Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
ROWAN
“ I ’ll get the word inside Long Bay,” Bear said, crossing his arms over his chest as he fell into the armchair in front of my desk. “Michael won’t hesitate, not after what Snake did to him. The slimy prick will no longer be a problem.”
“Good.” I slumped down in my office chair. The leather groaned like it was just as tired of this shit as I was. “I just have to get John Cooper to agree to it. He’s giving me forty-eight hours. Can you get to Long Bay by then?”
Bear scratched at his chin, his fingers disappearing inside his thick beard. “Yeah. Shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll drive down there tomorrow. Want Scout in on this?”
I drummed my fingers on the desk. Each scar in the wood was another reminder of a promise we’d fucked up. “Not yet. I want it set in motion first. The fewer of us who know, the better. Just you, me, and the chief. No one else hears a word until it’s done.”
Scout didn’t need to be privy to the plan. Not that I didn’t trust him, more that if it went south, it was fewer people I had failed .
“You got it.” Bear pushed up from the chair. “I’ll see you out there, bro.” He disappeared then, shutting the door behind him.
I sank further behind the desk and scrubbed the heels of my palms over my eyes as though that was going to do anything to force away the exhaustion.
Snake’s smug fucking grin from the previous day ate away at my brain like rust. The last thing I wanted to do was party—another celebration full of fake bullshit smiles and empty laughter echoing off the walls of the clubhouse.
Even in the office, the smell of motor oil and burnt rubber clung to everything.
The scent didn’t leave, just like the damn pressure.
Iron had fucking disappeared again—another trip to tie up loose ends—leaving me to pick up the slack. There was always something different happening with the club, but never anything new.
Apparently, we weren’t making enough profit. Before he left, Iron had glared holes through me, as if I had taken the cash and set it on fire myself.
“You need to be on top of everything,” he had said before walking out the door. “It’s important, Rowan.” Whatever was up with him, I didn’t like it.
The club had more baggage than a fucking airport.
Someone started a fight in a neighbouring bar and needed to be bailed out of lockup.
Not only that, but they’d also stood there grinning with split knuckles like it was all some sort of game.
Another fucker got someone else’s old lady knocked up and almost had to have his entire face rearranged.
And this was all in the span of twenty-four hours.
It was on a predictable loop, the same mess repackaged in a fresh layer of bullshit.
I was tired of cleaning it up, like I didn’t have other things to worry about.
Between the shit with the burnt-out bikes, Snake and Sadie, I was barely holding myself together.
And Sadie—fuck. She hadn’t even scratched the surface yet, and I was already bleeding for it.
I exhaled sharply. Why any of this was still my responsibility was beyond me. Nothing was enough for Iron, and he just kept piling on more, expecting me to catch it all until I was drowning.
A knock rattled the office door.
I groaned and let my head fall back. “Go away, I don’t care.” I stared up at the cracked ceiling, the paint peeling from the edges.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t ready to give a shit just yet.
“VP?” Scout’s voice seeped through the door, muffled by the thump of the music bleeding through the clubhouse walls. “It’s about Sadie.”
The name hit me like a gut punch.
Sadie .
I jerked upright, reality slamming into my chest like a freight train, and cleared my throat, feigning a calmness I’d never been good at evoking with her. “Come in.”
What the fuck had she done now? One wrong move, and the entire crew would start asking questions I couldn’t afford to answer.
The door opened inwards, and Scout’s lean form slipped through the gap. The stale tang of sweat and old beer trailed in with him, and he glanced behind him, likely checking to see who might be watching—or listening—then closed the door again, drowning out the bass blaring from the bar room.
“She . . .” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “She just walked in. Snake’s already on her like a goddamn shadow.”
“What?” My heart skipped, then started pounding hard enough to rattle my ribs.
He nodded, his lips set in a thin line. “Thought you’d want to know. ”
Goddamn it. Of course, Snake had sniffed her out the moment she’d stepped foot inside this fucking hellhole. She was a magnet for arseholes—me included.
I clenched my jaw. She was stubborn, alright.
Could never take no for a fucking answer.
But showing up at the clubhouse wasn’t just reckless.
