Page 28 of My Reckless Biker

But I know it's real.

And I know tonight when I come back from the warehouse, when Dutch is handled and the message is sent, I'm going to stop pretending this is anything other than what it is.

I want her.

Not strategically. Not as part of an arrangement.

Just want her because she's her and I've decided she's worth wanting even if it costs me the control I've built my entire life around maintaining.

That decision is made.

Now I just have to survive tonight to do something about it.

Chapter 6 — Sienna

The afternoon stretches long and tense after Diesel goes back inside.

I stay in the yard for a while, watching brothers move through their preparations, feeling the weight of what's coming settle over the clubhouse like a physical thing. The raid is tonight at twenty-two hundred.

In less than six hours, Diesel and five other brothers will drive to a warehouse and hurt people, maybe kill them, and the violence feels inevitable in a way that should scare me but doesn't.

I want Dutch hurt for what he did to Ray.

I want my father to understand that touching people in Vigil's orbit has consequences.

And I want Diesel to come back from this intact, which is the thought that actually scares me because it means I care about him in ways that go beyond strategic alliance or survival necessity.

I head inside around sixteen hundred and the common room is active but controlled. Tate and Holt are at the main table going over maps one more time. Cain's on his laptop, probably tracking communications or camera feeds or whatever intelligence he's been gathering. Knox is cleaning weapons at the far end of the room, methodical and precise.

Everyone moving with purpose. Everyone preparing for violence.

I go upstairs to my room and close the door and sit on the edge of the bed with my hands pressed together, trying to slow my breathing, trying to calm the anxiety that's been building since this morning when Diesel told me Ray's face is destroyed.

This is my fault.

I know Diesel said it isn't, said it's on Dutch and on Crane and on him for making the arrangement public.

But Ray wouldn't be in that hospital if I hadn't walked through Vigil's gate. My father wouldn't have seen those photos if I hadn't agreed to the fake dating. Dutch wouldn't have been sent with a message if there was no message to send.

The logical chain runs straight from my decision to leave to Ray in ICU, and I can trace every link.

I stand and move to the window.

The sun is lower now, still brutal but angling toward evening. I can see brothers in the yard, more of them now, gathering even though only six are going on the raid. Support. Presence. The way the club shows up for itself when something matters.

A knock on my door pulls me from the window.

I open it and find Diesel standing there in the same jeans and black shirt from this afternoon, but something about him is different. Tighter. More controlled. Like he's compressed all the rage and guilt and worry into a space small enough to carry and now he's just holding it, waiting for twenty-two hundred when he can finally release it.

"Can I come in?" he asks.

"Yes."

He steps inside and I close the door behind him and suddenly the room feels smaller, the air thinner. He moves to the window and stands looking out at the yard, hands in his pockets, shoulders tense under the black fabric.

"You okay?" I ask.

"No."