Epilogue
Helle
One Month Later . . .
I wake up to sunlight streaming through the curtains we hung last week and the smell of coffee drifting in from the porch.
The cabin is quiet except for the sound of Bravos moving around outside—boots on wood, the creak of the porch swing we installed three days ago, the clink of his coffee mug against the railing.
The type of sounds that remind you you’re home.
I stretch, feeling the pleasant ache in my muscles from yesterday's work at the garage.
My hands still smell faintly like grease even after scrubbing them twice last night.
I pull on one of Bravos's t-shirts and head outside.
He's sitting on the porch swing with his coffee, watching the horses in the distant paddock.
His cut is hanging on the hook by the door—he got back from a four-day run to Oklahoma yesterday afternoon.
Four days. Not three weeks. Not months.
He's coming home now, always coming home.
"Morning," I say, sitting beside him.
He pulls me close, kisses my temple. "Morning. Sleep okay?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Better now that I'm not on a motel mattress that felt like sleeping on concrete."
I laugh, steal his coffee for a sip.
He's made it the way I like since we’ve been together—black.
A month ago I was sleeping in his bunk at the clubhouse, terrified he wouldn't come back from the Los Coyotes run.
Now I'm stealing his coffee on our porch while wearing his shirt and complaining about work schedules.
Normal. Domestic. Ours.
"Elfe called last night while you were in the shower," I say. "They're coming this weekend. All of them."
"Your parents too?"
"Yeah. Dad's doing well enough to travel. They want to see the cabin. See us. Make sure I'm—" I pause. "Make sure I'm happy."
"Are you?" He always asks. Like the answer might change.
"Yeah. Really fucking happy."
He kisses me hard. "Good. Then they'll see that. Everything else is just details."
After coffee, Bravos heads off to do some work around the ranch, while I head to the garage.
The garage sits on the edge of Sharp Shooter Ranch property—a massive steel building with three bays and enough space to work on twenty bikes at once.
Phantom built it five years ago when the club was flush with cash from a good year.
Brought in professional equipment, hydraulic lifts, every tool you could want.
Then he needed someone to run it.
That's where I come in.
I've been working here for three weeks.
Phantom offered me the job two days after the assault when he saw me helping Bravos tune up his Road King.
"You any good?" he'd asked.
"I'm better than good."
"Prove it."
So I did.
Rebuilt a carburetor while he watched.
Had the bike purring like new in forty-five minutes.
He hired me on the spot.
Now I spend my days covered in grease, rebuilding engines, customizing exhaust systems, doing the work I love under my real name for the first time in years.
No more hiding. No more fake names. No more underground circuits and cash under the table.
Just me and bikes and the satisfaction of work done right.
I'm under a Softail checking the transmission when boots appear in my line of sight.
"Torque wrench," a voice says.
I reach out blindly and someone puts the tool in my hand. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
I finish tightening the bolt, roll out from under the bike, and find one of the club prospects—kid named Hayes—standing there holding my toolbox.
"Phantom said you might need help today," he says.
"I'm good, but thanks." I stand, wipe my hands on a rag. "You know bikes?"
"Some. Enough to hand you tools and not fuck anything up."
I laugh. "Good enough. Stick around. I might need an extra set of hands later."
He settles onto a stool near the workbench while I move to the Dyna that's been waiting for a timing check.
I'm elbow-deep in the engine when Shadow shows up around two.
I hear his bike before I see it—the distinctive rumble of his custom Harley that he babies like it's his child.
"Heard you're the best mechanic in Texas now," he says, walking into the garage.
"Heard you're still full of shit," I reply, not looking up from what I’m doing.
He laughs, but it sounds off. Strained. Like he's forcing it.
I glance up.
He looks different than usual—more tense, wound tighter than his normal intensity.
Shadow's always been a coiled spring, but this is something else.
"You good?" I ask.
"Fine. Just need my bike tuned up before the run next week."
"Leave it. I'll have it done by tomorrow."
