Chapter 5 Mercy
MERCY
The industrial washing machines downstairs hum their familiar rhythm. Normally the sound soothes me, but today it only adds to the chaos in my head. I couldn’t sleep after Cash walked me to my door. My mind kept replaying his mouth on mine, the feel of his calloused fingers on my skin.
His comment before he left—dream of having my mouth on you.
So here I am at seven in the morning, feeding quarters into the washing machine, watching my meager wardrobe tumble in sudsy circles.
The scent of soap and damp heat do little to calm the energy thrumming under my skin.
My fingers trace the faint purple mark on my throat, a brand hidden by my curly hair.
I’ve had marks put on my skin before. But those were meant to punish, to shame. This one… this feels different.
A claim.
My stomach twists—fear and arousal. What happened last night was dangerous. More dangerous than a card game, more dangerous than an outlaw biker. The most dangerous thing in the world is hope, and last night, Cash lit a match in the dark. One I know I need to extinguish.
Because hope means having something to lose.
And I’ve already learned what happens when I start believing I can have more.
Two years ago I walked away from a man who made sure I knew exactly how small I was allowed to be.
He still tries to remind me. Every time I begin to breathe, he finds a way to tighten the leash from miles away.
He doesn’t fight fair—he destroys what you have until you crawl back just to make it stop.
My past is never far, always waiting for the next misstep.
I lean against the washing machine. The vibration thrums through my bones. I close my eyes, wishing things could be different.
From the moment I met Cash, I was drawn to him.
That kind of attraction that feels like gravity—quiet, constant, impossible to ignore.
I rebuffed him immediately, told myself to keep my distance.
Beautiful men usually come with ugly attitudes, and I’d had my fill of those.
But the longer I knew him, the more I saw the man beneath the looks—steady, patient, protective in a way that made me feel safe when I hadn’t felt safe in years.
Against my better judgment, we became friends.
It started small. Trading late-night texts, swapping sarcastic comments over the bar, filling quiet hours with easy conversation.
I told myself being his friend was enough.
That it was safer. But that was a lie. Every look, every laugh, every casual brush of his hand pulled me closer.
Until last night, when the tension finally snapped.
I can still feel the phantom weight of his hands on me, still taste whiskey and want on my tongue. For a few hours, I let myself believe in the fairy tale—that I could be the woman he sees when he looks at me. Strong. Confident. Free.
But fairy tales don’t survive the morning. And the truth is, I’m not free. My ex doesn’t care that I left. He doesn’t care that I built a new life. He’s made that abundantly clear.
I know what he’s capable of. And I know exactly how far he’ll go to remind me who holds the power. But I’m not crawling back. Not ever again.
And I won’t let him touch Cash. Or the club. If keeping them safe means staying guarded, then so be it. I’ve survived worse than loneliness.
“You’re up early today, dear.”
I open my eyes to find Mrs. Yu shuffling toward the bank of washers, a small wicker basket balanced on her arm.
She’s got to be pushing eighty, with steel-gray hair that’s always pinned in a neat bun and eyes that miss absolutely nothing.
In the nine months I’ve been living upstairs, she’s become something between a landlord and a grandmother—the kind of woman who brings you soup when you’re sick and notices when you come home crying.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I admit. I get up and transfer my wet clothes to the dryer. The mundane action steadies my nerves.
“Me neither. Heard you come in late last night.” She turns her eyes my way and smiles. “Or should I say, early this morning.”
“I hope we didn’t wake you. I know the stairs can be loud.”
Mrs. Yu settles onto the plastic chair she keeps by the folding station. “Oh, honey, when you get to be my age, you don’t sleep much, anyway. Besides, it wasn’t the stairs making all the noise.”
My hands still on the jeans I’m shaking out. “What do you mean?”
“That motorcycle.” She gives me a knowing look as she begins sorting. “Quite the machine. And quite the man riding it, from what I could see from my window.”
Heat creeps up my neck. Of course she saw. Mrs. Yu’s apartment is in the front of the building, her bedroom window has a perfect view of the street. She watched the whole thing.
“He’s just a friend,” I say, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue.
“Mmm-hmm.” She pulls out a faded floral dress and begins folding it with the kind of perfection that comes from decades of practice. “Friends don’t usually do that finger under the chin move. I’m pretty sure I saw him sticking his thumb in your mouth too.”
“Mrs. Yu!” I tease, smiling now. “You have a dirty mind.”
“I’m just reporting what I saw.”
“He didn’t put his thumb in my mouth.” I busy myself with counting quarters for the dryer, grateful for something to do with my hands. “He just…brushed it over my bottom lip a little.”
Mrs. Yu just hums, a low, knowing sound. “Sometimes, that’s more intimate.”
My cheeks flame.
“And that mark on your neck? Did his thumb brush there, too?”
“Oh my god.” My hand flies to my throat, covering the spot as my face gets even hotter. “It’s nothing. And you are too much.”
She chuckles. “Oh, I was young once, dear. I remember that kind of fire. Back when Mr. Yu and I first got married—God rest his soul.” Her smile softens, her gaze going distant for a moment.
I shove the last of my load into the dryer and slam the door. The clang rings through the quiet. When I turn back, the twinkle in Mrs. Yu’s eyes has faded, replaced by a sharp concern that makes my stomach clench. Her hands still over the dishtowel.
“This biker,” she says, her voice losing its earlier lilt. “Does he know what you ran from?”
The heat in my cheeks vanishes, replaced by icy dread that prickles my skin. I stare at her, throat closing, the easy banter of moments ago dissolving into thick, suffocating silence.
“Does he know about your husband, Mercy?” she presses gently, her eyes full of pity I can’t stand.
