Chapter 34
The clubhouse has always had two versions of itself.
There’s the loud one.
The one people see when they come through for a party or a family dinner or a random Tuesday night that somehow turns into forty people packed into the common room because nobody in this club knows how to do anything halfway.
The loud version is music and beer and kids weaving between boots and women yelling at men across the kitchen and somebody always firing up the grill whether the weather makes sense for it or not.
Then there’s the other version.
The quiet one.
The one that settles in when everybody knows something’s wrong and the whole place shifts around it without needing to be told. Not panicked. Not chaotic. Just…ready.
That’s what the clubhouse feels like now.
Ready.
It’s in the way the brothers move. In the way conversations lower when certain names come up. In the way everybody who matters somehow manages to keep living their normal life while also paying attention to every vehicle that comes and goes from the lot like it might carry a problem with it.
And at the center of all of it is Allison.
Which means, by extension, I’m right there too. Because there is no version of this where I’m not.
That’s the shift.
That’s the thing that would’ve scared the shit out of me a month ago and now just feels like breathing. No more distance. No more half-measures. No more pretending I can keep parts of her at arm’s length just because it feels safer that way.
If somebody wants to come at her now, they come through me first. And if they’re stupid enough to keep pushing after that, then they deserve whatever comes next.
I’m in the kitchen when Logan walks in from church with Cain, Landon, Shadow, Joker, Cobra, Hammer, and Blaze trailing behind him in pieces.
Not all at once, not in some dramatic herd, just enough men in enough dark cuts moving through one room with the same grim energy that anybody with half a brain would know the club is handling something.
The front door opens and my mom, dad, and Allie’s parents come in too.
The women are already in the kitchen, because privacy in this place is mostly a myth.
Mac is at the island with a hand braced on her lower back and a look on her face like she’s considering murdering Logan over prenatal vitamins.
Kya is arguing with Dom about orange juice.
Brooke is sitting at the table with Carter rubbing her feet under orders and looking like he knows one wrong move could get him executed.
Emma’s helping Raven cut fruit while Lexi colors beside her.
And Allie is standing at the coffee pot in one of my shirts and a pair of leggings, hair up, mug in hand, looking so normal and domestic and mine that for one brief second I forget we’re all standing in the middle of a situation that could go bad fast.
Then Logan’s expression reminds me. He doesn’t say anything right away. He just comes in, grabs the back of a chair, and looks around the room once like he’s deciding how much of this gets said in front of the women.
Mac solves that for him immediately. “If you’re trying to decide whether we can handle grown-up information,” she says dryly, “I’d urge you not to.”
Kya points at her. “Especially because I’m already in a bad mood and if you all start doing that whispering male protector bullshit, I’ll set something on fire.”
Dom mutters, “You’re not setting anything on fire.”
“I’m pregnant, not powerless.”
Brooke snorts into her tea.
Emma hides a smile.
Logan drags a hand over his face like he’s already exhausted and it’s not even ten in the morning.
And somehow, stupidly, that helps. That tiny burst of normal. That reminder that even when the walls are closing in a little, life in this club doesn’t stop being life. It just learns how to make room for the ugly stuff without letting it swallow everything whole.
Logan finally looks at me. Then Allison. Then the room. “The sheriff gave me a heads-up.”
That stills everything. Not dead silence. But close enough.
I straighten off the counter immediately, and the second I move, Allison’s eyes flick to me. Always checking. Always reading. I go to her without thinking about it and stop at her side, my hand finding the small of her back automatically.
Not performative. Not to prove a point. Just because that’s where I stand now. With her. By her. Every time.
Logan catches it.
Everybody catches it.
Nobody says a word.
“He’s been making noise,” Logan says, voice flat. “Drew.”
The name alone turns the air in the room colder.
Cain’s jaw locks.
Landon’s expression goes dead still.
Blaze’s hand tightens around his coffee mug.
Shadow crosses his arms and leans back against the wall like he’s already imagining twelve different ways this could turn into a problem.
Joker doesn’t move at all, which is somehow worse.
“What kind of noise?” I ask.
Logan looks at me. Then at Allison. Then back to me.
“Trying to stir shit with the sheriff’s department. Talking about the club like he’s got something to prove. Hinting at drug movement, guns, trafficking, dirty money. Anything he thinks might stick if he throws enough of it around.”
