Chapter 3 Sparrow
SPARROW
One week at the Iron Saints, and I'm starting to forget what running feels like.
My car is still "being fixed." I put that in mental air quotes because I overheard Gears tell Whiskey three days ago that the transmission arrived early. No one's mentioned it to me. No one's asked when I'm leaving.
I've stopped asking too.
The days have fallen into a rhythm I didn't expect.
Mornings start with coffee in the kitchen, Mama Rosa already bustling around the stove before the sun is fully up.
She doesn't talk much, but she feeds me like she's trying to make up for every meal I've missed in the past six months.
I've gained three pounds. I can feel it in the way my jeans fit, the way my face looks a little less hollow in the bathroom mirror.
Afternoons, I work. Gears pointed me toward the storage room that first day, and I've been tackling it ever since.
Four years of neglected paperwork, invoices shoved in boxes, receipts stuffed in folders with no rhyme or reason.
It's a disaster, and I love it. There's something deeply satisfying about creating order from chaos. About proving I'm useful.
Evenings are for watching. The bar opens around five, and I've claimed a corner booth as my own. I nurse a beer and observe this world I've stumbled into, trying to understand the rules.
The bikers terrified me at first. All that leather and ink and barely contained violence.
But now I know their names. Their quirks.
Whiskey flirts with everyone who walks through the door, male or female, but he's never pushed past a friendly wink.
Gears checks on me every day with gruff kindness, asking if I need anything, if the room is comfortable, if I want to call my parents.
Preacher still scares me a little, because those dark eyes see too much, but he's also left three books on my bed, slipped under my door without comment.
He noticed what I was reading and decided to share.
The women are my revelation. Tessa, Gears' wife, took one look at me that second day and decided I was her project.
She's loud and funny and fiercely protective, the kind of woman who would claw someone's eyes out for looking at her wrong, but she's also the first person to hug me when I start to shake during a thunderstorm.
Jade is quieter, Preacher's old lady, with sad eyes that tell me she's been where I am.
She squeezed my hand once and said, "I know.
It gets better." She didn't have to explain what she meant.
And through it all, there's Jett.
He's everywhere and nowhere. I catch glimpses of him across the bar, in the doorway of the shop, watching from his office window when he thinks I'm not looking. He rarely speaks to me directly, just those brief exchanges about practical things. Food. My room. Whether I need anything.
But I feel his attention constantly. It's like standing in the sun, that awareness of being watched, being tracked, being known. It should unsettle me. With Garrett, the surveillance was suffocating. Every move I made was catalogued and used against me later.
With Jett, it feels different. It feels like safety.
Once, I waved at his office window. I couldn't see through the tinted glass, but I imagined his expression. Imagined him smiling.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't smile. But a girl can dream.
The night everything changes starts like any other.
I'm behind the bar, learning how to pour drinks from Mama Rosa. She's been teaching me the basics over the past few days, and I've discovered I'm not terrible at it. The work keeps my hands busy and my mind occupied, which is exactly what I need.
The door opens, and every biker in the room goes tense.
Two men walk in. Suits. Clean-cut. Wrong in every possible way. They look like they stepped out of a corporate office and took a wrong turn, and the way they're scanning the room makes my blood run cold.
One of them approaches the bar. I freeze, my hand still wrapped around the beer tap, suddenly unable to move or breathe.
"We're looking for someone," the suit says. His voice is pleasant, professional, the kind of voice that makes you want to trust him. I know better. "A woman. Blonde, early twenties. Had some car trouble, maybe? Would have come through about a week ago."
My hands are trembling so violently I can barely maintain my grip. The glass I'm holding slips from my fingers, but Mama Rosa's weathered hands dart out and catch it before it can crash against the floor and shatter into a thousand pieces.
"Lot of blondes in the world, friend." Whiskey has materialized beside me without a sound, settling against the bar with his arms crossed and a deceptively casual air that doesn't match the cold calculation in his dark eyes. "Lot of car trouble too, especially on these back roads."
The suit's smile widens, revealing perfect white teeth. It doesn't reach his eyes, which remain flat and reptilian. "This one's special. Her family is very worried about her wellbeing."
