Chapter 8 Emily #2
The apartment always felt bigger at night, with the city’s noise filtered down to a dull hush by the storm and the cinderblock walls.
I left the empty coffee mugs on the table, just so my hands would have something to do.
Dean watched me from the couch, the towel around his neck now just a damp noose of terry cloth.
He hadn’t said a word in ten minutes, but the tension in his shoulders had gone from breaking-point to just barely holding steady.
I sat down next to him, not close enough to touch. “You want to talk about it?” I said, instantly regretting the phrasing.
He shook his head, almost a shiver. “Not much to say. She’s gone.”
There was nothing I could say to that, so I tried again. “You had people at the funeral. Most don’t.”
He looked at me, eyes tired but direct. “Club takes care of its own. Doesn’t mean it’s family.”
I nodded, biting at a cuticle. “Better than nothing.”
A minute passed, both of us staring at the stack of library books on the table. The one on top had a chewed cover—last week’s failed foster, a hound with separation anxiety.
Dean’s gaze flicked to the wall of animal photos. “You got any family?” he asked. The question wasn’t casual; it was surgical.
“None that matters,” I said. My hand found my mug, which was cold and empty. “My mom ran off when I was sixteen. Dad drank himself to death in a rented trailer south of Belen. By then, I’d already moved out.”
He seemed to weigh this, maybe checking it against whatever story he’d invented for me. “You did all this on your own?” he asked, gesturing at the apartment, the books, the life.
“I had a few stops along the way. Mostly, I just kept moving until things got quiet.”
He looked around again. “Why animals?”
The real answer caught in my throat. “They’re honest. They don’t fake love.”
Dean’s mouth twitched. “My father said the same thing about soldiers.”
That made me laugh, more bitterly than I meant. “You think maybe that’s all we are? Animals with more ways to break each other?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. He reached up and thumbed the dog tags, the metal clicking softly.
I set my mug down, my palms sweaty. “When I was a kid, our house was a drop zone for bikers passing through. Mom liked men with tattoos and loud engines. Dad liked the company, as long as the beers kept coming. Sometimes they’d party for days.
I learned how to roll cigarettes by seven, how to mix a drink by nine.
” I realized I was talking too fast, but I couldn’t slow down.
“Nights got ugly, sometimes. Fights, stuff breaking. I spent a lot of time in the closet with a blanket over my head, listening to men in leather cuts argue about who owed what. Once, when I was twelve, one of them found me. He didn’t do anything.
Just sat outside the door and told me about his daughter, said he was sorry.
That was the first time I ever thought maybe not all bikers were monsters. ”
Dean’s jaw worked, the muscle jumping. His knuckles went white on the mug handle.
“I left at eighteen,” I said, “with forty dollars and a piece of shit Honda. I promised myself I’d never go back. So, I started working at shelters. First for the paycheck, then because it was the only place that didn’t scare me.”
He watched me, no pity, just the cold arithmetic of someone who’d done their own time in dark rooms. I met his gaze, wondering if I should apologize for dumping all this at his feet. But he didn’t look away.
“I guess that’s why I didn’t trust you at first,” I said. “You reminded me of everything I ran from.”
He exhaled, almost a sigh, then set the mug on the floor. “I get it. Most people see the cut and decide I’m a threat. You did the right thing.”
I wanted to reach out to touch his hand or his shoulder, but I didn’t move. “You never scared me,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “Not really. Just made me think too much about the past.”
He nodded. “You’re better than you think.”
It sounded like a compliment, but it landed like a challenge.
I shrugged. “You’re not so bad, yourself. I think if the world had more people like you, fewer mothers would die alone.”
That stung him, I could tell. He rubbed at his chest, the dog tags leaving a faint red impression on his collarbone.
“You got plans tonight?” he said.
I blinked. “Other than hiding from the world? No.”
He looked at his phone, thumb flicking the screen. “Damron wants me at the club. Sultans are making a move. I’ll go if you need me to.”
