Chapter 37 #2
Candace pauses, bottle in hand. Darla hasn't set foot past the sparkling water display. Six months ago she would have been elbow-deep in the rosé section, debating labels and demanding to smell every cork.
"You're not even going to look?"
"I'm looking." Darla gestures vaguely at the sparkling water in front of her. "I'm just in a sparkling water phase."
Candace sets a bottle back with controlled precision and steps closer, dropping her voice. "Darla."
Darla's hold tightens on the sparkling water. "Candace."
A long silence. Recognition passes between them. Protection, suspicion, tenderness sharpened into vigilance. Darla's chin lifts, but her look gives her away.
Candace exhales. She looks at the sparkling water in Darla's hands, back at her face.
"That's what you're drinking tonight."
Darla nods, clutching the bottle, shield and secret both. "Okay," she murmurs, quiet enough to pass for gratitude.
By the time we reach the café, my patience is thin in the way it gets when I've been pretending to be normal for too long. Windows, warmth, noise. Late-afternoon people with laptops, couples sharing tables, a mom bouncing a baby. The espresso machine hissing beneath it all.
We claim a small table near the front. Candace orders as though she owns the place. Darla orders something sweet after changing her mind three times. I order coffee I don't want because my hands need something to do.
Mid-conversation, Darla plotting googly eyes on every framed photo in the clubhouse, Candace arguing for "bigger, meaner, louder," the hair on my arms lifts.
The café door opens, and a draft pushes in colder than it should be. The noise dips, that instinctive hush that settles over a room when something dangerous walks in.
My gaze snaps up.
He's standing just inside the entrance, adjusting his cufflinks. The reason my throat closes. My father. Harrison Mercer. The man whose voice used to mean rules and consequences and silence.
He doesn't look surprised to find me. He looks satisfied.
My mind runs the calculation before the fear catches up.
He knew I'd be here. This café, this afternoon.
Which means he's been watching, or someone has been watching for him, long enough to learn my patterns. The thought sends ice through my veins.
How long? How close has he been while I was buying groceries and drinking coffee and acting safe?
I stay neutral because I learned young how to keep my expression smooth while my insides turned to ice. My fingers curl around my cup hard enough to hurt.
Darla stops mid-sentence.
Candace's posture shifts, subtle and controlled, her whole body tightening into something coiled and ready.
My father walks toward us with the calm confidence of a man who's never been told no and believed it. Suit perfectly tailored. Hair neat. His smile is soft and practiced, the kind he wore at fundraisers while his hand pressed too hard on my elbow.
"Sloane. There you are."
Candace stands so fast her chair scrapes. She steps slightly in front of me. Not blocking my view, simply making herself the first point of contact. "Wrong table. Keep walking."
He spares her a glance. A mild inconvenience. "And you are?"
"Someone telling you to leave."
His mouth curves. "Spirited."
"And you," Candace replies, "are exactly where you don't belong."
Darla's hand finds my wrist under the table. Warm, a steady anchor. She squeezes once.
His attention slides past Candace. "You look well. Health agrees with you."
I force air into my lungs. "What do you want?"
His smile widens. "Conversation. Clarity. Perhaps an apology."
Candace's laugh is sharp. "From who?"
He ignores her. Tilts his head, studying me as though I'm an object he's evaluating for damage. "Two years. Do you know how many people I had looking for you?"
My stomach flips. "You were looking for me?"
His brows lift. "Of course. You don't vanish from my life because you decide you're done."
"She's not your property," Candace says, colder.
His attention snaps to her, composure intact. "And you're not her savior." He studies Candace for a beat longer than necessary, head tilting with recognition that looks rehearsed. "You really are a lot like your mother."
Candace goes still. Every muscle locked, jaw white, hands flat on the table.
He lets it land. Watches it work. Pivots back to me as though he didn't just put a knife between Candace's ribs.
"I ran into an old friend. Alice." My grip tightens. "Alice Brighton. She said you looked… settled."
Darla's fingers clamp on my wrist.
"You've been talking to Alice," I manage, too steady.
A shrug. "She's useful. Keeps her ear close to interesting circles." He leans in just enough to invade space without touching. "She mentioned you've been… playing doctor for a motorcycle club."
Candace's smile turns sharp. "Say another word."
His glance cuts toward the windows, the crowd, the witnesses. "I'm simply curious. You've always had such ambition, Sloane. I expected better than… this."
"This is my life."
