Chapter 7
DYLAN
I went back to San Diego and told myself I was fine.
That lasted about six hours.
By midnight, I still smelled smoke.
Not real smoke. Not clubhouse smoke. Not exhaust from a bike or a cigarette burning too close to my fingers.
Desert smoke.
The kind that got into your clothes, your hair, your skin, your dreams. The kind that curled around a girl with blood on her mouth and prickers tangled in her hair while fire turned the night behind her orange.
I could shower until my skin went raw.
Still smelled it.
I could ride until my hands went numb.
Still saw it.
I could close my eyes and swear I was going to sleep like a normal man with a normal conscience.
Still saw her.
Destiny.
Beautiful Destiny.
Not the polished version from Cabo with sun warming her skin and diamonds waiting in boxes she hadn’t opened yet.
Not the birthday girl in teal by the water, laughing like the ocean had remembered her body belonged to her.
Not even the woman-child under the palm tree with saltwater on her skin and moonlight in her eyes, telling me not to decide I wasn’t allowed in her story.
No.
I saw her the first night.
Fire behind her. Smoke in the air. Dark hair falling wild around her face. Crimson blood on her lips. That haunted, exhausted look in her eyes like she had walked through hell and was still deciding whether I was rescue or another kind of ruin.
That was the version that followed me home.
That was the ghost I could not shake.
And because life had a sense of humor meaner than any brother I had ever ridden with, my body decided to betray me every morning like I was sixteen and stupid.
I would wake up hard, heart pounding, her name already in my mouth before I had enough sense to swallow it down.
Then I would lie there staring at the ceiling, furious with myself.
Twisted up over an eighteen-year-old girl.
Edge’s daughter.
Santa Fe’s princess.
A girl who had been through too much and needed clean air, clean pages, and people who didn’t look at her like she was a miracle they wanted to get their dirty hands on.
So I kept my hands to myself.
All year.
That part surprised people.
It surprised me too.
Women came and went around the clubhouse the way they always did.
Club girls. Bar girls. A tattooed brunette with a mouth like sin and a laugh that would have once had me following her into the back hallway before she finished her drink.
A blonde from a run up north who kept leaving her number on napkins and my bike seat.
Women who knew the rules. Women who wanted a night, not a future.
Easy.
Clean.
Forgettable.
I didn’t touch any of them.
Not because I had become holy.
Because every time one of them leaned close, all I could think was wrong.
Wrong hair.
Wrong voice.
Wrong eyes.
Wrong ghost.
Nate noticed first.
Of course he did.
“You dying?” he asked one morning, dropping into the chair across from me in the clubhouse kitchen with a plate of eggs he had no intention of sharing.
I looked up from my coffee. “No.”
“Disease?”
“No.”
“Secret wound?”
“No.”
“Did your dick fall off?”
I stared at him.
He shoveled eggs into his mouth. “I’m just asking questions.”
“Ask quieter ones.”
“You’ve been walking around like somebody shot your dog and stole your favorite porn.”
“Shut up.”
“Can’t. Worried about you.”
“You’re never worried.”
“I am deeply compassionate.” He pointed his fork at me. “Also, you turned down Marissa last night.”
“So?”
“So Marissa has hips that could cause religious conversion.”
“Good for Marissa.”
Nate leaned back.
His grin faded.
That was worse.
Nate joking meant I could ignore him. Nate serious meant the bastard had sharpened something.
“It’s her,” he said.
I took a drink of coffee.
“Brother.”
I set the mug down too carefully. “Don’t.”
“She’s two hours away now.”
“No, she’s not.”
“She’s in Malibu.”
“That’s more than two.”
“Not on your bike.”
I looked at him.
He smiled faintly. “See? You know the math.”
I pushed back from the table and walked away before I did something stupid, like answer honestly.
Callum noticed next.
Presidents always noticed eventually. A good prez knew the difference between a man working through something and a man turning into a liability. Callum had patched me. Took me in. Saw me when I was nothing but rage, bad habits, and hunger wearing boots.
So when he called me into church one afternoon and shut the door behind me, I knew I was in trouble.
He sat at the head of the table, boots planted, arms crossed, eyes sharp. Nate was there too, leaning against the wall like he had been invited as witness and entertainment.
“Sit,” Callum said.
I sat.
Nothing good ever came after that tone.
Callum watched me for a second. “You’ve been different.”
“No, I haven’t.”
Nate laughed. “Great start. Very believable.”
I ignored him.
Callum didn’t. He just kept staring.
That was worse.
“Runs are clean,” I said. “Collections are on time. I’m not drinking more than usual. I’m not fighting brothers. I’m not causing problems.”
“No,” Callum said. “You’re not causing anything.”
