Chapter 18
Eighteen
Kelly
Fear is loud but the Kings and Riot are louder.
The underground safehouse hums with quiet power — generators somewhere beneath the concrete, faint vibrations running through the floor, the low thrum like a heartbeat.
I stand in the middle of the dim-lit interior, arms wrapped around myself, staring at the steel door Riot disappeared through less than a minute ago.
I feel the echo of his touch everywhere.
On my cheek. On my jaw. On my heart.
Because whatever this is between us, whatever we were, feels terrifyingly close to love.
Maybe it already was.
Maybe it still is.
I inhale, sharp and shaky, pacing a small circle. The air feels heavy here dense with tension and fear and everything we’re not saying yet. Riot told me not to be scared.
But he looked almost frantic when he said it.
As soon as that text from Nitro hit his phone, Riot changed. Not into someone different but into a version of himself that feels closer to a storm than a man.
Focused. Furious. Deadly.
He’d said it softly, but the words rattled through me.
“Someone’s gotta bleed before sunrise.”
I don’t want him walking into danger alone.
I don’t want to lose him again.
I don’t want my memories to be the only pieces of him I have left.
But I don’t know how to tell him that without sounding unhinged.
My brain is still rewriting the map of my life every few hours. But my heart? It feels certain of him in ways I can't explain.
A sharp metallic slam jolts me back to reality.
I whip around.
The steel door shifts and Riot steps back inside.
He's soaked with rain, shaking it off with a rough exhale. His jaw is tight, eyes darting toward the far corner of the room where I’m standing as if drawn by instinct.
His gaze pins me in place.
“You didn’t sit,” he says quietly.
“I couldn’t,” I whisper.
Then he crosses the room.
Slow. Measured. Predatory.
But not toward danger. Toward me.
He stops inches away.
“You alright?” he murmurs.
No.
Yes.
Absolutely not.
Completely.
I settle on, “I’m trying.”
His chest rises and falls. “You did good earlier. In the truck.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I say.
A rough sound escapes him something between disbelief and frustration. “You stayed calm. You trusted me. You listened.”
“Shouldn’t I?” I ask softly.
He drops his gaze for a moment, shaking his head.
“You shouldn’t trust anybody right now,” he mutters. “Not with what’s happenin’. Not with what you’ve been through.”
I step closer not much, but enough. Enough for him to feel me. Enough for me to feel my own pulse pounding in my neck.
“But I do trust you,” I say. “More than I understand.”
His eyes close briefly, pained.
“Kelly.”
“I meant what I said,” I whisper. “I’m choosing you. Even if I don’t know the whole story. Even if I don’t know myself.”
His inhale is sharp.
“I remember pieces,” I say cautiously. “Not full memories just fragments. Feelings. Flashes.”
He lifts his head. “What kind of flashes?”
I lean back against a metal support beam, fingers gripping it behind me.
“One was in a doorway,” I say. “You were holding me. And I told you not to fall in love with me.”
His face goes still.
Haunted.
Beautiful.
“And you said it was too late,” I continue, heart thudding.
He steps closer again, slowly, every movement careful. “That night was real.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I felt it. I can feel it again if I let myself.”
His eyes drop to my mouth, then drag back up, dark and intense and hungry. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”
“I do mean it,” I breathe. “I’m remembering you.”
He swallows hard. “You remember the good. Wait until you remember the bad.”
“What bad?” I challenge softly.
Lightning flashes outside the small, narrow windows lining the upper walls. The power flickers. Riot tenses.
“Riot,” I say firmly. “What bad?”
His jaw grinds. “I walked away from you.”
My chest tightens. “Because you didn’t want me?”
“No,” he growls instantly — violently. “Because I wanted you too damn much.”
The room goes electric.
I blink. “Then why—”
“Because I thought wantin’ you meant I’d break you,” he says, voice shaking with something I don’t think he realizes he's revealing. “Because the club pulls danger like gravity. Because you deserved easy and I’m not easy. Because once I realized what I felt, it scared the shit out of me.”
My breath catches.
“So you left?” I whisper.