His focus narrows. "No. This is a phase. A rebellion. You'll come back when you're done proving something."
Candace, lower. "You don't know anything about her."
He gives Candace his full attention, and the air changes, not louder, just colder. "Oh, I know her. I made her."
Darla makes a small sound.
He looks at Darla now, as if just noticing she exists. Perfectly pleasant. "And you must be Darla Graves."
Of course he knows her name. Winston Graves, Trent Moreland, my father.
They all swim in the same water. Darla isn't just my friend sitting at a café table.
She's Winston Graves' daughter, and my father knows exactly what that means, exactly what her father tried to do to her.
The fact that he says her name with a smile makes my skin crawl.
Darla's face drains, but she lifts her chin. "Yeah. And you must be the reason she learned to flinch without moving."
Candace's head turns in surprise, pride following.
He lets out a low laugh. "Charming." Back to me. "You should come home. We can fix this."
"I am home."
His smile falters half a beat, returns wider, colder. "Don't be dramatic."
Candace's fingers flex. "Leave. Right now." He assesses her. But he's not threatened. He's entertained. "You're protective," he tells Candace. "It must be exhausting, guarding what isn't yours."
"Try me."
He smooths back toward me. "Knox Turner. Your husband."
"You don't get to say his name." The words come out low and venomous, a register I didn't know I had until this moment. "Not with that mouth. Not as though you have any claim to it."
Interest piques. "Alice mentioned him. She was quite specific."
My brain does what it always does: runs the inventory.
He knows Knox's name. Knows Darla's maiden name.
He knows about the MC. He knows where I work, where I drink coffee, who I sit with on a Tuesday afternoon.
Alice gave him the outline, but this level of detail means he filled it in himself.
I'm cataloging the people I love and calculating which ones he can reach.
He leans closer. I catch his cologne. It's expensive, clean, the scent that used to cling to my clothes after dinners where I smiled until my cheeks hurt. "I get to talk about whatever I want. That's how the world works, sweetheart. You don't change the rules by pretending they don't apply."
"Back up," Candace snaps.
He straightens, pitching his voice for the room. "I'm not here to cause a scene. I simply wanted to see my daughter."
"You've seen her. Now leave."
He finds me again, and the mask slips just long enough for uglier things to surface.
Ownership, promise, threat. "Consequences follow people who forget where they came from," he says softly.
"You've surrounded yourself with vulnerable things.
Husbands. Clubs. Friends." His attention drifts to Darla.
"Women who don't understand what they're standing next to. "
Darla clamps down hard enough to ache, anchoring me to the chair. The café feels too bright. Too loud. I keep my composure because I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
My eyes do what they always do when I feel cornered. They sweep the room, counting exits, measuring distances, cataloging every body between me and the door. That's when I catch it.
Rider is near the back wall by the pastry case, cap low, body angled toward the door. He's been there the whole time. Eyes on my father with that still, predatory patience the men wear when they're waiting for permission.
Kyle sits two tables away, half-turned, scrolling his phone while watching our reflections in the window. His gaze flicks to me. Quick. Steady.
Knox sent them. They must have tailed us from the clubhouse.
The realization lands sharp, and for half a second my chest tightens with something that wants to be anger, the old instinct that says being watched means being controlled.
I look at Rider's steady eyes, Kyle's focus, and my grip on the cup eases.
Knox didn't send strangers. He sent men I trust, men who would put themselves between my father and this table without being asked.
The instinct wasn't paranoia. It was right.
My father sees them too. He takes their measure. His expression shifts. "So. The motorcycle club has you guarded."
Candace lifts her chin. "She doesn't need guarding. She needs you gone."
His gaze returns to mine. "I'll be in touch. We have things to discuss."
"I don't want to discuss anything with you."
His smile doesn't move. "You don't always get what you want."
Candace closes the distance, so near her shoulder almost brushes his chest, voice low enough for just us. "Walk away before you leave here with fewer teeth."
He catalogues her. His focus shifts past Candace to Rider, who hasn't moved, hasn't blinked, and whose stillness carries the kind of patience that promises violence without advertising it.
Harrison's jaw tightens, just once, just enough.
He files it. I watch him file it, watch the calculation adjust behind his eyes, the cost-benefit analysis of a man who just learned his leverage has limits.
"Lovely to see you, Sloane," he says to the room, and his voice is still smooth, still polished. But his stride toward the door is faster than it was coming in.