Chapter 19 Mercy
MERCY
Back at the clubhouse, the main room looks like Christmas threw up everywhere—boxes stacked haphazardly, tinsel already escaping from containers, and Tank wrestling with an inflatable Santa on a motorcycle.
“That thing’s not coming inside!” Ginger’s voice carries from across the room where she’s directing chaos like a drill sergeant. “I don’t care if Duck bought it for Emma, it’s terrifying!”
“It’s festive!” Tank protests, the Santa’s head stuck in the doorframe.
Cash guides me toward the women, his hand a constant pressure against my spine.
Poppy’s on the couch with Rose sleeping against her chest, while several hang-arounds are pulling decorations from dusty boxes.
Andi’s twins are ‘helping’ by pulling tinsel out faster than anyone can hang it, and Adam is toddling around with a strand of lights draped over his shoulders.
“Ginger,” Cash calls out. “Need you to keep Mercy close for a bit.”
Ginger takes one look at my face and her expression shifts from playful to protective. “What happened?”
“Gabriel showed up at the lawyer’s office,” Cash says quietly. “With backup.”
“That fu—” Ginger catches herself, glancing at the kids before turning to one of the hang-arounds.
“Can you girls take them out of here for a while? Give us old ladies a minute to talk?” The girl scoops up the twins with practiced ease, bribing them with the promise of cookies in the kitchen.
Adam squeals and charges after them, lights trailing.
The moment they’re all gone, Ginger turns back to us.
“Tell me,” she says, voice low so only we can hear.
I breathe once. Twice. “He was waiting outside the attorney’s office.”
“Fucking asshole. He still breathing?” She nods at Cash’s still-healing knuckles.
“Didn’t touch him,” Cash says, but his jaw is tight. “Wanted to. Bones and Steel stopped me.”
“Smart men. With everything going on lately, we don’t need to give Summit or the city any more ammo,” Ginger says, leaning in. “No matter how satisfying a broken nose might be.”
“I’d like to give that guy a hell of a lot more than a broken nose.”
Ginger presses her lips together in understanding before she shifts her attention back to me. “You OK, honey?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. Because I’m not fine. I’m rattled. Gabriel called me a whore in front of everyone, and for a second—just a second—I was right back there. Back in Ailington, apologizing for things that weren’t my fault, shrinking myself down to fit into whatever box he needed me in that day.
But then Cash kissed me. Claimed me right in front of Gabriel, made it clear whose name I’m wearing and why. And the difference between being Gabriel’s wife and being Cash’s old lady has never felt more stark. One made me small. The other makes me brave.
Still doesn’t mean I’m fine. Just means I’m learning that ‘not fine’ doesn’t have to mean ‘falling apart.’
Cash turns to Steel, who’s been keeping busy untangling Christmas lights. “You’re staying here. If anyone so much as looks at her weird, you let me know.”
“Yes, sir.” Steel straightens, suddenly all business despite the tinsel in his long hair.
Cash cups my face, thumb brushing my cheek. “I need to deal with some club business. Stay with the girls, OK?”
“Should I come?” I ask. “If it’s about Gabriel—”
“It’s club business now,” Bones says from the doorway. “We’ve got it handled.”
I want to argue, but Cash kisses my forehead. “Let us handle this part, angel. Please.”
There’s something in his voice that makes me nod. “OK.”
They disappear down the hallway, and Ginger pulls me over to the couch and sits right up against me, her body radiating that fierce older-sister energy I always wished I’d had in my growing-up years.
Poppy sits up, setting Rose down in her little vibrating bouncer.
Then she grabs my hand and squeezes it, like she knows exactly how close I am to spinning out. “You holding up, babe?”
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice cracks a little at the end. “I’m just…so fucking tired of this.”
“I can imagine,” Ginger says, tucking her legs beneath her then waving Tank away when the Santa biker starts hissing out air. “I thought I told you to take that outside!”
“You said not to bring it in there,” Tank returns.
“So you decide to stay in the doorway with it? Honestly! Take it out back.”
Tank mutters something under his breath then slinks away, dragging the Santa behind him.
“You’d think that somewhere inside that giant of a man there’d be some brains,” Ginger says, sighing.
“He’s lucky he’s great in bed and an absolute marshmallow when it comes to the people he loves, otherwise I’d have buried him under a fucking Santa years ago.
” She turns her gaze to me. “But you didn’t come here for marriage advice. What else happened, Mercy?”
I sink into the cushions, suddenly exhausted. “We had the meeting with Josie—went great, actually. She’s filing in a neutral county where Gabriel has no connections. But when we came out...” I take a breath. “He was waiting with his goon squad.”
“Bastard,” Poppy mutters. “What did he want?”
