Chapter 1 Kellan #2
A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth, there and gone. “Smartass.”
“It’s a coping mechanism.”
He huffed a breath but reached for the sandwich anyway. Small win. I watched him take a bite, and the silence sat heavy between us—thick and uncomfortable. Like there was a puzzle on the table and he’d swept half the pieces into a drawer.
Finally, he swallowed and said, “Starting today, you stay close. Compound or the house. Nowhere else.”
My chest tightened. “Dad—”
“I’m not discussing it.”
“But I start work tomorrow.”
“No.” The word was sharp, immediate. “The clinic can wait.”
“It’s a pediatric clinic assistant job,” I said, trying not to sound desperate and failing a little. “Dad, I worked for that. I applied months ago. They only take four new grads a year—”
“And you’ll try again next year.” He set the sandwich down and leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Your safety comes first.”
My hands curled into fists on my lap. “You can’t keep me locked up here forever.”
“I can until things settle.”
“Settle?” I repeated, incredulous. “You’re acting like a war just started.”
His eyes flicked to the door—the same one Lock had just walked through—and something dark moved across his face.
“Maybe it did,” he said.
The words hit like cold water down my spine. “So it is about Crimson Havoc.”
He raked a hand through his hair, frustrated. “It’s not that simple.”
“It never is with you,” I whispered.
His head snapped up.
“I’m twenty-two,” I went on, my pulse hammering, as the prison walls closed in around me. “I just graduated. I’m not a kid you can shove behind a locked door whenever you get nervous.”
“Nervous?” His laugh was short and humorless. “Kellan, if you knew what was going on—”
“Then tell me.”
“No.”
Just that. One syllable. Solid and final. It cracked something small and familiar inside me.
I stared down at the desk. “So that’s it? No job. No freedom. No explanation.”
He exhaled, long and tired. “Stay close. Stay alert. And listen to me on this—” His tone dropped, colder. “Stay the hell away from anyone wearing a Crimson Havoc cut. Especially Lachlan.”
The last name hung between us like a threat.
I lifted my chin. “He didn’t even speak to me.”
“That’s exactly how I want it,” Dad said. “And exactly how it’s going to stay.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds. The kind that made my ears ring.
“Fine,” I said finally, even though nothing about this felt fine. “Whatever you say.”
Wrecker nodded once, like that solved everything.
I stood, my mind already drifting back to Lock’s face whether I wanted it to or not. The weight of his stare. The way the air in the room had changed when he’d walked past me.
And, for the first time all day, my dad wasn’t the one I was thinking about anymore.
I didn’t say anything else as I backed away from the desk. Dad watched me like he expected me to argue again, but I kept my voice steady and nodded toward the tray.
“You want me to clear this up?” I asked quietly.
He glanced at it and shook his head. “No. Leave it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” His tone eased just a fraction. “Thanks for bringing it. I’ll eat in a bit.”
I nodded. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
I slipped out and shut the door gently behind me—not because he needed quiet, but because I needed the second to breathe. I pressed my palm to the wood, closed my eyes, and tried to shove down the mix of anger, worry, and that sharp, buzzing thing I didn’t want to name.
Lock had been here.
In Dad’s office.
In our territory.
Whatever that meeting was, it hadn’t ended clean.
The prospect outside the door jumped a little when he saw me. “Everything good?”
“Define good,” I said. I tried for a smile. It felt thin.
He winced. “That bad, huh?”
I shrugged. “Just club business.”
He snorted. “That what they call it?”
“It’s what they’ve always called it.”
As I walked down the hallway, the difference hit me harder.
On a normal day, you’d hear the distant grind of tools from Reaper Auto Works, the junkyard gates clanging, guys yelling over a game or a song on the jukebox.
Today, all of that felt… muted. The same sounds were there, but softer, like everyone had turned the volume down and started listening for something else.
Even the fluorescent lights seemed too bright against how quiet the voices were.
I reached the end of the hall and stepped into the common room. A few members sat at the table, cards scattered between them, though none of them were really looking at their hands. Their heads snapped up when they saw me.
“Everything alright, kid?” Razor asked, pushing his chair back with a scrape.
“As alright as it ever is,” I said.
He hummed, clearly not buying it. “Wrecker looked like he swallowed a grenade.”
“That’s just his face.”
“Heard the gate open twice,” another member said. “Did someone leave?”
I swallowed. “Lock.”
The room went still.
Someone let out a low whistle. “Crimson Havoc Lock?”
“No,” I deadpanned. “The other Lock.”
Razor swore under his breath.
Nobody asked why he’d been here. They all knew better. But the shift in their expressions told me enough…whatever Dad wasn’t telling me? He wasn’t telling them either.
Which didn’t exactly make me feel safer.
I headed for the couch and dropped into the middle cushion, the one worn down to my shape. The cookies were still on the tray, so I grabbed one and took a bite even though I didn’t really want it. Chewing was easier than thinking.
