Chapter Three
JAKE AND WYATT look like hell, and Damian tells them as much as they walk into the cabin.
Jake’s brown hair is sticking up in a thousand directions, the bags under his eyes as dark as bruises.
And Wyatt looks worse—skin ash white, moving like every step hurts.
They look terrible, but to me they’ve never looked better. My heart soars at the sight of them.
I hug Jake first because he’s closer. Jake, who was my very first safe place among these men. I squeeze until I can feel the resistance of his torso through his hoodie. He’s lean, but broader than I remember, solid like he’s carved from stone.
“Hey,” he says quietly, and kisses my hair.
“Hi,” I whisper into his shoulder.
When I let go, he passes me off with a hand on my back, and then I’m in front of Wyatt.
The whole world narrows to his face. Rough growth covers his usually clean jaw, his eyes are rimmed red.
I reach up to cup his jaw in my hands lightly, like I might break him, and his mouth quirks into a pained smile.
“I’m okay,” he promises. “Tougher than I look.”
I give him a skeptical look. “No one’s that tough.”
He huffs a laugh that hurts him, I see it, and then he pulls me in anyway.
The relief of his feel and his smell hits me so hard my knees almost buckle.
Leather and rain, the salt of his neck. I let him hold me, afraid to squeeze back, and breathe him in for a long, long time.
Four months of hell, and it’s hard to believe it’s over.
That we’re here together on the other side. We made it.
When he lets go, Wyatt looks past me to Ryder, and they trade a look. Respect and relief, the smallest nod in a language older than words.
“Welcome home,” Ryder says.
“Almost thought I’d never hear that again,” Wyatt answers.
We help him get settled on the couch and then Jake serves them each a bowl of chili and sits beside him.
I take the other side. Ryder drops into the chair and Damian perches on its armrest, the two of them dwarfing the chair with their size.
It looks like it could tip, but Damian manages to lean forward to push a log back into the coals with a poker and the chair doesn’t move.
There’s a burst of sparks in the fireplace and soon the flames are jumping higher, throwing shadows across the room.
“You look better than when we left you,” Ryder tells Wyatt.
Wyatt glances down at his shirt with a crooked grin. “Less blood is all.” He’s wearing a faded University of Montana Veterinary Sciences tee that definitely doesn’t belong to him, stretched tight across the muscles of his chest and worn thin.
Conversation drifts from Jake and Wyatt’s drive to getting the cabin set up. Wyatt looks around appreciatively, like he’s a guest here, and it hits me how strange it is that he owns this place. Five hundred miles from Leathernecks.
Five hundred miles from me.
Ryder told me Wyatt bought this place a couple of years ago, before he even met me, but still. I can’t imagine being that far away from Wyatt. Not now, when I just got him back.
Not ever.
When he and Jake finish eating, I gather their bowls and set them by the sink, and when I return and sit back down, Wyatt reaches for my hand and squeezes it—a familiar, grounding gesture.
My thoughts leap back into memory. Sitting in front of Billy, slinging tequila while he pushed Wyatt’s buttons, trying to test him. Wyatt in full Ryan Porter mode, calm under pressure, but his thumb brushing mine to remind me that he was there.
His presence always steadies me. Being back with all of these men feels like coming home to something I never thought I’d have again, but only Wyatt knows firsthand the hell we’ve been through, and sitting beside him makes me feel anchored.
“Well, boys,” he says, drawing a slow breath. “You saved our fucking necks, both of us.” He looks at me, blue eyes fierce despite his fatigue, and I can’t help but smile back. “Shit really went sideways back there. Neither of us would’ve made it out without you.”
Ryder nods. Jake and Damian watch him with a mix of respect, grief, and relief.
“We knew this was a tough job,” Ryder says. “But we underestimated it. When you went dark, we were blind. Jake scraped everything he could—chatter, intel—but it was all noise.”
“Shortly after I got in, the club went into lockdown,” Wyatt explains, lifting one hand to his side.
His forearm flexes as he braces his ribs, tendons tightening under strained skin.
“Surveillance everywhere. They found a drive I’d stashed in a bike going for service—to Redwater Engines, like we planned.
Just shots of the grounds, no faces, but the prez lost it.
Cameras in the halls, bathrooms, everywhere.
Couldn’t risk my old channels. Few days ago, I tried to send an SOS on the radio, channel nineteen like we set, but got caught doing it.
That’s how I ended up in that little jail you sprung me from.
” He looks between all the men. “How did you know we needed an extraction?”
