Chapter 6 Diesel
SIX
DIESEL
I lie in the dark, the hours crawling by like the night doesn’t want to give way to the dawn. It takes a while, but eventually Makenna’s breath evens out and softens until she’s finally asleep.
I stare at the curve of her back like it’s a locked door and I no longer have the key to open it.
I’m shut out and worse, I deserve to be.
Now, she might never let me back in. The cuff around her wrist shimmers as it catches the moonlight slicing through the gap in the curtains. What was I thinking?
That she was slipping through my fingers, and this was the only way to keep her.
Fuck. Makenna was right when she said I can’t force her to stay, but I panicked. I already let her walk once. I couldn’t sleep knowing she might not be next to me when the sun rose.
I close my eyes, my breath hitching for half a second before I get it under control. I didn’t know I was capable of feeling this much pain without bleeding out or that I could feel so alone with her lying next to me.
My fingers twitch, but before I reach for her, I fist them into the sheets beneath me. I can’t make this better with touch or with sex. This is deeper than tactile love. She’s hurt—I’ve hurt her.
The ache behind my ribs is constant and raw as I replay every word between us in the last few months.
The loaded meanings I missed. The times she told me she was lonely, and I didn’t understand what she needed from me.
Every misstep, every brush off—it slams through our marriage like a wrecking ball.
I force my breath to slow and my mind to calm, finding that comforting stillness inside me. She’s here, she’s safe, and she’s still a secret.
That’s all that matters.
No one can know about her existence. Not until the club is clean. Not until I can trust my brothers with her.
You should have told her all of this.
Maybe, but I wanted her life to be easy and stress-free. I never wanted the darkness of my world to touch her, and by trying to protect her I may lose her anyway.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table. I don’t need to look at the screen to know who it is. Riot has been calling me for the last few days. Mace and Nic too. I should care. I should answer, but I don’t.
I silence my phone, ignoring the multiple notifications on the screen, and pull the blankets higher around her shoulders so she doesn’t get chilled. There will be punishment for ignoring my club brothers and for going AWOL, but I can’t bring myself to care right now.
The club is a shit show. I don’t know who I’m meant to trust, and everything it stands for isn’t what I signed up for. I wanted a safe place to build a life and a family in. I wanted men who bleed loyalty without questioning if they’ll put a knife in my back.
That’s not what we have in Birmingham.
Every word, every action feels loaded, like the whole chapter is balancing on a knife’s edge. It makes me nervous, and it’s why I’ve kept Kenna hidden. Old ladies have died because of this club and I’m not losing my wife the same way.
My exhale is ragged and I’m tired down to my bones.
I stare up at the ceiling like it has all the answers, like it might offer an absolution.
It doesn’t, so I let my mind drift. My eyes are gritty, heavy and the days I spent hunting down my missing wife have taken a toll.
I haven’t slept properly since I found her gone and the only reason I sleep at all is knowing she can’t run again.
There are no good dreams when I drift off, just nightmares that feel real when my mind finally jolts awake. For a moment, I’m disoriented until I feel her stir beside me. The change in her breathing tells me she’s awake.
She sits slowly, like she’s got iron wrapped around her limbs, her right arm extended up toward the headboard, the metal cuff clinking softly.
“I need to pee.” Her voice is brittle when she speaks, like it’ll break if she pushes too hard.
I clear my throat, which is suddenly tight, and climb off the bed, fishing the key out of my pocket.
I scan every inch of her face even though she’s not looking at me.
I pause before I take her wrist, scared she might recoil.
When my fingers wrap around her skin her breath catches just a fraction, like her nerves weren’t ready.
I keep my touch whisper soft as I release her from the cuff. She traces where the metal braceleted her wrist, as if she’s expecting to see wounds there, but the skin is untouched.
“You feel better?” I ask, my grip lingering on her. I don’t want to let go, and she doesn’t pull away either.
“Define better.”
“You were tired.”
Her face softens for just a second before the shutters come down again. “I still am.”
Because of me. She doesn’t say. She doesn’t have to. That barbed coil in my chest tightens and before I can stop myself, I lift her hand. I press two soft kisses to the inside of wrist, reverent, like I can soothe the pain between us with my mouth.
Her teeth scrape over her bottom lip, like she’s trying to hold back a tidal wave of emotion with just willpower. “I need to use the bathroom,” she repeats, and I withdraw my hold on her until her warmth is gone.
Slowly, she stands, and I track her as she heads out of the room. I hear the bathroom door click closed and the lock slide into place.
I rest my elbows on my knees, letting my head hang low.
The weight of everything crushes my shoulders.
She’s not screaming at me, which seems like a positive in a sea of negative.
I try not to let hope blossom too fully in my chest as I grab my boots and slide my feet into them.
I take my time to lace them. Start on the left.
Always the left first. Through one hook, then the next.
Cross. Tighten. Loop. Repeat. Then I do the same with the other boot.
There’s something about the structure of lacing that calms the uncertainty inside me, even as my gaze gravitates to the door, listening.
I don’t think Makenna would climb out of the window, even though she’s done it before.
We were fifteen, maybe a little older. Those years blur together in a wash of trauma and fear.
