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And it was all Knox’s fault.

He’s just a man, I told myself.

Sure, a wildly attractive man who also happened to be decent, but still, just a man.

A man who slipped into my mind just before sleep claimed me.

Tomorrow, I’d worry about what it all meant.

Chapter Eleven

Knox

Hatchet looked better than he had last week, which wasn’t saying much but it felt significant. He lowered himself down onto the chair that sat outside the President’s office and stared at the field of green, now dotted with vibrant colors, and slipped off the glasses he finally admitted he needed to look at his phone.

I knocked to announce my presence, smiling when he didn’t bother hiding the glasses.

“Knox.” He grinned and set the phone down. “Sit.”

I sat. “How are you feeling?” I asked because I gave a shit and to stop him from throwing that question back at me.

He shrugged, a crooked smile lit up his face, weathered by years on a bike and under the Colorado sun. “Been better. Been worse.” He studied me for a moment the way he always had, like he could see the answer before he asked the question. “How’s married life?” Hatchet’s lips crooked into a half-smile like the question itself amused him.

“Fine,” I said.

He gave me the look that meant try again.

I scrubbed a hand over my face and thought about the thin as fuck walls between our bedrooms, and the unmistakable buzzing noise I’d heard. Also, the sounds Ivy made when she came. My dick had been hard all night until a cold shower and a quick jerk got the job done. “It’s…” I began, scrubbing a hand down my face. “An adjustment.”

My old man laughed, the sound low and genuine. He smacked his leg and shook his head. “Living with a woman is an experience.”

“Yeah.” I let out a long breath. “That’s one word for it.” Ivy wasn’t some demanding diva who’d invaded my space and tried to change everything. She was quiet and skittish, adjusting to living with a man she didn’t know but secretly hoped was nothing like the last man. My smile faded when I thought about it. “Rex wasn’t good to her, Dad.”

His expression settled into a blank slate, the smile long gone.

“She had bruises, so many fucking bruises, all over her body. The newest one was fresh, like she probably got it the day before she came here, but the others? They were in different stages of healing.” I knew bruises, knew how long the blue and purple lasted before turning green and yellow. “It was… fuck, a snapshot of Rex’s anger.”

Hatchet was quiet for a long moment, like he was trying to decide whether or not to share something with me. “There were rumors,” he said slowly, “after his wife disappeared. That he killed her and threw her off a mountain somewhere.”

I went still. “Disappeared? Ivy said she died.”

My father shrugged in that world weary way old dudes did when shit didn’t make sense and they didn’t have time to figure it out. “Never know with Rex.”

I sat with the new facts for a minute. Ivy thought her mother had simply died when she was a kid. There was no funeral and no grave, as far as she knew. She had no clue what happened to her mother and now I knew why. It was another thing I filed away for later. “He called her,” I finally said, getting to the real reason I was here.

Hatchet’s brows shot up. “Wanted to see what she knew?”

“Yeah. You expected it?”

“Of course. It was why he offered her up so easily, though not the only reason. Did he want anything specific?”

“Intel on the compound, the MC and security. He asked about my schedule specifically,” I muttered.

“Makes sense. You’ll be in charge soon enough,” he said, tapping two fingers over the President patch on his chest. “You’re the threat now.”

I knew that but I didn’t like to think about it too much. I wanted to be Prez, so much I could fucking taste it, but I couldn’t even imagine a world where he wasn’t leading us.

“It’s happening, Knox.”