Bonus Epilogue
BANDIT
Sunday at the plant smells like smoke, salt air, grilled meat, and home.
That last one still gets me.
Home used to smell like boiled noodles in a cracked pot and coffee I drank too late because studying didn't care what hour it was. It used to be one mug. One towel. One chair. One person doing the math on rent and bus fare and whether dinner could be more than toast.
Now home is a long table full of bikers arguing about whether Maverick burned the ribs.
For the record, he usually does.
"Bandit."
I turn from the kitchen counter, where I'm pretending to help and mostly stealing pickles.
Bones stands at the doorway to the hall. He jerks his chin once.
"Come here."
"That was not a question."
"No."
Phoenix laughs behind me.
"You still answering anyway?"
I pop another pickle into my mouth.
"Unfortunately, yes. I have a condition."
"It's called being stupid in love," Birdie says from the sink.
Sweetheart, who is rearranging slices of pie to make it look like she didn't already eat one, nods.
"She's terminal."
Trouble leans against the counter beside Glitch, looking far too amused for a woman who knows exactly what it's like to be summoned by a dangerous man and go willingly anyway.
I point at all of them.
"I hope you know none of you are helpful."
"We're not here to help," Birdie says. "We're here to watch."
I should be used to this by now.
I am not.
A few months ago, an entire roomful of Thunder Bastards screamed like lunatics because I walked across a graduation stage in a borrowed robe with my nursing pin crooked and my hands shaking.
Today, I'm an actual registered nurse with a badge that says so, a drawer in Bones' room that's mine, and half his belongings that he insists are mine because I touched them once. My life is so full I sometimes wake up braced for somebody to tell me there has been a mistake.
Nobody has yet.
I wipe my hands on a towel and follow Bones down the hall.
He doesn't take me to his room.
He takes me out the side door, down the concrete steps, and into the yard where the bikes sit in a gleaming row.
The sound of the party drops behind us. Out here it's quieter.
Wind off the water. Fir trees moving at the edge of the property.
The old treatment plant rising behind us like something built to keep out the world.
Bones stops by his bike.
I stop in front of him.
"Am I in trouble?"
"Usually."
"Specific trouble?"
His mouth moves.
That tiny almost-smile still has the power to ruin my circulation.
Then he reaches into the inside pocket of his cut and pulls out something folded.
Leather.
Black.
Small.
My heart bumps once.
"Bones."
He doesn't kneel. He just stands there, steady as poured concrete, and holds out the patch.
Old Lady.
My name in white thread on black leather.
My throat closes so fast I make a stupid sound.
He watches my face.
"I've had it for three months," he says.
"Three months?"
"Was waiting for you to stop looking like you'd bolt if I handed it over."
"I live with you."
"You still look like you'd bolt sometimes."
"I do not."
"Bandit."
Fine. Sometimes I do.
Not because I want to leave. Because wanting to stay still feels like putting my whole throat in someone's hand and trusting them not to close their fingers.
He steps closer.
"You're already mine. You've been mine since you came through that clinic door carrying stolen wound kits and an attitude. This isn't me claiming something you haven't given." He lifts the patch a little. "It's me putting the truth where everybody can see it."
I stare at the words until they blur.
"Be my Old Lady, Bandit."
There it is.
No big speech.
No audience.
No thunder rolling dramatically.
Just Bones, asking me to belong to him in front of his bike and his club.
I take the patch.
"About time."
His eyebrows lift.
I press the leather to my chest.
"Yes. Obviously."
"Obviously?"
"Yes. Obviously. Also, good, because I'm pregnant."
Bones doesn't move.
Not one inch.
For one horrible second, I think I have finally managed to stun the man.
Then he says,
"I know."
I blink.
"You know?"
"Yeah."
"You know."
"Yeah."
My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
"Excuse me, Dr. Creepy Observation Skills?"
His mouth twitches.
I slap the patch against his chest.
"How do you know?"
"You're sleeping more."
"I work twelve-hour shifts."
"You stopped drinking coffee after noon."
"I became responsible."
"You cried at a dog food commercial."
"That dog had no friends."
"Your resting pulse is up."
"Absolutely do not bring my pulse into this."
"And your breasts are bigger."
I stare at him.
He looks back at me, entirely unashamed.
A gull screams somewhere overhead like it has also heard enough.
"My breasts," I repeat.
"Noticeably."
"You medically observed my boobs?"
"I live with them."
"You live with me."
"Same address."
I try to glare. I really do. Unfortunately, I am smiling so hard it ruins the effect.
"You let me think I was hiding it."
"You let me think I didn't notice."
"Because normal men don't notice pregnancy by boobs."
"Normal men don't have my experience."
"That is the worst defense I've ever heard."
He takes the patch from my hand, folds it carefully, and tucks it into his cut again.
