Chapter 16 Augustine
Augustine
The next morning hit like a migraine, all icewater and daylight and the smell of stale sweat under my cut.
By the time I made it out of my room, the clubhouse was already humming—bikers running on zero sleep, weapons being checked and double-checked, even the kitchen was busy, cranking out eggs and bacon like carbs could slow the inevitable.
Nobody looked me in the eye, but I didn’t take it personal, as the only thing that mattered now was surviving the next thirty-six hours.
I went straight to church. Damron was in there alone, pacing the perimeter of the map table like a wolf in a county jail, a cigarette pinched between his lips and his cell phone in his hand.
The window over the head of the table was cracked, letting in just enough light to halo the smoke and put a spotlight on the bags under his eyes.
He didn’t look up when I stepped in, but I knew he’d clocked me from the moment my boot crossed the threshold.
“Morning, boss,” I said, keeping it neutral. He grunted, didn’t break stride, just kept moving, eyes on the big map where every pushpin and highlighter line told the story of the war to come.
After a minute, he stubbed out the cigarette in a chipped coffee mug and finally faced me. “You get any sleep?”
I shrugged. “Enough to remember my name.”
He smiled, but it looked more like a baring of teeth. “How’s Melissa?”
“Still alive. Still stubborn.” I didn’t want to say anything more, not yet, but I could tell by the twitch in his cheek that he knew something was coming. That was his gift—he could smell a secret before you’d even decided to spill it.
Damron took his seat at the head of the table, boots up, arms crossed. The pose was lazy, but nothing about it was relaxed. “Go on,” he said, “I don’t have time for the slow build.”
I blew out a breath, then leaned over the table, both palms flat on the wood. “Melissa thinks she’s pregnant.”
The words didn’t echo, but they didn’t have to. Damron’s face froze, a hairline fracture splitting the blank mask he wore. He stared at me, eyes locked, like he was waiting for the punchline.
“She’s late?” he said, voice gone very flat.
“Nausea. Gut instinct. She’s not sure, but…” I trailed off because there wasn’t anything else to add. A week or two and we’d know for real, but we both felt it, like an engine you could tell was about to seize even if it wasn’t smoking yet.
Damron drummed his fingers on the table, slow and deliberate. Then he fished out another cigarette and lit it, the flame in his cupped hands making the lines on his face look cut from stone.
“Fuck me,” he said, not loud. He took a drag, stared at the ceiling. “Is it yours?”
I couldn’t stop my laugh. “We’ve been together nonstop. Yeah, it’s mine.”
Damron let the smoke out slow. He was thinking a dozen moves ahead, already cataloguing every disaster scenario. He flicked ash into the mug, then shook his head. “That’s a new one. Hell of a time to start a family, Williams.”
I shrugged, but the muscles in my neck felt like piano wire. “It is what it is.”
He watched me a long time. I could tell he was measuring—how much I cared, how much I’d fight, whether I was going to go off the rails and get half the club killed over a Leatherback girl and the baby she might be carrying.
“You tell her old man?” he asked.
“No.”
He barked a laugh, humorless. “He’d shoot you himself, then feed you to the coyotes.”
“Probably,” I agreed, but my voice was empty of fear. “But if you think he’s pissed now, wait till he finds out he’s about to be a grandfather.”
Damron’s jaw flexed. He ground out the cigarette, then leaned forward, elbows braced on the edge of the table. “You think this makes it easier, or harder?”
The question hung there, like a slug waiting in a chamber.
“Harder,” I said. “He’ll never stop now. Not until he’s put us both in the ground.”
Damron nodded, satisfied with the answer.
“That’s what I thought.” He went quiet again, this time longer, then stood up and paced to the window.
He looked out at the street, where prospects were loading crates of ammo into the back of a van and the women of the club were pulling their kids inside, locking every door and window that didn’t already have a board over it.
“Cutler’s a piece of shit, but he’s not an idiot,” Damron said, voice still facing the window. “If he finds out she’s pregnant, he’ll leverage it. Use it as a fucking flag to rally every psycho from here to El Paso.”
I bristled at that, fists clenching on the table. “Not if I kill him first.”
He turned back, just a little, and I saw the glint in his eyes. “You gonna do that, Augustine?”
“If I have to,” I said.
He grinned, but it was more of a snarl. “Good.”
