Chapter 7 Sparrow
SPARROW
The grocery store is supposed to be safe.
That's what Jade says when she offers to take me shopping.
I've been at the clubhouse for three weeks, and my wardrobe is still the same four outfits I stuffed in my duffel bag when I ran.
Jett's been making noise about Tessa taking me to the mall, but Jade volunteers first, and I'm grateful.
She's quieter than Tessa. Easier to be around when my nerves are already frayed.
We take her truck, a massive black thing that makes me feel invisible in the best way. She's armed, she tells me casually, like it's the most normal thing in the world. Just in case. The Iron Saints don't take chances.
The store is small, a local chain that's nearly empty at two in the afternoon.
We wander the aisles, and for a few minutes, I almost feel normal.
Jade tells me about her own escape, years ago, before Preacher found her.
Different circumstances, same story. A man who thought he owned her. A life that felt like a cage.
"It gets better," she says, squeezing my hand. "I promise. One day you'll wake up and realize you haven't thought about him in a week. Then a month. Then you'll barely remember his face."
I want to believe her. I'm trying to believe her.
We're in the cereal aisle, debating the merits of sugary versus healthy, when I feel it. That prickle on the back of my neck. The weight of eyes that shouldn't be there.
I turn.
And there he is.
Garrett Ashworth, standing at the end of the aisle, watching me with those blue eyes that used to make me feel chosen and now make me feel hunted. He looks exactly the same. Handsome. Polished. The kind of man who smiles at charity events and whispers threats in the dark.
My blood turns to ice, freezing in my veins until I can barely breathe.
"Sparrow." Jade's voice is low, urgent, already shifting into protective mode. "Go to the truck. Now. I'll handle—"
But Garrett is already walking toward us, closing the distance with measured steps. His stride is confident, unhurried, completely at ease. Why would he rush? He's always known he would catch me eventually. That I would never truly escape him.
"There you are." His voice is warm, friendly, concerned—the voice he uses in public, the one that charmed my parents and fooled our neighbors. The voice that made everyone believe him when he said I was troubled. Unstable. "I've been so worried about you, sweetheart."
Jade steps in front of me immediately, her body blocking his path, creating a barrier between us. "Back up."
"I'm just here to talk to my fiancée." He gestures at me like this is all perfectly reasonable, his expression patient and understanding.
"She's not your anything anymore." Jade's hand moves deliberately to her hip, and I realize with a shock that she's resting it on the gun hidden under her jacket. "And you're going to turn around and walk away. Right now."
Garrett's smile doesn't waver, but something cold and dangerous flickers in his eyes. He looks past Jade like she doesn't exist, like she's merely an inconvenient obstacle, focusing entirely on me.
"Sparrow. Don't you think this has gone on long enough? Come home. Your parents are worried sick about you."
"You lied to them." My voice comes out shaking, thin and reedy, but I force the words past the terror clogging my throat, past the fear that wants to silence me. "You told them I was on drugs. That I needed help."
"I told them you were confused." His tone is patient, condescending, the voice he used when he was explaining why I'd made him hit me. "And you are. Look at you, hiding out with criminals, wearing that ridiculous jacket like you belong to them."
"They're not—"
He moves fast. Faster than I expect, faster than someone his size should be able to move.
His hand closes around my upper arm before Jade can react, fingers digging into the soft flesh hard enough that I know there will be purple-black fingerprints blooming there by tonight, hard enough to make me gasp.
"You're mine," he hisses, all pretense of civility stripped away in an instant. "You've always been mine, and you always will be. And if you think some biker trash can protect you from me—if you think hiding behind these criminals will keep you safe—"
The sharp, metallic click of a gun being cocked stops him mid-sentence, freezing him in place.
Jade has her weapon pressed firmly against his ribs, right where his heart beats beneath the expensive fabric of his shirt. Her face is perfectly calm, eerily serene, and somehow that makes her look even more deadly. "Let. Go."
He lets go immediately, his fingers releasing my arm like I've burned him. Steps back slowly, carefully, but his eyes never leave mine, boring into me with an intensity that makes my skin crawl.
"This isn't over," he says quietly, each word deliberate and measured. The words are a promise and a threat and a death sentence all wrapped up in that same charming smile that used to make my heart flutter. "I'll see you soon, Sparrow. Very soon."
He walks out of the diner like nothing happened, like he didn't just assault me in a public place in broad daylight, like he owns the world and everyone in it and nothing can touch him.
I'm shaking so hard I can barely stand, my legs threatening to give out beneath me.
Jade gets me back to the clubhouse in record time.
Jett is waiting when we pull into the lot. Someone must have called ahead, because his face is a thundercloud, dark and dangerous and barely contained. He's across the gravel before I can even open my door, pulling me out of the truck and into his arms.
"Are you hurt?" His voice is rough with barely controlled emotion, hands running over my arms, my shoulders, checking for injuries with a thoroughness that borders on frantic.
I shake my head against his chest, breathing in his familiar scent of leather and motor oil, but I can't stop shaking, my entire body trembling like a leaf in a storm.
"What did he say? What did he do?" Each word is clipped, dangerous.