The way he said it—like my need came before the club’s—caught me off guard. I realized then how far we’d both come from the people we’d been this morning.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said, meaning it but not wanting it.
He started to get up, then paused. “You want to come? Get out of the house, see what it’s like to be the only sober one in a room full of bikers?”
It was a terrible idea. I wanted to say yes anyway.
Instead, I shook my head. “I’ll be here. Keeping the lights on for when you get back.”
He nodded, slow and serious.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said, voice raw. “About your family.”
“Thanks for listening,” I replied. I went to the desk, pulled out the blue folder I’d been working on for days. I hadn’t meant to show him, not yet, but the moment felt like a fault line of say it now or never.
“Before you go,” I said, “I’ve been working on something. Let me show you something.”
He looked at the folder, then at me, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “What is it?”
“Please don’t be mad at me. With all my free time, I like to be a sleuth.
” I took a breath, popped the clasp, and laid the contents on the table.
“I know you said you wanted to handle things your own way. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the timeline.
About what happened to your father. And your mother.
The Sultans, the other crews—they’re just fronts for something bigger. And I think I found it.”
He frowned, skepticism carved deep, but he sat down and spread the papers between us.
I pointed at the first page: a printout from a Turkish business registry, a shell company registered to an alias that had come up in both the Syria bombing and in the LA Sultans chapter’s taxes.
“The club your father tangled with overseas? It’s the same group running the Sultans out of Albuquerque now.
Same people, same funding. They’re just using different names. ”
Dean’s hand shook as he flipped the page. He saw the photo I’d found—a grainy surveillance still of two men outside a battered warehouse. One wore a patch he’d know anywhere. The other wore a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“They killed your father. And now they’re here.”
He exhaled, so quiet it might’ve been a prayer. “You sure?”
I met his eyes. “I’m sure.”
He read every word twice. I watched as the information sank in, the anger slow and methodical instead of explosive. He didn’t slam the table or curse. He just sat, silent, pressing his thumb so hard into his palm I thought he’d break the skin.
“They’re not just after turf,” I said, voice low. “They want to prove they can take anything from anyone.”
He nodded, not looking up. “They already did.”
We sat together in the heat and the dark, the storm’s aftertaste hanging in the air.
He closed the folder, slid it back toward me. “Why’d you do this?” he asked.
I shrugged, feeling a strange heat rise to my face. “You needed to know. And maybe I needed to do something for you that mattered.”
Dean leaned forward, elbows on his knees, face close to mine. “You ever think maybe you’re too good for this shit?”
I almost laughed. “I’m not. I just hide it better than you do.”
He smiled, a raw, ruined thing, then sobered. “If I don’t come back tonight—”
“You will,” I said, not sure if it was a lie or a dare. “But if you don’t, you want me to feed the dog?”
He laughed, but it was all edge. “Yeah. And don’t let her on the couch.”
“I won’t.”
He started to get up, then hesitated. “Thanks, Em. For this. For not running when you could’ve.”
“I don’t run,” I said.
He looked at me like he wanted to say more, but didn’t. He stood, tucked the helmet under his arm, and hitched the jacket tight around his chest. The dog tags glinted in the kitchen light.
At the door, he paused. I thought maybe he’d reach for my hand, or for a kiss, or some other gesture you saw in the movies. Instead, he just let his fingers brush my wrist, quick as a heartbeat. “Don’t open for anyone but me,” he said.
I nodded. “Just try not to die.”
He gave me that smile again, then disappeared down the hall.
I watched from the window as he mounted his bike, rainwater still pooling on the seat. He started the engine and let it idle for a long moment, the sound vibrating up through the concrete. Then he took off, taillight red as a wound, vanishing into the clean, wet dark.
Inside, I sat on the floor with the folder open in front of me, the fan clicking overhead.
I thought about what it meant to be family, about who you trusted to watch your back, about the things you saved and the things you buried. I thought about Dean, and the men he’d be facing, and the odds of him coming home in one piece.
Then I closed the folder, locked the door, and waited for the next ring of the phone.