He nods but doesn't move. Just stands there looking like he wants to say something but won't.
"You've been at the ranch a lot lately," I observe. "Phantom got you doing extra work?"
Something flashes in his eyes—dark and dangerous and completely unreadable. "Something like that."
"Shadow—"
"Drop it, Helle." His voice is hard. Final. "Just... drop it."
I raise my hands in surrender. "Dropped."
He's turning to leave when Grace's truck pulls up.
The change in Shadow is immediate and terrifying.
Every muscle in his body goes rigid.
His eyes track her movement like a predator tracking prey—focused, intense, hungry in a way that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Grace gets out of her truck, sees Shadow, and something flickers across her face.
Fear? Want? Recognition? All three?
"Shadow," she says, voice carefully neutral. "I didn't know you were here."
"Grace." His voice is rough. Lower than normal.
Possessive in a way that makes my skin prickle with warning.
The air between them is so thick with tension I can barely breathe.
Whatever this is, it's intense.
"I need my tie rod looked at," Grace says to me, specifically not looking at Shadow anymore. "Dad said you're good with trucks too."
"Yeah, I can check it out. Give me ten minutes."
She nods, stays by her truck.
Shadow doesn't move.
Just watches her with an intensity that should be illegal in twelve states.
I work as fast as I can, suddenly desperate to get out of whatever this is.
The tie rod is fine—just needed adjustment.
Easy fix, but the entire time I'm working, I can feel the tension radiating off both of them.
Grace standing rigid by her truck, arms crossed, staring at her phone.
Shadow leaning against the garage wall twenty feet away, watching her like she might disappear if he blinks.
Neither of them speaking.
Neither of them leaving.
The silence is suffocating.
"You're all set," I tell Grace, wiping my hands on a rag. "No charge. Just needed tightening."
"Thanks, Helle." She climbs into her truck fast—too fast, like she's running from something.
Or someone.
Shadow's eyes follow her truck until it disappears down the road.
"You two have history?" I ask carefully, because I'm apparently stupid enough to poke the bear.
His jaw clenches. The muscle ticking in his cheek is the only movement. "No."
The word hangs there.
"Not yet," he adds, so quietly I almost don't hear it.
The way he says it sends chills down my spine.
"Shadow—"
"Leave it alone, Helle." He finally looks at me, and his eyes are dark. Empty. Dangerous. "For your own good. Leave it alone."
He walks to his bike, starts it, rides away without another word about the tune-up he supposedly came here for.
I stand in my garage, grease-covered and confused, wondering what the hell I just witnessed.
Bravos comes in the front door of the shop. "I heard that shit, and fuck was it weird."
"Yeah. Really weird."
"Should we—"
"No. We should definitely not get involved in whatever that was." I go back to the Softail, needing something normal to focus on. "That's Shadow's business."
"And Grace's."
"And Phantom's problem when he figures it out."
After I wrap up in the garage, we head back to the cabin and finish the cabin improvements that evening.
New paint in the bedroom—soft gray that Bravos picked out.
Curtains I hemmed myself because I'm apparently domestic now.
Photos on the walls—us at the ranch, my family from before everything went wrong, his sisters in their frame of honor on the mantle.
The second bedroom is painted but empty. "For the future," we keep saying. Office or guest room or something else we're not ready to name yet.
The cabin is small but it's ours.
Every nail, every board, every improvement made with our own hands.
"They're going to love it," Bravos says, surveying our work.
"You think?" I'm nervous.
I want my parents to see I made the right choice, want Elfe to see I'm thriving, not just surviving, and want my dad to be proud.
"I know." He pulls me close. "Because you're happy. That's all they want to see."
Dinner is simple—tacos that we make together in our tiny kitchen, bumping into each other, stealing kisses between chopping vegetables and warming tortillas.
This is what normal looks like. What peace looks like.
We eat on the porch as the sun sets, watching the horses graze in the distance, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Don’t wait, read Morbid here.
But, that’s not all - the Shotgun Saints are coming. Start with Shadow’s story now!