Chapter Eight
MILLIE
Two Days Later
Two Weeks Until Patching
The number sits inside my chest, heavy as a stone, one I keep turning over, feeling its edges, getting familiar with its weight. Two Weeks until Will stands in the clubhouse and comes out the other side with his full patch, his full colors, his roadname sewn permanent into the leather.
Two weeks until the thing that has been hovering between us like a question neither of us has been brave enough to say out loud either resolves itself or it doesn’t.
I am trying not to count.
But I am absolutely counting.
I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee going cold in front of me, watching my father in his armchair through the archway, when Will’s phone rings from where he’s left it face-up on the counter. He comes out of the hallway, still pulling his shirt down over his ribs.
Jesus Christ, the guy has abs on abs. Did I just drool a little? Pull yourself together, Millie!
The corner of his lips turns up infinitesimally as he glances from me to the screen, and something in his expression shifts.
It’s subtle enough that most people would miss it, but I have spent two years learning the language of Will Beckett’s face without meaning to, and I know a shift when I see one.
He picks up on the fifth ring. “Pres?”
I don’t move, or pretend to be absorbed in something else either, because there is no point. Whatever is being said on the other end of that call is already rearranging the air in the room.
Will listens. His jaw works once, like he’s chewing through something difficult.
“When?” A pause. “How many?” His eyes come to me briefly, checking, and then slide away before I can read what’s in them.
“Understood. I’ll be there within the hour.
” He ends the call and sets the phone on the counter with more care than the action requires, which is its own kind of tell.
“Tell me,” I say.
He looks at me for a moment, measuring, and I hold his gaze steadily because I am not a woman who folds under a look, not even his look, which is saying something.
“Three men at the mine perimeter this morning,” he says, his voice is careful and even, the way it gets when he is choosing words instead of just using them. “Broad daylight. No attempt to conceal themselves. Ghost’s surveillance picked them up.”
The cold coffee in front of me suddenly feels irrelevant.
“They weren’t trying to be invisible,” I say.
“No.” He picks up his cut from the back of the chair where he left it, and settles it over his shoulders with a practiced ease. “They were trying to be seen. That’s the point.”
It was a message.
The mine, my father’s land, the thing my father built from his grief, his love, and his sheer stubborn refusal to let loss have the final word.
The anger that moves through me is cold and much more dangerous than the hot kind.
“Sin’s doubling security,” Will says.
“And you’re effectively moving in,” I reply, because I have eyes and I’ve been paying attention.
The ghost of something moves across his face, something that isn’t quite amusement and isn’t quite discomfort. “Effectively,” he agrees.
From the armchair, my father huffs under his breath while turning another page.
One Week Later
Fridays at the clubhouse have a rhythm to them, warm and familiar, layered with the kind of ease that comes from a group of people who have chosen each other enough times that the choosing has become reflex.
I walk through the door with Marley’s arm looped through mine—the noise, the smell, and the weight of the place settle around me like something I didn’t know I’d been missing since I was last here.
Ro spots us from behind the bar and lifts a shot glass in greeting, which is Ro’s version of a standing ovation.
Victoria is already running the room. Five months pregnant and absolutely magnificent about it, Victoria occupies the corner table the way she occupies every room she enters, completely and without apology.
The bump is visible and real, and she has apparently decided it is simply another feature of herself, neither to be fussed over nor ignored.
She has a hand resting on it in the way she’s started doing without seeming to notice, and she is in the middle of what appears to be a pointed and extremely detailed explanation of something that has Marley already biting her lip to keep from laughing.
“Sin keeps referring to it as ‘strategic rest,’ ” Victoria says while Marley and I slide into the seats across from her. “Strategic rest. As if lying down for twenty minutes is a military operation I need to be briefed on.”
“He means well,” Marley offers, with great diplomatic effort.
Victoria gives her a look that could strip paint. “I know he means well. He means well for approximately sixteen hours a day, and it is freaking exhausting.”
Ro walks in carrying four mugs that smell way too strong to be plain coffee, and honestly, nobody here is questioning it.
She hands them out with smooth, practiced ease, the kind that comes from years of taking care of stubborn bikers who forget basic human needs whenever shit gets stressful. “Don’t worry, Vicks, yours is virgin,” she states.
