Chapter Seven
GHOST
Six Days Later
The parking lot of Millie’s bakery is already half full as I pull in. One glance tells me who’s beaten me here. Another tells me Deek ignored the parking order again.
I pull into the last available space.
The bakery sits between a florist and an old barbershop that’s probably been there longer than the Strip itself. It has a small frontage, a hand-painted sign, and windows already fogging from the ovens inside.
Not somewhere I’d normally stop.
But today isn’t normal.
A few days ago, Sage mentioned Millie’s opening while we were talking about something else entirely. She didn’t make a speech out of it or ask anyone directly. She said the club should stop by if we had time, then carried on as though the thought hadn’t mattered enough to say twice.
Sage’s meeting at Unsilenced started fifteen minutes ago, so she couldn’t be here herself. She’ll spend the rest of the morning hoping somebody remembered to come. So we did.
The bell over the bakery door rings before any of us have a chance to announce ourselves. Warm air rolls out, carrying fresh coffee, butter, and bread straight from the oven.
Millie is behind the counter, boxing up an order. Flour streaks one cheek, her hair is escaping whatever battle she fought with before sunrise, and the second she looks up and sees half the Las Vegas Defiance MC filing through her front door, she forgets entirely what she was doing.
“You actually came!” She smiles.
No hesitation or second-guessing, just genuinely happy.
“You opened a bakery,” Deek says as he wanders toward the display cabinet. “Like I was gonna miss out on free food!”
Millie laughs as Anchor appears through the kitchen doorway carrying another tray, takes one look at the room full of leather cuts, and just stands there for a second. “I told her you’d all show up.”
“No, you didn’t,” Millie shoots back immediately.
“I absolutely did.”
“You said not to get my hopes up.”
“I said not to build your entire opening day around fifteen bikers.”
“You doubted us?” Deek announces, sounding personally offended. “That’s hurtful, baby brother.”
“I doubted you!” Anchor points directly at him. “You specifically.”
“That’s fair. I did get a call from Cecilia before I came here, so I am giving up perfectly good pussy for your baked goods, Mills!” Deek nods thoughtfully.
Anchor scoffs as Millie grins. “Who the fuck is Cecilia? What happened to… what was her name? Tiff?” Anchor grumbles.
Deek scrunches his face as though he is confused. “Tiff… Jesus, Anchor, get with the program. She was like… what? Three girls ago. You have no idea what is going on in my life!”
Anchor nods his head, wrapping his arm around Millie. “Exactly. I wanna keep it that way.”
The bakery fills around us in the same way the clubhouse always does.
Nobody tells people where to sit.
Chairs scrape.
Helmets land on tables.
Coffee starts appearing almost immediately.
Within thirty seconds, the quiet little shop sounds like home.
Deek spends an impressive amount of time considering the display cabinet before making what seems like a series of increasingly poor decisions. “I’ve got a question.”
The teenager behind the register smiles politely. “Sure.”
“How many pastries become socially unacceptable?”
“For one person?”
“For a man who’s made peace with his choices.”
Koa snorts, shaking his head.
Bear doesn’t even look up from pulling out his chair. “Ask him what you actually want to know, son.”
Deek sighs. “Fine.” He points into the cabinet. “How many of these before people start judging me?”
Millie answers before the teenager gets the chance. “We stopped judging you ages ago.”
“I appreciate the honesty.”
Millie smirks. “I wasn’t trying to be nice.”
“I know.”
“So you’re buying six?” she states matter-of-factly.
Deek puffs out his chest as if he is proud of himself. “Eight.”
Millie chuckles, sliding the glass doors open to begin grabbing the goods. “I guess that’s progress.”
The line barely survives us getting our coffees.
Sin heads for the corner table without saying a word.
Nobody is stupid enough to beat him to it.
Nitro drops into the chair beside him, Koa turns up, balancing more food than one person should be allowed to order.
By the time I reach the counter, Deek has somehow managed to order enough food that the teenager behind the register has run out of room on the order pad.
“Is… is that everything?” the kid asks hopefully.
Deek glances back at the display cabinet. “I don’t know.” He squints. “What are those swirly things?”
“Cinnamon scrolls.”
“I’ll take two.”
The teenager adds them to the list.
“And that one?”
“The almond croissant?” The kid glances at Millie, and she shrugs.
“I don’t want almonds.”
“It’s filled with custard.”
Deek grins. “Well, in that case, I’ll take three.”
Bear finally looks up. “You’ve ordered enough breakfast for a family of four.”
Deek shrugs. “I’ve got plans.”
“You’ve got high cholesterol.”
“I’ve got optimism and an empty stomach, old man, leave me be!”
