Chapter 2 #4
His hand came inside the truck and gripped the front of my cut, not like he wanted to hurt me.
Like he needed something solid to hold onto before he ripped the whole truck apart.
“She’s my daughter,” he said.
“I know.” I kept my voice steady. “And she’s hurt. You pull her out too fast, you might hurt her worse.”
His grip tightened.
Not anger.
Terror.
Regan made a broken sound beside him.
“Edge,” Callum said from the front seat.
One word.
President to brother.
Warning to warning.
Edge didn’t look away from Destiny.
“I need her,” he said.
“I’ve got her,” I said quietly. “Let me get her out safe. Then she’s yours.”
His jaw worked like every instinct in him was fighting every other instinct.
“Dylan,” Nate said carefully from the driver’s seat, “tell him.”
I looked at Edge.
“Head injury. Burn on her hand. Maybe ribs or shoulder. She took a bad fall. She’s high on something, or drugged, or both. She’s conscious some of the time, but not steady.”
Edge’s eyes shut for half a second.
When they opened, the father was still there, but control had forced its way back in.
“Get her out,” he said.
Regan pressed both hands to her mouth.
I eased forward slowly. Destiny groaned the second I moved her, and Edge’s face folded.
Just for a heartbeat.
Just enough to show the horror underneath the steel.
“Baby,” he whispered.
Destiny’s eyes fluttered.
“Dad?”
The word was barely there.
Edge made a sound I never wanted to hear from a man like him again.
Regan sobbed and reached for her, then froze, hands shaking in the air like she was afraid touching Destiny wrong would shatter her.
I stepped down from the truck with Destiny cradled tight, keeping her close against my chest so her head didn’t loll. Edge moved with me, one hand hovering near her back, the other clenching and unclenching like he had to physically stop himself from grabbing.
“She’s my daughter,” he said again, softer this time, as if I didn’t know. As if the whole yard didn’t know. As if the words were the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why she’s here and not in the back of a cop car.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
There it was.
The shift.
Not suspicion.
Not blame.
Understanding.
He knew there was more.
Nate climbed out behind me and slammed the door. “Before anybody starts swinging, maybe hear the part where we covered your ass.”
Callum cut him a look.
Nate lifted both hands. “What? He needs to know.”
Edge didn’t take his eyes off Destiny. “Talk.”
“That scene out there?” Nate said. “Wasn’t some little senior party gone bad.
It looked like a war zone. Cars were burning.
A Bronco blew. Kids were running half-naked, clothes burned, glass cuts everywhere, high out of their minds, screaming about Mandy’s ghost like somebody dosed the whole graduating class and handed them gasoline. ”
Tarak appeared at the edge of the floodlights.
I hadn’t noticed him before.
That was probably because Tarak was the kind of man who didn’t need to announce himself. He stood near the clubhouse steps, jaw locked so tight I could see the muscle ticking from twenty feet away. His eyes were on Destiny. Not me. Not Edge. Not the truck.
Destiny.
Like he had seen the dead walk out of the desert wearing her face.
Nate kept going. “She had your bike. I hid it before the cops saw. Covered what tracks I could, but there were kids everywhere, fire everywhere, phones everywhere. You and the Bastards would be tied to this before sunrise if that bike got tagged at the scene.”
Edge’s face changed again.
Calculation slid in beside terror.
The father was still there, bleeding under his skin, but the outlaw came back fast.
“You hid my bike?”
“Enough for now,” Nate said. “Not forever. It needs retrieving before cops sweep wider.”
Callum stepped closer. “I already sent two men back from the east trail. They’ll take it apart and load it if they have to.”
Edge looked at Callum.
Callum looked back.
No apology.
No hesitation.
“We had your back,” Callum said. “Dylan found her. Nate covered the bike. We got her out before anyone sober enough to matter saw her being carried away.”
“I did nothing but save her,” I said, because some things needed saying before panic turned into confusion. “I found her in the brush, checked her, called Callum, and brought her home. That’s it.”
Edge looked at me then.
Really looked.
The kind of look one man gave another when thank you was too small and the situation was too big.
“I know,” he said.
Two words.
Heavy as iron.
Regan saw Destiny’s hand still tangled weakly in my shirt. Her face crumpled, not with anger.
With pain.
Like she understood exactly how scared Destiny had to be to cling to the first solid thing that had pulled her out of the dark.
“Can we get her inside?” I asked. “She needs help.”
That snapped everyone into motion.
Edge stepped beside me, one hand sliding under Destiny’s shoulders with more care than I would have believed possible from hands that looked built to break bone.
