Chapter Eight
Doc
I stared at the text message on my burner phone until the words blurred together. At the safe house. Not happy about it. Venom can be persuasive when he wants to be.
Nova’s frustration radiated through those simple lines, and I could almost see the defiant lift of her chin as she’d typed them.
Twelve hours ago, she’d been standing in the apartment, swearing she wouldn’t leave as she clutched the partial police report.
Now she was thirty miles away, tucked behind the club’s security systems, safe but furious.
And I was here, alone in my house at the compound, feeling like I’d betrayed her.
I tossed the phone onto my bed and resumed pacing, five steps one way, five steps back, the worn floorboards creaking beneath my boots.
My fingers raked through my hair for what must have been the hundredth time since returning from Church.
The President’s orders had been clear: Nova goes to the safe house, the club handles the investigation, and I stay the hell out of it until my judgment isn’t “compromised by a pretty face and a sad story.”
Those words still burned. As if what I felt for Nova was that simple. As if what she was fighting for was just a sad story and not a systematic cover-up that had gotten her parents murdered.
I checked my watch again. Three minutes had passed since the last time I’d looked. Time was stretching and compressing in strange ways as I wrestled with the decision I knew I’d already made.
My medical bag sat ready by the door, packed with supplies hours ago when I’d first started contemplating this insanity. Basic trauma kit, antibiotics, painkillers, suture materials -- everything I might need if things went sideways. Because in my experience, things always went sideways.
My Harley keys glinted on the dresser beside my cut.
Worn leather that carried the scars of the life I’d built since leaving the military.
The Dixie Reapers patch stared back at me, a constant reminder of the oath I’d sworn.
Brothers had taken me in when I had nowhere else to go -- family I was now about to betray.
“Shit.” I grabbed the back of my neck and squeezed until the tension there sparked with pain. The club was my life, my home. But Nova…
Nova was something I hadn’t been looking for.
Something I hadn’t known I needed until she walked into the clubhouse with her mother’s files and a fierceness blazing in her eyes.
Until she’d stood in the middle of a firefight, hands steady as she helped me save my brothers’ lives.
Until I’d felt her small body pressed against mine, trusting me when she had every reason not to trust anyone.
I moved to the dresser and grabbed my cut, the leather familiar beneath my fingers. When I’d first put it on, I’d thought I’d finally found a place where my skills mattered, where I belonged. Now I’d stripped it off and folded it carefully, then laid it on the bed.
Some lines, once crossed, couldn’t be uncrossed. And I’d crossed my line the moment I kissed Nova in that truck.
I grabbed my medical credentials from the drawer, tucking them into my bag. The partial sheriff’s report Venom had brought us sat on my nightstand, already sealed in a waterproof bag. I slipped it into the inner pocket of my bag.
Venom’s voice echoed in my head, his words to Nova this morning when he’d convinced her to go to the safe house: Sometimes, girl, you gotta retreat to advance.
Go where they think you are, while we move where they ain’t looking.
The old warrior had seen what I’d only just realized -- we couldn’t fight this battle from inside the compound, not when we didn’t know who might be working against us, intentionally or not.
I pulled a black knit cap over my hair and grabbed a dark jacket instead of my cut.
The club had security cameras at all major entrances, with a Prospect manning the monitors and actual gates 24/7.
There really wasn’t a foolproof way to leave without someone knowing.
I’d just have to hope whoever it was, they weren’t a traitor.
My phone buzzed with another text. Nova again.
You still coming? Or was it all just talk?
My thumb hovered over the screen, but I didn’t reply. Better to show than tell. Besides, the wrong eyes could see any message I sent now.
I slung my medical bag over my shoulder and gave the room one last sweep.
My cut lay on the bed where I had left it, a silent accusation.
I wasn’t walking away from the club -- I was doing what had to be done to protect it.
If a trafficking ring operated under the shield of local law enforcement, the club needed to know. Needed proof no one could bury or deny.
I slipped out the back door of my house, keeping to the shadows as I circled around the main buildings. The compound was quiet tonight, most brothers either on runs or at the bar in town. A single Prospect sat smoking by the south gate, his back to me as I approached from the blind side.
