Chapter 17 Melissa
Melissa
The next morning started with coffee, paranoia, and the sight of Joey Malone watching me like I was a lottery ticket somebody forgot to cash.
He was a prospect, the lowest rung of the Scythe food chain, a mutt who spent more time fetching coffee and scrubbing bikes than actually riding.
But lately, Joey had been putting in extra hours watching me.
I caught him staring at my belly over his mug, his jaw working like he was grinding up a confession. I met his eyes and raised my middle finger. He looked away, but not before I saw the fear. Not of me. Of whatever was coming down the line.
Breakfast was leftover pizza and a bottle of Gatorade I found behind the bar.
Nobody talked; the air in the clubhouse was static, so full of war that even the old-timers had stopped making dick jokes.
Augustine was already out on the perimeter with Seneca Wallace, doing patrols in case the Leatherbacks wanted to roll up early.
That left the main room to me and the prospect crew, most of whom kept their heads down and did their best to look invisible.
Except for Joey. He lingered near the exit, fidgeting with a rag that had more grease than cloth left in it. I pretended not to notice as he slipped out the door and into the side yard, eyes flicking over his shoulder as he went.
I waited a beat, then followed. If I was going to survive, I had to start thinking like my old man—paranoid, ruthless, always ready to run.
The baby had already rewired my brain; the part that used to plan escapes was now running calculations on food, shelter, and who might try to cut my throat while I was taking a piss.
The morning was cold and dry, the sky the color of old concrete.
I ducked through the loading bay and out to the side yard, keeping to the shadow line against the building.
Joey was out by the bike shed, pacing in a tight loop, muttering into the collar of his jacket.
I stayed low, using the row of junked Harleys as cover, and got close enough to hear him.
At first, I thought he was just talking to himself, but then he pulled a burner phone from inside his cut and jammed it to his ear.
I recognized the posture. It was the same way my dad used to take calls he didn't want anyone else hearing—shoulders hunched, voice low, foot tapping a Morse code of nerves into the dirt.
Joey's whole body radiated guilt, like he expected the ground to open up and swallow him for what he was about to say.
I crept closer, holding my breath. There was enough wind to cover my steps. I crouched behind a pile of old rims and listened.
"—no, she's still here. The girl's in the compound, but they're locking it down tighter than a nun's—yeah. No, I didn't fuck up. Damron is prepping for a siege. I can get you inside, but it'll have to be after curfew. She's still with the boyfriend. Yeah, him."
He paused, chewing his thumbnail. My stomach turned to ice. This wasn't just rat business. He was talking to my father.
"Tonight, then," he said. "But I want out after. Promise me, Saint. You fuck me, I'm dead, and you know it."
There was a pause, then Joey nodded, tucked the phone away, and spit on the ground. He looked like he was about to puke. I almost felt sorry for him, but not enough to stop what came next.
When he turned to leave, I stood up and blocked his path. He jumped, hands going for his pockets before he recognized me. Then he tried to swagger, but the sweat on his forehead ruined the effect.
"Didn’t peg you for an early riser," I said, arms crossed over my chest. My heart was going a million miles a minute, but I kept my voice steady. "My dad paying you by the call or just straight commission?"
His mouth worked, then snapped shut. The color drained from his face.
"Melissa, hey—look, this isn’t—"
I stepped forward, close enough to smell last night’s beer and desperation on his breath. "You got a death wish, or are you just stupid?"
He glared, but there was no heat in it. "I got no beef with you. I just—"
"You just what? Thought you could sell out the club and get a parade? You're a prospect, Joey. They'd bleed you out and use your corpse for target practice."
He shifted, scanning the yard for anyone else. "You don't get it," he hissed. "The Scythes are toast. Even Damron knows it. Your dad's got a bounty on you and your boyfriend. Only question is who gets to you first. I'm just trying to survive."
