Chapter 11 Ledger
Eleven
Ledger
Whoever is behind this picked the wrong prey to hunt.
I don’t take the truck straight back to the cabin.
I should.
That’s the protocol.
Bring Kelly to a safe place, secure the perimeter, notify Chux, update Nitro to know the camera movements. I’ve done this dance a hundred times with a dozen people under our protection.
But none of them have been her. None of them made my hands shake the way they are on the wheel right now. None of them made my chest tight with a fear I don’t want to name.
Instead, I circle the block twice. Check for tails. Monitor every reflection in every shop window. Scan every car that idles too long. I feel her watching me the entire time, quiet, nervous, trusting.
When I’m finally convinced no one followed, I pull toward the clubhouse.
Kelly shifts in her seat. “This isn’t the cabin.”
“No,” I confirm, scanning the lot. “We need to make a stop.”
“You mean you need to,” she says.
“I don’t leave you anywhere alone.”
She looks out the window, swallowing. The tension in her shoulders doesn’t escape me.
“You’re safe,” I add quietly.
She nods once, but her fingers twist in her sweater sleeve.
I kill the engine, come around to her side, and help her down. She stiffens slightly when the clubhouse doors come into view. We are in the port, but the clubhouse is off to the side.
“You’ve been here before,” I remind her.
“I know,” she whispers. “It just feels bigger than ever before.”
Big.
That’s one damn word for it.
I guide her inside. The moment the brothers spot her, the noise dips. Guys straighten. Conversations pause. A few nod respectfully.
The Kings don’t treat women like property. They don’t treat them like porcelain either.
But Kelly?
Kelly earned a level of protection here long before she ever slept with me.
Some of that is her tie to Ally. Some is Chux and how he runs things.
The rest?
She did herself with sass, pastries, and fire. We all frequent the bakery even before my brother was hooked up with Ally.
“Riot,” Mellow calls from near the bar. The old timer not hiding his concern. “She okay?”
“She’s right here,” Kelly answers before I can. “No need to talk about me like I’m not.”
Mellow grins. “Feisty again. Good sign.”
Kelly blushes. Something in my chest pulls tight.
I point her toward a couch in the corner. “Sit. Don’t move.”
She arches a brow. “You know I can walk. And I’m not a dog.”
“And you can know I’ll be watching. You aren’t a dog, you’re fuckin’ fine as hell to look at though. Need to make sure my view stays in place.”
Her cheeks heat. “You always like this?”
I nod once.
She mutters something under her breath that sounds like bossy bastard, then lowers herself carefully onto the couch. My eyes stay on her until I’m sure she’s steady.
The second I turn away, the softness evaporates. I walk into the meeting room with murder in my veins.
Chux, Nitro, Looney, and Shaft are already there. The table is covered in printed camera stills, maps, skid mark photos, and Nitro’s laptop is pulled apart like it personally offended him.
“We got movement,” Chux shares without preamble. I got the text from him as I was driving home. I didn’t tell her this stop was necessary for intel updates.
I step forward. “Talk.”
Nitro gestures to the screen. “Pulled the traffic cams from the hour before Kelly’s crash. Look here.”
He zooms in on a grainy image the truck making a slow turn two miles from the bakery.
“Now here.” Another camera. Same truck. Driver hidden. “And here,” he says, switching views. The truck turns down the same county road Kelly takes home every night.
A chill crawls down my spine.
“They were watching her schedule,” Shaft mutters. “Knew her route.”
Chux nods. “This wasn’t opportunity. It was planned down to the damn second.”
My jaw flexes. “You’re sure?”
“Riot,” Nitro says, pointing to the timestamps. “They were trailing her for twenty minutes before the crash.”
Sickness pools in my stomach.
“So they knew she’d be alone,” I say my gut twisting because I should have been with her.
“Yeah,” Nitro says. “And they waited until she was far from town. Less witnesses. Less chance of interference.”
“And then they hit her twice,” Shaft adds.
I clench my fists hard enough to make my knuckles crack.
Chux studies my face. “There’s more.”
“Say it.”
He slides a photo across the table a burned-out truck shell pulled from a drainage ditch.
“You found it,” I state the obvious.
“Yeah. Tires match the skid marks at the scene. Engine number filed off. VIN removed.”
I skim the edges of the photo. It’s deliberate. Methodical. Someone who knows how to disappear and clean up evidence.
“Whoever this is,” Chux states what we all know, “they’re professional.”
Looney cracks his neck. “We looked into Morozov’s leftovers, but most of the family is either dead or under new leadership. Nothing points directly to them, except this.”
He flips open a folder — a symbol printed on the inside flap.
A raven perched on a sickle.
My blood goes ice-cold.
Shaft whistles. “Shit.”
I grind my teeth. “That’s Bratok’s mark.”
Kelly’s accident wasn’t gang noise. It wasn’t a message. It wasn’t a coincidence.
It was Russian business. Old business. Business that Chux ended last year.
“Bratok’s done,” I share what my brother’s already know. “Thought we made it clear before. They make any moves anywhere in Alabama the truce was over and they would cease to exist.”
“Yeah,” Looney says. “But apparently he wants to cross the line.”