I can remember the house even all these years later. Red bricks, purple flowers growing up the side of the front door. Pretty, but it couldn’t soften the nightmare contained behind the walls.
I move around the edge of the house, heart in my throat, hands shaking.
It’s been three days since I last saw her.
Her foster father told me to stay the hell away, that she didn’t need to be corrupted by a piece of shit like me.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am a piece of shit. But I’ll never be like him.
The house is dark as I creep closer, keeping to the shadows as much as I can. The last thing I need is for some nosy fucking neighbour to call the police. If I get arrested… No, that’s not an option.
I reach the back door, mentally calculating how to get inside without being heard or damaging anything. The last thing I need is to alert fucking Kevin that I’m here.
Just as I’m about to slide my lockpick kit out of my pocket, movement catches my attention from above me.
I freeze. Every bone in my body turns to liquid. There are feet dangling out of the window above me. I blink, my chest seizing.
Holy fucking shit.
My heart leaps violently against my rib cage as I watch her slide out of it. There’s no way in hell I can catch her if she falls, but I hold my arms out as if I can. Makenna glances down and fumbles for purchase.
Then she sees me. It’s as if the world holds its breath, and then she’s moving again.
I barely breathe as she shimmies down the drainpipe like a fucking spider monkey and I don’t drag in air until my hands can reach her hips. The moment I guide her onto the ground, she turns, tears shimmering in her eyes.
There’s a split bisecting her lip, angry and raw, and a bruise spanning her left cheek, visible even in the shadows. I reach toward her face, my fingers hovering before I drop my hand.
“You came for me,” she whispers.
Her arms wrap around me and I expect to freeze. I don’t. Her touch isn’t pain to me. It’s warm and it’s inviting. It feels like safety, security and home all rolled into one. I bury my face in her neck, just breathing her in like she’s the only thing I need. Fuck.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
A light flicks on upstairs, then another. He’s awake.
I grab her hand, hating how clammy she feels. How scared she is. But somehow, she still finds the strength to flash me a wobbly grin before we run.
That has me surging off the bed and rushing to the bathroom. Makenna may not be as spry as she was back then, but she’s tenacious when her back is to the wall.
I’m about to hammer on the door, when it swings open and she blinks at me, clearly not expecting my bulky frame to be blocking her path.
“You don’t need to sit outside the room like some sort of guard dog. I’m perfectly capable of pissing alone.”
She steps around me, and I peer into the bathroom. The small window is cracked open, like she thought about climbing out of it.
“You thought I was going out of the window?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Her eyes soften just a fraction. “I’m not going to run, not this time, but you can’t fix this by suffocating me.”
“I know.” I do know this, but I can’t stop. I’m fucking terrified that she’ll leave again and the only thing I can do is hold her tighter. “I need to piss. If you do decide to run, I’ll find you again, Kenna. Don’t make chase you.”
Her spine straightens like she’s going to argue, but then she deflates and somehow that’s worse than if she’d lashed out at me.
“I’ll be downstairs,” she mutters and I wait a beat, listening for the front door, but it doesn’t open.
I duck into the bathroom and piss fast enough to make my head spin.
When I’ve washed my hands, I rush downstairs and find her in the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “If you’re planning on keeping me here for any length of time then we need to get food. We can’t live on dried pasta.”
There is a town not too far from here, but I don’t want to risk leaving her here or taking her with me in case she bolts again. Not when she’s still angry at me, not when she still can’t look at me.
I pull out my phone and ignore the new missed calls as I pull up the contact I need.
The call connects on the second ring, and a guttural and gravelly voice answers. “Been a while since I last heard from you, Diesel,” Kirk says.
I resist saying what I want to. I don’t like him, never have, but right now he’s all I have. “I need you to deliver me something.”
“Right,” he sounds amused, which fucking confuses me. “Most people start with hello.”
“I’m not most people.”
“Yeah, I got that.” He makes a noise down the phone that I can’t decipher. “What can I do for you?”
I give him a list of things I need from the store—enough food for at least a few days.
Then I give him instructions to leave the bags at the gate, far enough from the property that it won’t risk him seeing her.
Then I hang up and when I turn, my wife is sitting at the table, her head in one hand, the other hand fisted against her abdomen.
“Firefly?”
Her eyes flutter open and my stomach lurches. She looks tired, and not just I didn’t sleep well tired. “Hmm?”
“You sick?”
“I’m fine.” She waves me off like I’m not looking at her.
Without asking, I press my hand to her forehead. She doesn’t feel hot, and she instantly tries to pull away from me, as if she’s irritated by my fussing.
“I said I’m fine, Zane.”
“You look like shit.” I don’t mean to say it quite so abrupt.
She pins me with a glare. “Is it any wonder? I spent the last few days running like my life depended on it and now I’m being held hostage in this house in the middle of fucking nowhere.
And let’s not forget the fact that you handcuffed me to the bed last night.
Do you really think I’m going to look like the picture of health and vitality? ”
Her anger isn’t as sharp as it should be. She sounds exhausted. “You really want that divorce?” I didn’t intend to ask that, and now that it’s hanging between us, I wish I could take it back.
She doesn’t say anything for a long time and my nape starts to feel clammy.
Then she blows out a breath. “I don’t want a divorce, Zane. I want to be seen.”