Chapter 21 Makenna
TWENTY-ONE
MAKENNA
I’m warm. That’s the first thing I notice as I peel my eyes open. The room comes into focus slowly, colours first, then morphing into shapes. For a second, I don’t know where I am, but it doesn’t matter.
I know I’m safe.
There’s heat molded along my spine like a second skin, and an arm draped over my hips like an iron band.
Zane’s hot breath caresses over the back of my neck in a steady rhythm as he gently snores behind me.
It took us both forever to fall asleep last night.
He was wired, his usual stillness coiled into twitchy restlessness, even after he fucked me like he was possessed by the ghosts of whatever horrors he fought.
I don’t move, letting his weight hold back the panic swirling inside me. That familiar churning nausea attacks my stomach. I’m a ball of anxiety, wrapped in fear.
He’s still. We’re both alive, and everything else we’ll figure out.
We’ve weathered storms before, and we’ll get through this one too.
I rest my hand over his and he pulls me closer to him.
“You’re thinking too hard, firefly,” he says, his voice thick with sleep.
“I can’t help it.” His nose nuzzles into my neck, like he’s trying to lose himself inside me. “Did you sleep okay?”
He hums low in his throat. “I always sleep better when I have you in my arms.”
I smile, my belly fluttering instead of rolling, as I pull his arm tighter around me. “I love you.”
He kisses my bare shoulder with a reverence that clogs my throat. Every touch he gives me always feels sacred, but this morning it feels different. More tender, like he’s scared he might never get to touch me again.
I turn to face him, shuffling in the bed so awkwardly it makes his lips twitch. “Graceful,” he murmurs.
The snort I make is indelicate, but it gets a proper smile from him that makes my chest feel warm. “You married me,” I accuse.
He brushes my tangled hair from my face, and his gaze drags over me like I’m a sin he wants to commit again. I read a thousand things in his expression before he gives me the words. “I’d marry you a hundred times over.”
I kiss him, my lips a whisper of a promise over his. We nearly lost each other, not to war or violence, but to silence and misunderstanding. How did I think I could ever let him go?
The clubhouse stirs, motion and the dull rumble of voices outside the door. I snuggle into his chest, not ready to move yet or give him up to them.
“Do we have to get up?”
His smile fades. “No.” He rubs circles on my spine, as if it’s a habit he can’t stop. “We can stay in bed all day, fucking.”
I shove his chest lightly. “You fucked me hard enough last night, Zane.”
His fingers still and he searches my expression, like he can see the answer to whatever question is forming in his mind written there. He doesn’t find it, because he says in a jagged rasp, “Did I hurt you?”
Oh, Zane. My chest cracks open.
“No. Never.” I stroke a hand over his cheek, hoping my touch will be enough to assure him. “I’m good, babe. I promise.”
The stare lingers, like he’s bracing for a blow that’s not going to come. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he says finally.
“I know.” More voices sound, closer this time. Gruff, loud, a reminder of the loaded barrel we’re staring down.
“I’m scared,” I admit. His arms tighten around me before he drops a kiss into my hair.
“Nothing will touch you, firefly.”
It’s a vow, but it’s not one I expect him to keep. Things happen in war and tomorrow is never guaranteed in a life built on blood and ash.
I trail my fingers over the ink covering his chest. “We’ve never had a family before.”
“You scared of what it means to have people in our corner?” It’s an innocent question, but it lands like an anvil.
“Maybe a little. We don’t exactly have the best track history with people.” My heart feels heavy, that lump in my stomach a boulder now. I hate thinking about the past.
“Hey… firefly?”
He doesn’t push me to answer right away, and I give my thoughts a moment to pull together. Words carry weight. They can wound, destroy, and uplift. So, I choose them carefully.
“I just… this isn’t how I thought things would turn out when I left our apartment.”
He stills, processing. Then he sighs. “Me neither.”
An hour later, we finally peel ourselves out of bed and head to the main room. There’s a dull rumble of noise as we get closer, voices. He clutches my hand like I’m the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.
There are brothers crammed into the room. There are guns, knives, and weapons everywhere I look. I squeeze Zane’s hand, and he tucks me closer, like he can shield me from the reality of what we’re facing.
The girls are clustered together around one table.
Maylie’s pale, her son fussing in her arms. There are dark smudges under her eyes, as if she didn’t sleep last night.
Dayna is sitting in Dash’s lap, despite his injuries, his hand resting on her belly, over their unborn baby.
There’s no Toby or Ivy this morning. No Seren either.
I hesitate, unsure if I should join them, but Dayna waves to the empty seat between her and Maylie. “Sit. There’s food and coffee. I mean, I say coffee in the loosest sense of the word. It tastes like desperation.”
“Grab a croissant or two,” Maylie says. “Before Dash finishes them off. He’s already had three.”
Dash glares at her. “Snitches get stitches, May.”
She shoots him a look that could level cities. “I have postpartum rage. Try it.”
I peer down at the takeout bags on the table. There’s an assortment of breakfast stuff as well as a pot of coffee too and a bowl of fruit that looks untouched.
I sit, and Zane hovers behind me like a guardian angel wrapped in leather and violence. I don’t reach for anything, unsure if I want to. My anxiety is making me nauseous.
Zane leans over me and places a pastry in front of me. “Eat, firefly.”
“Bossy,” I mutter, but I try—for him. He has enough to worry about without me adding to his pile.
“Brother,” Dash greets.
Zane narrows his eyes on him, then blunt as stone, he mutters, “You look like shit.”
Dash grunts, reaching carefully for the mug on the table. The hand on Dayna’s bump doesn’t move, like that sign of their future is the only thing keeping him sane.
“Morning to you too,” he says, deadpan. “I got your sauce.”
