Chapter 8
EIGHT
LUCKY
I’ve been checking my phone all day, just enough to piss me off. Savannah’s texted back, but they’ve been shorter than usual. Polite. Fine. Nothing wrong with them, technically. She could be busy. She has a life. I know that, but it still bothers me.
I’m at the compound, church just wrapped, and all I want to do is call her. Hear her voice. Ask what she’s up to. See if I can get eyes on her tonight.
“Want to grab a beer?” Riot asks.
I open my mouth to tell him no. Then Ghost grunts his agreement, and Diesel claps a hand on my shoulder. “First round’s on me.”
Fuck. “One,” I say. “Then I’m out.”
They grin like they don’t believe me, and they’re probably right. We take the club entrance into Perdition, the bass already thumping through the walls. The place is packed, lights low, air thick with heat and noise and bodies pressed too close together. It’s a good crowd. Lively. Loud.
I take my usual seat at the table, beer sweating cold against my palm, trying to focus on the conversation instead of my phone sitting uselessly in my pocket.
Diesel’s voice cuts off mid-sentence. I don’t notice why at first. Conversation keeps rolling, music thumps, glasses clink, but there’s a hitch in the rhythm around our table.
A couple guys turn in their seats. Someone laughs too loud, like they missed the end of a joke.
I glance up without thinking, following Diesel’s gaze toward the bar.
“Well, shit,” he mutters. Then I see her.
That gets my attention. I lift my gaze just as two women walk in. At first, it’s just shapes and movement. Dark hair. Bare legs. Confidence in the way they cross the room like they expect people to make space.
The guys around them notice immediately. Heads turn. Conversations stall. A couple of prospects straighten like they’ve been given orders.
One of the women laughs, tossing her hair as they head for the bar.
And then something tightens in my chest. Because there’s something familiar in the way she moves.
In the way she tilts her head when she talks to her friend.
In the way she scans the room like she’s clocking exits and people at the same time. My grip tightens on the bottle.
She’s wearing a wig. I can tell. Darker. Shorter. But it doesn’t hide the shape of her mouth. Or the line of her jaw. Or the way she shifts her weight onto one hip like she owns the damn place.
“No,” I mutter under my breath.
Diesel snorts. “What?”
I don’t answer. I watch her step up to the bar, her friend leaning in to say something that makes her laugh again.
The sound doesn’t reach me over the music, but I know it anyway.
Savannah. So this is what she’s been doing all day.
I take a slow pull from my beer, eyes never leaving her as a guy at the bar immediately turns toward her, already smiling too wide.
My jaw tightens and I set the bottle down. There’s no fucking way I’m sitting here pretending I don’t see her.And there’s definitely no way I’m letting anyone else think they get a shot.
I don’t move right away. I watch as she leans an elbow on the bar, body angled toward her friend, laughing like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
Like she didn’t spend the last two days living in my head.
The wig is good. I’ll give her that. Dark, blunt cut brushing her shoulders.
Different makeup, heavier around the eyes. She looks… dangerous. And she knows it.
The guy beside her clocks her instantly. Says something in her ear. Too close. My jaw tightens, heat sparking low and sharp in my gut.
Diesel follows my line of sight and lets out a low whistle. “Damn.”
Ghost glances over, then back at me. His brows knit together. “You alright?”
“No,” I say flatly.
Riot squints. “You know her?”
I don’t answer. I’m already on my feet. I don’t rush.
I don’t shove. I cut through the crowd with the kind of calm that makes people move without realizing why.
By the time I reach the bar, the guy is still talking, smiling like he’s winning.
Savannah’s friend notices me first. Her eyes flick up, widen just a fraction.
Savannah turns. The second our eyes meet, everything stills. Recognition hits her like a punch. I see it in the way her breath catches. The way her mouth parts just slightly before she schools her expression back into something neutral. Innocent. Too innocent. My Firecracker.
I stop right behind the guy at her side and rest my forearm on the bar, crowding his space without touching him. “She’s taken,” I say.
The guy turns, takes one look at me, and immediately rethinks his life choices. “I was just, ”
“Yeah,” I cut in. “I know.”
He backs off fast, hands up, already scanning for a new target.
Savannah stares at me like she can’t decide whether to bolt or laugh. “You following me now?” she asks, voice light but eyes sharp.
I lean in just enough that only she can hear me. “You show up in my club in a wig, and I’m the one with explaining to do?”
Her lips twitch. “It was her idea.”
I glance at her friend, who lifts her hands in surrender. “I said it was a bad idea.”
Savannah rolls her eyes. “You absolutely did not.”
I straighten, eyes dropping briefly to take her in properly. The skirt. The boots. The way she’s standing like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. “Texting me all day like you’re busy,” I say quietly. “This is busy?”
She shrugs, unapologetically. “I told you I was fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Are you mad that I came?”
I grip her chin and tilt her face up until she has no choice but to look at me. “Hell no, I’m not mad you came. I was just surprised when you walked in.” My thumb brushes along her jaw. “Even more surprised you were in disguise.”
She bites the inside of her cheek, that tell she does when she’s trying not to smile. “Lena suggested I check you out in your natural habitat,” she says. “She made a pretty convincing argument. I couldn’t say no.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “And?” I ask. “Did I pass the test?”
She shakes her head, smiling to herself like she knows something I don’t. “This wasn’t a test, Lucky.”
I study her face, the way she’s still smiling like she didn’t just knock something loose in my chest.
“Then what was it?” I ask.
She shrugs, small and unbothered, but her hands stay on me. One at my chest, fingers spread like she’s anchoring herself. The other hooks casually at my belt loop. “Curiosity,” she says. “Context.”
I bark a quiet laugh. “Context.”
“Yeah.” She finally looks up at me again, eyes steady, warm, a little sharp. “I wanted to see you where you’re comfortable. Where you’re not trying so hard.”
“That’s funny,” I murmur. “Because you’re the one who came in wearing a costume.”
Her lips twitch. “I wanted to observe without… influencing the experiment.”
I lean in just enough that my forehead brushes hers. “You influence every room you walk into.”
She inhales, slow, like she feels that truth settle somewhere low. “Maybe,” she says. “But this wasn’t about control.”
“No?” I ask.
Her thumb drags lightly over my sternum, just once. Deliberate. “This was about knowing,” she says. “About you. About whether the man who looks at me the way you do exists everywhere or only when it’s quiet.”
Something tightens behind my ribs. I don’t answer right away. I don’t joke. I just slide my hand to the small of her back and pull her closer until there’s no question left about where I stand.
“Now you know,” I say.
She nods, slow. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I do.”
She glances over my shoulder toward the hallway, then back at me like she’s weighing something.
“I need the bathroom,” she says, almost apologetic.
I smirk. “Tragic.”
She laughs and leans in before I can say anything else, presses a soft kiss to my cheek. Not rushed. Not tentative. Just hers. “Don’t move,” she murmurs. “I’ll be right back.”
My hand slides to her hip on instinct. “I’ll try to survive.”
She pulls away, still smiling, and disappears into the crowd, that familiar sway in her step that makes it impossible not to track her. I watch her until she’s gone, until the space she leaves behind feels louder than the music.
A couple guys brush past me, someone claps me on the shoulder, Diesel shouts something I ignore. None of it really lands. My focus stays locked on the hallway like she might reappear any second.
She said she’d be back.
I believe her.
Still, I keep my body angled that way, beer untouched in my hand, eyes sharp, waiting.