Victoria groans in disapproval. “This baby is denying me my basic human rights.”
We all chuckle as Ro shrugs, sliding over her very bland coffee to her. “Nitro brought his grandmother. I bet she’d like a ‘tangy’ coffee,” Ro states, tilting her head toward the far end of the room.
We all giggle again while we look to see him walking in with Queenie.
He settles her into a corner chair with an easy authority, like she’s never needed the best seat to be the most important person in the room.
She’s small, sharp-eyed, and wearing a cardigan the exact color of expensive red wine, her attention bouncing around the room while she takes in every little detail with the kind of focus that tells me nothing gets past her for long.
Nitro is beside her, a giant made gentle, leaning slightly toward her so she doesn’t have to raise her voice.
She catches me looking and smiles, and something about it sends a prickle down the back of my neck I can’t explain.
“Tell me again why people do this voluntarily,” Victoria says, leaning back in her chair with one hand braced under her stomach like she’s holding up a bowling ball she didn’t ask for.
Marley laughs so hard she nearly spills her ‘tangy’ coffee. “Because the end result is cute.”
“That is a wildly insufficient reason,” Victoria replies. “Last night I woke up at two in the morning because my left hip had apparently filed for divorce.”
Ro snorts from across the table. “Wait until the heartburn starts. Apparently, you’ll think you’re being punished by God personally.”
“I already do,” Victoria says. “I ate a grape yesterday, and it felt as if I’d swallowed a lit match.”
Marley wipes at her eyes. “You’re dramatic.”
“I’m realistic,” Victoria corrects. “Also, my bladder is now more of a suggestion than an organ.”
“Hot,” Ro deadpans.
Victoria points at her. “You laugh now. One day you’ll be peeing every twelve minutes and crying over dog commercials.”
“I already cry over dog commercials,” Ro says.
“Same,” Marley adds.
They all look at me, and I shrug. “There was one with a golden retriever and a soldier. I needed a full emotional recovery period.”
Victoria slaps the table. “See? We’re all fragile. I just have a medical excuse.”
Marley reaches for another lemon bar. “How are you sleeping… at all?”
“I’m not!” Victoria says. “I close my eyes, and my brain just starts listing things the baby could possibly be doing in there. Yesterday I convinced myself it was learning to tap dance.”
Ro shakes her head. “That kid’s going to come out already exhausted.”
Victoria grins. “That’s parenting. We’re setting expectations early.”
Marley leans forward, lowering her voice as though she’s about to pitch a campaign. “Have you picked names yet?”
Victoria groans and rubs her stomach. “Sin wants something that sounds like it could lead a militia. I suggested something the kid could actually survive high school with.”
“That’s fair,” I say.
Ro snorts. “You naming a baby or a tactical unit?”
Victoria points at her. “You laugh now. But you’re going to be the one teaching bad language behind the bar.”
“Already planning the first word,” Ro says. “Can’t decide if it should be a swear word, or something more poignant.”
Marley grins. “You should run a focus group. I can build a brand identity around the name. Long-term scalability.”
Victoria stares at her. “It’s a human child, not a startup.”
“Says the woman conducting daily performance reviews on her own organs,” Ro mutters.
Marley nudges me. “What would you name a baby, Mills?”
I shrug. “Something simple. Something that doesn’t require a press release.”
Victoria studies me for a moment, eyes sharp in that ex-cop way that makes you feel like she’s already read the file. “You’re quiet today,” she says.
“I’m enjoying listening,” I reply.
“Good,” Marley says. “Because we’ve already decided you’re part of this circus.”
Ro lifts her coffee mug in salute. “No refunds.”
Victoria nods solemnly. “You’re in. We don’t let people leave once we’ve emotionally invested.”
I laugh, and it feels real enough that I don’t question it, and I almost don’t notice when Queenie detaches herself from the corner and makes her way toward us.
She doesn’t sit across from me or announce herself.
She simply settles into the empty chair at my elbow, and when I turn to look at her, she’s already staring at me, those bright eyes warm and entirely unimpressed with anything as mundane as social convention.
Across the table, Victoria and Marley are deep in a debate over nursery colors and the reliability of gender-reveal kits. Nobody is paying attention to the fact that I have lost track of their conversation.