Chapter Twenty
BY THE TIME Lark came back inside, the color had drained from her face, but she held herself tall, shoulders locked tight like she wasn’t about to let the whole damn world see her crack.
No tremblin’ hands. No shaky breaths. No hint she’d damn near bolted into traffic chasin’ a ghost that shouldn’t exist.
She didn’t say another word about the man she thought she saw. Didn’t ask for a break. Didn’t even flick a glance my way. Just muttered an apology to Ruby and slid right back into work like slowin’ down might give whatever she was runnin’ from a chance to catch up.
I stayed at the bar, elbows planted, eyes pinned on her, not givin’ a damn who noticed. She carried those trays like every glass on ’em carried weight. Careful. Quiet. Movin’ with that sharp, exact rhythm folks only learn after life’s tried like hell to break ’em.
That kind of grit… it didn’t show up often. And sure as hell not in women raised in cults.
Gatsby dropped onto the stool beside me with a beer, boots scrapin’ loud. “You look like you swallowed a damn nail.”
“Shut up.”
He grinned. “So what’s her deal?”
“She saw somebody outside,” I said, keepin’ my voice low and steady. “Thought it was someone she used to know.”
Gatsby’s brows went up. “From the compound?”
“Yeah. Name was Zach.” My jaw tightened. “She says he’s dead.”
Gatsby took a long pull from his beer. “Says?”
I didn’t answer. Not when she kept driftin’ toward that damn window. Not when her eyes kept flickin’ over like she couldn’t stop herself. Not when the parking-lot light caught the ends of her hair and turned ’em gold, and she blinked hard, fightin’ off more than just a memory.
Something twisted low in my chest—jagged, unwelcome, solid as a warning.
“Find out if there’s any truth to it,” I said finally. “Talk to Ash. He was one of theirs. Might’ve heard somethin’.”
That wiped the humor clean off Gatsby’s face. His voice dropped. “You think the cult’s sniffing around again?”
“I don’t know.” It came out rough as gravel. “But if they are, I wanna know before they get anywhere near her.”
Gatsby stared at me a beat too long. “You sound awful invested, boss.”
“I’m invested in keepin’ shit from goin’ sideways in my bar,” I shot back, sharper than I meant.
He whistled low. “Right. Just the bar. Sure.”
I cut him a look that’d usually weld a man’s mouth shut. He lifted both hands.
“Alrigth, alright. I’ll ask around. Talk to Ash.”
When he wandered off, the room felt quieter—like half the noise went missin’—leavin’ me with my drink and the truth I wasn’t all that eager to unpack.
I told myself this was business. Protocol. Threat assessment. If the Children of the Flame were sniffin’ around, the whole club needed to know.
I was doin’ my job. Same as always.
But then I looked back at her.
Lark laughed at somethin’ Ruby said, soft, real, almost startled out of her. Like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to feel somethin’ that light right now.
That raw ache in my chest pulled tight.
Hell.
It hit me square: I wasn’t just pissed somebody might be watchin’ her. I was pissed because once—before the burnin’, before the hurt, before the world went cruel—she’d loved somebody else.
Didn’t matter she’d been young. Didn’t matter they tore him from her. Didn’t matter none of it was on her.
It still landed wrong.
I wasn’t the jealous type. Never had been. Women came and went—good nights, clean exits, no ghosts, no promises.
But Lark…
Lark carved herself into the part of my head I kept locked down tight. Did it quiet, steady, without even tryin’. And the second she saw that shadow outside, somethin’ low in me woke up—protective, possessive, dangerous in a way I didn’t have a damn name for.
I stared into the bottom of my glass, jaw clenched, chest tight, tryin’ like hell to pretend I wasn’t already losin’ a fight I never planned to start… and wasn’t sure I’d be able to win.
***
THE BAR STARTED thinnin’ out around midnight, bodies driftin’ toward the door in loose groups, the kind of slow Friday wind-down that usually settled me. Not tonight. Not with the way my nerves kept pricklin’ under my skin like somebody’d wired me too damn tight.
I wiped down the counter—again—then tossed the rag aside and stepped out from behind the bar. Needed space. Air. Somethin’ steady to put my boots on.
The music was quiet, lights dimmin’ down to that easy after-hours glow, and the club boys lounged around shootin’ the shit. Normal. Every damn thing looked normal. Which only made the tension in my chest sit heavier.
Devil caught my eye from his table, lifted his chin in question.
I shook my head. Not yet. Not without somethin’ real to stand on.
A shadow wasn’t evidence, and Lark’s face when she walked back inside—white, still, grounded even while she was shakin’ on the inside—hung in my mind and wouldn’t let go.
I cut through the side hallway, past the office, past the storage closet, and pushed out the back door.
