Chapter 60
CHAPTER SIXTY
acelynn
The wind tore across the lot, cold and biting, carrying the scent of rain and gasoline as the storm crept closer.
Heavy clouds swirled like a living thing, black and swollen, as if the sky itself were bracing for bloodshed.
I stood there with my hands shoved deep into my jacket pockets, pulse thrumming as I waited for Nolan and Vince.
Anxiety churned in my gut, not fear, never fear, but a taut wire pulling tighter with every second.
Every flash of lightning lit up the horizon like the world itself was warning me to turn back.
But I couldn’t, not with Astoria’s life hanging in the balance.
The low rumble of two motorcycles cut through the wind, the sound pulling me back into the present.
My spine stiffened. I only had moments before Nolan and Vince reached me.
Moments to pull myself together and shove down the panic clawing at my throat.
They needed information, a plan, a leader—not a girl cracking apart at the seams.
“Should we keep calling you Acelynn, or would you prefer Emersyn? Maybe Ms. Spade?” Nolan’s venom dripped like acid as he called out to me. I rolled my eyes and forced myself to face him, meeting his fury with my own resolve.
“Call me whatever you want,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, leaning on my right hip. “But if you want to get Astoria back, not in a body bag, you’re going to listen to me.”
Nolan lunged forward, his fury breaking loose, but Vince was faster. His arm shot out, catching Nolan around the waist and hauling him back with practiced strength. He pointed one finger at the angry man.
“Calm down,” Vince barked, his tone taking no argument. “She’s right. If we have any chance of getting Astoria back, we need her.”
Nolan’s chest heaved, his breathing rapid as his eyes darted like a trapped animal’s.
My anger softened, twisting into something far more dangerous than rage—sympathy.
I moved past Vince, reaching out before I could second-guess myself.
My hand found Nolan’s, fingers curling around his.
To my surprise, he didn’t try to pull away.
“We will get her back, Nolan,” I whispered, holding onto him like I could anchor us both. “I promise you.”
His shoulders slumped, breaking under the weight of that promise, and I caught the shimmer of tears in the moonlight. He tried to hide it, but grief always finds its cracks. My thumb stroked the top of his hand soothingly as he gathered himself enough to speak.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he rasped, voice heavy with the kind of pain that leaves scars.
“I’m keeping this one.” I tilted my head until I caught his wandering stare, refusing to let him escape mine. “Do you hear me? This is the one I’ll die for if I have to. Astoria is coming home, and then you’re finally going to tell her how you feel.”
He scoffed, grasping at denial like it was his last shield. “I don’t know what you’re insinuating.”
“Give it up, you stubborn bastard,” Vince cut in, a rare smirk tugging at his lips.
“The entire town of Lovelen knows you’re in love with her.
Hell, probably the whole state. It’s pathetic at this point that the both of you keep dancing around each other like you haven’t been crazy for each other since you were children.
Why do you think no one in the club ever touched her? ”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that tore out of me, wild and sharp. “Because you would send them to an early grave if they did.”
Vince chuckled, the sound rumbling low in his chest. For one fleeting moment, even standing on the brink of war, we weren’t enemies.
We were just broken people holding onto scraps of our humanity in a world full of darkness.
But Nolan only rolled his eyes, digging deeper into his fortress of denial.
“You both don’t know what you’re talking about.
Astoria and I are just friends. That’s all we’ll ever be. ”
“Friends don’t look at each other the way you two do.” Vince clapped him on the back as he strode past, hair whipping in the wind. “But fine, keep lying to yourself.”
When Vince turned back to me, the humor drained from his face, replaced with the grim steel I was used to. “What’s the plan?”
“Logan came to visit me after—” I inhaled sharply, my throat closed on Kaius’s name, grief and longing choking me. I forced myself to continue on. “He was waiting in my kitchen. I…I agreed to a trade with him.”
“For Astoria?” Vince’s brow rose, skepticism heavy in his stare. “What could he possibly want more than her? She’s leverage enough to bring the Knights to their knees. Especially Kaius.”
“Her,” Nolan said, his voice low and bitter as he pointed directly at me.
The words stabbed through me, sharp and merciless. My gaze fell, shame clawing at my insides. They thought Kaius would save me, but I didn’t deserve saving. Not after my betrayal. Not after Oscar. Not after everything.
Vince swore under his breath, dragging a hand over his jaw. “So Logan uses you as bait. And then what? We’re supposed to kill him for you? Clean up your mess even though you stabbed the Knights in the back?”
“No.” My voice cracked like a whip. “Logan is mine.”
Nolan tried to reach for me, his voice gentling. “Ace—”
“No.” I recoiled, fire rising in me, refusing comfort.
“He doesn’t get to haunt me for years, crawl out of the grave to torment me, take Astoria from you, and then die at someone else’s hands.
I want to be the one to end him. I want him to look in my eyes and know it’s me who sends him to hell, where he’s always belonged. ”
My chest heaved as panic surged, my vision tilting, the storm spinning above me like it had crawled inside my ribcage.
My hand clawed at my chest, nails raking over skin already raw from too many nights doing the same.
Vince stepped in, grounding me with both hands on my shoulders.
His stare locked onto mine, hard and unyielding. “The shot is yours, Acelynn.”
His words cut through the storm, steady as steel. “And we’ll be there every step of the way.”
Something inside me loosened, the panic ebbing like the tide. For a moment, I wondered if Vince had always been the quiet voice of reason in the Knights, or if this rare glimpse of humanity was something he gave sparingly, like a precious gift.
“I betrayed you all,” I whispered, shame rising again.
Vince only shrugged, dropping his hands. “We all fuck up once or twice, Ace. All you really did was stir the pot. You weren’t a very good informant, if we’re being honest.”
“I got Oscar killed.”
“No.” Nolan’s voice, solid and sure, pulled me toward him.
His gaze was steady, if tired. “Oscar was feeding the feds information long before you gave the tip about the Muze to whoever you were being blackmailed by, and you weren’t the first source who told them there would be a drop that night.
Kaius and Vince found the documentation of everything he was letting slip. You didn’t get that boy killed.”
The weight that had been festering in my chest for weeks lifted, just enough for me to stand straighter. Oscar had been his own breed of snake in the Knights. He had dug his own grave.
“Then it’s time,” I said, voice firm again. “We get Astoria back. And we put Logan in the ground where he belongs.”
As the three of us faced the storm together, I could feel it—the shift.
Nolan and Vince weren’t just men anymore.
They were Knights, dangerous and resolute, their presence rolling off them like the wrath of the sea.
And me? I wasn’t running anymore. If the Knights fell tonight, it wouldn’t be because of my hand.
It would be because fate had finally come calling.