“I can’t talk club business with you.”
A pause.
“You want me to actually live with you?”
“It’s temporary.”
“Tate. You’re the president of the Sinners.”
“Correct.”
“And you think that’s less dangerous?”
“Right now… yeah, I do.”
She lets out a slow breath. “You really think Ryan would want this? Me living with his brother?”
“I know he would.” The certainty in my voice surprises even me. “He asked me to take care of you. I can’t do that properly from a distance.”
“Taking care of me and me living with you are two very different things.”
“Not to me, they’re not.”
She goes quiet again, and I let her sit in it and turn it over. Memphis has flopped onto his side in the dirt beside my feet, completely unbothered by any of this.
“There’ll be nights I stay at the clubhouse,” I add. “So you’ll have the place to yourself whenever you want it. You won’t be in my way, and I won’t be in yours.”
“If I go to Vegas…” she says slowly, “… I’m farther away from him.”
“Sophia,” I say patiently, even though I can feel it fraying at the edges. “You’re chasing a ghost. Even if you go to New York, Tracker isn’t there. He’s not anywhere you can reach him, and I think somewhere underneath all of this, you already know that.”
Her voice breaks.“I-I just want to be close to him again,” she whispers.
I swallow hard before answering. I hate having to be blunt with her, but this is the only way through it. “Soph, if you go to New York, you’re walking into a life he deliberately kept separate from you and for a long time. He did that for a reason. He was protecting you from it.” A pause. “But if you come to Vegas, you’re with someone who loved him as much as you did.Someone who would do anything to protect the people he loved. That’s what I’m offering you.”
The words hang in the air between us.
Memphis lifts his head and looks at me.
“You’d really let me stay?” she asks. “For as long as I needed?”
“Yes.”
“And what about your club? What would they think?”
“They’ll respect whatever I decide. And they’ll treat you like one of their own. I’ll make sure of it.”
Another long silence.
Then, “You’re really not going to let me go to New York, are you?”
“No. That’s me being straight with you, Sophia.”
“What if I go anyway? Quill and Jasmine already said yes.”
“Then I get on the next plane to New York and drag you to Vegas myself.”
A reluctant laugh slips out of her, small and surprised, like she didn’t mean to let it happen.