Charleston night air slapped across my face, salt from the harbor, diesel from the street, that half-city hush where traffic hums, but the alleys stay quiet.
A delivery truck rolled somewhere a block over.
A siren wailed faint in the distance. The security light buzzed overhead, throwin’ a pale wash across the parking lot.
And underneath all that—somethin’ else.
Somethin’ loud.
My boots hit the cracked asphalt as I stepped off the concrete slab. The back lot was empty except for our bikes, a couple trucks, and the dumpsters lined against the brick wall. No movement. No shadows shiftin’. No alley lurkers tryin’ their luck.
Didn’t matter. My gut stayed tight.
I walked the length of the lot anyway, slow and steady, hand driftin’ toward the weight of my pistol out of habit. Nothing jumped out. Nothing stirred. But the hairs on the back of my neck kept standin’ up like they knew somethin’ I didn’t.
Zach. Dead or not… his name had cracked somethin’ open in Lark she’d been fightin’ to bury.
I stopped at the far corner where the lot met the narrow alley. The pavement dipped there—always collected a bit of mud and grit after rain. Something caught my eye.
Not movement.
Just a shape.
I crouched, pickin’ it up between two fingers.
A footprint. Fresh. Too damn close to our back door.
Could’ve been someone cuttin’ through the alley earlier in the night… yeah. Could’ve. But I didn’t buy it. Not with Lark seein’ ghosts through the damn window. Not with her lookin’ like hell reached for her and damn near got hold.
A low curse slipped out. “Damn.”
I pushed to my feet, jaw tight, the weight of the night settlin’ across my shoulders like a chain I didn’t ask to carry.
Someone’d been out here. Maybe wanderin’. Maybe watchin’. Either way, I wasn’t waitin’ for maybe to knock on our door. I headed back inside, boots heavy, voice already a growl in my chest as I made for Devil’s table. It was time he heard what my gut already knew, the past wasn’t done with us yet.
Devil didn’t even blink when I walked up. Man could read a room without lookin’, so readin’ me—tense, wired, pissed—wasn’t a challenge. He leaned back in his chair, arms folded, eyes sharp under the low lights. “You’ve got something for me,” he said. Not a question.
I jerked my chin toward the hallway. “Not here.”
He stood and followed me to the office. Once the door shut, the air changed, he shifted from easy clubhouse calm to full-on President.
“What happened?” he asked.
I told him straight. No fluff. Lark seein’ someone. Her goin’ pale. The way she kept checkin’ that damn window. The fresh footprint in the alley—small, wrong, too close. The feelin’ of being watched.
Devil didn’t interrupt. Didn’t breathe loud. Just listened with that stillness that made any room feel smaller.
When I finished, he dragged a hand over his jaw. “You’re thinking Children of the Flame?”
“I don’t know,” I said, dragging my hand through my hair. “But my gut won’t let it go.”
Devil’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t argue.
“You’re telling me she saw Zach?” he asked.
“She thinks she did.”
“And Zach’s supposed to be dead.”
“Yeah.”
A slow exhale left him. “Supposed to.”
We both hated that word.
I paced once—small room, not enough damn space. “If he’s alive? And he was here? That cult didn’t lose people. They owned ’em. If he’s still breathin’, it ain’t by luck.”
Devil watched me like he was slotting pieces into place. “You think he’d come after her?”
“I think someone’s watchin’ her,” I said. “And I don’t like the damn pattern.”
Silence settled—loud, heavy, the kind of quiet men listen to.
Then Devil moved. “All right. First thing: Lark doesn’t hear a damn word until we know something real.”
My jaw ticked. Didn’t want her scared. Didn’t want her blindsided either.
“She’s already rattled,” Devil continued. “No point throwing fuel on that.”
I nodded. He wasn’t wrong.
“I’ll have Ash dig into the Zach situation. If that boy’s breathin’, Ash’ll know something. And we’ll put eyes on the perimeter—quiet. Nobody approaches her. Nobody gets close without us knowin’.”
Some tension eased… but not much.
“You want me on nights?” I asked.
“I want you where she is,” Devil said, plain and simple. “Until we know what’s moving around us, you don’t leave her alone unless you have to.”
I nodded thinking there was no place I’d rather be. “Yeah. I got her.”
Devil tilted his head. “Chain.”
“Yeah?”
“You sure you’re looking at this clean? Not letting your situation with her color the facts?”
My teeth pressed together. “It’s not a situation.”
He smirked, barely. “Then this’ll be easy.”
I didn’t rise to it.
Devil straightened. “We wait. We watch. We keep quiet until we’ve got answers.”
“Understood.”
But when I stepped out of the office and saw Lark wipin’ down a table—her eyes still darting to that damn window—my gut twisted again.
Quiet wasn’t gonna last.
Not with ghosts startin’ to walk.