Chapter 28
The thing nobody tells you about finally getting what you want is that it doesn’t actually calm you down.
Not right away.
You’d think it would. You’d think after years of wanting something hard enough to make yourself miserable over it, finally having it in your hands would settle all the noise in your head and let you breathe like a normal man again.
That is not what happens.
What happens is you wake up with the woman you’ve been in love with for years in your bed, warm and soft and real, and for about thirty seconds, it feels like maybe the world has finally tilted back into place.
Then reality starts showing up. And all at once, you realize that getting her was never going to be the finish line.
It’s the part where you finally have to start acting like the man she deserved in the first place.
By the time Allison slips back downstairs after the morning interrogation from Mac, Kya, and Brooke, I’ve showered, thrown on jeans and a black T-shirt, and spent a solid ten minutes standing in the middle of my room staring at absolutely nothing while my own thoughts try to kill me.
Not because I regret any of it.
I don’t. That’s the strangest part. For the first time since this whole thing between me and Allie started feeling dangerous enough to ruin me, I don’t regret crossing the line.
I regret waiting so fucking long to do it right.
That’s what’s got me wound tight now. Not doubt. Responsibility. Because last night changed everything. Not in the way reckless nights usually do, where the adrenaline wears off and you wake up with the same problems wearing different clothes.
This changed everything because there was no hiding in it. No ambiguity. No room left to pretend this is some blurry, emotional mess I can keep half-stepping around.
I told her I love her. I told her she’s mine. And for once, I meant it in a way that doesn’t let me duck behind fear the second things get real.
So now?
Now I act like it.
Which means the first thing on my list is Landon.
And if there’s one conversation I’d rather postpone until I’m ninety and half senile, it’s the one where I tell one of my closest brothers that I’m with his little sister and he’s not allowed to murder me over the years of unresolved sexual tension and emotional damage that led us here.
Unfortunately, life is cruel and I am not getting that kind of extension.
I find him in the garage. The man has spent half his life either around numbers or engines, and when he’s not in church or getting dragged into whatever chaos the women are creating upstairs, he tends to drift toward one of the two.
He’s standing over the open hood of an old truck with Shadow and Joker, the three of them looking at something under the engine like it personally offended them.
Joker glances up first when I step in. Then Shadow. Then Landon.
And because I’m apparently not even a little subtle today, something in Landon’s face shifts immediately. Not suspicion. Recognition.
Like he’s been waiting for me to walk in here looking like I’ve got something to confess and has already started preparing his violence accordingly.
Joker straightens first, wiping his hands on a rag. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
Shadow looks between me and Landon once and immediately decides he wants no part of whatever this is.
“Come on,” he mutters to Joker. “Let’s let these two ruin each other’s day in peace.”
Joker’s mouth twitches. He tosses the rag onto the workbench and claps Landon once on the shoulder on his way past me. “Try not to kill the VP before dinner.”
“Can’t make promises,” Landon mutters.
Joker grins. “Fair.”
Then he and Shadow disappear out into the lot, leaving me alone with the exact conversation I was hoping to avoid and the exact man I deserve to get punched by.
Landon doesn’t say anything right away. He just closes the hood, leans back against the truck, folds his arms, and waits.
That’s somehow worse than if he’d come at me swinging.
Because Landon isn’t dramatic unless he has to be. He’s not loud for sport. Not the kind of guy who performs anger just to hear himself do it.
When he goes quiet, it usually means whatever comes next is going to matter.
So naturally, I start this badly. “You got a minute?”
He deadpans. “Feels like I’m about to have several.”
Fair.
I drag a hand through my hair and decide there’s no version of this that gets easier if I keep circling it. So I just say it. “Me and Allie are together.”
Landon doesn’t move.
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even breathe different for one long second.
Then he looks down at the concrete, nods once like he’s filing something away, and says, “Okay.”
That should not throw me as hard as it does. I stare at him. “Okay?”
He lifts one shoulder. “That’s what I said.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
He finally looks back at me then, and there’s enough in his expression to tell me this conversation is not actually going as smoothly as the word okay suggested. “No,” he says evenly. “That’s just me deciding whether I want to hit you before or after you explain how long this has been going on.”
Yeah. There it is.
