Matteo looks at him. “No. Honest one.”
Logan steps forward again, the limp more visible now. “Explain.”
“No.”
The room shifts again.
Matteo lifts a hand slightly, not surrender, not fear. A command for space he has no right to expect and somehow gets anyway. “Stay out of my business, gentlemen,” he says.
Blaze scoffs. “That’s rich coming from the guy standing in our fucking clubhouse.”
Matteo looks around slowly, his smile returning in a thinner, colder form. “I’ll call when I’m ready to collect my favor.” The reminder hits like a threat because it is one. Not immediate. Not loud. Worse. Future. Owed.He turns toward the door. His men move with him.
Before he steps out, he looks back once. At Carter. At Brooke. Then at Cobra. “Take care of her,” he says.
Cobra’s voice is low. “Don’t tell me how to care for what’s mine.”
Matteo’s eyes flick to me. Something unreadable passes through them. Then he leaves.
The door closes behind him. For a second, no one moves. No one speaks. The room still holds his presence like smoke.
Then Cobra turns me back into him. The entire world narrows again. His hands move over me, not in a way that feels invasive, but like he needs to confirm I’m real. My arms. My back. My face. His thumbs brush under my jaw, avoiding the raw skin where the collar sat, and his eyes darken when he sees it.
I cover his wrist with my hand. “I’m here,” I whisper.
His jaw flexes. “You’re here.” The words sound like he’s forcing himself to believe them.
I press closer.
The room around us is still tense. Still full of questions. Nina. Matteo. The favor. The ring. The men downstairs. Eli.
God.
Eli.
A sob threatens, but I swallow it for now because if I start, I might not stop.
Cobra sees that too. His hand slides to the back of my neck, careful, grounding. “We’ll deal with everything,” he says, voice so low only I might hear it.
I nod.Because I believe him. Because I have to. Because I’m back.
But this isn’t finished.
Not even close.
The front door closes behind Matteo with a solid click that seems to echo through the entire clubhouse.
Nobody moves right away.
The tension he leaves behind hangs in the room like smoke, thick and bitter and impossible to ignore. Every brother in the room is still keyed up, every instinct screaming that letting a man like that walk back out of here breathing is a mistake. But none of that matters to me right now.
Only her.
Olivia is still pressed against my chest so tightly I can feel the tremors running through her body. Not dramatic shaking. Worse. Small, constant tremors she can’t control no matter how hard she’s trying to hold herself together. And she is trying.
Jesus Christ, she’s trying so fucking hard.
My arms tighten around her automatically. Her hands are fisted in my cut hard enough that the leather pulls tight across my shoulders. Her face stays buried against my neck like she’s afraid if she looks away, this will disappear too. I look down at her slowly. Now that she’s here. Now that I can actually fucking see her.
