5. Bella
FIVE
BELLA
The morning after Kane sleeps in his own bed, every man in the clubhouse knows it. Conversations pause when I cross the common room at five-thirty, and Cash's smirk disappears the moment Kane looks his way.
Kane walks me to the door with his hand hovering near my back, the restraint strangely intimate after last night. "Prospect's taking you in."
"I can drive myself."
"No."
I glance up at him. "That sounded presidential."
"It was meant to."
Last night changed something beyond the sex.
He trusted me with the part of his grief he'd never shown anyone else, then held me as if waking beside me was something he'd wanted for years.
I've always told myself Kane is dangerous because of his patch; this morning, the dangerous thing is how safe he makes me feel.
"Back before four," he says.
"You planning to set a curfew now?"
"If I need to."
Normally, that would earn him an argument. Instead, I rise onto my toes and kiss him. The clubhouse falls silent, and his hand finally settles against my back.
"Four," he repeats, his eyes darkening.
I walk outside before he can see me smile.
The prospect guarding me is twenty-two at most. His name is Eli, though the club calls him Prospect until he earns something more. He follows me to the Landing, takes a corner table with a view of the door and road, and spends the morning doing exactly what Kane ordered.
Marisol is in Springfield with her sister today. Before leaving, she made me promise I wouldn't use her absence as an excuse to burn the cafe down trying to multitask cooking and serving.
By noon the rush is over, and the Kingdom Come cut in the corner has done its job. By one-thirty, I'm starting to believe the worst is over when Eli checks his phone again.
"You expecting a proposal?" I tease.
He pockets it. "Just club stuff. I've got to run an errand."
I stop wiping the counter. "Kane told you to stay."
"I'll be back before close. Twenty minutes max."
The kitchen timer starts shrilling. When I glance back, he's already getting up to leave.
"Eli, is this a good idea?"
"Nothing's happened in days."
They're the same words I've repeated all morning and I'm tired of being afraid inside my own business. Besides, there are no customers in right now. "Twenty minutes," I say.
Relief crosses his face too quickly, and he leaves before I can change my mind.
I pull a tray of rolls from the oven and tell myself Kane never needs to know. That thought survives seven minutes.
The smell of gasoline cuts through the warm scent of fresh bread. The back door stands open a few inches, though I'm certain I closed it, and something scrapes across the gravel outside.
I step back as a bottle crashes through the rear window. Glass and liquid spray across the prep table and my jeans; a second later, flame races over the gasoline in a bright sheet.
Heat drives me backward. I stare at the fire climbing the wall of the kitchen before instinct finally takes over and I grab the extinguisher.
The nearest flames fall beneath the white cloud, but fire is already curling up the old paneling. With the back exit cut off, I turn toward the dining room and hit the jammed swinging door with my shoulder until it gives.
Smoke has filled the cafe. Orange light flickers behind the pastry case, and another line of fire climbs near the front window. They haven't come to frighten me this time; they've come to make sure nothing survives.
I crouch beneath the smoke and force myself toward the front door while something crashes behind me. The screen refuses to move, and panic surges before I manage to get it open.
My fingers slip twice. Then the latch turns and I fall outside, coughing so hard I can barely drag myself from the building.
People run toward me from across the road. When I turn, flames are punching through the kitchen windows and black smoke is coiling over the roof.
Sirens get louder, followed by the sound of bikes. One engine is ahead of the others, coming hard enough that I recognize Kane before I see him. He tears into the parking lot, brakes so violently the back tire spits gravel, and is off the bike before the engine has completely died.
His eyes find me, and the expression on his face steals what little breath I've managed to recover. He crosses the space between us in a few long strides and drops in front of me, his hands closing around my arms.
"Bella."
"I'm okay."
He checks me over as if he can't trust his eyes to tell him I'm whole. "Kane, I'm all right."
"Breathe for me."
I drag in a deeper breath, but it turns into a harsh cough and drains the color from his face.
He leans in, breath still ragged, for a moment. When he pulls back, the president is returning to the surface, but the fear remains in his eyes.
The prospect's bike screams into the parking lot behind the fire engine. He barely manages to lower the stand before Kane rises, and every part of him changes. The prospect looks at the cafe, then at me, and finally at Kane.
"Prez, I--"
Kane hits him once. The punch drops him to his knees in the dirt.
Every firefighter, brother, and bystander sees it happen. Kane stands over him without raising his voice, which somehow makes the scene more frightening than shouting ever could.
"Where were you?"
Blood runs from the prospect's lip. "I had to…I had an errand to run. I needed to pick something up."
"You were told to stay on her."
"I was gone twenty minutes."
"She was inside that building."
The prospect looks toward me. Kane grabs the front of his shirt and hauls him upright. "You don't look at her. You look at me."
The young man's face drains of color.
"I'm sorry, Prez."
"You left your post."
"I thought--"
"That was your second mistake."
Kane releases him with a shove. "You'll never wear this club's patch." The sentence flat and final.
The prospect's mouth opens. "Prez--"
"You're done. Get out of here, and don't let one of my brothers see you after dark.”
Kane doesn't shout the order, but the prospect scrambles for his bike as if he has. Nobody tries to stop him as he rides away. When Kane turns back to me, his fury doesn't vanish. It simply changes direction, folding itself around the need to get me somewhere safe.