I looked at him, really looked, and saw the fear underneath. I almost felt bad. Almost. But then I remembered the hand on my shoulder, the voice promising me I wasn’t alone, the tiny maybe-life inside me that didn't have a say in what happened next.
"You’re a coward," I said, ice in my voice.
He lunged, fast, grabbing my arm and twisting it behind my back. The move was sloppy, desperate, but it hurt like hell. He shoved me up against the wall of the bike shed, breath hot in my ear.
"You say a fucking word," he growled, "and I’ll make sure you lose that baby before it ever draws a breath."
His hand was a vice on my wrist. I twisted, stomped his foot, but he just pressed harder. My vision went white around the edges.
"I don't want to hurt you," he whispered, voice shaking. "But I will. So just back off. You hear me?"
I nodded, teeth gritted. "I hear you."
He let go and shoved me, hard. I stumbled, caught myself on a bike seat, and glared back at him.
The compound was supposed to be locked down, but you’d never know it from the way Augustine and Carl Dalton materialized from behind the row of motorcycles parked by the loading dock.
They moved in sync, a two-man wall of denim, leather, and barely-concealed violence.
I don’t know how much they saw, but it was enough.
As soon as Augustine clocked Joey’s hands on me, his whole body changed.
One second, he was all angles and cool control; the next, he was pure attack dog. He covered the ground in two strides and tore Joey off me, fingers digging into the prospect’s collar so deep I heard the threads rip.
“You fuckin’ touch her again, I’ll slit you open like a deer,” Augustine said, voice so quiet it made the hair on my neck stand up.
Joey tried to twist free, but Augustine slammed him against the side of a rust-bucket van, hard enough to leave a dent. There was a wet smack as Joey’s head bounced off the window, and he slumped, all the fight leaking out of him in a single shudder.
Carl pulled me away, his good hand gentle on my elbow, but his eyes never left the fight. “You all right?” he said, not waiting for an answer.
I watched as Augustine delivered the first punch.
It broke Joey’s nose in a spectacular spray of blood.
The prospect’s knees gave out, but Augustine held him upright and hit him again, and again, each shot methodical, like he was hammering nails into a coffin.
The sound was horrible—meat and bone, nothing else in the world for a few seconds except the rhythm of fists and Joey’s breathless, sobbing pleas.
“Augie! Stop! Enough!” Carl yelled, but Augustine was somewhere else, a place where only violence made sense. He let Joey drop, then kicked him in the ribs, sending him rolling across the pavement. Joey curled up, leaking blood and spit, and tried to crawl away.
Augustine pounced, straddling him, fists coming down in a blur. Blood splashed up, painting Augustine’s knuckles and forearms, and I realized he was smiling—a rictus of pure hate, not joy. He hit Joey until the sounds stopped being words and started being animal squeals.
Carl let go of my arm, moved to intervene, but I put a hand on his chest. “Let him,” I said, voice thin and shaking. “He needs it.”
By the time Damron appeared, Joey was barely conscious, his face a pulp of red and purple. Augustine was breathing hard, chest heaving, eyes wild.
“Williams! Off! Now!” Damron’s shout ripped through the scene like a gunshot.
Augustine didn’t move, didn’t even blink.
He looked at Damron, then at Joey, and for a second, I thought he was going to finish the job.
But Damron didn’t wait—he grabbed Augustine by the collar and yanked him back.
The president’s strength was legendary; he could lift a man with one arm if the mood struck.
He dragged Augustine off the prospect and threw him against the van, holding him there with a forearm to the throat.
“We need him talking, not dead, you dumb shit,” Damron said, voice low but packed with more threat than a grenade. “Get your fucking head straight.”
Augustine’s lip curled, but the spell was broken. He wiped blood from his mouth and spat on the ground. “He was gonna kill her,” he said, voice raw. “Said he’d make her lose the baby.”
Damron let go and rounded on me. “That true?”
I nodded, still shaking. My hand was clamped on my stomach, the bruise on my wrist already blossoming up through the skin.