It was downright dangerous. Not just for her, but for me, for all the precarious balances I was struggling to keep.
Snake was already poking sticks into the holes I was desperately trying to patch up.
And Sadie was ready to blow it all to pieces because she couldn’t let the past stay dead and buried.
Fucking great.
I forced myself up, the chair squealing like Old Man Jenkins’s joints as I shoved it back with a little too much force. It slammed against the wall, but I ignored it and moved toward the door.
“Thanks Prospect,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “You did good.”
Scout’s smile lit up his face, pure and eager, as if that one bit of praise was a rare coin he’d never seen before. Sad, really. “Jasmine’s working as well,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. I didn’t miss the hopeful urge at the edge of the words.
The man was obsessed.
The noise surged in the second I cracked the door, the heavy bass crashing over me like a wave I didn’t feel ready to swim through. I gestured for Scout to leave ahead so I could lock up the office.
“Asked her out yet, or still too scared she’ll eat you alive?” I said, lifting a brow as I slipped the key into the lock and twisted.
He shook his head, though I couldn’t see his face, just the set of his shoulders, the way they dipped with uncertainty. “ Don’t think she likes me all that much, VP,” he said, resignation hanging in his tone. “Not her type . . . apparently.” He mumbled the last word, more to himself than to me.
I closed the space between us in a few strides and slapped him on the back hard enough to make him stagger a step. Sometimes a forceful nudge was all it took to jar someone out of their own head. Though, it would have taken a lot more to knock some sense into me at that moment.
“Women don’t know what they want most of the time,” I said, attempting to be the voice of experience rather than the sceptic I was.
Sadie had destroyed that hopeful part of me when she’d taken off all those years ago.
And now she was back just to twist the blade she’d left behind, smiling while she did it.
“Tell her you’ll ruin her for anyone else. One date. That’s all it’ll take.”
Scout coughed, but it sounded more like choking as his eyes bugged out of his head. Jesus, he was acting as though I’d just kicked a puppy. How the hell someone like him was making it in our line of work was beyond me.
“Nah, VP,” he said, frowning. “I can’t say that.” His tone held a serious edge. “She’ll probably slap me.”
And he was probably right. It seemed Sadie and Jasmine had one thing in common—keeping us blokes guessing.
“Well,” I said, scrubbing a hand over his blond head. “Can’t hurt to ask.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right, VP.” He was taking my words as gospel, but I had no right teaching him anything, especially when it came to women.
Sure, I’d had my fair share of hookups, one-night stands, and temporary . . . I wouldn’t even call them relationships. But as far as the heart went, mine had shrivelled up and turned black a long time ago.
Scout pushed through the doorway to the bar room, and I slipped past him. Heat, sweat, and poor decisions hung thick in the air, choking on the same smoke that clouded the bar.
My focus instinctively zeroed in on Sadie seated at the far end. The sight of her was a goddamn ambush—tight black dress, legs for miles, and a smile that should’ve come with a trigger warning. Jasmine’s doing, no doubt.
A few of the boys turned to look. Couldn’t blame them. She looked like trouble served on a silver fucking platter.
My hands twitched at my sides. I’d never wanted to punish someone as much as I did her in that moment. There she was, in the one place she knew she shouldn’t be. The words I wanted to hammer into her head collided with each other, except all they formed was a string of incoherent bullshit.
And then there was Snake, the slimy bastard, already wrapping himself around her like he was staking his claim.
He was a buzzard who had smelled fresh meat, and Sadie was playing along with it.
Stupid, frustrating, and as beautiful as the day she cut me in half and snatched my heart from my bleeding chest. Maybe this time, she’d finish the job.
Just hold the useless organ up and watch it stop beating in her hands.
My mind raced as I shoved through the crowd, bodies knocking into me, and liquor coating the already-sticky floor.
My brain was short-circuiting—rage, panic, and need all colliding like firecrackers in my head.
I didn’t have a plan. Just instinct. All I knew was I had to do something drastic, and quickly, to prove to Snake that Sadie wasn’t to be touched.
She was a magnet for trouble, and I was already living on borrowed fucking time. So, I did the only thing that might have kept Snake the hell away from her.