Chapter 29
Cyrus
The clubhouse is steady these days. Scarred, patched, but steady. The war ended two months ago without more bloodshed thanks to the fractured loyalty of the Raging Bulls and Tori’s bravery. King got dragged away in cuffs, bleeding and screaming, and his empire collapsed like rotten wood.
The Raging Bulls don’t exist the way they used to. Some of their guys scattered. A few approached us about neutral territory. A couple even asked about prospecting. Flint shut most of that down, at least for now. There are a couple we might consider, those who stood up for what was right.
After that night, we breathed a collective sigh of relief that it was finally over. But then King made bail. Ever since, the air’s felt… unfinished. Tonight proves why.
I’m leaning back in the booth, one hand spread wide over Tori’s stomach, feeling the rhythmic shift of one of the babies pressing outward.
We’re downstairs eating dinner, our one night a week date night for all four of us.
At eight months pregnant, Tori’s just waiting for it to be over.
I guess all women get like that toward the end, but with triplets it’s probably worse.
The babies are still technically a month away, but her OBGYN said that they’ll probably come sooner.
I hear the rumble of engines approaching.
I don’t know why, but something makes me look out of the window to see who it is.
It’s then that I realize they’re not ours.
Flint and Hunter have the same realization, almost at the same time, as if we’re of one mind.
The room changes instantly. It’s like someone flipped a switch from background noise to combat readiness.
Flint’s already on his feet. He shoots Tori a look of concern, perhaps hoping she hasn’t noticed what we’ve already realized.
“That’s him,” Tori says quietly, putting her fork down and pushing her plate away from her. Her voice doesn’t shake. She doesn’t sound afraid, merely resigned. We knew this day would come, that King would come back to finish what he started.
I automatically move closer to her, as if my presence can shield her from what’s to come. She looks ready to burst at any moment, and likely she will, yet she still looks like she could take on the world. That doesn’t stop the surge of protective instinct that claws up my spine.
The engines cut outside. Silence follows.
Screw limps toward the door, cracking his knuckles. “Back for more?” he mutters.
Hank shifts near the window. Red and Smoke fan out subtly. There’s no panic, everyone moves calmly, but we’re ready for whatever comes next. Tori starts to stand, using the table as support to try to heft herself upright with the considerable added weight of three babies inside her.
“Tori—” I start.
“I’m not hiding,” she says before I finish. Of course she’s not. Even now, so heavily pregnant, we know better than to refuse her. We should let him inside. It would be safer for her to stay seated, but when I suggest this, she shakes her head. “He doesn’t deserve to come inside these walls.”
Flint studies her for half a second, then nods.
We move outside together, me and Hunter supporting her.
She moves slowly, but purposefully, head held high.
She’s grown stronger, her legs muscled and toned, under the weight of the babies.
I’ve no doubt she’ll carry all three in her arms once they’re born.
The evening air is thick and warm, cicadas buzzing in the trees beyond the lot. The clubhouse still shows signs of the last fight. There’s fresh paint covering bullet holes, replaced windows shining in the light of the setting sun, and faint tire marks near the front gate.
King stands beside his bike. This time, there are only two men with him. That’s it. This time, there’s no army, no backup, and no arrogance radiating off him like before. He looks… smaller. Not physically. Just less.
He no longer wears the Raging Bulls vest; he’s not come today as the president of a rival motorcycle club, just as himself.
Flint steps forward first. Hunter stays tight to Tori’s other side. I plant myself just slightly ahead of her without blocking her view, ready to use myself as a shield in case he does something stupid.
“What do you want?” Flint asks.
King doesn’t look at him. He looks at Tori. At her stomach and the ready-to-pop curve straining the fabric of her shirt. The babies shift visibly, moving against her stomach, as if they feel the tension, too.
King swallows. “I didn’t come to fight.”
I let out a short laugh. “That’s convenient.”
He ignores me. “I came to talk.”
“No,” I say immediately.
Tori steps forward anyway. “I’ll decide that.” I hate that I respect it. She moves until she’s fully in his line of sight. I stay close enough to grab her if he so much as twitches wrong.
Up close, I see it in his face. The exhaustion, the regret. Something inside him has been cracked open and hollowed out. Instead of the belligerent man I knew, he looks beaten.
“You made your point,” he says stiffly. “You won.”
“This wasn’t a competition,” she replies.
“It was to you.”
