Lock

Chapter 1 Kellan

KELLAN

By the time the ice cubes started to melt, I knew I’d been standing there way too long, staring at nothing like an idiot. The glass was sweating all over the counter, leaving a wet ring I wiped up with the side of my hand.

I blew out a breath. “He already agreed… everything is fine.”

So why couldn’t I shake the pit in my belly that I would be trapped in this place forever?

My feet curled against the cold kitchen tile, and I looked around yeah… the place had seen better days. The cabinets didn’t close right, the fridge hummed like it was dying, and everything smelled a little like coffee, grease, and leather.

Home sweet home, I guess.

Well—home or cage, depending on the day.

Most mornings lately, I tried to pretend it was just…

normal. Wake up, brew coffee, check my email from the clinic, go over my start-date paperwork and daydream about spending my time with kids and parents instead of bikers…

That job felt like my one ticket to something that was mine, something that wasn’t stamped with REAPERS in big block letters.

I set the iced tea on the tray, right next to the sandwich I’d stacked just the way my dad liked it, thick cut bread I made yesterday, with thick slices of roast beef, sharp cheddar, extra pickles, mustard on both sides of the bread.

And I added the little plate of cookies I’d baked earlier in the day because apparently graduating college hadn’t broken me of the habit of stress-baking.

“Yep,” I muttered. “Straight-up bribery.”

Dad—Wrecker—wasn’t the easiest guy to sweet-talk on a good day.

And lately? Good days were definitely in short supply.

Something had been brewing in the club for weeks, and everyone felt it.

I could feel the tension from the common room.

There was no music… No dumb arguments about pool.

Just quiet voices, everyone felt the tension even when they didn’t know what it meant.

And it was the kind of quiet that made the back of my neck tingle.

On a regular afternoon, there’d be music leaking down the hall from Reapers’ Roadhouse, someone swearing about a busted carb at the shop, Razor yelling at a prospect to sweep the same spot for the third time.

Today, it just sounded… wrong. Like the whole compound was waiting for a the other shoe to drop.

Before I could talk myself out of it I grabbed the tray before I changed my mind and pushed open the kitchen door with my shoulder.

The hallway was cooler, darker. Concrete floors, old photos, framed patches.

The usual smell of motor oil and leather hit me and settled weirdly in my chest. It was somehow both familiar but heavy.

Like slipping into a jacket that didn’t quite fit anymore.

I didn’t need to look where I was going. I’d walked this hall since I was old enough to toddle. Down past the patched members’ lounge. Last door on the left. The president’s office. My dad’s lair.

A young prospect sat outside it on a chair that looked like it had been stolen from some dive bar in the nineties. He straightened fast when he saw me.

“Hey, Kellan.” His eyes dropped to the tray. “Uh… Wrecker said he’s busy.”

“He’s always busy,” I said, shifting the tray before my fingers cramped. “This is just lunch. Not trying to crash a meeting.”

He didn’t relax. If anything, he got stiffer.

“He told me not to let anyone through,” he said quietly. “Like… anyone.”

I raised a brow. “Anyone?”

“Anyone who’s not him,” he corrected, wincing like he already knew how ridiculous that sounded.

“Well,” I said, giving him a small smile, “lucky for you, I’m not just anyone.”

The kid actually looked panicked for a second, like he could see the future where Wrecker ripped into him for letting the president’s son through. I didn’t blame him. Dad scared grown men. Hell, he scared me sometimes—not that I’d ever admit it out loud.

“I’m not going in to stir anything up,” I added, softer. “Just want to feed him before he gets hangry and threatens to rip someone’s head off. You know how he gets.”

The prospect huffed a single nervous laugh. “Yeah. I know.”

“And listen,” I said, adjusting the tray again, “if he’s mad about it, I’ll take the heat. He can yell at me later.”

The kid looked relieved and worried all at once. Pretty much how everyone looked around here lately.

I glanced at the closed door, and something twisted low in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or just… all of it. Being back home. Being back in this building. Walking halls that held every version of me—toddler, teenager, the college kid who tried to run, the adult who’d come back anyway.

Every step forward still felt like I wasn’t sure if I was walking into a hug or a trap.

Maybe both.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and shifted the tray under one arm so I could knock.

Then I paused.

Just a heartbeat.

Just long enough for the truth to slip through.

I missed my dad.

Even if he was distant.