He crouches and looks down at the soot on my hands. "You're coming back to the compound."
"The fire department will need me here."
"They've got your number."
"I should stay until--"
"No."
I meet his eyes. "Kane."
He stands and holds out his hand. "You're coming back to the compound."
There's nothing in his tone that allows negotiation, and on any other day, I'd fight him simply to remind us both that I could. Today, I put my hand in his.
He draws me carefully to my feet and watches my face until he's satisfied I'm steady. Then he gives me his helmet and settles me on the bike behind him.
I've never ridden with Kane before. I've never felt the vibration of his machine beneath me or the solid heat of his body between my arms.
He reaches back, pulls my hands firmly around his waist and says, "Hold on."
I do. I press my cheek to his back as we leave the Landing behind us with the firefighters still putting the fire.
The compound receives us like a body closing around a wound. The gates roll shut, and brothers move the moment they see Kane's face.
Kane takes me to his room and checks me over again, wiping soot from my face and examining the scrape across my palm.
He makes me sit on the edge of the bed while he crouches between my knees, his hands moving over my arms and ribs like he needs to confirm I'm still in one piece.
Even now, even through the fear and the adrenaline, my body responds to his touch.
Heat rises beneath the places his fingers pass.
"You need a doctor."
"No, I need a shower."
He touches the soot on my cheek, his thumb tracing along my jaw, and his gaze drops to my mouth before he catches himself. "You inhaled smoke."
"I was outside within a couple of minutes. Kane, I’m fine."
His jaw tightens. Underneath the anger, the fear is still unmistakable now that I know what it looks like. It's more powerful than anything he could say.
Kane Calhoun doesn't scare easy and he was terrified anyway.
I touch the side of his face, and his eyes close briefly beneath my palm. Then Judge appears in the doorway.
"Brother." One word, carrying club business behind it.
Kane stands. "Stay in this room."
Usually, I'd tell him precisely what he can do with that order. Instead, I'm comforted by his protection. "I will."
He leaves with Judge. I shower, change my clothes and sit on the edge of his bed, trying not to picture flames climbing over my cafe.
An hour later, raised voices carry along the hallway. I can't hear every word, but Griz's voice comes through more clearly than the others.
"The club's bleeding for Red's girl.” I go completely still.
Someone answers too quietly for me to make out.
"First the guards, then the prospect, and now the Landing," Griz continues. "What's next? We lose brothers over a woman who ain't even ours?"
"She's under Kane's protection," another man says.
"Because he put her there."
A chair scrapes across the floor. Kane speaks, but his voice is too low for me to catch the words.
Griz doesn't stop. "King would never have--"
The room erupts briefly, several voices colliding before Kane cuts through all of them.
"My father left a brother to die." Silence follows. "Don't use his name to teach me loyalty."
His defense should comfort me, and part of it does.
Kane is fighting for me against men who rode beside my father for decades, which is exactly why it hurts.
Men who called Red their brother still need reminding that his daughter matters, protecting me with one hand and resenting me with the other.
I was right about this life. It eats its own.
Kane returns twenty minutes later and finds me dressed with my bag packed beside me.
"I'm leaving, Kane."
"No. No you aren't."
"You don't get to presidential-no me twice in one day."
"Watch me."
He remains in the doorway without crowding me, but his body fills the space.
"What did you hear?"
"Enough."
"Griz," he suddenly confirms to himself with a knowing nod.
"He said it, but nobody sounded surprised."
"I handled it."
"That's not the point. My father gave thirty years to this club, and men who called him brother still think protecting me is a debt they shouldn't have to pay."
"They don't decide," he says.
"They are the club."
His expression hardens. "No, I'm the club."
"No, Kane. You lead it, but you can't erase what it is."
Something in his expression closes. I hate the pain that moves through me because I know I'm hurting him, and he's the one thing inside these walls I wasn't wrong about. That only makes leaving harder.
"I know what my father was," I say. "I know he drank, and I know he failed me too. I've never pretended otherwise. But I can't live inside a brotherhood that only remembers loyalty when it's convenient."
"Bella, please.You can't leave because of them."
"I am and I will."
"Then you're letting Griz make this choice for you."
"I'm making it for myself.” I move closer, forcing myself to look at him when I say the part that matters most.
"I can't have you without this." My fingers run over his cut. The words nearly break on the way out.
His face remains controlled, but I see the blow land.
"I'm not asking you to give up your club," I continue. "I'm telling you I can't let it decide anything else about my life."
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"Your house isn't secure."
"Then put someone outside if you must."
And he will. Even while I'm walking away from him, he's still thinking about how to keep me safe. For one terrible moment, I want him to order me to stay. I want him to take the decision away from me so I don't have to live with making it.
He seems to know, because instead of blocking the door, he steps aside.
"I'll take you myself.”
Kane carries my bag to the bike. We don't speak on the way to my house. I keep my arms around his waist. At a stoplight, he covers one of my hands with his, holding it there until the light changes.
When we reach my house, he checks every room before he allows me inside. He doesn't argue, apologize or ask me to reconsider; he's a protector down to the bone.
After he leaves, a bike settles beneath the trees across the street. The brother isn't Kane, but I recognize a Kingdom Come cut in the fading light.
I close the curtains, then stand alone in my kitchen and finally let myself cry for the cafe, my father and the man I've just walked away from.