Family. The word slams into me like a physical blow, stealing what little air remains in my lungs. Garrett's twisted version of family. His property, his rules, his controlling hands and punishing fists.
They found me. Despite everything, despite the distance and the precautions, they always find me. No matter how far I run, no matter how careful I am about covering my tracks, he always catches up eventually.
I'm calculating escape routes in my head, the back door, the window in the storage room, whether I can make it to the lot before they grab me, when a hand lands on my lower back.
Warm. Huge. Possessive.
Jett.
He's materialized from nowhere, his heavy boots making no sound as he moves past me to face the suits directly. His hand stays where it is, pressed firmly against my spine through the thin cotton of my shirt, anchoring me to his side with unmistakable intent.
"Gentlemen." His voice is pleasant, carefully controlled. Polite, even. But his eyes have turned to winter ice, hard and unforgiving. "Can I help you with something?"
"We're looking for—"
"No one here matches that description." Jett doesn't let him finish the sentence, his tone brooking no argument. "And if there was someone like that, she'd be none of your goddamn business."
The suit's practiced smile tightens at the corners, developing sharp edges. "Her fiancé is very concerned about her welfare."
"Is he." Not a question. A challenge wrapped in two flat words.
"He just wants to know she's safe and sound."
"She is." Jett's hand tightens on my waist, pulling me closer. I can feel the heat of his body through my thin shirt, the coiled tension in his muscles. "Now, you can finish your drinks and leave. Or you can make this a problem. Your choice."
The air crackles with danger. Every biker in the room is on their feet now, casual but ready. I can see Preacher near the door, blocking the exit. Gears has moved to flank us. Even Whiskey has dropped the easy grin, his hand resting on something under the bar.
The suits exchange loaded glances, a silent conversation passing between them in the span of a heartbeat. They're calculating odds, weighing options. They're not stupid—anyone can see that. They're outnumbered twenty to two and outgunned in every way that matters in a place like this.
"We'll be in touch," the first one says, already taking a careful step backward.
"No." Jett's voice drops to something cold and absolutely certain, each word chipped from ice. "You won't."
They leave without another word, their retreat measured but swift.
The door swings shut behind them with a hollow thud, and the tension holds for another thirty seconds—thirty long, breathless seconds—before it finally breaks.
Conversations resume in cautious murmurs that gradually build to normal volume.
Music plays again from the jukebox in the corner.
The world keeps turning like nothing happened.
But my world has stopped completely.
Jett turns to face me, his movements deliberate and controlled.
His hand is still on my back, warm and solid and real, and I realize with startling clarity that I don't want him to move it.
I want to press closer, burrow into the safety of his broad chest, let him wrap those massive, tattooed arms around me until I stop shaking like a leaf in a storm.
"You're trembling." His voice has gentled, gone rough with concern.
"I'm fine." The lie tastes bitter on my tongue.
"You're a terrible liar, Sparrow."
"So I've been told." I try to smile. It feels wrong on my face. "I just... they found me. I don't know how, but they found me, and now they'll tell Garrett, and he'll come, and—"
"Sparrow." My name in his mouth cuts through the panic. "Look at me."
I do. Those steel gray eyes hold mine, steady and sure.
"Nothing happens to you while you're mine," he says. "Understand?"
"I'm not—" The words stick in my throat. Yours. His. I don't know how to finish that sentence.
"You are." He says it simply, like it's already decided. "For as long as you need to be. And when Ashworth comes looking, because we both know he will, he'll find me."
He leaves before I can respond. Just turns and walks away, disappearing into his office like he didn't just upend my entire world with a few sentences.
My body is buzzing. My heart is racing.
It's not fear. Not anymore.
The bar closes at two. I help Mama Rosa clean up, wiping down tables and stacking chairs, trying to exhaust myself enough to sleep. It doesn't work. My mind won't stop spinning.
I head downstairs expecting emptiness, hoping for it, craving the solitude of the darkened bar. Instead, I find Jett at the counter, a glass of amber whiskey glinting in front of him, shadows from the single overhead light playing across the scarred planes of his face.