Chapter 40
Vienna
Before
“Brother!” Sunshine greeted me the second I walked through the door, thrusting a beer into my hand before I could so much as get both feet properly over the threshold.
“Alright,” I nodded back, accepting the bottle, though my nerves were still wound too tight for alcohol to touch them.
“Where’s the Mrs?” he asked, his words already beginning to slur together.
“Sunshine!” Dante snapped. “Crash has been spouting some bullshit about kicking your ass at pool—”
“Kicking my ass?” he interrupted with a savage growl, squaring his shoulders like he was about to march into war rather than across a room to a pool table. “I’ll fucking show him who kicks whose ass around here,” he muttered, already grumbling away to himself as he stalked off.
The second he was out of earshot, Dante turned back to me, his expression shifting. “Everything okay? I thought you were coming here with—”
“She said to meet her here,” I replied. “Sent me a text saying Natalie was dropping her off and that the meet point was no longer safe.”
“You believe her?” he asked with a frown.
“I’ve no reason not to, but…”
“But?” he prompted, already reading more in my face than I wanted him to.
“Something feels off, man. They did their best to hide, but I noticed a couple of Riders near our meeting point. Then she bails on me. I can’t help but think something’s gone tits up.”
Dante’s expression hardened immediately. He put his bottle down on the bar and leaned in slightly. “What do you need from me? Say the word and we’ll do it. Do you want to go to the Riders’ clubhouse?”
Her text flashed through my mind again.
I’m safe. Will meet you at the Devils. With Natalie. She’ll drop me off.
There had been no kisses at the end of it. No hearts. No sarcastic little sign-off.
Something felt rotten, but I couldn’t go charging over there blind. Not without knowing what had happened. If things had already gone bad, barging into Rider territory with half the club behind me could make them a thousand times worse for her.
“Nah,” I said, trying to keep the tension out of my voice and not quite managing it. “I’ll give her an hour or two. If she hasn’t turned up by then, we ride. Until that point, I’ve got no choice but to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”
“Vienna—”
“I can’t, Dante,” I cut in, letting the wall slip just enough for him to see what was underneath.
“She’s pregnant, man. I can’t risk them finding out.
Whatever’s happened tonight, I need to trust that she’s handled it the best way she knew how, and she’ll get word to me when she can. But two hours is my limit.”
“Two hours it is, brother,” he said with a nod. “I’ll go have a word with Crash and make sure the old bastard stops drinking now. We’ve got you.”
“Thank you.”
“No thanks needed. Let’s just hope she turns up, because God help those Riders if we have to retrieve her.”
“Hear, hear,” I replied, clinking my bottle against his before taking a long swallow.
God help them indeed.
I didn’t move from the bar after Dante walked away.
I told myself it was because I was waiting.
That there was no point pacing the room like a caged animal when she’d said she was coming here.
But the truth was, my legs didn’t feel quite right beneath me.
Like if I started moving, I wouldn’t stop.
Like I’d end up tearing out of the doors, onto my bike, and riding straight into Rider territory without a plan, without backup, without a single fucking thought in my head other than getting to her.
So I stayed where I was.
I drank my beer.
And I watched.
The clubhouse was alive in the way it always was on a night like this.
Loud, chaotic, full of men who had no business being as relaxed as they were.
Laughter bounced off the walls, pool balls cracked against each other, and somewhere in the corner someone had the music turned up just a touch too loud. It should have felt normal.
It didn’t.
Every time the door opened, my head snapped up before I could stop myself. Every time it wasn’t her, something in my chest tightened just a little bit more.
“You’re going to wear a hole through that door if you keep staring at it like that.”
I didn’t even need to look to know who it was.
“Fuck off, Trent,” I muttered, dragging my gaze away long enough to take another drink.
“I’m serious,” he went on, leaning his elbows on the bar beside me. “You look like a dog waiting for its owner to come home.”
“Careful,” I replied mildly. “You’re about two seconds away from me smothering you with my beard.”
He snorted, flicking my beard before ruffling my hair. “Touchy. Must be love.”
When I didn’t reply, he studied me for a moment, longer than usual, his usual grin fading just slightly. “You sure everything’s sound?”