Liam reaches over, plucks one of the menus off the counter, and studies it like he’s trying to decode military intelligence. “What the hell’s a…” he frowns, “… Queen Aman?”
The teenager blinks. “Kouign-amann?”
“That’s what I said!” Liam chuckles.
“It really wasn’t,” the kid fires back.
I like him. He’s got balls to talk to a biker like that, even if he is just a prospect.
Liam points at the description underneath. “So it’s pastry.”
“Yeah.”
“With butter?”
“Lots.”
“And sugar?”
“Also yes.” He nods once.
Liam nods as though he’s sold on the idea. “I’ll have two.”
Deek immediately leans across him. “I’ll help.”
Without so much as looking in his direction, Liam slides the plate out of reach.
“You’ll help yourself to your own. You have four hundred pastries in front of you, dick.”
“I believe food tastes better shared!”
“I believe you’ve got another eight pastries coming, asshole.”
“But sharing builds character.” Deek chuckles, reaching across to grab a piece of Liam’s buttery pastry.
Liam slaps Deek’s hand dramatically, crumbs tumbling to the table. “So does disappointment.”
I leave them to it, a small smirk crossing my face.
Millie is moving constantly, filling coffee cups, boxing pastries, answering questions before they’re asked, all while trying to thank every brother who’s walked through the door.
The nerves she’d been carrying when we got here have settled. She no longer wonders who’ll show up. Now she’s just trying to keep up with the people who have. “What can I get you?” she asks when I step up beside the register.
“Coffee.”
She waits. “And?”
I look through the cabinet. “I don’t know what most of these are.”
Her smile grows. “I probably should’ve labeled them better.”
“You labeled them.”
“I labeled them in baker.”
I look back at the cabinet. “I don’t speak baker.”
That earns a laugh. “No,” she agrees. “I suppose you don’t.”
She reaches into the display and lifts out one of the pastries. “Try this.”
“What is it?”
“A morning bun.”
I nod once. “I’ll remember that.”
“You absolutely won’t.”
I chuckle, taking it from her. “No, I won’t.”
“You’ll come back in six months and ask for ‘that swirly one with the sugar.’ ”
“Probably.”
“I’ll still know which one you mean.”
I pay for the coffee and bun, take the plate she hands me, and move over to one of the smaller tables near the window while the rest of the club gradually settles into the easy rhythm it always seems to find.
Conversations overlap.
Someone laughs.
Deek is trying to convince Bear that calories consumed before ten in the morning don’t count.
Bear doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He simply reaches across the table, steals one of Deek’s sausage rolls, and takes a bite.
Deek stares at him. “I trusted you. You’re my father, for crying out loud, literally stealing from a baby!”
“Then don’t act like a damn baby.”
Everyone laughs as Deek scowls. “I was saving that.”
“You’ve got seven more.”
“I had seven more.”
Bear chews thoughtfully. “Problem solved.”
Nitro laughs so hard he nearly spills his coffee.
Even Sin’s mouth twitches around the rim of his cup, and across the room, Millie watches.
For just a second she stops moving. She looks around the bakery, at the brothers filling almost every table, at Anchor carrying another tray out from the kitchen, and at Deek loudly accusing Bear of theft in a room full of witnesses who refuse to intervene.
And she smiles.
Not because business is good.
But because somewhere in the middle of all this noise, she realizes she isn’t doing opening day on her own.
Eventually, the brothers peel away one by one, engines rumbling to life as breakfast finally gives way to the rest of the day.
And I head in the opposite direction.
Penny’s florist shop sits two blocks north of the bakery, exactly where Millie wanted it. Close enough, her best friend was never more than a couple of minutes away if either of them needed coffee, advice, or someone to remind them to breathe.
Buckets of flowers spill onto the footpath beneath a hand-painted sign that’s seen enough summers to lose the argument with the sun years ago. The bell above the door chimes as I step inside, cool air replacing the Vegas heat almost immediately.
Penny looks up from the workbench and takes one look at me and smiles. “You must be Ghost?”
“Yeah.”
She juts her hip out, looking me up and down in a clearly checking-me-out kind of way. “I pictured you taller.”
“I’m not.”
“Huh!” She nods to herself. “I can work with that.”
I don’t know what that means.
She wipes her hands on her apron and walks around the bench. “So, what brings you in?”
“I need flowers.”
She glances around the shop, looking at the obvious flowers in the space. “Lucky for you. If you’d come in looking for emotional support, I’d have been fresh out.”
I actually smirk—she’s sassy. Almost reminds me of Sage. “I don’t do emotions.”
“We’re all good then. Who are the flowers for?”
“Sage.”
She doesn’t even try to hide the smile this time. “I had a feeling.”