Chapter 8 Makenna
EIGHT
MAKENNA
For once I’m the one who is frozen in place. I don’t fidget or move, but he’s still pacing. Zane never paces. He’s stillness and control, even when he’s furious or hurting. He folds everything into himself like a soldier standing in formation. I’ve only ever seen him unravel like this once before.
When he knew he was going to jail.
He’d stared through me like he was already in chains, locked behind a door he couldn’t reach me through. I still remember that last kiss, the way it felt like he was trying to memorise the taste of something he’d never get back.
That same panic is coiled and humming under his skin now.
And I’m terrified. I can’t imagine what he’s going to say. What the fuck is he going to tell me?
I scan the sharp lines of his shoulders, the ink work snaking down his neck, the little silvery line on his temple. His hoodie clings across his chest, the muscles beneath bulging with every step he takes.
He isn’t Diesel. He’s Zane—my Zane. He’s the boy I grew up with. The boy who loved me through all the darkness and suffering.
He’s the man who went to prison for protecting me. He’s the man I made my husband the moment he was free.
And he’s who I thought I’d grow old with.
His brows draw together, knitted tight until there is a small indentation between his eyes. “You look like you want to hurl.”
He’s not wrong. My stomach is rolling. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if you noticed but the last few days have been fucking stressful. Is it any wonder I feel sick?”
He chews over this, just like he does everything, a deeply contemplative look on his face. He’s trying to reason his way through this, trying to make sense of something that he doesn’t completely understand.
“I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. His apology doesn’t come with excuses or explanations for his behaviour. It’s just given.
“I know you are,” I say quietly, and stop myself before I offer forgiveness. I need to know firstly what I’m dealing with.
Zane sits next to me and grabs my chair.
The legs scrape across the tile, loud and obnoxious in the quietness of the room as he drags me around to face him.
His eyes are hollow as he places his battle-worn hands on my knees.
Comfort and warmth instantly spread through me.
These aren’t hands that hurt me. They protected me, made me feel things, even through my anger.
My breath stops. So does my pain. My fear. My fucking heartbeat. He’s looking at me like the world starts and ends with me.
Like he used to.
Before—
Before the club…
“I didn’t keep you away because I was embarrassed by you. Fuck, you’re too good for me, Kenna. You always were.” He steadies his breath, and I hold mine. “I did it to… to protect you. The club’s in trouble. It’s been in trouble from the minute I took the patch.”
I’m scared to speak in case he stops talking, in case he pushes all of this back into a box I’m not allowed to access.
He ducks his head just a little, hiding his eyes from me.
“The first year, when I was a prospect, I wasn’t allowed to bring you in.
Wives, old ladies, they get access to places that are…
sensitive. That has to be earned. There are some exceptions, but for the most part, prospects are background noise and so are their lives outside the club. ”
He’s never opened up to me about anything related to the Sons. I had no idea about any of this, but I do remember when he first started at the club. Things were different back then. He was lighter, excited in his own Zane way.
“Once the patch is given, then the brother can talk to the officers and they decide if an old lady can be brought in. But I could see how good the club was going to be for us. The way it took care of its own was something I wanted. And I was fucking excited to show you the world I was building for us.”
Warmth blooms in my chest as something dangerously close to hope fills me. He wanted me with him. He was working toward that.
“So what changed?” I ask.
He taps his fingers on the table. Once. Twice.
Then huffs out a breath. “I got to the end of my prospect term and I earned my colours.” His laugh is dry and humourless.
“I thought that was it. I was ready to bring you in… And then… everything changed. Nic’s dad died.
The club politics shifted when Crank took over as president. ”
The way his voice cracks makes the air stick in my throat. Without thinking, I grab his hand and thread my fingers through his. He swallows, like he can’t get the lump down.
“What happened then?”
“I knew he was bad from the moment he stepped into that position. I kept putting off talking about you. I had this feeling I needed to keep you separate, that it wasn’t safe anymore. I could see it—the rot beneath the smiles and bullshit. It was clear to me.”
