Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Helle
The beer tastes like coming home, which is exactly the problem.
I'm sitting at the bar with Elfe, nursing a proof that's gone warm in my hands while she updates me on everything I've missed in three years.
The club. The tension with Los Coyotes. The alliance meeting tomorrow that's supposed to save us all.
But mostly, she's talking about Dad.
"They don't know much about his condition," Elfe says, her voice carefully controlled. "Just that he's been hurt. Badly. His hand—" She stops, remembers. "You didn't want to know the details."
No. I didn't. Don't.
Because if I let myself picture what Los Coyotes did to him—what I caused them to do to him—I'll shatter into pieces right here on this barstool.
"Is he conscious?" I ask instead.
"We don’t know. Los Coyotes haven’t been forthcoming with their threats…" Elfe's hands shake slightly around her glass. "It’s been a day since we’ve gotten an update and everyone is starting to get worried. We’re thinking that they might have…"
She doesn't finish. Doesn't need to.
My father could be dying because I killed Andrés Medina and Los Coyotes felt like it looked like club retaliation.
The guilt sits in my stomach like lead.
"The meeting tomorrow," I say, desperate to talk about anything else. "Who's coming?"
"Reapers Rejects from Vegas. Their Prez, Damon, is the one who called for this. He thinks if we unite—multiple clubs working together—we can push back against Los Coyotes hard enough to make them fuck off." Elfe takes a long drink. "And the Shotgun Saints from Texas."
My spine straightens automatically. Texas.
"Their Prez couldn't make it," Elfe continues. "Something about bad blood with Runes from years ago. So they sent a Nomad instead. Guy named Bravos."
The name means nothing to me.
Except—
I glance down the bar, and he's still there.
The man from earlier.
The one with the dead eyes who looked at me like he could see straight through every lie I've built.
Our eyes meet across the distance.
It's like touching a live wire.
Something hot and electric shoots through me, settling low in my belly.
His gaze is steady, unflinching, those dead eyes somehow sparking to life just for a second.
A flash of something—interest, recognition, hunger—before going flat again.
I look away first this time.
Have to.
Because staring at a stranger in a bar while my father could be dying is exactly the kind of selfish shit I've been running from for three years.
"Helle?" Elfe's voice pulls me back. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Fine. Just tired from the ride." I drain my beer, flag down Njal for another. "So tomorrow they sit down and what? Make war plans?"
"Basically. Runes wants to coordinate attacks, share intelligence, and cut off Los Coyotes' supply lines." Elfe's face hardens. "Make them hurt the way they've hurt us, and hopefully get Dad in the process."
My new beer arrives and I drink too fast, trying to drown the voice in my head that's screaming confess, just fucking confess already.
But if I confess, Los Coyotes will come for me instead of Dad.
And I'm not naive enough to think they'll just trade one for the other.
They'll kill us both.
Probably Elfe and Mom too, just to make their point.
Some secrets have to stay buried.
Even if they're killing you from the inside.
I feel his eyes on me again.
I can't help it—I look.
The Texan is still watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
Not leering like the drunk assholes who hit on me at Cactus Jack's.
This is different.
Like he's trying to solve a puzzle, figure out what makes me tick.
Like he recognizes something in me.
The same thing I recognized in him when I walked in.
Two people with dead eyes and too many secrets.
"Who is that?" Elfe asks quietly, following my gaze.
"No one. Just another MC asshole passing through."
But even as I say it, I know it's a lie.
There's nothing normal about the man at the end of the bar.
Runes and Fenrir approach our table maybe twenty minutes later.
I see them coming and my whole body tenses.
I haven't seen Fenrir since the night Dad interrogated me about the leak.
The night everything fell apart.
He'd been there in the room, watching while Dad realized his youngest daughter had betrayed everything he'd built.
The disappointment in Fenrir's eyes had been almost worse than Dad's anger.
"Helle." Runes stops beside our table, hands in his pockets. Casual. Except nothing about this is casual. "Didn't expect to see you back."
"Family emergency." My voice comes out flat. "Here to help however I can."
"That so." It's not a question. Fenrir's studying me with those sharp VP eyes, probably cataloging every tell, every micro-expression that might reveal I'm lying.
Which I am.
Always am.
"We appreciate you coming back," Fenrir says, but there's no warmth in it. "Your father needs all the support he can get right now."
The guilt twists deeper.