My whole body goes tight. Not because I’m surprised. Because I’m not.
Of course he is.
Of course a man like Drew, humiliated and angry and too pathetic to let go, would reach for the thing he thinks gives him power: the badge, the system, the idea that if he can’t get to Allison cleanly, maybe he can come at the people she loves until he forces some kind of crack.
Coward. Typical fucking coward.
“He’s got nothing,” Cain says.
“Doesn’t matter,” Logan replies. “Men like that don’t need something real. They just need enough bullshit to make people look twice.”
Whip swears low under his breath.
Torch doesn’t swear. Torch just says, “I’ll kill him.”
Tracie, from the other side of the island, says without looking up from the fruit she’s slicing, “No, you won’t.”
Torch turns to look at her like she’s personally betrayed him. “That wasn’t a request.”
“It also wasn’t practical,” she says evenly. “Sit down before you have a coronary.”
That gets the tiniest twitch out of Mom.
Mac mutters, “I’d pay cash to watch Tracie run this club for a week.”
Logan deadpans, “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would.”
Kya points at Tracie with a piece of toast. “She’d have all of you trembling by Wednesday.”
Brooke laughs softly.
Emma shakes her head.
And somehow, again, the room breathes around the tension without letting it break.
I keep my hand at Allison’s back and feel the way she’s gone a little stiffer beside me. Not panicked. But braced. She hates this.
Not just the danger. The attention. The ripple effect. The way one bad man with too much ego can suddenly make everybody in her life rearrange around the fallout.
I get it.
I hate it too. But hating it doesn’t mean we get to pretend it’s not real.
“What’d the sheriff say exactly?” I ask Logan.
“He said Drew’s fishing. Pushing where he shouldn’t. Trying to get somebody to take him seriously before he actually does something stupid.”
“And the sheriff?”
Logan’s mouth goes flat. “Told him to knock it the fuck off.”
That helps. A little. Because the sheriff’s always been fair with us.
He knows exactly what this club is and isn’t, and more importantly, he knows we keep our own mess handled and don’t let the town rot around us.
That kind of relationship doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t get undone by one bitter local cop with a personal grudge and a hero complex.
Still. It’s not enough to make me relax. Not when Drew’s already shown us what he does when “no” hurts his feelings.
“All right,” I say.
And because apparently that’s all it takes now, every male eye in the room cuts to me.
Not because I’m president. Because I’m VP.
Because this is my girl. Because everybody in here knows exactly what this has been doing to me since the coffee shop and exactly how close I’ve been to putting my fist through something solid every hour on the hour.
Logan jerks his chin once. “Go ahead.”
So I do.
“No one’s alone,” I say.
It comes out steady. Clear. No room for argument.
“Allie doesn’t go anywhere by herself. None of the women do, especially not right now. If Drew’s trying to get eyes on the club or stir shit in town, then we stop making anything easy.”
Torch nods once immediately.
Cain too.
Shadow and Joker don’t say anything, but neither of them look like they disagree.
Blaze, leaning in the doorway, just folds his arms tighter and looks exactly like a man who would be delighted to run into Drew in a dark parking lot with no witnesses and a bad attitude.
Landon is the one who finally speaks. “I’ll take Ambrosia runs.” His eyes flick to Allison for half a second before coming back to me. “Anything she needs for work, I’ll handle it or send one of ours.”
There it is. That line we’ve all been walking around since Allison and I went public. Not awkward exactly. Not hostile. Just…loaded.
Because Landon’s my brother in every way that matters.
Because I grew up with him. Because I’ve bled with him.
Because there’s not a single thing in my life I wouldn’t put on the line for him if he asked.
And now I’m the man standing beside his little sister with my hand on her back like I’ve got a right to be there.
I do have a right. But that doesn’t mean the weight of it disappears.
I meet his stare and nod once. “Appreciate it.”
His jaw shifts. “Don’t.”
The room goes quiet again.
Allison goes still beside me.
Landon pushes off the wall and takes two steps in, not aggressive, not posturing, just serious enough that the whole room feels it. “You don’t thank me for protecting her,” he says.
Not loud. Not emotional. Worse. Flat. Personal.
“Not when it should’ve been happening before this.”
Allison exhales sharply beside me.
Torch mutters, “Landon.”
Tracie says, “Not helping.”
But I don’t look away. Because he’s not wrong. That’s the worst part of all of this.