Of course he could. Zane’s always been hyperaware of danger. He had to be—we both did. We grew up in a world with shifting power dynamics, forged in trauma and fear. He learned to read subtle shifts in behaviour, in loyalty and the threat that brought.
He would have seen Crank was a problem before anyone else. The fractures, the cracks—of course he noticed.
Which is what hurts so much.
He saw all of that, but he didn’t see me.
He didn’t see us drowning. Because emotion’s never been his language, not like danger is.
Love, disappointment, resentment… they don’t follow rules.
They’re abstract, they shift, they’re fluid, and Zane lives for structure.
He needs patterns he can predict and threats he can fight.
But love doesn’t come with warning sirens when things go wrong.
It just… fades. Quietly. Until one day you’re alone in something you swore you’d survive together.
A quiet ache spreads beneath my ribs, tender and sharp all at once as his thumb skims over the back of my hand, as if he’s trying to ground himself.
“If it’s so bad, why do you stay? We can manage without them.”
“It’s an MC, Kenna. Once that patch’s on your back you don’t just walk away. You swear an oath, loyalty to the club. You break that, there’re consequences.”
Cold sweat prickles beneath my skin. “What does that mean?”
“It means I was fucked. There was no way for me to get out, and no way for me to bring you in. My choices were go nomad, risk leaving and spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder or try to move to another chapter. I considered it, but I didn’t know if that rot went through the whole damn club, and I was building profiles of the people around me.
I didn’t want to do that again in a new place with new players. ”
My heart thuds against my ribs. I’d been sleeping easy and safe while he’d been bleeding to fix something he thought he’d broken. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me any of this.”
“What was I supposed to say? Sorry I fucked up again?”
“You never fucked anything up, Zane.”
His gaze lifts to the ceiling, heaviness sitting on his shoulders. “I left you alone while I sat in a prison cell for five years.”
The anger I’ve held in my heart for months evaporates, leaving only the ash of flames behind. He still blames himself for that?
I grab his face, forcing him to look at me. There’s no walls between us. Neither one of us hiding anymore.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Baby, you protected me. If you hadn’t—” I break off, the words sticking in my throat like broken shards. I don’t want to remember that night, I don’t want to feel those dirty hands holding my wrists over my head—
Fuck.
Zane watches me, like he knows where my mind went. Pain swims in his eyes as he covers my hands and brings one to his mouth, kissing my knuckles.
“I fucked up,” he repeats. “Once again, I brought a storm into our lives. I couldn’t go forward, I couldn’t go back, so I did the only thing I could.
I hoped it would turn around. I could see there was quiet pockets of resistance and I watched them grow.
Clung to them, thinking maybe one day I could bring you in, but weak leaders leave cracks in the foundations.
We were hit by a rival gang who saw a chance to take what was ours.
And things got worse. I knew then I could never bring you in.
Knew I’d probably die for a cause I no longer believed in. ”
I thought he was pulling away, that he didn’t love me anymore, but all those nights I lay crying myself to sleep he was out there waiting to die. My stomach twists like something is rotting inside me.
“You have to leave,” I blurt the words. “We’ll disappear. No one will ever find us—”
He shakes his head. “I’m not going to drag you around the world like a fucking fugitive, firefly.”
“But… I don’t want to lose you to this.” I stare at him, feeling small and useless. And fucking terrified.
“Things are turning,” he says slowly. “I can feel the shift. It’s going to get messy and I don’t want you near that.”
It wasn’t distance. It was armour and he wore it so well I thought he was rejecting me.
“If you think I’m going to sit here safe while you risk your life, you’re out of your mind.”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do. The only ace I have to play is that no one knows about you. And if they don’t know, they can’t use you against me.”
“I don’t care. I’m not letting you do this alone anymore.”
“The club’s at war with itself. You know what happens in civil wars, firefly? People die in the crossfire and I’m not letting you become a casualty.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
His eyes darken as he studies my face like he’s reading every part of my soul. “Another brother thought that. Though he could keep his wife safe. She was shot in the head. They were aiming for him, and she was just… wrong time, wrong place.”