"The meeting tomorrow," Runes continues. "I’d appreciate it if you could be there. We need everyone who has information about Los Coyotes operations. Anything you remember from—" He pauses delicately. "—your time with Andrés Medina."
My heart stops.
Starts again too fast.
They want me to talk about Andrés. The man I dated. The man I killed.
"I don't know much," I manage. "It was just a few dates. Sociology class project stuff."
"Anything helps." Runes's gaze is penetrating. "Where he lived, who he mentioned, places he took you. We're building a profile of their operations, their people. Every detail matters."
I nod, not trusting my voice.
Because the details I know—the ones that really matter—are the kind that would get me killed.
Like the fact that I tracked Andrés for six months before I found him.
Like the fact that I put two bullets in his chest and one in his head in a Houston alley.
Like the fact that I'm the reason Los Coyotes came for my father.
Runes and Fenrir move on to another table, and I can finally breathe again.
"You okay?" Elfe's hand finds mine under the table. "You went really pale."
"I'm fine. Just—being back here. It's a lot."
She squeezes my fingers. "I know. But we'll get through this. Together."
Together.
The word feels like a knife.
Because I'm not here to get through this together. I'm here to confess what I did and face whatever consequences come.
Even if it means losing Elfe. Losing everyone.
Again.
My eyes drift back to the bar without permission.
He's still there. Still watching.
This time when our gazes lock, something shifts. His dead eyes spark—just for a second, but I see it. A flash of heat, of interest, of something alive in all that emptiness.
It mirrors what I'm feeling.
This pull I don't understand and definitely don't want.
My face flushes. I look away, pulse hammering.
"Seriously, who is that guy?" Elfe asks. "Because you keep staring at him like—"
"I'm not staring."
"You absolutely are." She's studying me now with that big sister intuition that's always been too sharp. "Helle. Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Get involved with some random Nomad. Not now. Not when everything's falling apart."
"I'm not getting involved with anyone." I drain my second beer. "I'm here for Dad. That's it."
But even as I say it, I feel his eyes on me again.
And when I glance over, the look he's giving me makes my stomach flip.
Like he knows exactly what I'd taste like.
Like he's already decided he's going to find out.
The bar gets louder as night settles in.
More people arrive—locals mixing with club members, civilians who don't know they're drinking in a powder keg.
The jukebox switches from southern rock to something with a harder edge.
Voices rise, competing with the music.
I should leave.
Should go get some sleep, prepare for the clusterfuck that tomorrow will be.
But I stay planted on this barstool, nursing a third beer I don't need, hyper-aware of the man down the bar who hasn't stopped watching me.
The Texan. Bravos, Elfe said.
The Shotgun Saints Nomad who's here to negotiate an alliance.
I wonder if he kills as easily as I do.
Wonder if his hands shake afterward, or if he's past that.
A group of locals near the pool tables are getting louder.
Drunker.
One of them—big guy with a beard and a Titans jersey—keeps looking over at our section of the bar.
Not at me specifically, just at the general area where Raiders members are congregated.
Looking for trouble.
I've seen this dance a thousand times in Texas.
Drunk civilian wants to prove something, picks a fight with the wrong people, gets his ass handed to him.
Usually entertaining.
Tonight it feels dangerous.
Two rival MCs under one roof, trying to maintain peace long enough to form an alliance.
One bar fight could blow the whole thing apart.
"We should probably head out," Elfe says, noticing the same thing I am. "Before things get messy."
But before we can move, Titans jersey stumbles toward the bar.
Directly toward me.
"Hey, blondie." His breath reeks of whiskey and bad decisions. "You look familiar. Do I know you?"
"No." I don't look at him, hoping he'll take the hint and fuck off.
He doesn't.
"Yeah, I definitely know you. You race, don't you? Saw you at the airstrip outside Austin a couple months back."
My blood goes cold.
"You got the wrong person," I say flatly.
"Nah, I don't think so. They called you Hell. You wiped the floor with your opponents." He grins, swaying slightly. "That was some good shit. You race here in Florida too?"
Fuck.
Elfe's staring at me. "You race?"
"Sometimes." I can feel eyes on us now. Multiple sets. Including his. "It's nothing."
"Nothing?" The drunk laughs. "You're fucking famous in the circuit. Hell from Texas, never loses, rides like she's got a death wish."
"You need to walk away," I tell him, keeping my voice level. "Now."
"Come on, just trying to be friendly." He reaches out, puts a hand on my arm. "Maybe you could give me some pointers, show me how you—"
"Don't fucking touch her."