Her chin lifts. She does that thing with her posture when she’s done being talked down to and told what to do. It makes my chest ache with pride.
His eyes drop to her belly again. “They’re healthy?” he asks.
The question sounds wrong coming from his mouth. He says it softly. He almost sounds… human.
“Yes,” she says.
He nods once, like that matters.
Flint’s voice cuts through. “You’ve got five minutes.”
King exhales slowly. “I underestimated you,” he says to her.
“No kidding,” I mutter.
She ignores me. “Is that supposed to be an apology?” she tells him.
He almost smiles. “You look…” he hesitates.
“Fat?” she offers dryly.
He shakes his head. “No.” Silence stretches. He sighs, a wistful, sad sound. “You look like your mother.”
The words land heavily in the air. I see it in Tori’s shoulders. That the mention of her mother still holds weight.
He studies her like he’s trying to memorize the moment. “You stand like her,” he says. “When she was angry. When she was telling me off.”
I place my hand protectively on her stomach. The babies roll under my hand, a strong shift that makes her inhale softly. I press my palm firmer against her belly.
He watches the movement, noting it but not commenting. “You always had her in you,” he says. “I just refused to see it.”
“You refused to see it. To see me,” she corrects.
His shoulders sag. “I thought strength was only shown in one way,” he admits.
“And now?” she asks.
“Now I don’t have a club.” There’s no bitterness in his voice, he’s just stating a fact.
“You lost them when you put a gun to your pregnant daughter’s head,” I say sharply.
He flinches. Good, he should feel ashamed. “I was wrong,” he says. The words hang in the air like they don’t belong there. King isn’t a man who admits he is wrong. Though I notice he’s yet to say the words ‘I’m sorry’, perhaps a genuine apology is a concession too far.
Flint’s jaw tightens. Hunter stays silent, but I feel the tension radiating off him.
“You don’t get to rewrite history by admitting you were wrong,” Flint says.
He fixes Flint in a steely gaze, unwilling to back down or leave until he’s said his piece.
“I’m not asking to.” King’s gaze shifts back to Tori.
“For months I told myself you’d come crawling back.
That staying with the Ghost Riders was rebellion.
That I didn’t have to pay to get you back, you would come on your own, and I knew they were honorable enough to let you.
” I’m surprised by the concession, that he’d admit to our honor.
It seems he can’t be too complimentary though as he adds, “I thought that they were using you and once you realized that, you’d come home. ”
I laugh under my breath. Tori doesn’t.
“By the time I realized my mistake things had gone too far, I was humiliated and angry by your decision to stay. I lost my temper and the more I realized my grip on you and my men was loosening the harder I tried to hold on. Even as my men deserted me and I was arrested, I believed I was in the right.” He takes a deep breath, looking Tori in the eye.
“Then, when I got out on bail, I saw the footage,” he says.
“What footage?” she asks.
“Some bystanders caught part of that night, recording us on their cellphones. The footage went viral, of you stepping in front of me.”
I remember that moment too, how the world stopped for a moment and I almost lost everything. The gun pointed at Tori’s head. The way my heart stopped.
“You didn’t flinch,” he says.
She answers honestly. “I was afraid. I just didn’t show it.”
His lips twitch. “Your mother used to say that.”
Something is shifting in him, a real, palpable change. Could King really be finally noticing the error of his ways?
“You called me a whore, worthless,” Tori says quietly. “You said my babies were bastards.”
He closes his eyes briefly. “I was trying to hurt you.”
Tori cradles her stomach but her eyes don’t waver from King’s. She doesn’t mince her words, but she is brave enough to admit that he succeeded in his goal. “You did.”
The cicadas buzz louder, as if they can sense the heightened emotions.
“I thought humiliation would break you,” he says. “It would’ve broken most. The humiliation I felt broke me,” he admits. Tori was right, humiliation was the key to taking him down in the end, he thought he could use it as a weapon against her.
“It didn’t,” she replies. “I’d had my entire life to grow a thick skin, to be able to handle humiliation.”
He studies her fully now. Really studies her, as if seeing her for the first time. “You’re stronger than I gave you credit for.”
The babies move again. A solid kick this time, making their presence known, showing their agreement, showing their strong like their mother. I grin despite everything.
He sees it. “They’re not my legacy,” he says slowly.
“No,” Tori agrees. Too much has passed between them for her to pretend otherwise.