk out of the desert wearing her face.
Nate kept going. “She had your bike. I hid it before the cops saw. Covered what tracks I could, but there were kids everywhere, fire everywhere, phones everywhere. You and the Bastards would be tied to this before sunrise if that bike got tagged at the scene.”
Edge’s face changed again.
