Chapter Five
I WAS STILL thinking about Evie when I headed down the hall toward the war room at the clubhouse, which was probably the last damn place my mind should’ve been wandering to a woman, but breakfast with her had gone so easy it kept replaying in my head whether I wanted it to or not.
Things had gone well. Better than well, actually, and when she mentioned she’d never been inside a biker clubhouse the offer had slipped out of my mouth before I’d thought about it too hard, Saturday night, I’d bring her by and show her around.
Not the bonfire.
Hell no.
That place got crazy on a good night and Evie Carter was the kind of woman who belonged in quiet antique shops and sunlit kitchens, not standing around a pit of burning pallets while naked women hung on half-drunk bikers arguing about dumb shit and somebody inevitably starts throwing punches.
I’d show her the calmer side. Still rough. Just not filthy. Evie wasn’t that type.
When I pushed through the door most of the brothers were already sitting around the big scarred table that had seen more arguments, blood, and spilled beer than any piece of furniture had a right to survive.
Chain was leaning back in his chair like he’d been waiting for entertainment, and the second I walked in his mouth twitched like he’d just found it.
“How was breakfast with your sixties pinup girl?” he asked, not even trying to hide the grin.
Bolt turned in his chair, eyebrows climbing halfway up his forehead. “You took a woman to breakfast?”
“It’s nobody’s damn business but mine,” I said, dropping into my seat.
Gearhead snorted. “You don’t date.”
“Yeah,” Bolt added. “Not that we’ve ever seen.”
Spinner leaned forward a little, studying me the way he did when something caught his interest. “You said sixties,” he said slowly. “She into the same shit as you?”
I just looked at him.
Mystic cut in before the interrogation could keep rolling. “Leave him alone,” he said, voice calm. “Some men like privacy.”
Thunder grunted his agreement from the other side of the table. “Not everythin’ a man does needs to be everybody’s damn business.”
Thank fuck Devil walked in then, because I was about two seconds from walking right back out. I was a private man on a good day, and every one of them knew it.
Devil took his seat at the head of the table and rested his forearms on the wood. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s get to it.”
The room settled.
“Gatsby,” he said, looking my way. “Did we pass the smell test after rescuing Lark?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Our guy watching those tunnels hasn’t seen hide nor hair of anyone snooping around. Whatever’s left of that cult either scattered or moved on. They know they can’t organize around here anymore.”
Chain and Thunder spoke at the same time.
“You sure about that?”
“Real sure?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I ran my own checks. Kickstand and Jaycee dug deeper. Even Ash took a look and came up empty.”
Chain’s jaw flexed. “They come sniffin’ around again,” he muttered, voice low, “I’ll finish what we started.”
Devil lifted a hand slightly, shutting that line of thought down before it could grow teeth. “We’ll deal with it if it happens,” he said. “Right now we’ve got something else.”
Chairs creaked as a few guys leaned forward.
“There’s chatter about the Fire Dragons,” Devil said. “Georgia chapter might be trying to stand back up.”
The shift in the room was immediate. Bolt stopped rocking his chair. Spinner leaned forward, elbows on the table. Across from me Mystic went completely still. Not angry. Just still in a way that made every man at that table notice. “Who’s behind it?” he asked.
Devil shook his head. “Don’t know yet. Word came through a couple Nomads who heard it moving through bars down in south Georgia.”
Spinner rubbed his beard slowly. “Chatter doesn’t start unless someone wants it heard.”
Thunder nodded once. “Means somebody’s building somethin’.”
Bolt exhaled through his nose. “Thought that chapter was ash.”
“So did I,” Gearhead muttered.
Chain’s eyes darkened. “They better hope he ain’t like who I’m thinkin’.”
Nobody said the name.
Didn’t have to.
Every man at that table was thinking it.
Devil straightened slightly. “Gearhead. Bolt. Spinner. I want you three digging. Head down into their old territory and start listening. Quiet like.”
Bolt grinned a little. “Always liked Georgia.”
Mystic checked his watch and pushed back from the table. “Anything else?” he asked. “Zeynep’s got a doctor’s appointment in an hour.”
A few of the guys smirked.
Three days ago Mystic had announced he was going to be a daddy, and ever since then the man had been walking around like someone had handed him a live grenade he was trying real hard not to drop.
Devil shook his head. “That’s it.”
The meeting broke apart the way they usually did, chairs scraping across the scarred wood floor as the brothers drifted out in pairs or small clusters, conversations already shifting to other things, but I stayed where I was for a minute longer, leaning back in my chair and staring at the empty space Devil had just vacated while the words Fire Dragons lingered in my head like something that hadn’t quite finished speaking yet.