I blink and the chair beneath me feels unsteady. “She was killed?”
“She was pregnant.” His hand tightens on my knee. Not enough to hurt, but to tell me what he thought about it. “They cut her baby out of her while she was bleeding out.”
My stomach churns violently at the horror behind those words. I can’t even imagine how that would have felt, looked—oh, fuck. I can’t breathe, can’t think. The room rolls around me in a frantic wave.
He grabs my face between his hands. I blink frantically, trying to push that image aside. I can’t. It’s etched into my mind now.
“I shouldn’t have told you that. I’m sorry.” He kisses my forehead, so soft compared to the seeds he’s planted inside me.
“They cut…” My breath hitches. What kind of strength does it take to bleed like this and come home to me like nothing happened?
The reality of this situation is crashing down around my ears.
He left me in the dark, but now I’m scared of what it took him to keep the light on at all.
“Are you in danger?” He doesn’t answer, which is an answer. “No. No. They don’t get to have you.”
“I took a vow—”
I shove his chest and he rocks back a little in the chair. “What about the vow you gave me when you made me your wife?”
“I’m not breaking that either.”
“You can’t do both, Zane.” I can’t breathe. The air’s too thin. My heart is racing too fast.
I push out of the chair, the way it scrapes across the tile jarring. “I’m not going to watch you die for this.”
He doesn’t stand. Doesn’t move other than to wrap his fingers around the edge of the table.
“I’m not going to. Things are moving. Happening.
I think some of my club brothers are fighting for change.
If I join them, we can fix this. When that happens and the club is safe, I swear I’ll introduce you to every part of that world.
And we’ll have the life I wanted for you, firefly. ”
“The only thing I want is you.”
“No.” I snap the word and he rises to his feet. “No. You tell them you’re done. I’m not going to bury you, Zane. I’m not going to live without you again. Not for a single second.” I fist my fingers into his tee, as if I can hold him here.
Stop him from slipping away.
“I can’t walk away from this. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“You have to.” I don’t care how hysterical I sound. I’m terrified for him. How didn’t I see any of this?
He brushes a piece of my hair back from my face, unbothered by the death grip I have on him. I lean into his touch, needing every ounce of warmth he has. “You just have to be strong for a little while longer.”
How many times did I beg him to talk to me, or to hear me? And all that time he was choking down truths he thought would break me.
“Did you keep this from me because you think I can’t handle walking through fire with you? Do you think I’m weak—even after everything we’ve survived together?”
His eyes flash, confusion beneath the anger. “I know you can handle it. It’s not you I’m worried about.”
“Then what?”
“Me!” he says. “I’m worried about me! If any one of them so much as breathes near you, I’ll lose it and there’ll be nothing to stop the wrath that will follow.
I’ll gut men I’ve called brother for years.
Men I’m supposed to be loyal to. I’ll burn the fucking clubhouse to the ground if any one of them touches you, firefly.
And that’s why I don’t want you near this.
You’re not going to become a headstone, do you hear me? ”
I swallow the bile rising up my throat. Pregnant women dead, danger lurking at every corner and the man I love, the only constant in my entire life, is caught in the middle of it all.
“I know you think keeping secrets is protecting me, but it’s not.
It’s always been you and me against the world, Zane, and when you push me aside it makes me doubt everything about our lives.
There were so many nights I lay alone in our bed, wondering if you’d already checked out of our relationship.
Then you’d turn up like nothing had changed, like you still wanted me.
And now I learn you were fighting a war I didn’t even know was happening. ”
He cups my face with a desperation that trembles through his hands. “You can doubt everything, but never that I love you, that I need you.” He kisses the corner of my mouth so softly it makes me cry. “You and I are woven together in a way that can never be untangled.”
He leans his forehead to mine, and for a moment I allow my husband to hold me like he didn’t just set off an explosion in the middle of our lives.