Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Vanna
The first week back at the clubhouse is surreal.
I keep waiting to wake up.
Keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to tell me this was all a dream and I'm really back in some trap house with a needle in my arm.
But every morning, I open my eyes to the same thing: Garrett's arm around my waist, his breath warm against the back of my neck, the pale winter light filtering through Tildie's blue curtains.
It's real.
All of it.
And I still don't quite know how to believe it.
The clubhouse has a rhythm I'd forgotten.
Mornings are quiet—most of the brothers sleep late after long nights of drinking or working in the garage.
The compound feels almost peaceful in those early hours, just the creak of old pipes and the distant hum of the highway.
By noon, the place starts to come alive.
Engines rumble in the parking lot.
Music drifts from the common room.
The smell of coffee and bacon fills the hallways as whoever's on kitchen duty starts cooking.
I try to make myself useful.
Help with breakfast. Wipe down the bar. Fold laundry.
Anything to feel like I belong here, like I'm earning my place instead of just taking up space.
The brothers are kind enough—they nod at me in the hallways, include me in conversations, treat me like I've always been here.
But I catch the sideways glances sometimes.
The whispers that stop when I enter a room.
They remember who I was.
What I did.
And they're waiting to see if I've really changed.
Tildie finds me on day three, elbow-deep in a sink full of dishes.
"What are you doing?" She sounds almost offended.
"Dishes?"
"You're pregnant. You're supposed to be resting."
"I'm thirteen weeks along, not dying." I scrub at a stubborn patch of grease. "Besides, I need to do something. I can't just sit around."
Tildie studies me for a moment, then grabs a towel and starts drying. "Fine. But we're doing this together. And you're sitting down for the next task, whatever it is."
We work in silence for a while.
It's nice, having someone beside me who doesn't expect anything.
Who just... exists in the same space.
"Can I ask you something?" I say eventually.
"Shoot."
"How did you do it? When you first came here, I mean. How did you figure out where you fit?"
Tildie's quiet for a moment, considering. "I didn't. Not for a long time. I just... kept showing up. Kept being useful. Eventually, it stopped feeling like I was pretending and started feeling like home."
"That simple?"
"That hard." She bumps my shoulder with hers. "But you've got something I didn't have. You've got history here. You were Bloodhound's wife before everything went sideways. People remember that. They remember who you used to be."
"What if I can't be that person again?"
"Then be someone new. Someone better." She takes the last dish from my hands and dries it carefully. "That's what I did. The Tildie who walked into this clubhouse isn't the same Tildie standing here now. I'm a work in progress. We all are."
I want to believe her.
I want to believe that I can shed the skin of who I've been and become someone worthy of this second chance.
But there's a voice in the back of my head—my mother's voice, maybe, or just the addiction whispering—that says I'm fooling myself.
That people don't really change.
That sooner or later, I'll prove everyone right.
I push the voice down. Lock it away. One day at a time.
The confrontation with Venus happens three days later.
I'm in the common room, curled up on one of the leather couches with a book I'm not really reading, when she walks in.
She's wearing tight jeans and a low-cut top, her hair perfectly styled, her makeup flawless.
Everything about her screams effort—the kind of effort you put in when you're trying to prove something.
She stops when she sees me.
For a moment, we just look at each other. "So," she says finally. "You're back. For good this time?"
"I'm back."
"Must be nice." She moves to the bar, pours herself a drink even though it's barely noon. "Disappear for five years, fuck up over and over again, and still get to waltz back in like nothing happened."
I close my book. "I'm not pretending nothing happened."
"No?" She takes a long sip, her eyes never leaving mine.
"Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you've got it pretty good.
Nice room. Doting husband. Baby on the way.
" Her lips curl. "Meanwhile, some of us were actually here.
Holding things together. Keeping him company on all those lonely nights. "
The words hit exactly where she wants them to.
I think about Garrett's confession—the years they spent together while I was gone.
Physical, he said.
Just physical.
It’s not like I can be mad about it.
I was out fucking around too.
But physical is still something.
Physical is still her hands on his skin, her body in his bed.
Physical is still five years of memories I wasn't part of.
"I know what happened between you and Garrett," I say, keeping my voice steady. "He told me."