"He grabbed her arm," Jade reports from somewhere behind me, her voice flat and professional. "Got rough with her when she tried to leave. I pulled my piece. He backed off real quick after that."
Jett's body goes rigid against mine. The kind of still that comes right before an explosion, like a coiled spring wound too tight. I've seen it in him before, that cold, calculated fury that makes everyone around him go quiet and watchful.
"Church," he says, his jaw tight enough to crack teeth. "Now."
"Jett, wait—" I reach for his arm, desperate to stop whatever's about to happen.
But he's already walking away, striding toward the clubhouse with lethal purpose, barking orders to Gears and Preacher and anyone else within earshot.
The club is mobilizing around him, members appearing from various corners of the lot, falling into formation like soldiers answering a general's call to battle.
I stand in the parking lot, arms wrapped around myself against the sudden chill, and realize with sickening clarity what I've done.
I've brought a war to their doorstep.
The club meeting takes hours. I'm not allowed inside, but I can hear the raised voices through the walls. Arguments. Plans. The word "war" repeated over and over like a drumbeat.
Tessa sits with me in the kitchen, making tea I can't drink, talking about nothing in a way that's supposed to be comforting. It isn't. My mind is spinning with terrible possibilities.
Garrett has money. Connections. His father is a senator, for God's sake. He can destroy everything Jett has built. He can send the cops, the feds, whoever he wants. He can make all of them pay for the sin of protecting me.
I can't let that happen. I can't be the reason these men—this family—loses everything.
By the time Jett finally emerges from the meeting, shoulders tense and jaw set, I've made up my mind. "We need to talk," I say, my voice steadier than I feel.
He looks utterly exhausted, dark circles shadowing his eyes. The white-hot fury from earlier has burned down to something colder, more controlled, more calculating. More dangerous.
"Not now, baby. I need to—"
"Now." I grab his leather-clad arm, my fingers digging into the worn material as I drag him toward our room. He's too surprised by my vehemence to resist, letting me pull him down the hallway.
Inside, with the door closed and locked behind us, I turn to face him, steeling myself for what I'm about to say.
"I should leave."
The words hit him like a physical blow, his entire body going rigid. "What?"
"If I'm not here, he'll follow me. The club will be safe. You'll be safe. He wants me, Jett, not you. He doesn't care about any of you—it's me he's obsessed with. If I just—"
"No."
"Jett, please, listen to me—"
"No." His voice is hard, flat, final—like a steel door slamming shut. "You're not leaving."
"I can't be the reason you go to prison! I can't be the reason the club goes to war with a goddamn senator!"
"You don't get to make that decision." He advances on me, backing me against the wall. "You don't get to protect me by leaving. That's not how this works."
Here's the rephrased text with more details:
"Then how does it work?" My voice cracks as I speak, hot tears streaming down my cheeks and dripping from my jaw. "He has money—more money than we could ever dream of. Power in places we can't even reach. Connections that go all the way to the top. He can destroy you with a phone call."
"Let him try." The words are granite-hard, unyielding.
"God, why won't you listen to reason—"
"Because I love you!"
The words explode out of him like a shout, rough and raw and torn from somewhere deep in his chest—a place he's kept locked and guarded for years. We both freeze, the air between us suddenly charged with electricity, staring at each other with wide eyes.
"I love you," he says again, quieter this time but no less intense, each word deliberate and weighted. "And I'm not letting you walk out that door. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever."
"Jett—" My throat closes around his name.
"I've spent seven years building walls so high nobody could touch me.
And you just walked through them like they were nothing.
You think I'm going to let you disappear now?
You think I could survive that?" His hands frame my face, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes.
"I would burn down the world to keep you safe.
So don't you dare ask me to let you go."
I break.
All the fear, all the guilt, all the terror of the past two years comes pouring out of me in great, heaving sobs. He catches me when my legs give out, sinks to the floor with me, holds me while I fall apart.
"I'm scared," I whisper against the solid warmth of his chest, my voice muffled by his shirt. "I'm so scared he's going to hurt you. That he'll find some way to destroy you."
"He's going to try." His voice is calm now, certain, carrying the quiet confidence of someone who's stared down worse demons. "And he's going to fail. Because I'm not fighting alone anymore. The whole club is behind me. Behind us. Every single brother."
"What if it's not enough?" The question trembles on my lips, barely audible.
"It will be." He tilts my face up with gentle fingers, kisses me soft and sweet, his lips a promise against mine. "I've handled worse than Garrett Ashworth, baby. Men who were smarter, more connected, more ruthless. Trust me."
I want to argue. I want to pack my bag and run, the way I've been running for months, always one step ahead of the nightmare chasing me. But when I look into those storm-gray eyes, I see something I've never seen before in anyone who's looked at me.
Not just possession. Not just protection.
Love. Real love. The kind that doesn't flinch or falter when things get ugly.
"Okay," I whisper, the word both a surrender and a leap of faith.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I trust you." The admission feels like stepping off a cliff, terrifying and freeing all at once.
He pulls me close, and we stay there on the floor for a long time, holding each other in the gathering darkness while the world outside sharpens its knives and prepares for war.
Two days later, Jett comes home covered in blood that isn't his. And Garrett Ashworth is no longer a problem.