CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Seat at the Table
The clubhouse at three o'clock looked nothing like Josie remembered from her rare visits as a teenager, the main garage floor cleared entirely, folding chairs arranged in a loose circle where motorcycles usually stood, every member she recognized and several she didn't already seated and waiting with the particular grim focus of men who understood exactly how serious the afternoon's business was.
Reeve stood at the head of the circle, and when Josie walked in beside Sawyer, a ripple of surprise moved through the room, quickly smoothed over by Reeve's own steady nod toward an empty chair.
"Sit," he said simply, no explanation offered or required, and Josie felt the old, familiar weight of the club's world settle over her again as she took the seat, this time not as a founder's daughter drifting on the edges, but as someone the room had decided, without a formal vote, belonged inside it.
"You all know the shape of this," Reeve began, addressing the room.
"Old debt, contact reestablished this week, terms escalated as of last night.
They've named Josie Vance and her property as leverage, given her known history with Sawyer.
I'm not interested in debating whether that's fair.
It isn't. I'm interested in what we do about it. "
A heavyset member near the door, one Josie vaguely recognized as the club's treasurer, spoke first. "We pay what we can and negotiate the rest. Same as we should have three years ago instead of letting Sawyer carry it solo."
"We don't have what we can pay," Reeve said flatly. "Not without gutting reserves this club needs for legitimate operations. That's the whole reason the original arrangement got as complicated as it did."
"Then we push back." This from a younger member Josie didn't know, voice tight with the particular bravado of someone who hadn't yet learned what pushing back against people like this actually cost. "Show them we're not scared."
"We are scared," Sawyer said, quiet but carrying easily across the circle.
"Anybody who isn't scared right now isn't taking this seriously enough.
But scared doesn't mean stupid. We protect Josie's shop directly, physical security, cameras, a rotation of eyes on the property around the clock until this resolves.
And we buy time on the payment by showing good faith, a partial sum now, the rest structured out, which gives us room to negotiate without escalating. "
The room debated for the better part of an hour, voices rising and falling around logistics, money, timelines, and Josie sat through most of it in a strange, suspended state, watching a version of Sawyer she'd never fully gotten to see before: measured, respected, listened to even in his diminished standing, a man clearly still carrying real weight in this room regardless of what his stripped cut currently said about his rank.
"There's another piece," Reeve said finally, once the logistics had settled into rough agreement.
"They've asked for a show of good faith beyond the money.
A meeting. In person, at a location of their choosing, this coming weekend.
I want two of us there. Sawyer, given his history with this, and myself, given mine. "
Something cold moved through Josie at that, fear sharpening into something more immediate and specific. "That sounds like exactly the kind of meeting where things go wrong."
"It's a risk," Reeve agreed, meeting her eyes directly, no attempt to soften it.
"I won't pretend otherwise to you, of all people.
But it's a smaller risk than letting this drag out unresolved, with your shop sitting exposed the whole time as leverage they might decide to use before we even get to negotiate. "
Josie looked at Sawyer, found him watching her with an expression that held none of the old careful evasiveness, just plain, steady honesty about the danger they were both walking into with open eyes this time. "I don't like it," she said.
"Neither do I," he admitted. "But I like the alternative less. I'm not letting them touch you or your shop while I sit safe on the sidelines. Not again."
The meeting wound down as the light outside the high warehouse windows started to fail, logistics assigned, a rotation schedule for the shop's security drawn up with Cole volunteering for the first overnight shift with an eagerness that made Josie's chest ache with fondness and worry in equal measure.
Reeve dismissed the room with a final, grim reminder about discretion, and the members filed out in twos and threes, leaving Josie and Sawyer nearly alone on the cleared garage floor.
"Thank you," Josie said quietly, "for making sure I was in that room."
"You should have always been in that room, three years ago and every year since." Something fierce and apologetic moved through his voice. "I'm not going to pretend one afternoon fixes the pattern I built. But I'm going to keep choosing this, every time, from now on."
She stepped closer, close enough to feel the day's tension still coiled in his shoulders, and wrapped her arms around him, feeling him exhale slowly against her, some of the fear finally allowed to show now that the room had emptied.
"We're really doing this," she said into his chest. "Facing this together instead of you carrying it alone. "
"We are." His arms tightened around her, steady, certain. "I don't know exactly how this weekend goes. I won't lie to you about that. But whatever happens, you'll know it as it happens. Every piece of it. That's the one thing I can promise you without any hesitation left in it at all."
Outside, the first stars were starting to show through breaks in the clouds, the temperature dropping hard with the coming night, and Josie stood in the circle of his arms in the quiet, emptied garage, bracing herself for whatever the weekend was about to bring, no longer alone in the bracing, and finding, even in the fear, that this alone felt like enough of a victory to hold onto.