Chapter 9
Nine
Ledger
Someone came for her once. The stupid fucks will try again.
And they’re gonna see how ready I am.
Kelly’s door clicks shut behind me, and I stand there for a long moment, jaw tight, pulse hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to break out.
Someone was watching the cabin.
Watching her.
The last twenty-four hours were already a nightmare, but this? This pushes it straight into war.
I move through the cabin in silence, not because I need to, but because I can’t let myself explode. Not yet. Not with her resting ten feet away, fragile and foggy and trying to hold it together.
She trusts me. The thought hits like a blow.
She doesn’t remember me. But she trusts me.
She asked me not to leave her.
And for a man who’s spent years convincing himself he’s better off alone, that hits deeper than I want to admit.
I step onto the front porch, where Mellow and Shaft stand at the edge of the yard, guns out but lowered, eyes still scanning the woods.
“Tracks?” I ask.
Shaft shakes his head. “Ground’s too firm. Whoever it was bailed fast.”
“Any idea on size? Weight?”
“Not enough to know, brother,” Mellow mutters. “Could’ve been human. Could’ve been a raccoon with a grudge.”
I glare.
He lifts a hand. “What? You told me to consider all possibilities.”
“Shut up,” I growl.
Mellow grins. “There he is. I was waiting for you to stop being emotionally constipated and go back to being the bastard I know.”
“Keep talkin’,” I warn. “I’ll constipate you for real when I shove that gun so far up your ass you feel it in your throat.”
Shaft laughs easing the tension built up inside me. This is the thing about brotherhood, they read me and know how to calm the beast inside me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Chux.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“You at the cabin?”
“Yeah. Brothers are here on lookout. ‘preciate it, brother.” I give my gratitude where it’s due.
I didn’t even have to ask. Chux being my biological brother knows I’ve been fucking Kelly.
Not because I tell him shit like that, but because Ally who is Kelly’s best friend is his woman.
Chux knows Kelly matters to me and to Ally.
Without hesitation he made sure the club closed in so I can focus on what Kelly needs and they can keep watch.
“Gainz call you yet?”
I glance at the woods again, tension pulling at my spine. “Not yet.”
“Well, hear this,” Chux shares, voice dropping.
“He found skid marks near the crash site. Not her car. Too wide, like a truck. And they circle around. Unique pattern to the tires. Got a call in to see what kind of tire it is and narrow some shit from that. The fuckers hit her and came back around to hit her again.”
My jaw clenches. “She was the target.”
“Looks like it.” A pause. “And the tire tread matches the truck from the gas station according to Nitro and some software he ran pics through.”
I feel my pulse spike, anger flaring hot in my chest. “They followed her.”
“Yeah.”
The rage builds. “They rammed her.”
“Yeah.”
“They were trying to kill her.”
“We’re working on the assumption, Riot. Not the certainty.”
“Bullshit,” I snap. “This is deliberate. You don’t take two hits at that angle by accident.”
Chux sighs. “I know. But we play it smart. Nitro’s working the cams. Looney’s cross-checking old enemies and new ones. We’ll have something.”
“Not fast enough.”
He’s quiet for a heartbeat. “We’ll make it fast as we can,” Chux speaks finally. “But don’t do anything stupid and don’t do that shit without a brother at your back.”
I hang up and pocket my phone.
Mellow eyes me. “That Chux?”
“Yeah.”
“Good news?”
“No.”
Shaft cracks his neck. “Great.” His face turns sinister. “Shit makes me twitchy. Homicide vibes.”
I ignore him and scan the tree line again. “Take first watch. Switch in four hours.”
Shaft nods and heads to the blind on the right side of the yard.
Mellow lingers. “You wanna talk about your lady friend in there?”
“She’s not my—” He cuts me off with his smirk.
“Brother. Riot. Buddy. Compadre.” He widens his eyes dramatically. “My man. She asked you not to leave her after meeting you for the first time all over again. That’s not casual hookup energy. That’s some fate shit.”