I recognized him instantly -- Chase, seventeen and desperate to prove himself. He jumped when I emerged from the darkness, hand moving instinctively toward the weapon at his hip.
“Doc.” He relaxed slightly when he recognized me. His gaze darted to my lack of cut, then to the medical bag. “Everything okay?”
“Medical emergency.” I kept my voice low and casual. “Need to make a house call.”
His brow furrowed. “President said no one in or out tonight without clearing it first.”
“Someone’s kid,” I improvised. “Severe asthma attack. You really want to wake Savior to ask if I can go save a child?”
Chase shifted his weight, conflict playing across his boyish face. He was new enough to follow rules but smart enough to recognize a reasonable exception. Or what sounded like one, anyway.
“I don’t know, man.” He glanced toward the security camera. “They’ll see --”
“Camera’s been on the fritz all day,” I interrupted. “Tempest was supposed to fix it but got pulled into Church. Look, Chase, I’m not asking you to lie. Just… forget you saw me for about an hour. By then, I’ll either be back or someone will know I’m gone anyway.”
He chewed his lip, considering. Finally, he nodded and stepped aside. “Hour starts now.” He checked his watch. “But, Doc? If this comes back on me…”
“It won’t,” I promised, clasping his shoulder briefly. “You’re doing the right thing.”
The look he gave me was skeptical at best, but he turned away, deliberately focusing on lighting another cigarette as I slipped through the gate and into the darkness beyond.
The weight of what I was doing settled over me as I made my way to where I’d hidden my second Harley earlier -- behind the old storage shed at the edge of the property.
For the first time since taking my oath, I was directly defying the President’s orders.
If I came back, there would be consequences. If.
Either way, I’d make sure no one blamed Chase for letting me out of the compound. It was the least I could do.
As I started the engine and felt the familiar rumble beneath me, a strange sense of rightness washed over me. I thought of Nova waiting at the safe house, probably pacing just like I had been, clutching her mother’s notebook and wondering if I’d actually show up.
I’d promised her answers. Justice. And maybe, in ways neither of us had said aloud, something more.
Some promises mattered more than others. Some oaths run deeper than ink and blood.
I gunned the engine and headed out into the night, leaving the compound and its security behind. I didn’t look back.
* * *
The abandoned gas station materialized out of the darkness like a ghost from another era.
Its crumbling sign hung at an angle, no longer announcing prices that belonged to a different decade.
I killed the Harley’s engine about fifty yards out, walking the bike the rest of the way in silence.
Security cameras were unlikely in a place this forgotten, but old habits die hard.
In the pale moonlight, I could make out Nova’s sedan parked behind what remained of the building, and then Nova herself, a small figure leaning against the hood, her posture tense.
My chest tightened at the sight of her, relief and something deeper washing through me. She’d actually waited.
She straightened as I approached. The moonlight caught the planes of her face, highlighting the stubborn tilt of her chin, the wariness in her eyes that softened when she recognized me.
“You came.” Her voice carried easily in the midnight quiet. Not a question, not quite surprise, but something in between.
I pulled off my helmet, setting it on the seat of my bike. “Said I would.”
“You also said you wouldn’t defy the club.” There was no accusation in her tone, just a simple statement of fact.
I closed the distance between us, stopping a few feet away -- close enough to see the faint freckles across her nose, far enough to maintain the professional distance I’d been trying to reclaim. “Things change.”
Nova’s gaze searched mine, looking for something I wasn’t sure I was ready to name. “Venom convinced me to leave. Said it was tactical, not surrender. I didn’t want to go.”
“I know.” My voice came out rougher than I had intended. “Your text made that clear.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.” Her gaze dropped briefly before meeting mine again with renewed intensity. “Not after what Savior said in Church.”
“Well, here I am.” I gestured to my lack of cut. “No patch, no backup, directly defying orders. What’s the club phrase? Oh right -- all in.”
Something shifted in her expression -- relief, gratitude, and something warmer that sent a jolt through my system. “Thank you.”
I nodded toward her car. “We should move. You bring everything?”
Nova patted her messenger bag. “Mom’s notes, the partial report, everything we’ve pieced together so far.” She hesitated. “What’s the play here, Doc? What are we looking for at the county clerk’s office?”