Chapter 8 - Wraith
Family.
I said family. Not my daughter. Not Mariah. Family. Like Quinn's already part of it, like she's been part of it longer than twenty-four hours, like the word includes her automatically without me even thinking about it.
And the hell of it is, standing here in my kitchen with her beside me at the counter while Mariah draws dragons at the table completely oblivious to the violence that just happened on our front porch, I wish it was true.
I wish Quinn was family in the way that word means in the club, in the permanent unbreakable way that means she's ours and we're hers and nobody touches what's ours without consequences.
She put herself between five armed men and my daughter without hesitation. Opened the door knowing exactly what was waiting on the other side and faced it anyway because that's what she promised to do, that's who she is, someone who keeps her word even when keeping it might cost her everything.
I'll never forget that. Never forget watching through the upstairs window as she opened that door, as one of the men reached for her and she put him down in three seconds flat.
Never forget the split second of pure terror when I saw Crowbar's weapon connect with her shoulder, when I saw her trapped in that Viper's arms, when my brain calculated the math and realized she was about to be overwhelmed.
That's when I stopped thinking and just moved.
Stopped being the planner, the strategist, the one who sees three steps ahead, and became something else entirely.
Something I've spent years trying to keep locked down because it scares me how easily it comes, how natural violence feels when someone threatens what I love.
But I'd do it again. I'd do it a thousand times over if it meant keeping them safe, Mariah and Quinn both, apparently, because somewhere in the last day my brain reclassified Quinn from employee to protected, from temporary to essential, from stranger to family.
That should terrify me. It probably would terrify me if I had the bandwidth to examine it right now.
Instead, I'm just standing here grateful she's okay, grateful Mariah never saw anything, grateful Phoenix and the boys showed up exactly when I knew they would because I planned for it, because planning is what I do even in the middle of chaos.
"You should ice that shoulder," I say, nodding toward where she's favoring her left side even though she's trying to hide it.
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. You took a crowbar to it." I move to the freezer, pull out an ice pack I keep for Mariah's occasional tumbles, wrap it in a kitchen towel. "Sit."
She looks at me for a long moment, and I can see her deciding whether to argue. She must see something in my expression that tells her arguing won't get her anywhere, because she sighs and settles into the chair beside Mariah.
"Ooh, are you hurt?" Mariah looks up from her drawing, concerned.
"Just a little bump," Quinn says easily. "Your dad's taking care of it."
"Daddy's really good at taking care of people." Mariah says it with complete certainty, like it's an established fact of the universe. "He takes care of me every single day."
"That's right, baby girl. Every single day."
I press the ice pack gently against Quinn's shoulder and she winces slightly but doesn't pull away. This close, I can see the small white scar on her chin, the way her hair's starting to come loose from the braids.
She's beautiful, and I'm staring. I need to stop staring. I step back, hand her the ice pack so she can hold it herself. "Keep that on for twenty minutes. Then off for twenty. Repeat."
"Yes, doctor," she says, but there's warmth in her voice, something almost affectionate.
Footsteps on the porch make me tense, but I quickly recognize the cadence—Ranger's walk. He appears in the doorway a second later, still in his cut.
"Hey," he says. "Came to check on my sister. Make sure she's still in one piece."
"I'm fine," Quinn says immediately. "Barely a scratch."
Ranger's eyes drop to the ice pack she's holding against her shoulder, and one eyebrow rises. "That's not a scratch, Quinnie."
"Okay, it's a bruise. Still fine."
He crosses to her, crouches down beside her chair like he surely did a hundred times growing up, checking her over. "They touch you anywhere else?"
"No. Dean got there before it could get worse."
Ranger looks up at me, and there's gratitude in his expression. "Phoenix said you took down all five in under two minutes."
"They threatened my daughter." I say it simply, like that explains everything. Because it does.
"Fair enough." Ranger stands, moves to the table where Mariah is still drawing. "Hey, little dragon rider. What are you making?"
"It's Firecracker again! See?" She holds up her drawing proudly. "And that's Quinn riding with me now because she's part of our adventures."
Ranger glances at the drawing: two figures on a purple dragon, both with enormous smiles, and smirks. He looks at Quinn, then at me, then back at the drawing.