Damian tips his chin at me, grin tugging at the corner of his lips. “Simple. Max called us and left a message.”
Wyatt’s head snaps my way. “You did? How’d you do that?”
The polished marble and opulent gold of the Astoria Grand lobby comes back to me in vivid detail.
Wyatt doesn’t know I was there. Doesn’t know that the minute I was out of his sight, Billy had me dressed up and shipped off to his senator with a case of drugs and cash in my hand.
It’ll kill him to know. I decide it’s a conversation for another time.
“Short version is that Billy slipped up,” I say with a shrug meant to look casual, “and I grabbed the opportunity.”
“You were pretending to talk to Billy Manning, right?” says Damian, and I nod, grateful for the redirection. “She left a message like she was on the phone with someone,” he explains to Wyatt. “That told us you were being watched and it had to be fast. It was a distress call, clear as day.”
“Flagging the event was the smart move,” adds Ryder, lifting his eyes to me. The look is brief but loaded, and my pulse jumps in response, the memory of his mouth flickering hot across my skin. “We knew it would mean crowds, chaos, and security stretched thin. We started planning that night.”
“We couldn’t fucking believe you were with the O.D.,” says Damian, shaking his head in disbelief. “We’d been pulling at the wrong thread. We figured whoever took you was tied to the same network we’d been tracking. Guessing Wyatt might’ve filled you in on some of that?”
“Yep,” says Wyatt. “I told her about our work. The broad strokes—private contracts, off-record work, you running point.” He looks at Ryder. “Nothing she couldn’t have figured out after all this anyway.”
Ryder looks at me, raking his fingers through his hair, bicep tightening in a slow, unhurried flex as he pulls his hair back off his face.
“Well…we kept it tight for a reason. Back then, we didn’t know who we could trust, or who might be listening.
But you’re part of it now.” He drops his arm, dark blond hair falling around his face again, and arches an eyebrow. “No more secrets.”
Secrets. The subtext is very clear. I turn to Jake, catching his eye. He’s the only one I haven’t told about my O.D. past yet.
“Wyatt caught me up on the drive,” he says before I can speak, as if reading my thoughts. The edge in his tone is unmistakable. “He explained why you were there. Why they came for you.”
“I didn’t know—”
“I don’t want to get into it right now,” he cuts me off, voice terse. He’s cold. Angry. A side of Jake I’ve never seen before. “Just want to let you know I’m up to speed.”
I stop myself short. No one jumps to my defense—not that I think they should. They let Jake have his moment. Ryder’s eyes pass from him to me. No judgment. Just patience and watchfulness.
For a beat the silence is uncomfortable, but I don’t dare say anything. Then Damian jumps in and saves the moment.
“You must’ve had a heart attack when you saw Max there,” he says to Wyatt.
“Jesus.” Wyatt rolls his eyes. “I had just gotten back from a six week weapons run to El Salvador. Halfway through, a rig blew its clutch before a checkpoint went hot and I patched it dirty, pushed the convoy through a farm road, and saved the load and the payday. Manning made a show of it when I got back. Big party, shoved a wad of cash in my hand, told me I’d earned his trust. Put me over transport runs and at the officers’ table.
Finally, I was inside.” He tilts his head toward me, the faintest smile ghosting across his mouth.
“Here I am on my most successful day of assimilation, wearing the vest, acting the part…and I see her. Heart attack is right. I couldn’t fucking breathe.
No clue how she could be there.” He exhales, a rough sound that tugs at his ribs.
“And she wasn’t exactly in safe hands when I found her.
Let’s just say I made sure that changed. ”
Ryder’s gaze flicks between us. He says nothing, but something sharp flickers in his eyes before he looks away.
I’d been half-dressed and out of my mind on drugs when I realized that the tall man in the O.D. cut was Wyatt. He doesn’t mention that part, and I notice the omission. The little actions he takes to protect me.
“I tore apart that post on the bounty board. The one with your picture,” Jake tells me.
The edge of coolness in his voice has lessened.
I’m almost surprised that he’s talking to me.
“Traced the wallet but it dead-ended in Belize. Looked like a cartel logistics outfit at first. When you disappeared, it lined up with a money surge through one of the shell companies.”
I nod, like this means something to me. The truth is I’m having trouble following the half of what they’re saying.
“We were chasing the suits pulling the strings, not the bikers running the errands,” Damian explains, as if he can see my confusion.