“I’ve got her,” I said quietly. “Move with me.”
His jaw flexed.
I expected him to argue.
He didn’t.
Together, we carried her toward the clubhouse.
Regan walked on the other side, one hand on Destiny’s hair, whispering things too soft for most men to hear.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here. You’re home. You’re home, sweetheart. Edge has you. I’m right here. Nobody’s taking you. Nobody’s touching you.”
Destiny’s eyes fluttered again.
“Regan?”
Regan broke.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth and made a sound that was worse than screaming.
“Yes,” she said, voice shaking. “Yes, baby girl. I’m right here.”
Tarak stepped into our path.
Edge looked like he might shove him aside.
But Tarak wasn’t looking at Edge.
His eyes were locked on Destiny’s face.
The floodlights hit her just then, catching the blood at her temple, the tear in her jacket, the wild fall of her black hair against my arm. Tarak went so pale I thought for one second he might drop.
“Mandy,” he whispered.
Every person in the yard heard it.
Silence landed like a bomb.
Regan went still.
Edge closed his eyes.
Destiny’s head shifted weakly against my chest.
Tarak flinched like he’d been struck.
Then his face folded in on itself.
“No.” His voice broke. “Destiny. I meant Destiny.”
Nobody said anything.
Nobody had to.
The past had just walked straight into the present and dragged every ghost with it.
Tarak’s jaw ticked once. Twice. Three times. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Another wreck,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Another wreck. History is repeating itself.”
Regan’s tears spilled over.
“Tarak,” she said softly.
He shook his head, not at her, not at anyone. At the memory. At the whole merciless shape of it.
“I can’t go through this twice.”
Destiny made a small sound.
Not pain.
A sound like somewhere under the drugs and shock, she had heard him.
And hated herself for it.
That snapped me out of whatever dark spell had fallen over the yard.
“She needs Doc,” I said.
Edge’s eyes opened.
The father was back.
“Move.”
The clubhouse doors flew open before we reached them.
Women crowded the entrance, faces tight and pale.
Shaniqua was there, hair wrapped up, eyes already wet but spine straight as steel.
Amber. Skye. A few old ladies I didn’t know.
Every one of them looked ready to help, fight, pray, or kill depending on what Destiny needed first.
A gray-haired man with a medical bag shoved through the crowd.
“Upstairs,” he ordered. “Now.”
Nobody argued.
We moved fast.
The inside of the clubhouse smelled like beer, smoke, leather, and panic.
Men flattened against walls to give us space.
Nobody spoke. Nobody made eye contact with Edge unless they had a death wish.
Destiny’s breath rasped against my cut, and every time she made the smallest sound, Edge’s control got thinner.
At the stairs, he stopped me.
“I’ll take her.”
This time, his voice wasn’t a threat.
It was a plea wrapped in iron.
I looked down at Destiny.
Her fingers were still curled in my shirt.
I shifted carefully. “Destiny.”
Her eyes opened a sliver.
“You’re home,” I said. “Your dad’s got you.”
Something moved across her face. Fear. Shame. Relief. All tangled up until none of it had a name.
“My bike,” she whispered.
Edge went very still.
Regan choked out a laugh that turned into a sob. “Your bike? Baby girl, you are bleeding all over the place and worried about the bike?”
Destiny’s eyes filled.
“His bike.”
Edge’s face did something I didn’t know how to read.
Then he reached for her.
This time, I let him.
Carefully.
Slowly.
I transferred her into his arms piece by piece, supporting her head until Edge had her. The second she was against him, he wrapped around her like a wall.
She looked smaller in his arms.
That did something ugly to my chest.
Edge pressed his mouth to the top of her hair.
For one second, he was not president, brother, killer, ghost, or legend.
He was just a father holding the worst night of his life.
“I don’t care about the bike,” he said into her hair. “I don’t care about anything but you breathing.”
Destiny made a broken sound.
Regan grabbed the railing like her knees had gone weak.
Doc pointed upstairs. “Move, Edge.”
Edge moved.
Regan followed.
Tarak stood frozen for a second longer, eyes still haunted, then went after them like a man following a funeral procession he refused to let happen.
I stayed at the bottom of the stairs.
My arms felt wrong without her in them.
That was a problem.
Callum noticed.
Another problem.
Nate came up beside me and muttered, “You look like you just handed over your favorite weapon.”
“Shut up.”
“Not saying it’s smart. Just saying it’s visible.”
“I said shut up.”
He did, for once.