“Get off my porch.”
Shaking his head he doesn’t press me further. Instead, he salutes and strolls toward the driveway.
I blow out a long breath and brace my palms against the railing.
The trees sway gently in the wind. Birds chirp. Nothing out of place. And yet I can feel it, the edge crawling under my skin.
Someone followed her.
Someone rammed her.
Someone stood outside the cabin five minutes ago, watching.
This isn’t random.
This isn’t opportunistic.
This is targeted.
Cold fury rolls through me. If I ever get my hands on the son of a bitch who put fear in her eyes… I’ll make sure he never sees daylight again.
When I step back inside, Kelly is sitting up in bed, pulling the blankets tighter around her. Her curls spill over the pillow in messy waves, her brow furrowed in a way that makes something deep in my chest clench.
She looks soft.
Tired.
Scared and brave as hell all in one.
Her eyes lift when I enter.
I didn’t realize how much I needed that simple gesture, her looking for me first.
“Everything okay?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just brothers checking the perimeter.”
She nods but doesn’t believe me. Smart girl. “I heard something,” she shares, fingers twisting the blanket. “Footsteps?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. My brothers will be on the outside. You’ll hear them hit the porch off this room and the front porch when you’re in the living room. Not a big place and they’re gonna be close without being in your face.”
Her gaze drops. “Everything feels like something I should worry about.”
I sit in the chair beside her bed, leaning forward. “You’re safe here.”
She studies my face for a long time, chewing lightly on her lower lip. That used to drive me insane in the best kinds of ways.
Now it just makes my chest ache.
“How do you know?” she asks softly.
“Because I’m here.”
The words come out too fast, too raw. Her breath catches, her fingers tightening on the fabric.
My throat goes tight. I shouldn’t have said it like that. I shouldn’t let things that feel like promises slip through my teeth. Not when I’ve already failed her once.
Her head tilts. “I don’t remember you, but I feel like I should.”
“It’ll come,” I say, hoping I sound surer than I feel. “One piece at a time.”
“What if it doesn’t?” she whispers.
“It will.”
She swallows, eyes glimmering. “You seem certain.”
“I am.”
She breathes slowly, nodding, grounding herself in my certainty because she doesn’t have any of her own.
“You should eat,” I say. “Hospital food was crap.”
Her lips twitch. “You don’t know what I ate.”
“You told the nurse you barely touched it.”
She blinks. “I did?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t remember.” She looks frustrated by that. Her head injury is unique in that even moments in the hospital come and go. Her short term memory is a fuddled mess.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t have to.”
She nods again, slowly.
I run a hand over my jaw and stand. “Come on.”
She looks confused. “Where?”
“Kitchen. You need food.”
“I don’t know if I can walk that far.”
Something in me shifts, protective instinct snapping into place. “I’ll help you.” Fuck, I’ll carry her to the ends of Earth if it means she keeps breathing and she’s in my arms.
Her cheeks flush. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
The word hits me wrong. “You’re not,” I say firmly. “You never were.”
She searches my eyes for a long, questioning moment. “Are you sure?”
Kelly Ringle, sunshine wrapped in anxiety and fire, asking me if she’s too much?
She’s everything I need and want. Only my dumbass let her slip through my hands.
“Positive,” I reassure. I move slow, careful, sliding an arm around her waist to help her sit up.
The moment my hand touches her side, her body reacts like muscle memory, a soft inhale, a shiver, a tightening of her grip around my forearm.
She feels it.
So do I.
Way too much. And right to my cock that I will into submission because there will be none of that.
“Tell me if anything hurts,” I murmur, steadying her as she stands.
“Everything hurts,” she admits. “But not because of you.”
Her honesty slams into me like a gut punch. We move slowly down the hallway. Every few steps she leans into me, and every time she does, that quiet little flame inside me burns hotter, steadier, impossible to ignore.
The kitchen is warm with morning light spilling through the windows. I guide her to a chair at the small table in my eat in kitchen.