I nod once. “That feels more normal.”
He pushes off the truck and takes two slow steps toward me, not posturing, not chest puffed up, just…there. Solid. Controlled. The exact kind of man you don’t want mad at you because he doesn’t need theatrics to make a point.
“How long?” he asks.
I hold his gaze. And because if I lie to him now, he’ll know, I tell the truth. “Depends what you mean.”
His jaw ticks. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I got.”
His eyes narrow. “Jimmy.”
I exhale slowly. “We crossed the line for real recently.”
That’s the cleanest version of it and we both know it.
Landon stares at me another second. Then, because he grew up in this club too and can probably do math just as well as I can, he says, “But this has been there longer.”
Not a question.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“How long?”
That one is harder. Not because I don’t know. Because I do. Because I can probably trace it back farther than I should be able to without sounding insane.
The porch. The football. The way she used to look at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention. The first time I realized looking back wasn’t harmless anymore.
“A while,” I say finally.
Landon’s expression flattens. “A while,” he repeats.
“Long enough that I should’ve handled it better.”
That, at least, gets through. Not enough to soften him. Enough to make his anger sharpen in a different direction.
“Yeah,” he says. “You should have.”
There’s no defense for that. No explanation that makes it prettier.
So I nod once and take it. “I know.”
His eyes stay on mine. “You hurt her?”
That one lands like a fist because there’s no room in it for me to dodge. No maybe. No interpretation.
Just truth.
I swallow once. “Yeah. And if I could—”
Landon’s fist swings hitting me right in the jaw and I take it. I deserve it.
He lets out a sharp breath through his nose and scrubs a hand over his jaw, looking away for a second like he’s trying very hard to choose his next words carefully instead of just making my dental work more expensive.
When he looks back at me, the anger’s still there. But there’s something else under it too. Resignation, maybe. Or maybe just the ugly reality of being a brother in a club like this and knowing the man standing in front of you isn’t some random asshole from town. It’s one of your own.
One of your brothers. One of the men you trust. That probably makes it worse.
“You love her?”
That one doesn’t even slow me down. “Yes.”
No hesitation. No qualifier. No room left for bullshit. And I see the exact second that answer changes something in him. Not enough to make him happy about this. Definitely not enough to make him relaxed. But enough to make this real in a different way.
He nods once. Slow. “Okay.”
There’s that word again. Only this time it means more.
This time it means he’s recalculating instead of just reacting. “She’s not some club girl you get hot for and then toss to the side,” he says.
“I know.”
“And if you make her cry again—”
“I know.”
That finally gets a reaction out of him.
He huffs one short laugh and shakes his head. “You’re really not making this fun.”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be fun.”
“No, it definitely isn’t.”
He’s quiet for another second, then adds, “You better be serious.”
That one I answer by stepping closer, not aggressive, not challenging, just steady enough that he knows I mean every word that comes next. “I am. I’m claiming her.”
Landon studies me for one long beat. Then he nods again. Not thrilled. Not warm. But accepting enough that my shoulders loosen for the first time since I walked in here. “Then I won’t kill you today,” he says.
I snort. “Appreciate that.”
His mouth twitches despite himself. “Tomorrow’s still on the table if you piss me off.”
“Fair.”
Then his expression sharpens again and he adds, “And Jimmy?”
“Yeah?”
“If you ever make me choose between wanting to back you as my brother and wanting to break your nose as her brother…” His eyes go cold in that calm, terrifying Landon way. “You are not going to like how that ends.”
That one lands exactly the way it should.
Clean. Clear. Earned.
I nod once. “Understood.”
He holds my gaze another second.
Then, finally, he finally sighs almost in resignation. “Take care of her.”
And Christ. That almost gets me more than the warning did.
Because that’s the thing, isn’t it?
Under all the protective bullshit and the brotherly violence and the obvious territorial instinct any man worth a damn would have where his sister’s concerned, that’s really what this is.
He just wants her safe. Happy. Loved right.
And the fact that I’ve spent years proving I could’ve been the one to do that and still failed to step up makes me feel like an even bigger asshole than I already did. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I will.”
We part on that. Not cheerful. Not exactly comfortable. But settled enough.
And honestly, I’ll take that as a win.