Eventually I pushed back from the table and headed down the hallway toward the common room.
The Devil’s House clubhouse had once been a mansion, one of those sprawling Lowcountry homes built back when men with money wanted the world to know it, and even after all these years the bones of it still showed in the wide hallways and high ceilings that made the place feel bigger than any biker clubhouse had a right to be.
Old Jaybird’s place.
The founders had kept enough of the original structure intact that you could still see what the house had once been before a pack of bikers moved in and made it theirs.
Most clubhouses were old bars or warehouses somebody slapped a patch over, but this place had history soaked into the walls, the kind you could almost feel when you walked through it.
I always liked that about it.
Maybe more than most of the guys did.
There was something about the craftsmanship of the place, the thick wood doors, the old fireplaces in nearly every room, the tall windows that warped the outside world just slightly with their wavy glass—that reminded you this house had been standing here long before any of us were born, and would probably still be standing long after we were gone.
That kind of permanence wasn’t something men in this life usually got to claim.
But the house had it.
And somehow we’d become part of it.
I stepped into the common room, the big space opening up the way it always did after the narrower hallway.
Once upon a time a chandelier probably hung from the center of the ceiling, something delicate meant to impress guests arriving in polished carriages.
Now industrial lights hung there instead, throwing a warm yellow glow over hardwood floors that had been scarred by boots, bar fights, and more spilled beer than anyone could count.
Leather couches sat in loose clusters around the room, most of them cracked from years of use but still comfortable as hell, and the walls were a mix of old wood paneling and club history, framed photos of brothers long gone, faded patches from chapters that didn’t exist anymore, and the occasional piece of motorcycle metal somebody had decided looked good enough to hang like art.
A couple of the guys were already there.
Bolt had claimed one end of a couch, feet kicked up on the coffee table while he scrolled through something on his phone, and Gearhead stood near the bar pouring himself a glass of whiskey like the meeting had been nothing more than an excuse to start the evening early.
They both glanced up when I walked in.
Bolt smirked. “You goin’ cruisin’ with your calendar girl again?”
“Shut up,” I muttered.
Gearhead chuckled quietly into his glass.
The air in the room carried that smell the place never quite lost, old wood soaked with decades of humidity, tobacco that had seeped so deep into the beams it probably wasn’t ever coming out, and the faint trace of oil and metal that followed most of us in from the garage whether we realized it or not.
It was the smell of the clubhouse.
The smell of home.
Funny thing was, sitting across from Evie at breakfast that morning, listening to her talk about old things people forgot the value of, I’d caught myself thinking she’d probably like this place.
Not the biker part. The bones of it. The history. The way time had settled into the wood instead of wiping it clean.
She’d probably run her fingers along those warped windowpanes the same way she studied the edge of an old photograph, like she was trying to understand the life something had lived before it ended up in front of her.
The thought made me shake my head a little.
What the hell she’d think if she ever saw the place filled with fifty bikers and a couple cases of beer was another matter entirely.
I didn’t stop to sit.
Instead I crossed the room and pushed through the back door, stepping out onto the wide wraparound porch that circled most of the house.
Evening in the Lowcountry had settled in soft and heavy, the air thick with humidity that clung to your skin the second you stepped outside.
Spanish moss hung from the branches of the old oak trees like gray curtains shifting in the slow breeze, and somewhere out near the marsh the bullfrogs had started up their deep croaking while cicadas buzzed in the trees.
The property stretched out around the house in every direction.
Beyond that the land sloped gently toward the marsh, the brackish water catching the fading light of the sky and throwing it back in slow ripples.
The dock stretched out over it, weathered boards bleached pale from years of sun and salt, a place where more than a few of us had spent long nights drinking beer and watching the tide roll in and out.
Charleston wasn’t far. You could hear the faint hum of it sometimes when the wind carried the sound right. But once you turned onto that long dirt road lined with ancient oaks and warning signs making it real clear strangers weren’t welcome, it felt like stepping into another world.
And this one belonged to us.
I leaned against one of the porch columns, letting my gaze drift across the property while the quiet of evening settled in around the house.
Most men in this life talked about freedom like it was something they were still chasing.
Standing there, looking at that old house we’d claimed as our own, I knew damn well I’d already found mine.
But the thought of Fire Dragons trying to rise again crept back into my head whether I wanted it there or not.
If someone really was rebuilding that chapter… the quiet around here wasn’t going to last.