He looks away. “No. We made a choice. Together. I should have been man enough to say all the things I didn’t. Instead I let you think you could push me away, shut me out, even when it was written all over your face, your body, that you had already fallen.”
The words hit like an echo something familiar and painful.
A memory flickers.
Me standing at the bakery counter.
Riot on the other side.
His face tight, unreadable.
My heart breaking quietly.
The smell of flour and sugar and the feelings of hurt.
I gasp. My knees buckle.
Riot lunges forward, hands gripping my arms instantly. “What? What’d you see?”
“The bakery,” I whisper, breath trembling. “We were arguing. You said you couldn’t give me something. And I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”
He flinches like I physically struck him.
“Yeah,” he rasps. “That happened.”
“And we stopped seeing each other?” I whisper.
“No,” he says. “We stopped pretending.”
A tear slips down my cheek.
He wipes it instantly, thumb trembling as he does.
“It was the worst timing in the world,” he murmurs. “Hours later you were on that road. And I—” His voice breaks. He leans forward, forehead brushing mine, shaking. “You woke up and didn’t know me,” he whispers. “And I deserved it.”
My heart fractures.
I grip his shirt, pulling him closer without thinking. “No. No, you didn’t.”
He exhales shakily, hands sliding down my arms.
There is a noise, a grinding of sorts. One that takes us away from our thoughts.
Riot’s entire body goes lethal.
“Stay here,” he growls, grabbing his gun.
“No!” I lunge for him. “Don’t run out there again! What if,”
He grabs my shoulders not harshly, but firmly, steadying me. “Kelly,” he murmurs, eyes burning into mine, “I have to check the perimeter. It is probably just my brothers closing in to back me up.”
“You can’t go alone,” I choke out. “Don’t leave me.”
His thumb brushes my jaw. “I’m not leavin’ you.”
“You are,” I whisper.
“No,” he counters. “I’m not.”
And then— I realize what he means.
He reaches into the drawer beside the door and pulls out a second weapon. Not big. Not intimidating. Just a compact gun meant for emergency use. He hands it to me butt-first.
My eyes widen. “Ledger, I don’t know what to do.”
“You won’t have to use it,” he says softly. “I won’t let it come to that.”
“But if something happens.”
“It won’t,” he repeats. “Because you’re stayin’ right here by this door until I say otherwise. You hear me?”
I nod, hands trembling.
He steps back. “If anyone but me opens this door you shoot.”
“Riot.”
“Only if they come through,” he says. “But don’t hesitate.”
I swallow hard. “Okay.”
His eyes soften for a fraction of a second a tiny crack in his armor. “I’ll be right back,” he whispers.
There it is again, that tether. The undeniable pull.
“Riot,” My voice breaks without my permission.
He stops in his tracks.
Slowly, he turns back around.
I can’t help it. I step forward. He does too.
We meet in the middle breathless, scared, wanting, incomplete.
I rise onto my toes before I realize what I’m doing. His hand cups the back of my neck, warm and gentle and grounding. And for the first time since the accident, I kiss him.
Not a hesitant brush.
Not a testing peck.
A real kiss. A remembering kiss. A claiming kiss.
Soft. Desperate. Slow. Perfect.
His breath shudders. His lips part against mine. His other hand clamps around my waist, careful but hungry. He kisses me back like a man drowning.
But then he pulls away abruptly, breath ragged, forehead pressed to mine. His voice is almost inaudible. “Sunshine,” he whispers, “I swear to God, when this is over…”
He doesn’t finish. He can’t.
Because a crash echoes from somewhere outside metal slamming into concrete.
He jerks back, gun raised. “Someone’s here,” he growls.
“Riot.”
“Get behind the door,” he orders. “Now.”
I do. The safehouse lights flicker once. Twice.
Then—They go out completely.
Total darkness.
I hear Riot cock his weapon in the dark.
“Stay with me,” he whispers. My heart beat echoes in my ears.
“I won’t lose you,” he says — quiet, lethal, a vow and a threat wrapped together.
Then—The unmistakable sound of footsteps above us.
Heavy.
Purposeful.
Hunting.
My blood runs cold. They found us.
Again.
And this time, they didn’t come to warn us.
They came to finish what they started.