Mrs. Yu is the only person in Stoneheart who knows the truth about why I’m here, about what I’m running from. She found me crying in this very laundry room six months ago, right after one of his lawyers tracked down my new number.
Mrs. Rogers? This is Elias Webb from Webb, Kline & Associates. I’m calling on behalf of your husband—
I’d hung up before he could finish, but the damage was done.
The peace I’d built here cracked wide open.
I sobbed until Mrs. Yu appeared with a cup of tea and infinite patience.
Somehow, she coaxed the whole ugly story out of me—the marriage that started with charm and ended with control, the isolation, the way he stripped away every piece of my independence.
The night I finally found the courage to leave, taking nothing but the clothes on my back and what little cash I could gather.
“Gabriel.” The name scrapes out of me, tasting like ash. “No. Cash doesn’t know.” I meet her eyes. “And I intend to keep it that way.”
Mrs. Yu is quiet for a long moment, the only sound the whoosh and tumble of machines around us. When she speaks again, her voice carries the wisdom of a life spent watching people make hard choices.
“Are you sure that’s fair to him?”
I think about Cash last night at the hospital. The way he’d pulled me onto his lap when I said I wasn’t family, the fierce protectiveness in his voice when he told me I belonged. The way he’d held baby Rose’s tiny fist and looked at me like he was seeing our future.
A future I can’t have. Not because I don’t deserve it, but because Gabriel won’t allow it.
“It’s not about fair,” I say, my throat tight.
“It’s about keeping him and the club safe.
” It’s the truth, but not the whole truth.
The rest of it—the part I can barely admit to myself—is that I’m so tired of fighting.
I’m so tired of looking over my shoulder, of jumping every time my phone rings, of wondering if this is the day Gabriel finds a new way to hurt me.
And Cash? He represents everything I want and everything I can never have.
Because the moment I let myself have him, Gabriel will know.
And he’ll take him away. That’s what he does.
“Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, dear. But isn’t it a bit late for that? You’ve said yourself that the club is the reason you came to Stoneheart, why you took that job in the first place.”
“I know.” I sink onto the bench across from her, suddenly exhausted. “I thought I could just... blend in. Stay on the fringes—just close enough to feel safe.”
Mrs. Yu gives a soft, sad smile that makes my insides ache. “Oh, my sweet girl. A flame like you doesn’t blend in. You burn.” She gestures vaguely in the direction of the street, toward where Cash’s bike had been parked. “And that man? He’s pure gasoline.”
I let out a heavy sigh. She’s right. I’ve been a fool, thinking I could hide on the edge of a bunch of outlaws without getting pulled into the danger zone. I wasn’t blending. I was just waiting for the inevitable explosion.
“Last night was a mistake,” I say finally, the words tasting sour. I lift my eyes to meet hers. “I shouldn’t have…” My words trail off and Mrs. Yu’s expression softens.
“Liking a man isn’t a mistake, Mercy.”
“Letting him touch me is,” I snap, immediately regretting the sharpness in my tone.
“Letting him think he has a claim. Gabriel... he doesn’t share.
He never did. If he finds out about Cash, he won’t see a rival to be beaten.
He’ll see a threat to be eliminated.” His cold, methodical rage flashes through my mind.
I shudder despite the room’s humid warmth. “I have to end it.”
I’ve tried to be free. I’ve tried to build something new.
But every time—every time—Gabriel finds a way in.
A lawyer calling my phone. A PI showing up at my door asking questions.
That ‘welfare check’ last month where an Ailington cop just happened to be in the same place I was.
He’s never going to let me go. And the worst part?
I thought I could outrun him. I thought putting hundreds of miles between us would be enough.
But it’s not. It’s never enough. And bringing Cash into this?
That’s not freedom. That’s just giving Gabriel another weapon to use against me.
Mrs. Yu studies me for a long moment. “So you’re going to push this young man, this Cash, away?”
I nod, chewing on the edge of my thumbnail as certainty takes over. “I have to.” The decision feels like ripping off a Band-Aid. “I let myself forget for a few minutes there. But it’s the right thing to do.”
“The right thing is rarely the easy thing, dear.” She folds a dishtowel with a final, crisp snap of fabric. “But sometimes, running away from a good man because you’re afraid of a bad one... that isn’t right, either. It’s just fear.”
She gathers up the basket of folded laundry and heads into the backroom, leaving me alone to process her words.
It’s just fear.
Easy for her to say. She doesn’t know what it’s like to never be far enough away—to change your number four times and still hear his voice, to build a new life that can vanish with one phone call. That isn’t fear. It’s reality. It’s a reminder that freedom and safety aren’t the same thing.
Being near the club has kept me safe so far.
Stoneheart’s reputation makes most people think twice before entering their territory and asking questions, and for a while, that was enough.
But getting involved with one of them? That’s different.
Men like Gabriel don’t care about lines or consequences.
If he finds out, he’ll quit caring about appearances.
He’ll use his connections and make it his mission to tear the club apart just to get to me—and even men as resourceful as the MC wouldn’t be able to stop him.
My phone buzzes on the folding table, and my blood runs cold.
But when I check it, it’s just a text from Kya asking if I can cover an extra shift this week.
The relief is temporary. Every unexpected call, every sudden knock at the door, every stranger who lingers too long at the bar—they’re all reminders that my past is always there, always watching.
By the time I drag myself upstairs to get ready for my shift, I’ve convinced myself. This is compassion—protecting Cash, protecting the club. The apartment feels smaller now, more motel than home. I pull on my jeans and rehearse the lie I’ll give him, Cash. Last night was a mistake.
It’ll hurt to say it, but better that than watching Gabriel turn the man I care about into collateral damage. I left to be free. But freedom doesn’t mean safe. It just means running alone.