Even if he was stubborn.

Even if he was president first, father second, and everything else a distant third.

I still wanted five minutes where he was just my dad.

I knocked before I could talk myself out of it, then turned the handle and pushed the door open.

It was the usual scene: Dad’s heavy desk, the old territory map pinned to the wall, the mix of cigarette smoke and beat-up leather hanging in the air. Nothing new… except the tension.

And another scent that didn’t belong here.

It slid under my skin before I understood what I was smelling. Darker. Sharper. It hit the back of my throat, and I swear the room tilted for a second.

A man stood near the desk, broad back to me. Black leather cut. Shoulders like he carried his own weather system.

Silas “Lock” Lachlan.

President of the Crimson Havoc MC. My father’s rival. Even though he was younger than my dad, he somehow felt… heavier. More dangerous.

I’d seen pictures. Once I’d glimpsed him on the highway, all speed and chrome. None of that prepared me for him standing here, in our office. In our world.

He turned at the sound of the door.

One quick, assessing look. A sweep of bright blue that took me in and went straight through me.

My fingers tightened on the tray.

Lock had the kind of presence that pulled oxygen out of the air. He was taller than I’d expected, shoulders filling out the black leather, rough stubble along a hard jaw. Those eyes were what got me, though. Sharp, cool, steady. Like he saw everything and missed nothing.

Something low in my stomach went soft and hot. Heat crawled up my neck, completely inappropriate and absolutely unstoppable.

“Didn’t realize you were running a diner out of here now, Wrecker,” Lock said, voice low and rough, sarcasm easy and sharp.

My dad stood behind the desk, jaw clenched. “Conversation’s over. You know where the gate is.”

Lock’s gaze lingered on me for half a heartbeat more, unreadable, then he turned and strode past. Close enough that the air shifted. Close enough that his scent—dark cedar and something sharp—brushed my skin when I breathed in at the wrong time.

My knees almost gave out.

I didn’t breathe again until the door slammed behind him.

For a second, I honestly thought I might be sick.

My hands were damp, my heart sprinting like I’d just run stairs, and there was this weird buzzing in my chest that wouldn’t shut up.

It didn’t feel romantic or swoony or any of that crap—more like my body had been yanked sideways without warning.

One look, one breath, and my nervous system decided to freak out. And I had no idea why.

“Kellan.” My dad’s voice cut through the fog.

I looked up.

Rowan “Wrecker” Roe stared at me from behind the desk like a man ready to break something in half. The air still felt charged, like Lock had left static behind.

“Get in here,” Dad said. “Close the door.”

I stepped the rest of the way in and nudged it shut with my heel. The tray felt heavy in my hands, even though it wasn’t.

I crossed the room, trying to get my pulse under control, and set the tray on the corner of the desk, careful not to bump his paperwork.

“I brought your lunch,” I said, because that was the only normal sentence my brain could find.

Wrecker didn’t look at the food. Didn’t look at me either. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a long breath like he was trying to put out a fire inside his head.

“Sit,” he said.

The chair across from his desk creaked when I lowered myself into it. My palms were damp against my jeans.

He finally lifted his head, and the look on his face made my stomach drop. Not just anger—though that was there—but something heavier. Something like fear.

My dad didn’t get scared. Not that he’d ever admit to.

“Tell me you didn’t talk to him,” he said.

“Lock?” The name felt too big in my mouth. “I—no. He barely looked at me.”

Wrecker’s frown deepened. “Good.”

I waited for more, but he didn’t say anything. Just stared at the desk like the wood had personally offended him.

“What happened?” I asked quietly. “Why was he here?”

“Club business,” he said.

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s always the truth.”

There it was—that tone. The one that meant a door had just slammed shut in my face. I’d grown up with it. I’d never been good at listening to it.

“Is it about the territory lines?” I tried. “Or the shipment problems you were talking about last week? Or—”

“Kellan.” He didn’t raise his voice, but the warning in it stopped me cold. “Drop it.”

My mouth snapped shut. The tension between us went from bad to worse. Dad wasn’t gentle, but he wasn’t cruel either. If he was shutting me out this hard, it wasn’t because he wanted to. It was because something was bad enough that he felt like he had to.

He looked older than forty-two and more tired than he’d ever admit.

“Eat something,” I murmured, nudging the sandwich toward him.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You say that, and then you get a headache and yell at everyone within a five-mile radius.”