He left the window, walked back over, and dropped into his chair. He leveled me with that look, the one that said you’re mine until I say otherwise.
“You wanna be a father?” Damron asked.
It wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t small talk. It was a real question, maybe the first one that mattered since I’d put on the patch.
“I didn’t think I did,” I said, and it was true. “But now—” I trailed off, trying to imagine a world where Melissa and whatever tiny thing she was carrying could be safe. “Yeah. I do.”
He nodded, once, and in that moment I could see the weight of all the years, all the brothers he’d buried, all the times he’d had to pick up a gun and decide who got to see tomorrow. It made him look ancient and more dangerous than ever.
“Fine,” Damron said. “You get her through this, and we’ll figure it out. But you listen to me—if you fuck up, if you blink, if you get sentimental when you need to be savage, I’ll kill you myself. And I’ll raise your kid to hate your memory.”
I didn’t flinch. “Deal.”
He stood up and reached across the table, grip like rebar around my wrist. He pulled me in, until our faces were inches apart, and for a second I could smell the whiskey and smoke and the raw, chemical stink of rage rolling off him.
“We protect our own,” Damron said, voice low and deadly. “That includes you, and her, and whatever bastard comes next.”
He let go, then smiled, something almost like pride flickering behind the threat. “Go tell her she’s family now. For better or worse.”
I stood there for a second, pulse in my neck thumping like a nail gun. Then I nodded, turned, and walked out, the sound of my boots lost in the hammering of my own heart.
The hallway felt longer than it ever had.
Every inch between me and my room was a chance for the world to change, for a bullet to find its way through the cinderblock walls, for history to repeat itself.
But I kept walking, kept my head up, kept the promise I’d just made to the only man I’d ever truly respect.
I didn’t know what kind of father I was going to be. Maybe the worst. Maybe the best. But I knew this, I wasn’t my old man, and I wasn’t going to abandon anyone who counted on me.
Not in this life. Not ever.
***
I found Melissa hunched over the toilet in my bathroom, head pressed against the tank like it was the only thing holding her up.
The overhead fluorescent buzzed, flickering in and out, turning her skin from white to green and back again with every pulse.
She looked up at me through strands of hair stuck to her cheek, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Her knuckles were scraped, maybe from the wall, maybe from hitting something harder.
She didn’t say anything, but I could hear her breathing—a staccato, wet hiccup that didn’t match the hard-edged girl who’d run half the southwest with a bounty on her head.
I grabbed a hand towel, ran it under cold water, and offered it to her.
She pressed it to her face, sucked in a shaky breath, and then forced herself to her feet, using the edge of the sink for leverage.
In the mirror, her eyes looked huge and ancient, rimmed with red.
She glanced down, running her palm over her stomach, still flat as an ironing board, then let her hand linger there.
“Was it bad?” she asked, voice shot from the acid and the crying.
“The meeting?” I leaned against the doorframe, watching her like I was trying to memorize every line. “Could’ve been worse. Damron didn’t shoot me.”
She gave a bark of laughter, the kind that sounded like it hurt, then spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth out. “Would’ve been quicker, probably.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
She let the towel drop and turned to face me, arms folded across her chest, hugging herself like she was freezing. She wore my t-shirt, sleeves hanging past her elbows, the hem just skimming the curve of her ass. The look on her face was somewhere between embarrassed and defiant.
“You want me to take care of it?” she asked. “I can figure something out. I mean—”
“No,” I said, too loud. Then, softer: “No. That’s not what I want.”
She closed her eyes, shook her head once, then pressed the heel of her hand into her eye socket like she could scrub the whole memory out. “I don’t even know what I want,” she said. “I just don’t want to end up like them.”
She didn’t have to say who them was.
I stepped into the bathroom, crowding the little space, and took her hands in mine. They were cold and damp, but she didn’t pull away. “You won’t. I won’t let you.”
She looked up, and for a second, the blue in her eyes was almost hopeful. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can try.” I squeezed her fingers, felt her pulse against my thumb.
She sniffled, then laughed again, softer this time. “You sound like a fucking Hallmark card.”
I grinned, even though it felt like a bad joke. “Yeah, but with better hair.”
She smiled, and for the first time all morning, it looked real.
We went back to the bedroom. She dropped onto the edge of the mattress, hands twisting together in her lap, and stared at the wall like she was expecting it to hit back. I stood over her, at a loss, until she patted the bed next to her.