We both follow his movement as he reaches for the sriracha and drops it on the table in front of us. Warmth blooms inside me. Zane shifts a fraction behind me. It’s such a subtle move no one else will have noticed, but I do. That small gesture means everything to him.
No one’s ever cared about him outside of me.
Zane clears his throat. “Thought you said it was an abomination.”
Dash shrugs one shoulder, sipping his coffee. “It’s a full crime against tastebuds, but you like it.”
You like it…
As if it’s as simple as that.
“Okay I’m living for this bromance,” Dayna says.
Both Dash and Zane look at her like she’s speaking another language. I pull Zane’s hand, guiding him into the chair next to me. “You eat too.”
His fingers tap on the table once, twice, then he reaches for one of the takeout bags. I watch as he pulls out a bacon sandwich and opens it up. The sauce goes on before he reassembles it and takes a bite.
Dash stiffens as a young woman comes over.
She’s maybe twenty, maybe younger. It’s hard to tell beneath the patchwork of bruises staining her face.
I swallow my gasp. I’ve lived in violence most of my life, but it hits me differently.
She’s wearing a hoodie that’s clearly not hers.
It hangs off her small frame like armour.
He says nothing. Zane doesn’t either. Dayna meets my gaze with a slight shrug that says she doesn’t know who she is.
“Are you joining us?” Dayna asks.
The girl looks uncertain, but Dash gives her a nod and that’s all she needs. She sits like the chair is made of barbs, but she doesn’t reach for any food or drink. With the damage to her face, I’m not sure she can without pain.
My jaw clenches as I stare at the marks covering her skin, anger burning under my skin like acid. “I hope whoever did that to you is wearing worse bruises,” I murmur.
Her eyes slide to me, swollen, but the spark of an ember ripples in them. “Not yet.”
It hangs between us like a threat wrapped in violence. Dayna breaks the awkwardness growing around the table.
“I’m Dayna,” she introduces herself when no one else does.
“Chloe.”
“You get in a fight with a bear?” She gestures to her face.
Chloe’s shoulders inch higher, tighter, and Zane sits straighter. Dayna doesn’t notice the tension around the table, or if she does, she doesn’t care. I get the feeling Dayna does and says whatever she wants to, but I notice Dash’s fingers flex just a little over her belly. A light warning, maybe.
Chloe presses a light touch to her swollen cheek before she says in a small voice, “With a few.”
Silence stretches for a moment, then Dayna says, “Well, no bears here. Just buttery pastries and coffee that tastes like shit.”
“It’s not that bad,” Dash says, sniffing his cup, as if he hasn’t already drunk half of it.
“It’s barely caffeine. I’m only allowed one cup a day and I waste it on that.” She groans.
“Maybe we can ask Nic for a better coffee fund now that he’s president.” Dayna glances hopefully at Dash, but the air becomes thick, tense.
Chloe focuses on the table, like it might collapse if she looks away. Zane taps his fingers on his thigh, and Dash watches Chloe like he’s waiting for something to happen.
“He is a better president,” Chloe says finally. “A dog would be better than that—” She breaks off, the words catching in her throat.
“Give Nic names,” Dash says. “Tell him who did that to you. He’ll make sure they’re punished.”
Chloe laughs, a dark, vicious sound. “No one will bleed for this, Dash. I’m nothing to this club. The daughter no one wants to claim. The whore no one wants to love. My mum was right. This club’s poison.”
I don’t know what any of that means, but Zane and Dash do. They’re both watching her like she’s a live grenade. “Club tried to take care of you, Chloe,” Zane says. “You wouldn’t let us.”
Her brows knit. “He made me believe he loved me. I thought—It doesn’t matter what I thought. It was all a lie. Crank didn’t love me. The moment I stopped being useful, he did this.” She gestures at her face. “Him and the rest of those animals.”
Her voice doesn’t crack. There’s no tremble, no apology, just cold, numb fact. Zane shifts beside me, and I hear the slow, seething inhale he takes.
It moves around the table like a wave of anger. Maylie holds her son closer, like she can protect him from the horror, the rot, the festering disease that runs through the club.
Dayna leans back in her chair, her hand still resting over Dash’s, her expression cool, casual, but steel.
“A melon baller works.”
Everyone glances at her, but Chloe’s the one who asks, “For what?”
“Castrating bad men.” Dash mutters something under his breath that might be a fuck me. “Or a spoon.”
“Shears,” Maylie adds.
Chloe’s lips twitch just a fraction. “Too messy.”
Zane rubs his temple like he’s massaging away the need to kill something.
“What’s wrong with a knife?” I ask, tearing a piece of croissant off and popping it into my mouth like we’re not discussing bodily harm while eating breakfast.
“Too pedestrian,” Dayna says, covering Dash’s hand on her stomach. “Go big or go home, right?”
Chloe’s smile fades. “I don’t think I have a home anymore. My mother probably hates me, and I can’t exactly stay at the club anymore.”
I want to tell her she’s wrong, that mum’s are programmed to love their children through every storm, but my throat doesn’t open up around the words. I lived too long in the spaces where love was supposed to flourish and didn’t.
“Your mum fought for you.” She lifts her gaze to look at Dash as he continues, “She came here so many times to fight for you. She’d take you back in a heartbeat.
” His voice is rough with guilt, like he blames himself for not doing more, for not intervening sooner.
He clears his throat. “You’re club. Chlo. That doesn’t change because of this.”
Her eyes fill with hope. “Maybe I’ll call her then.”
“Good idea.”
Dayna picks up a teaspoon off the table and wiggles her brows. “And when you want to ride out and make those little bitches cry, you let us know.”
“You’re pregnant,” Dash reminds her.
“Good. The hormones will help with the rage.”