Page 193 of Reckless

Nobody in this room needed the speech to know what Liam did. They already knew. Tonight isn’t about telling them. It’s about making it permanent, stitching two years of proof into leather so nobody ever has to wonder again where he stands.

Ricochet.

It fits him better than I expect a nickname to fit anyone. This too-eager, too-loyal kid who once asked Millie’s store worker how to pronounce kouign-amann and then ordered two anyway. The kind of man who takes the hit without being asked, then gets up and asks if everyone else is okay first.

Someone presses a shot into my hand. I don’t even see who.

Sin raises his glass, and the whole room follows, bottles and glasses lifting in imperfect unison that somehow lands exactly right.

“To Ricochet,” Sin says.

“To Ricochet,” the room echoes, loud enough to rattle the windows.

Liam’s eyes find mine across the room, and for a second, the noise around us fades. He lifts his glass a fraction higher, just for me, and I do the same back, and neither of us needs to say the rest of it out loud.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

I’d do it again.

And I believe him completely.

The party doesn’t slow down for another two hours. Somewhere in the middle of it, Liam ends up on Koa’s shoulders for reasons nobody can fully explain afterward, and Deek starts a rumor that the patch actually stands for Liam Never Learns, which earns him a pillow to the face courtesy of Ro.

Ghost keeps me tucked against his side through most of it, quiet in the way he always is at the center of chaos, and every so often I catch him watching Liam with something that looks almost like pride, though he’d never call it that out loud.

He is one of us now.

Not that he wasn’t before.

But now it’s stitched into leather, permanent, undeniable, the way this club makes anything true the moment it decides to.

Fuck, I love being a part of this.

I love being a part of Defiance.

I never saw my life being like this…

Bikers, chaos, undeniable love, and fierce friendships, but now I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

And thank fuck for that!

Epilogue

GHOST

Three Months Later

The apartment is quiet. Six in the morning usually is. I measure out the coffee by habit, the grinder loud enough that it’ll wake Sage sooner or later. Two mugs go on the counter before I even think about it.

Three succulents sit in the window where there used to be one. I named the new ones Root and Cache.

She doesn’t know that.

She’ll probably find out eventually.

She usually finds out everything.