“Stay,” I command, pointing at her like she’s a rebellious cat.
She lifts a brow. “I’m injured, not a wild animal.”
“Debatable.”
She gives a soft laugh, the kind that feels like a reward.
I grab eggs, bread, butter, sausage, whatever I can get my hands on. Kelly watches me the whole time, eyes tracking my movements like she’s trying to memorize them.
“You cook?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I reply, cracking eggs into a pan. “Picked up a thing or two.”
She frowns slightly still focusing on my movements. “I feel like I’ve seen you do this before.”
“You have.”
“When?”
I pause, spatula in hand. “A while back,” I state trying not remember how often I made her breakfast because we stayed up all night fucking and we both worked up an appetite.
“I cooked for you a few times. When the opportunity presented itself. You bake all the time, I didn’t figure you wanted to spend a ton of your free time in the kitchen. ”
She stares at me, something soft and searching in her eyes. “You really took care of me, didn’t you?”
My throat tightens. “Not enough.”
She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t ease the pain inside me that I let her down by saying I did. She also doesn’t say I didn’t. She accepts it at face value. When her memories come back will she relive the pain of our separation again?
Will I?
She watches me with a look I can’t decipher, a mixture of gratitude, sadness, and something that scares me because it looks too close to hope.
When the food is ready, I set a plate in front of her.
She blinks. “This looks… good.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I don’t know you,” she replies honestly. “But this feels familiar.”
She takes a bite. Her eyes close briefly. A soft noise escapes her, almost a hum.
My stomach drops.
I’ve heard that sound before.
In her kitchen.
In what feels like another life.
Late nights, early mornings, the two of us pretending whatever this thing between us was didn’t matter.
Except it did.
More than either of us admitted. And now I can’t help but feel like even the good has been lost. That guts me more than anything.
She opens her eyes and gives me a weary smile. “Thank you.”
I sit across from her with my coffee, watching her pick at the meal like every movement requires concentration.
After a few bites, she sets the fork down. “Ledger?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you tell me something?” Her voice is small, almost apologetic.
“Anything.”
She hesitates. “What, what was I like? Before?”
A painful warmth spreads through my chest.
“You were,” I stop, searching for words that aren’t too much. Too heavy. Too honest. “You were fire always burning bright for the people you care about. Soft when you wanted to be, sharp when you needed to be. You worked too hard. Worried too much. Cared more than you let on.”
Her eyes widen, filling with emotion.
“And you laughed,” I add. “A lot. Even when you were pissed you laughed which only made it hard to keep anything heavy going on.”
A tear slips down her cheek. She wipes it quickly. “I don’t feel like her,” she whispers.
“You’re still her,” I reassure. “Time and healing, sunshine.”
Her lip trembles. “Do you miss her?”
Miss her? I never stopped wanting her. But I can’t say that now, not when she’s this vulnerable, this lost, this dependent on me for stability.
So I give her the one truth that won’t break her.
“Yeah,” I tell her quietly. “I miss her. But I’m here for you. Both versions. Whoever you are today, whoever you remember being tomorrow.”
Her breath catches again. She looks away, overwhelmed, and focuses on her hands. Silence stretches between us in a gentle, fragile, real way.
I clean up as she sits there lost in her own thoughts. She’s scared. She’s vulnerable. She’s looking at me like I’m the one steady thing in a world that just went dark around her.
I move closer slowly, sit in the chair beside her.
“Sunshine,” I whisper. “Don’t push it.”
She lets out a shuddered breath and leans just slightly in my direction — not enough to touch, but enough that my body aches with the effort to hold still.
Her eyes flutter.
“I should probably sleep, just for a little while,” she murmurs. “Will you stay with me?”
I nod.
But inside, I already know— I’m not leaving tonight. I’m not leaving tomorrow. I’m not leaving until I find the bastard who hurt her.
And when I do?
I’ll make sure he never gets close to her again.