“To intimidate me. To show he could find me anywhere.” I touch the cut I’m still wearing. “He really didn’t like seeing this. Called me a... whore.”
Poppy gasps. “No wonder Cash looked livid.”
“He almost lost it,” I continue. “A couple of times. Bones had to physically hold him back, and Steel here got in between them.”
Ginger turns to Steel. “That was brave.”
Steel gives a shrug. “Did what I had to.” He pulls a knot out of the tinsel with one long finger. “Cash had murder in his eyes, and I wasn’t about to let him give that asshole cop what he wanted.”
“Well, you did good protecting him,” Ginger says. “If you didn’t, he’d be in cuffs right now.”
I’m about to thank Steel when the kitchen door slams open and the twins barrel in at the speed of a sugar rush, shrieking “STEEL! STEEL, LOOK WHAT WE MADE!” One holds a lumpy, half-frosted cookie in each hand like they’re Olympic medals; the other drags Adam by the shirtsleeve, all of them sticky with sprinkles and red-and-green frosting.
The hang-arounds chase after them, caught somewhere between laughter and panic, but the kids have linebacker momentum and total immunity to adult authority.
“Sorry, Ginge,” one of the women calls through the chaos. “They heard Steel’s voice and wouldn’t stay put.”
“It’s fine,” Ginger says, waving them off. “Just bring out a damp cloth or Steel’s gonna be pulling sprinkles from his beard for days.”
The twins have decided Steel is a jungle gym. He looks at me helplessly as Amy climbs onto his shoulders while Abby wraps around his leg.
“Steel!” Amy demands. “Make us fly!”
Without missing a beat, Steel carefully lifts Amy, making airplane noises as he ‘flies’ her around the room. She shrieks with delight, and immediately Abby demands her turn.
“Higher!” Abby commands when he picks her up. “Faster!”
Adam toddles over, arms raised. “Up! Up!”
I watch Steel juggle all three kids with the kind of easy patience I’ve never seen in a man before.
Gabriel used to complain when kids were too loud in restaurants, would glare at parents like their children existing was a personal affront.
But Steel? Steel flies them around, making whooshing noises, and he doesn’t look annoyed or put-upon—he looks genuinely happy.
Maybe that’s the difference between men who are actually strong and men who just need everyone to think they are. Real strength looks like Steel letting two little girls climb all over him for their entertainment. False strength looks like Gabriel calling me a whore because I dared to leave.
“He’s so good with them,” I observe.
“Steel loves kids,” Poppy says. “And kids love him. It’s hilarious watching this giant prospect turn into mush around them.”
“I’m not mush,” Steel protests. “I’m intimidating as fu—.”
“Fairy floss,” Poppy puts in with a giggle.
“Fairy floss?” Ginger screws up her nose, confused.
“It’s what the Australians call cotton candy.”
Ginger starts to laugh, then covers her face with both hands, which only makes her laugh harder. “Fairy floss? That’s… no. I love it. Steel, from now on your name’s Fairy Floss.”
Steel looks horrified. “Please no,” he pleads. “Do you know how difficult it was to get a cool road name?”
“How’d you get the name Steel, anyway?” I ask.
“Got punched by some drunk when I was guarding the bikes at a bar. Guy broke his hand on my face.”
“Um, ouch. But OK. Steel makes sense.”
“No. I like Fairy Floss better,” Amy says, from where she’s now standing behind him on the chair, trying to braid the tinsel into his hair.
Ginger is still snort-laughing, head in her hands, hiccuping, “Fairy Floss,” she wheezes. “Oh my god.”
Poppy wipes tears from under her eyes. “Sorry, Steel. Sometimes democracy is cruel.”
Steel, for his part, surrenders with remarkable grace. “Fine. But I’m not answering to it.”
Then Abby yanks on his sleeve and says, “Fairy Floss, give me a piggyback!” And he cringes, but kneels immediately so she can clamber aboard.
The chaos is exactly what I need, like engine noise for the nerves.
I let myself get lost in the riot of sugar, cheap tinsel, and Amy’s earnest attempts to build a tinsel mohawk on Steel’s head.
My fears shrink down to a manageable size.
In this moment, I feel untouchable. But not from muscle or protection—from the fierce, unexpected loyalty of this messy little family that’s claimed me back.
At some point, the hang-arounds manage to wrangle the twins by telling them they can help wrap gifts in the next room, and suddenly it’s just us adults again.
“Poor Steel,” I say once the kids are out of earshot. “Fairy Floss is going to stick, isn’t it?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Ginger confirms. “By dinner, the whole club will know.”
Steel groans, slumping in his chair. “I worked so hard for a cool name.”
“Could be worse,” Ginger offers. “There was a time when everyone called Nitro ‘Squeaky’ for six months.”