Something flickers in her eyes.
Surprise, maybe.
She wasn't expecting honesty.
"Did he tell you how good it was? How he'd come to me after every time you broke his heart?" She sets down her glass and moves closer, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. "Did he tell you how he'd fuck me like he was trying to forget you existed?"
I stand up, refusing to let her tower over me. "He told me it's over. That's all that matters. And the fact I’m an ol’ lady and you’re just a used up club whore, Venus."
"Is it?" She's close now, close enough that I can smell her perfume. "Because here's the thing, sweetheart. I was here when you weren't. I held him together when you were too busy getting high to give a shit. And now you think you can just come back and take what's mine?"
"He was never yours."
The words come out sharper than I intended.
Venus's expression hardens.
"You think you're so special," she hisses. "You think just because you're his wife, just because you're knocked up, that means something? You're still the same junkie who stole from her own family. You're still the same worthless—"
"That's enough."
The voice comes from the doorway.
We both turn to see Aunt Ellie standing there, arms crossed, her expression thunderous.
"Venus." Ellie's tone leaves no room for argument. "Walk away. Now."
"I'm just—"
"I said walk away." She steps into the room, putting herself between us. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but it ends here. Vanna is Bloodhound's wife. She's carrying his child. She's family. And in this club, we don't tear down family."
Venus's jaw tightens.
For a moment, I think she might argue.
But something in Ellie's expression makes her think better of it.
"Fine," she spits. "But don't come crying to me when she relapses and breaks his heart all over again."
She grabs her drink and storms out, slamming the door behind her.
The silence that follows is heavy.
I sink back onto the couch, my hands shaking.
"Don't let her get to you," Aunt Ellie says, settling beside me. "Venus is bitter because she wanted something she was never going to have. That's not your fault."
"She's not wrong, though." My voice is small. "I did disappear. I did break his heart. Over and over again."
"Yes, you did." Ellie's not one to sugarcoat things. "And now you're here, trying to make it right. That's what matters. Not what Venus thinks. Not what anyone thinks." She pats my knee. "You just keep showing up, honey. That's all any of us can do."
I nod, but the words stick with me long after she's gone.
Worthless. Junkie. Still the same.
Is she right?
Am I fooling myself?
I put my hand on my stomach, feeling the small swell that's just starting to show.
No. I'm not the same. I can't be the same. I have too much to lose.
Leah comes to the clubhouse two days later.
I'm in the kitchen, making tea, when I hear the front door open.
Voices in the hallway—Garrett's low rumble, then a woman's voice I don't recognize at first.
But when she steps into the kitchen doorway, I know exactly who she is.
Leah Mercer.
Garrett's sister.
The woman whose mother's jewelry I stole and sold for drug money.
She looks like Garrett around the eyes—the same watchful intensity, the same guarded expression.
But where Garrett is all hard edges and leather, Leah is softer. Curvier.
She's wearing scrubs under her coat, like she came straight from the hospital, and there's a scar running from her eyebrow through her forehead.
The scar from the fire.
The fire that killed their parents.
The fire Garrett saved her from.
"Leah." Garrett's behind her, his expression tight. "This isn't a good time."
"I'm not here for you." Her eyes are fixed on me. "I'm here for her."
The temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
I set down my mug with shaking hands.
"I'll give you two some space," Garrett says, but Leah cuts him off.
"No. Stay. You should hear this too." She steps into the kitchen, her arms crossed. "I've been trying to figure out what to say to you for weeks. Ever since Garrett told me you were coming back."
"Leah—" I start.
"Don't." Her voice is sharp. "Don't apologize yet. Don't try to explain. Just... let me say what I came here to say."
I close my mouth and wait.
"You stole my mother's jewelry." She says it flatly, like she's reading from a police report. "The only thing I had left of her. The necklace she wore on her wedding day. The necklace that survived the fire because she always kept it in a box by the bed."
Each word is a knife. I feel them sink in, one by one.
"I was four when that fire happened. He pulled me out of that house while our parents burned.
" Her voice cracks, just slightly, before she gets it back under control.
"That necklace was all I had. All I had to remember what she looked like, what she smelled like, what it felt like to be her daughter. "
"Leah, I'm so—"