“So if someone’s flashing it,” Nitro starts.
“They know what it means,” I finish. “And they want us to see it.”
A quiet falls over the room.
“This is connected to us,” Chux says. “And to Kelly either because of you or Ally.”
A violent rage courses through my body. “They come for her again, I’ll end their whole fucking bloodlines.”
“They won’t,” Chux cuts in.
“They already did,” I snap.
Shaft glances at me. “She okay? Looks better.”
“She’s alive,” I say. “That’s the only reason I’m not tossing bodies in the gulf already.”
Mellow steps into the doorway, wiping grease off his hands after eating a chicken wing, one of the boneless ones. “We got a problem.”
I turn. “What now?”
He jerks his thumb toward the main room. “Your girl’s gettin’ attention.”
My heart stops.
I’m out of the room before anyone can blink.
Kelly is still on the couch, but now one of the prospects is too close. Not touching her, not talking to her, just standing there like he thinks proximity is some kind of invitation.
Kelly looks uncomfortable. Eyes darting. Shoulders tight.
I’m across the room in three strides.
“Move, dipshit.” I growl.
The guy blinks. “Riot, I wasn’t—”
“I said move.”
He moves.
My voice is tight. The one that freezes grown men.
Kelly’s eyes widen as I drop onto the couch beside her, my knee brushing hers, my presence a wall between her and everyone else.
“You okay?” I whisper as I lean into her my lips to her temple.
She nods, but her hands shake. “He didn’t say anything,” she whispers. “Just stared like a weirdo.”
“You’re not to be stared at,” I explain, far too sharply.
Her brows lift in surprise.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Didn’t mean to.”
“No,” she interrupts with a soft smile leaning into me. “I don’t mind you being protective.” She looks down at her hands, cheeks warming. It all feels right, natural. “It actually helps.”
I swallow hard.
“Then you’ll get a lot of it,” I assure her quietly.
Her eyes meet mine. They are warm, confused, and yet still wanting. She shifts closer. Just an inch. But I feel it like a brand against my skin. I look away before I do something stupid. Like pull her into my lap in front of the entire club.
“Ledger.” Her voice pulls me back. Soft. Shaky. “Can we talk somewhere that is um, not here?”
My pulse jumps.
“Yeah,” I say. “Come on.”
Shaft watches us go with a knowing smirk. I flip him off. Kelly doesn’t see it.
I take her to the back hall, near the storage room a quiet corner where only patched members walk through.
She leans against the wall, breathing a little harder than normal. I’m about to ask if she’s dizzy when she asks, “Why do you always put yourself between me and everything else?”
I blink.
She gestures weakly. “At the cabin. At the bakery. In the truck. Here. You always step in front.” Her voice trembles. “It’s like you know what scares me before I know it.”
I stare at her. At the soft flush in her cheeks. The way her hands rest against the wall. Her curls falling over her shoulder.
Her ribs visible under her shirt because she’s still losing weight from the accident. Her bruises half-faded but still there. Her eyes too bright, yet still lost.
I breathe in slowly. “Because I’ve always known,” I give her the truth.
Her breath stutters. “Known what?”
“How to read you.”
She swallows. Hard. I step closer, just half a step, giving her room to stop me if she wants to.
She doesn’t. Exactly as I expect.
“You used to get anxious in crowds,” I whisper leaning down letting my breath fall hot on her neck. “You’d twist your fingers in your apron. You’d stare at the floor. You’d press your tongue to the back of your teeth when you were overwhelmed.”
Her hand lifts instinctively toward her mouth. I gently catch her wrist like I always do, not tight, just enough to steady her.
“You’re doing it now,” I say.
Her cheeks flush deeper.
“You were always easy to read for me,” I continue. “Always. I knew when you wanted space. I knew when you needed me to step closer. I knew when you were faking a smile at work. I knew when something scared you.”
Her eyes glisten. “And now?”
“And now I know you’re trying to stay calm even though everything in your world just got torn out by the roots.”
A tear slips down her cheek. I wipe it with my thumb, slowly, gently, deliberate.
She doesn’t pull away. “How can I trust you,” she whispers, “when I don’t know you?”
I hold her gaze, letting her see everything I’ve been hiding for months. “Your body remembers,” I tell her softly.
Her breath catches as she leans closer to me.
“And so does mine.”
Silence crackles between us, hot, intimate, electric. Her eyes shift to my mouth for a split second. I see it. I feel it.
She wants something she doesn’t understand yet.
I almost lean in. I almost give in.
But she’s injured. Confused. Vulnerable.
And I already hurt her once. So I step back. Barely. Just enough to break the moment without snapping it.
“We should get you back to the cabin,” I murmur.
She nods slowly. “Okay.”
But before I can turn fully away, she reaches out and grabs my fingers, hesitant but purposeful.
“Ledger?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let me out of your sight.”
My voice breaks as I vow. “I won’t.”
We drive back to the cabin in silence, not the bad kind. The charged kind. The kind that says something broke open today, and once the memories catch up, it’s going to hit us both like a freight train.
And I’m not sure which scares me more—losing her again … Or having a second chance.