That lasted maybe thirty seconds.
My brain kept circling back to the office. To Lock’s eyes. To the way something inside me had clenched and flipped when he’d looked at me, quick and sharp and hot.
It wasn’t attraction. It couldn’t be.
It was adrenaline. Shock. Chemistry. Something stupid like that. Not anything real.
I told myself that twice.
Then the front door slammed open.
A gust of air swept through the room before the recruit on door duty stumbled in, wide-eyed. “Uh, Wrecker says everyone inside. No one leaves. No one rides. Phones off unless you’re patched in.”
The card players cursed in unison.
Lock hadn’t been gone five minutes.
And now the whole compound was going on lockdown.
My stomach twisted.
Razor looked at me. “Kellan. You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said automatically. “I’m fine.”
He studied me like he didn’t believe that for a second, but he let it go. “Your dad’ll figure it out.”
“I know,” I said. My voice sounded far away, even to me.
But how long was “it” going to take to figure out? A day? A week? Longer? I suddenly wanted to be back at college, where the worst thing I had to worry about was an exam or whether the washing machines had eaten my socks again.
Here, it felt like the walls were closing in.
I stood up, restless. The room felt too small, the air too thick. “I’m gonna go upstairs.”
“Keep your door locked,” Razor warned.
“I always do,” I said, even though that wasn’t technically true. I nodded anyway and headed for the stairs.
Halfway up, I stopped.
Through the small window that overlooked the yard, I could see the gates pulled shut and two guys pacing near them. Another stood near the junkyard side fence, arms crossed, scanning the tree line like bullets might start falling out of the sky. Everyone looked tight. Coiled.
All because Lock Lachlan had walked in like a storm and walked out the same way.
I swallowed hard and kept climbing.
Up in my room, the door clicked shut behind me with a soft thud. I stayed there for a second, leaning my weight against it, forehead tipped back like I needed the wood to hold me up. The silence felt too big, but maybe that was just me—my head, my pulse, everything spinning.
God. What the hell was today?
Lock. In our office. In our territory.
And I still felt… weird. Not in a romance novel way. In a my-body-did-something-without-my-permission way.
I pushed off the door and scrubbed both hands over my face.
“You’re fine,” I muttered. “You just need sleep. And maybe a lobotomy.”
Really, Kellan? Really?
I’d smelled alphas before. I’d talked to them, worked next to them in class, passed them on the street. None of them had ever made my knees go weak or my throat go tight or my pulse trip over itself like it wanted to crawl out of my skin.
But Lock Lachlan? One look, one breath, and my whole nervous system tried to stage a coup.
That wasn’t normal. It wasn’t logical. It definitely wasn’t convenient.
And the worst part? I had other things I was supposed to be thinking about.
Things that actually mattered. That clinic job I’d been clinging to like a lifeline.
A routine that looked like: wake up early, brew coffee, prep lunch for the clinic, bike there by nine, spend my day with cranky toddlers and nervous parents instead of patched bikers and club politics.
A normal life. A real life. Something that belonged to me.
Instead, I was back in my room—my childhood room—because apparently I lived in a bubble again.
My chest tightened. I’d worked four years for that clinic job. Applications, interviews, volunteer hours. It was the first thing in a long time that felt like mine. And now? Locked down. Off-limits. Just like that.
If Dad kept me here, it wasn’t just the walls closing in. It was the future I’d started building outside of this place—every shift at the clinic I’d imagined, every kid I’d pictured helping—that felt like it was slipping away before it even began.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until stars burst behind them.
No wonder my scent wouldn’t settle. My whole life felt like it was vibrating.
I crossed to the window without really thinking about it. Down below, the compound looked the same as always at first glance—bikes lined up, a couple of guys talking near the firepit, the old dog from the shop stretched out by the generator shed.
Except it wasn’t the same. Not today.
The air had been off since morning—quieter, tighter, too many lowered voices.
Usually by noon there’d be music, laughter, Razor yelling at prospects to sweep again even though the floor was already clean.
Today, everyone moved like the ground might crack under them.
Like they were waiting for an order or an explosion.
All of it because Lock Lachlan had walked in like a storm cloud with a name.
I let my head rest against the window frame and exhaled slowly.
He shouldn’t have left any kind of impression. I’d barely seen the man. He hadn’t touched me. He hadn’t said a word directly to me. And yet…
Something had shifted the moment his eyes hit mine. Something sharp. Something hot. Something that felt too close to the truth for comfort.
I swallowed hard.
“Stay away from him,” my dad had said.
Right. Easy for him to say.
My body clearly hadn’t gotten the memo.
I backed away from the window, dropped onto the edge of my bed, and stared down at my hands like they belonged to someone else. My heartbeat still wouldn’t slow. My breathing wouldn’t level out.
It felt like my body had already decided something I absolutely, one hundred percent had not agreed to.
Or maybe… maybe a part of me had.
And that? That was the part that scared me the most.