Chapter 9 East #2
Knox just flips me off as a wave of laughter ripples through the bar.
I wink at a pretty blonde by the bar who blushes and looks away, then I turn my focus to the board.
Lining up the first shot, I make an exaggerated show of measuring the distance, then, with a flick of my wrist, I let it fly. Thwack. Dead center of the 20.
“See that?” I say without looking back at Knox. “That’s called finesse. You should try it sometime.”
“Just throw the damn darts, East,” he growls.
I throw the next two in quick succession, both landing in the triple-20.
The crowd lets out a low whistle. I turn, giving a dramatic, sweeping bow.
The performance is easy. The laughter is a drug.
It’s the silence that’s killing me. In the brief pause as I walk to the board to retrieve my darts, the smile slips.
My hand instinctively brushes the phone in my pocket.
A jolt of pure cold dread goes through me.
Where is she? Is she okay? What the hell is happening in that house?
Then I turn back, and the mask is back in place. “Your turn, big guy,” I say, clapping Knox on the shoulder as I pass. “Try not to hit Kyle.” Kyle laughs but shifts left two steps like I trained him out of the line, eyes up. He listens. That’s worth something.
Knox grumbles, takes his stance, and throws. His darts are powerful but clumsy, scattering across the board. The guys groan.
“Oof,” I say, wincing dramatically. “James, you see that? I’ve seen better aim on a stormtrooper.”
James lets out a dry chuckle from his seat at the bar.
For the next ten minutes, I hold court. I’m laughing, talking shit, sinking two bullseyes like it’s as easy as breathing.
I’m buying a round for the guys watching, charming the girls, and utterly destroying Knox.
On the surface, it’s all swagger and charm, jokes bouncing off the jukebox glow.
Underneath, with every beat of the music, my eyes scan the door.
With every roar of laughter, my ears are straining for the sound of a text message.
The performance is good, but it’s just a distraction.
A flimsy shield against the thoughts of her.
I’m lining up my final throw, the winning shot, when my phone buzzes against my thigh. The room narrows to the tip of the dart, the hum of the bar dropping into a tunnel of noise.
My heart seizes, a frantic, stupid hope.
I lower the dart, pulling the phone out.
It’s a text. From Frankie.
Frankie: She’s here. At my place. She ran.
Air leaves my lungs in a rush. The frantic energy humming under my skin vanishes, and for a single, blissful second, there is only relief. It’s a wave so strong my knees almost buckle. She’s safe. She got out.
Then the cold comes.
A clean, sharp rage that crystallizes everything. The lazy grin is gone from my face. The flirtatious energy evaporates. All that’s left is purpose. The thought of them—her father, that bastard Trent—backing her into a corner until her only choice was to run, makes my vision go red at the edges.
The dart in my other hand feels heavy. I turn and throw it without aiming. Thwack. Dead center.
“East?”
It’s Nash. He’s walked over from the pool table, his expression unreadable, but his eyes miss nothing. He saw the shift, the easy charm shattering to be replaced by ice. Only he would know what that implies.
“What is it?” he asks, his voice low, steady.
“It’s Darla,” I say, the words clipped, cold. “She needed space. She’s safe.” I pause, my gaze locking with his. “She’s at Frankie’s.”
Nash holds my gaze for a long second. There’s no judgment, no questions.
Just a deep, unspoken understanding. Even though he didn't see what happened that night seven years ago, he helped me pick up the pieces.
Nash knows what that night cost me and understands the weight of the promise I carry. He just nods. “Go.”
I don’t need to be told twice. I grab my keys from the hook by the door, the jingle of the metal a sharp, angry sound in the sudden quiet of my head.
Outside, the cool night air does nothing to calm the fire in my gut.
I swing my leg over my bike, the worn leather familiar under my hands.
The engine catches on the first try, a low, guttural roar that’s the only thing that matches the fury in my blood.
I don’t tear out of the lot. I pull out slowly and steadily, a predator leaving its den.
The ride to Frankie’s shop isn’t long, but it’s long enough for the rage to cool, to harden from a wildfire into a glacier. Helplessness is a poison. But now I have a direction.
I kill the engine a block away from Amaranth and coast the rest of the way, parking in the mouth of an alley across the street where the shadows swallow me whole. From here, I can see the entrance to the rickety back stairs and the brightly lit windows of Frankie’s loft above the shop.
Then I see a shadow passing in front of the curtained window. A silhouette moving with a freedom and ease that she never has in her father’s house. For a second, I think I can hear the faint sound of a laugh on the breeze.
Relief is a quiet flood, washing the panic away, leaving only the cold, hard bedrock of purpose. Darla’s safe. She’s with Frankie. She’s okay.
And she’s okay without me.
The thought should sting, but it doesn’t. It clarifies. My promise to Declan—take care of her—it wasn’t a command to stand on her doorstep. It wasn’t about hovering. I see that now. Taking care of her means dismantling the cage she just escaped.
I watch the window for another minute, my mind racing.
Winston Graves is a pillar of the community on the outside and a monster behind closed doors.
Trent Moreland is his heir apparent, another snake in a tailored suit.
I know it. The whole club knows it. But knowing and proving are two different circles of hell.
My promise was never about saving her from a random drunk at a bar. It’s about saving her from them. It’s about ripping down their world so she can finally build her own.
A plan forms, cold and sharp, in my mind. It’s a long game, one played in shadows and whispers, with ledgers and secrets as weapons. It’s the game I was born to play.
I stare up at the light in the window one last time, a silent vow passing between me and the girl I can’t protect up close.
I’m coming.
But this time, the words aren’t for her. They’re for them.