I went still.
“You’re too quiet,” he continued. “Too controlled. Too damn careful. That usually means a man’s got something eating through him from the inside.”
Nate lifted a hand. “I have a theory.”
“No one wants it,” I said.
“Everyone wants it.”
Callum’s eyes shifted to him.
Nate brightened. “Excellent.”
I already hated him.
“It’s Destiny,” Nate said.
My jaw locked.
Callum’s face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“Edge’s daughter?” he asked.
Nate pointed at him. “See? That tone. That’s why he’s been pretending it’s not a thing.”
“It’s not a thing.”
Nate snorted. “He says, lying through his teeth while his bloodstream runs like a teenage boy who discovered lingerie ads.”
“Nate.”
“What? I’m helping.”
“You’re about to need help.”
Callum held up one hand, but his eyes stayed on me. “Tell me nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Dylan.”
I leaned forward. “Nothing happened.”
Nate made a face. “Define nothing.”
I turned slowly toward him.
He lifted both hands. “For legal and interchapter diplomacy reasons.”
Callum’s voice went low. “Please tell me you didn’t. Women and children are off limits, and that girl was under Santa Fe protection. I’m not starting a war with another chapter over Edge’s daughter because you couldn’t keep your head straight.”
The fact that he thought he even had to ask put acid in my mouth.
“No,” I said. “Nothing like that.”
The room went quiet.
I looked Callum dead in the eye.
“I kissed her. Once. At her mother’s grave. She kissed me back. I stopped it there. In Cabo, I gave her a birthday gift and walked away. That is all.”
Callum stared.
Nate went softer beside the wall.
“Yeah,” Nate said quietly. “She just ripped his heart out, that’s all.”
I shot him a look. “She didn’t rip out anything.”
“Oh, my mistake. You’ve just been haunting the clubhouse like a Victorian widow for fun.”
Callum dragged a hand over his face. “Hell.”
“We’re good,” I said.
Neither of them believed me.
That was fair.
I didn’t believe me either.
“She’s in nursing school,” Callum said.
“I know.”
“In Malibu.”
“I know.”
“Close enough to be a problem.”
“I know.”
My voice cracked on that last one.
Just barely.
But Callum heard it.
He always heard it.
I exhaled and looked away, hating every word before I said it. “Lend me out.”
Callum’s brow lifted.
“Vegas,” I said. “Texas. Hell, send me to freezing New England if they’ll take me. Maine. Boston. I don’t care. I’ll shovel snow for a charter I’ve never met if that’s what it takes.”
Nate whistled. “That is one way to help your dick.”
I came halfway out of the chair.
Callum slammed a palm on the table. “Sit down.”
I sat.
Barely.
Nate, because he had no survival instinct, kept talking. “I’m just saying, geographical distance might help with the morning situation.”
“What morning situation?” Callum asked.
Nate grinned. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do not,” Callum said immediately. Then he looked at me and pointed one finger. “Do not confirm whatever he means.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Nate sighed. “No one appreciates honesty.”
“I appreciate silence,” Callum said.
“Then you picked the wrong club.”
Callum looked at him.
Nate wisely shut up.
For three seconds.
“I mean,” he muttered, “walking around with a yearlong hard-on for Edge’s daughter does seem stressful.”
I was on him before the chair hit the floor.
Callum was faster than both of us.
“Enough.”
His voice cracked through the room.
Not loud.
Final.
I backed off, breathing hard.
Nate held up both hands, still grinning, but his eyes were serious.
Callum looked between us, then settled on me. “You want distance?”
“Yes.”
“You think that fixes it?”
“No.”
“Then what does it do?”
“Keeps me from standing outside her life like a stray dog waiting for scraps.”
Nate’s expression changed.
Callum’s did too.
I hated that worse than the jokes.
Pity had never sat right on my skin.
Callum leaned back slowly. “I’m not lending you out.”
“Prez—”
“No.”
I swallowed the curse behind my teeth.
“You’re not running because a girl made you feel human,” he said.
I laughed once. Bitter. “That what this is?”
“Part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“You tell me.”
I looked at the table.
The wood was scarred from years of fists, knives, bottles, and men making choices they either regretted or bragged about later. My hands rested on it, inked and rough, the knuckles still carrying old damage.
The truth sat ugly in my throat.
“She made me want to be better,” I said.
No one spoke.
“She’s starting over,” I continued. “Blank pages, all that poetic stuff Regan said. And I kept thinking, what the hell am I doing? Same runs. Same bad habits. Same me. I don’t want to be my old man.
I don’t want to wake up at forty still using where I came from as an excuse for everything I never became. ”
Callum’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not with anger.
With interest.