Ryder shifts forward. “We still have lots of ground to cover, more notes to compare. We’ve got at least one casualty to account for. But for now, we should figure out sleeping arrangements.”
“Casualty was Silas Blackwell,” says Wyatt, darting a look my way. “Club VP.”
Damian whistles low. “That’ll shake a tree.”
My eyes lock on Ryder’s hands. I remember the way one braced around Silas’s temple, the quick and brutal way it twisted. The unnatural angle of his head. The snap.
But Ryder only shakes his head, unaffected. “Couldn’t be avoided.” Zero regrets. Like he’d do it again if he had to.
Jake stands, rubbing the back of his neck. “Looks like we have a shortage of beds.”
“Yep,” says Ryder. “There’s only one. Wyatt gets it.”
Wyatt starts to protest, but Jake cuts in. “Hundred percent. This guy’s been sitting upright trying to breathe through a patched-up lung all day. No question he gets the bed.”
“I’m fine on the floor,” Ryder says.
“Same,” says Damian.
“Me too,” adds Jake.
“Max gets the couch,” Ryder decides.
It falls on me to point out the obvious. “There’s not enough bedding for all of us.” I point to the bedroom. “There are only two pillows and one blanket.”
“The couch is a pull-out,” Wyatt informs us. “And I don’t need the blanket.”
Ryder shoots him a look. “You’re not making any sacrifices tonight, brother.”
He starts counting off on his fingers, trying to sound decisive. “Wyatt in the bed, Max on the couch, Jake on the recliner. Damian and I can take the floor.”
“I’ve been sitting up all day,” says Jake, “I’d rather sleep stretched out on the floor. Boss, you take the chair.”
“This is ridiculous,” I cut in. “We can fit three on the couch. Why would anyone sleep on the floor?”
Ryder’s brow furrows. “Okay,” he says with finality. “Damian in the recliner. Me, Max and Jake on the pull-out.”
We move. Wyatt shuffles toward the bedroom while Ryder and Jake take the cushions off the couch and pull out the mattress.
I follow Wyatt into the bedroom, closing the door most of the way behind me. The sound of the others moving around fades in the hush of the room. He sits carefully on the edge of the bed, one hand covering his ribs, the effort of the day written across every line of his body.
For a moment I just stand there, unsure, and he looks up at me, catching my hesitation and smiling. “Missed you, kiddo,” he rasps, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“I was worried I’d lost you,” I whisper. “For good.”
Wyatt’s smile turns sad, and he turns, swinging his feet up onto the bed, and moving over toward the wall. He pats the space beside him. I scramble up, and he leans back against the headboard with a shallow breath.
My head finds the crook of his neck, his arm wraps around me and finds my waist, and for a little bit we just rest like that, our breathing slowly syncing.
The bed is the same size as our bed at the clubhouse. God, I want to sleep here, beside him. But he’s tender, moving slowly, and I want him comfortable.
Besides, I’m fairly certain Ryder would be upset.
I sigh, burrowing in deeper. What a mess everything is. Jake, Damian, Ryder, Wyatt. And me, in the middle of them all.
This morning with Ryder had been pure heat and instinct. That draw toward him I can never ignore. A raw, animal need to connect, to ground myself with him.
It’s the kind of thing I used to be able to discuss with Wyatt, but now everything has changed between us, too. And my feelings for Ryder don’t make me love Wyatt any less.
“You should get some rest,” Wyatt says, turning and kissing the top of my head.
“You too,” I say, and don’t move.
He laughs softly and we keep sitting there, way too much to say filling the space between us. After a while, I finally sit up and lean over, kissing his cheek.
“Night, baby,” he says, low and rough, the term of affection gutting me.
“Night, old man,” I say teasingly, making him exhale another rough, breathy laugh. He keeps his eyes closed.
I get up out of the bed and slip out of the room, half-closing the door again behind me.
The pull-out’s open, Ryder and Jake on it with a top sheet over them.
Damian’s on the recliner using a towel as a blanket, a sweatshirt bunched under his head like a pillow.
Ryder watches me cross the room, like he’s scanning me for information, and then lifts up the top sheet, making room for me beside him.
There’s a single pillow on the empty spot on the mattress for me. I fall onto it, exhausted, as Ryder closes his arms around my waist.
The fire is down to coals, a soft orange glow pulsing like a heartbeat against the walls of the room. The heavy warmth of Ryder’s body is pure comfort. I sigh and let myself melt into the solid heat of him, closing my eyes. For the first time in months, I truly feel safe.