"Was waiting for you to tell me."
"I was waiting for you to ask."
His hand comes up, broad and warm, and settles low on my belly.
Not possessive.
Not claiming.
Awe.
That is what undoes me.
Bones, who can stitch a man shut without blinking, looks at the place where our baby is tucked away and goes quiet in a way that feels holy.
"You're happy?" I ask, and I hate that the question comes out small.
His eyes lift to mine.
"Bandit."
One word.
That's all.
Then he pulls me in, careful even though he doesn't have to be yet, and kisses me like the answer needs both hands.
When we go back inside, the whole room knows.
I know this because Birdie takes one look at my face and screams.
Not a cute scream.
A full murder-at-the-lake scream.
Smoke nearly drops the platter he's carrying.
Cash stands so fast his chair hits the floor.
Sweetheart claps both hands over her mouth and starts crying because she cries now at everything and blames pregnancy hormones even though her baby is already three months old and currently asleep against Darling's chest.
Darling sits at the head of the table opposite Bishop, exactly where she belongs, the baby tucked in the crook of one arm, a glass of iced tea in front of her, and the expression of a queen who has been waiting for her court to catch up.
"Well?" she says.
Bones turns me around and pulls out the patch so everyone can see it.
The room erupts.
Maverick yells.
Phoenix whoops.
Glitch says something dry I can't hear because Trouble elbows him and then kisses him.
Birdie hits the table with both palms.
Sweetheart cries harder.
Cash puts a hand on her back, resigned to go through it, like this is a weather event he married and has accepted.
Angel, leaning against the far wall with his woman tucked under his arm, actually smiles.
That floors me.
Not the small, sharp thing he used to do when he was thinking about revenge and pretending it was humor.
A real smile.
A settled one.
Months ago, at my graduation party, Angel had a storm behind his eyes. Brightmoor was closed. Beacon was shut down. Kessler was in prison. Darling was home.
But for Angel, it wasn't enough.
Because Darling had been hurt.
Because Halcyon still stood and the people running it were still breathing free air.
Angel did not rest until that changed.
I don't know everything that happened, but I know enough.
Halcyon is ash.
Victor Hale is no longer a problem.
Marianne Voss will never practice law, steal land, or threaten another vulnerable person again.
And Angel?
Angel looks peaceful.
Beside him, his woman says something that makes him glance down at her, and the hard line of his mouth softens like she's the only person in the room who knows where the off switch is.
"He's different," I say quietly.
Bones follows my gaze.
"Yeah."
"I used to think he'd never put his guard down."
"He couldn't. Not until the ones behind all this shit were gone."
Gone.
He doesn't say dead.
He doesn't say prison.
He just says gone.
And I believe him.
Darling catches me watching Angel and lifts one brow.
"Don't look so serious over there, girl. You're making me tired."
"I'm pregnant," I tell her. "I'm allowed to look serious."
I sit, and Bones sits beside me, close enough that his thigh presses against mine. His hand finds my stomach again like it belongs there now.
Darling looks at the patch. Then at me.
"Old Lady and a baby." She shakes her head. "Took you long enough."
"Everybody keeps saying that to us."
"Because it's true."
I look around the table.
Birdie tucked under Smoke's arm.
Sweetheart leaning into Cash while their baby sleeps against Darling.
Trouble laughing at something Glitch mutters in her ear.
Angel looking like a man who went through hell and came out holding the right woman's hand.
Bones beside me.
Our baby under his palm.
A ridiculous thought hits me, and because I have never once learned to leave ridiculous thoughts inside my head, I say it.
"We should almost be grateful to Halcyon."
The table goes quiet in a way that suggests I may have gone mad.
I lift both hands.
"Not grateful grateful. Obviously. They were evil land-stealing nightmare people and I hope their afterlife has bad coffee and no chairs."
Maverick nods solemnly.
"Fair."
"But if none of it had happened..." I look around the table. "Birdie never finds Smoke. Sweetheart never finds Cash. Trouble never finds Glitch. I never find Bones."
My eyes drift toward Angel.
"Maybe Angel never finds her."
Nobody argues.
Because they know exactly what I mean.
Bones' hand presses gently over our baby.
"She's got a point."
Darling catches my eye from the head of the table and smiles.
"Told you my boys would come."
And just like that, I'm back in the ambulance.
An old woman.
A frightened promise.
A hand locked around my wrist.
I found her boys.
And somewhere along the way, I found everything else.
Bones.
A baby.
A family.
A future.
I wasn't supposed to find any of this.
But I did.
And now that I've got them, I'm keeping every single one.
Thank you for taking a ride with Bones and his bandit.
If you have a minute please leave a comment to help other readers meet the Thunder Bastards MC.
Our next adventure?
It’s a ride with Angel in Angel’s Doll.