No. I wasn’t.
Because something had been sitting wrong with me ever since that text came through, and no amount of beer or noise or distraction was shifting it.
“Yeah,” I said eventually, because it was easier. “She’s just late.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t push it either. “Well, if she stands you up, I’m available. Might not be as pretty, but I’m a solid second choice.”
“That’s a bold claim,” I said dryly, finally glancing at him. “Considering you’ve got the personality of a wet sock.”
“Charming,” he laughed, pushing off the bar. “I’ll leave you to your brooding then, Romeo.”
He wandered off, already shouting something at someone across the room, and just like that, the noise swallowed him whole again.
I let out a slow breath, rolling the neck of the bottle between my fingers.
Two hours.
That’s what I’d said.
Two hours before I stopped trusting the situation and started acting.
But even as I stood there, watching that door like my life depended on it, I knew I wasn’t going to last that long.
Because something had already gone wrong.
I could feel it.
“Rider ladies!” someone shouted from the window. My heart jumped.
Gabriella.
And then it fell flat. She shouldn’t have been wearing a Rider cut. But then the rational part of my brain told me that this was all planned. That she needed to wear their brand so she could leave freely.
Still, my grip tightened on the bottle I was holding, and my jaw clenched as I waited for them to come in.
Natalie stepped in first, looking around like a deer in headlights. That, on its own, would have been enough to set my nerves on edge. She didn’t belong here. None of them did. But she wasn’t the problem.
She stepped aside, her head hanging low, and in walked Gabby.
Everything else faded.
It always did with her. Didn’t matter how loud the room was, how many people were around, how much shit was going on—my focus always snapped straight to her like she was the only thing that mattered.
Only this time…
This time something was off.
It took me a second to figure out what it was.
She wasn’t moving right. She wasn’t limping, not exactly. She was just… careful. Each step had thought behind it, as though she was trying to manage pain before she took it. As though she didn’t want to draw attention to it, but knew she couldn’t quite hide it either.
My brow furrowed, pushing away from the bar without even realising I was doing it.
Her face was pale. And not the same pale from the scan room. This was ashen. Grey. She didn’t look tired, or annoyed. She was just… pale.
“Gabby?” I called, my voice cutting through the room easier than it should have. “What the fuck took you so long?”
She didn’t reply. Her mouth opened and then closed again. All she did was softly shake her head.
“You alright?” I asked, slower now, closing the distance between us. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Natalie shifted awkwardly beside her, her eyes flicking around the room like she didn’t want to be here, like she was waiting for something to happen. That alone was enough to put me on edge.
Gabby still didn’t answer. She didn’t move. She didn’t respond to my touch. She just stood silently, holding my gaze with tears in her eyes.
And then we all heard it.
Engines. The unmistakable sounds of motorbike engines sounding close, far too close—close enough to be on our property, and creeping closer still with every split second.
Dante was beside me in an instant, his presence solid, grounding. “Vienna…” he murmured, low enough that only I could hear it. “The Riders are here. All of them.”
I didn’t take my eyes off her. I didn’t need to. Because deep in my gut, in a place I didn’t want to admit was true, I already knew.
The door opened again, just as her eyes closed, shutting me out. When they opened again, they were hardened, the tears gone.
Rough Riders poured in like they owned the place, like they weren’t walking into a rival clubhouse but into something that already belonged to them. One after the other, filling the space, their cuts catching the light, their expressions far too calm for what this should have been.
The room didn’t fall silent all at once, not in any dramatic, sweeping way, but there was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere that crept in like a draft under a door—subtle at first, and then impossible to ignore.
Conversations didn’t stop so much as falter, laughter trailing off into uncertainty as men began to register what they were looking at, who had just walked through their doors, and more importantly, the fact that they had done so without hesitation.
Chairs scraped against the floor as bodies adjusted, some rising slightly from their seats, others leaning forward, elbows braced against tables, all of them caught somewhere between instinct and restraint.
No one reached for a weapon outright, not yet, but I could see it in the tension of their shoulders, the way hands hovered just a fraction too close to belts and pockets, ready to move if needed.
I didn’t look at any of them.
I couldn’t.