Chapter 23
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— Dutch —
Iwas in bed but not sleeping. Couldn’t sleep, not with the image of Indira destroying Crystal playing on loop in my head. The way she’d straightened her spine. The cold precision in her voice. The look on Crystal’s face when she realized she’d picked a fight she couldn’t win.
My woman was a fucking warrior.
When Glitch’s name flashed on my screen just before eleven, I felt the first prickle of unease.
“Get to the clubhouse,” he said. No preamble, no explanation. “Now.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just get here, Dutch.”
I pulled on jeans and crossed the yard to the clubhouse in under ten minutes. Glitch was waiting in the main room, tablet clutched in one hand, face grim.
“Show me,” I said.
He handed it over without a word.
The screen displayed a text message thread—screenshots from a burner phone the Wolves had used to contact Glitch. Three photos of Indira.
My stomach dropped. Ice flooded my veins.
Indira walking into her apartment building. Click.
Indira at the coffee shop near her office. Click.
Indira in the Murphy’s Hardware parking lot that very afternoon, her face turned toward me, unaware she was being watched. Click.
The tablet trembled in my hands. I forced my fingers to loosen before I cracked the screen.
Beneath the photos, a message: Give us Montana or the woman will suffer the consequences. You have 48 hours.
My world went red at the edges. “When did this come in?” My voice didn’t sound like my own.
“A few minutes ago. I verified the photos were real before calling you.”
“Montana.” I forced myself to focus past the rage. Montana was our newest gun supplier—a connection we’d only just locked down, and one the Wolves had been circling for months. “They want us to give up Montana.”
“Looks like Crystal gave them just enough to know she matters to you.” Glitch’s voice was grim. “They don’t know our routes or our operations. But they know your weakness.”
If someone gets to her, they get to you. Handful’s words from church echoed in my skull.
“Where is she now?” I demanded.
“Home. Safe. I’ve got eyes on her building—two prospects, keeping their distance. She doesn’t know.”
I stared at the photos again, bile rising in my throat. My jaw ached from clenching. Indira’s face, captured without her knowledge. Her life, reduced to leverage in a game she didn’t even know she was playing.
This was my fault. All of it. The weight of it pressed down on my chest until I could barely breathe. I’d brought this to her doorstep—every photo, every threat, every second she’d been watched without knowing.
“Call church,” I said. “Emergency session. Everyone.”
Thirty minutes later, every officer and patched member was packed into the meeting room, the air thick with tension. I stood at the head of the table, the tablet propped up so everyone could see the photos.
“Crystal made a call to the Wolves after Indira confronted her today,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “She gave them something—not our operations, not our routes. Just one piece of information.”
I let the silence stretch. “She told them about Indira. Told them she matters to me.”
The room erupted. Questions, curses, brothers talking over each other. I let it go for thirty seconds, then slammed my palm on the table.
“Enough.”
Silence fell.
“The Wolves are demanding we hand over Montana in exchange for leaving Indira alone. Forty-eight hours.”
“What the fuck does Indira have to do with Montana?” Blackjack demanded.
“Nothing. That’s the point. They’re using her as leverage because they can’t get to us any other way.” I looked around the table, meeting each pair of eyes. “They know our operations are too tight to crack. So they found another way in.”
Handful stood up slowly, his expression hard to read.
“She makes you vulnerable, Dutch. The Wolves don’t share our values about women—they will hurt her to get to you.
” His voice wasn’t angry—it was almost sad.
“I see two options. Either we bring her under full club protection—which means pulling her deeper into our world, maybe deeper than she wants to go. Or we create distance. Make it clear she’s not connected to you, at least not publicly. ”
“Distance.” The word tasted like ash.
“For her own safety.” Handful shrugged. “If the Wolves think she doesn’t matter, she stops being a target.”
“She practically claimed me in front of half the town,” I said flatly. “Today, in that parking lot. Word’s out.”
“Then protection it is.” Colt spoke up for the first time, his voice measured. “But that’s a conversation she needs to be part of, Dutch. You can’t just put a security detail on her without explaining why.”
Every instinct in my body screamed against it. The old Dutch—the man I’d been before I lost her—would have handled this quietly. Put guards on her without her knowledge. Made the decisions, controlled the situation, kept her safe through ignorance.
But that man had destroyed everything once already.
“If I tell her the truth, I’m violating club code.” I looked at Glitch, then Colt. “Real truth. Not hints and half-measures. She’ll ask questions, and she’ll know if I’m lying.”
“You can’t tell a civilian about club business,” Snake said from the back. “It’s rule one.”
“She’s not just any civilian. She’s my old lady.”
“She’s not wearing a cut yet,” Handful pointed out.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Indira was in danger because of her connection to me, but she wasn’t officially part of the club. Which meant the rules that might protect her—the rules that might let me share information—didn’t apply.
Complete honesty. No more compartmentalizing.
Her condition echoed in my head. The promise I’d made. The promise I was about to break.
“She’s going to think I’m reverting to old patterns.” I ran a hand over my face. “Keeping her in the dark for her own good. Making decisions for her instead of with her.”
“Maybe you are,” Glitch said quietly. “Reverting.”
I looked at him sharply.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong to want to protect her,” he continued. “But what’s your first instinct right now? To tell her everything and let her make an informed choice? Or to control the situation and hope she trusts you?”
The question hit hard.
Because my first instinct—the one I’d been fighting since I saw those photos—was to bring her here, lock her in my house, surround her with armed guards, and handle this threat without her ever knowing it existed.
Control. Protection. Same thing, different name.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
“Yeah.” Glitch’s expression was sympathetic. “Welcome to growth, brother. It hurts.”
I looked around the table at my brothers—men who’d trusted me to lead them, men who were now caught up in a crisis of my making.
“I need to tell her something,” I said finally.
“Tomorrow. I’ll go to her, warn her about the threat.
I’ll keep the details vague—tell her someone’s targeting her because of me, that she needs to accept protection for a while.
” I paused. “And then I’ll figure out how to make this right with the club and with her. ”
“And if she doesn’t accept protection?” Handful asked.
“Then I’ll figure out another way. But I’m not lying to her.”
Colt nodded slowly. “That’s the best we can do for now. But, if this escalates, we’re going to need a real plan. Not just damage control.”
“I know.” I looked at the photos one more time—Indira’s face, unaware of the danger circling her. “I know.”
The meeting broke up shortly after. Brothers filtered out, some clapping me on the shoulder, others avoiding my eyes.
I walked back to my house in the dark, my mind spinning through scenarios. Tell Indira everything—violate club code. Tell her nothing—break my promise. Find some middle ground—and watch her recognize the evasion in my eyes.
There was no clean way out of this.
The woman I loved was in danger because of me. The rules I lived by wouldn’t let me tell her why. And the promise I’d made her—complete honesty, no compartmentalizing—was about to shatter against the reality of who I was and what world I lived in.
Tomorrow, I would go to her with partial truths and careful words.
I had no idea which terrified me more—the Wolves, or the look I might see in Indira’s eyes when she realized I was still keeping secrets.