He turned back to Joey, who was trying to sit up but failing. “We got a rat, huh?”
Augustine wiped his hands on his jeans, eyes never leaving Joey. “Call Saint. Tell him we’ll trade the prospect’s teeth for a truce.”
Nobody laughed.
Carl finally stepped forward, bent down, and yanked Joey up by the collar. The prospect whimpered, blood and snot bubbling from his nose.
Damron addressed the air, but it was for everyone. “We deal with this in church. Nobody says shit until I say so.”
He looked at me, softer now, like maybe he remembered I was a person and not just a problem to solve. “Get inside, Mel. You too, Augustine. Carl, bring the trash.”
We shuffled back inside, the four of us a parade of violence, blood, and secrets. The war had already started, but now it was official.
Augustine walked beside me, shoulders tense, hands still shaking from the fight. I reached for his hand, but he flinched away, flexing his fingers as if trying to scrub the memory of Joey’s bones from his knuckles.
I let my own hands fall to my sides, feeling the world tilt and shift beneath my feet. I thought about the baby, about the future I hadn’t dared imagine, and wondered how many more fights it would take to get there.
Behind us, Joey moaned. The sound followed us down the hall.
Nobody here was getting out clean.
***
I always hated the smell of blood, but the stink of it in Augustine’s room was something else: a cocktail of copper, sweat, and the sharp bite of cheap antiseptic.
I stood at the sink, soaking a rag in the hottest water I could stand, and watched the swirl of red leak out from the gauze.
It looked like paint in the little yellowed basin, but when I wrung it out, the towel came away pink and sticky, the color of a tongue after too many cherry suckers.
Augustine sat on the edge of the mattress, hands braced on his knees, his breathing uneven. He’d showered, but blood still haloed his knuckles, stubborn in the cracks where skin met nail. I wanted to say something, ask if he was okay, but the words felt useless. Instead, I went to work.
I pulled up a chair, dragged his left hand into my lap, and started dabbing at the mess.
The room was so silent I could hear the flex and pop of his joints as I moved his fingers.
For a second, I remembered what those hands had felt like on my skin last night—gentle, reverent, a whole different person from the one who’d just tried to murder a prospect in the parking lot. The contrast made me dizzy.
I pressed a cotton ball soaked in peroxide to his knuckles. He didn’t even flinch. The fizz sounded like soda poured into a glass.
“You shouldn’t have gone after him alone,” Augustine said, voice low and not looking at me. “What if we hadn’t been watching him, too?”
I set my jaw, picking out flecks of blood from his cuticles. “Then I would’ve handled it. I’m not made of glass, Williams.”
He pulled his hand away, flexed it, watched the tendons stand out like wires. “Doesn’t matter. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
I snorted, balling up the gauze and tossing it into the trash. “Your job is whatever Damron says it is. Right now, that’s breaking the faces of anyone who rats to my dad. Lucky for Joey, he still has one left.”
He looked at me then, really looked, and for a moment I saw the exhaustion in his face, the way the lines were deeper, older than before. “He threatened you. He threatened the kid.”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Instead, I grabbed a fresh roll of tape and started wrapping his hand, neat and tight. I made sure to double up over the knuckle where the split ran deepest. He watched, but said nothing, letting me finish.
When I was done, I sat back in the chair and let the silence fill the space between us. We were both still wearing our cuts, and the patches on the backs of our vests felt like targets.
“Do you think we’re monsters?” I asked, surprising myself.
He shook his head, slow. “No. I think we’re survivors.”
I traced the edge of his palm, feeling the roughness, the callouses that would never go away. “Our baby’s gonna have blood in its veins before it even takes a breath,” I said. “What kind of world is that?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. We both knew.
I leaned forward, resting my head on his shoulder. He let out a breath, the tension easing, just a fraction. His unbandaged hand found my knee and stayed there, heavy and warm.