"Quinn's part of your adventures now, huh?" he says slowly.
"Yep! She lives here and reads stories and makes breakfast and she's gonna teach me cool fighting moves when I'm bigger." Mariah says it all in one breath, like it's the most natural progression in the world.
"Fighting moves," Ranger repeats, amused. "That so?"
"When she's older," Quinn clarifies quickly. "Much older."
Ranger straightens, and there's something knowing in his eyes now, something that makes me slightly uncomfortable. "Well. Looks like you're settling in pretty well, Quinnie."
"It's been one day, Ranger."
"Yeah, but it's been a hell of a day." He leans against the counter, arms crossed, and the knowing look intensifies into something almost teasing. "You know, you two would look good together. Just saying."
Quinn's face flushes immediately. "Ranger—"
"I'm just making an observation. As your brother and his club member, I feel qualified to observe these things."
"There's nothing to observe," Quinn says firmly, but her cheeks are still pink, and she won't quite look at me.
"Sure," Ranger says, not buying it for a second. "Nothing at all. Just two people who fit together like they've been doing this for years instead of hours, who just fought off five Vipers as a team, who are currently looking at each other like—"
"Ranger." I cut him off, my own face heating now. "Knock it off."
He grins, unrepentant. "Fine, fine. I'll stop. For now." He pushes off the counter. "Phoenix said you're free for the rest of the day and tonight. No club business, no obligations. He wants you to take the time, be with your daughter, enjoy the fact that everyone's safe."
I blink, surprised. Phoenix doesn't usually give days off in the middle of a war, doesn't usually tell brothers to step back from club business. "He said that?"
"Direct quote: 'Tell Wraith to take the rest of the day and night off and just enjoy this moment with his daughter.'" Ranger's expression softens slightly. "You earned it, man. You kept your family safe. That matters more than patrols or planning sessions. Those can wait until tomorrow."
There's that word again. Family. Ranger using it the same way I did, casually including Quinn like it's already established fact.
"Okay," I say. "Yeah. Thanks."
"No problem." Ranger moves toward the door, pauses, looks back at Quinn. "You good, really? Need anything?"
"I'm good," she says. "Really. Promise."
"Call me if that changes. And Wraith?" He looks at me directly. "Thank you. For protecting her."
"She was protecting Mariah," I point out. "I just backed her up."
"Still." He holds my gaze for a moment longer, brother to brother. Then he's gone, the door closing quietly behind him.
The kitchen feels quieter without him, more intimate somehow. Just the three of us—me and Quinn and Mariah, who's gone back to her drawing like the last ten minutes didn't happen.
"He's not wrong, you know," Quinn says, still not looking at me.
"About what?"
"About you earning this. Time with her. Time to just... breathe."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know how to explain that breathing feels impossible most days, that the constant planning and calculating and staying three steps ahead is the only thing that keeps me from drowning in the weight of single parenthood and club wars.
"What do you want to do?" Quinn asks, and it takes me a second to realize she's asking Mariah, not me.
"Cookies!" Mariah announces immediately, like she's been waiting for someone to ask. "You said we could make cookies."
Quinn smiles. "I did say that. You want to help?"
"Yes!" Mariah abandons her drawing immediately and scrambles out of her chair.
"Alright then. Let's see what your kitchen has to work with." Quinn stands, sets the ice pack aside, and starts opening cabinets like she already knows where everything is.
Which she doesn't, obviously, but she moves through the space with confidence that makes it look like she does.
I should help. Should participate in this domestic moment. Instead, I find myself leaning against the counter watching them, watching Quinn pull out flour and sugar while Mariah bounces excitedly beside her, watching them work together like they've been doing this for years instead of hours.
"You just gonna stand there or you gonna help?" Quinn asks without looking at me, but there's amusement in her voice.
"I'm supervising."
"Supervision is very important," Mariah agrees seriously. "You have to make sure we don't mess up."
"I'm sure you won't mess up," I say, moving to join them anyway because standing on the sidelines watching my life happen feels wrong somehow.
Quinn hands me a mixing bowl. "You're on egg duty. Mariah, you want to measure the flour?"
"I can do it!" She takes the measuring cup Quinn offers with both hands.
We work together in the kitchen that suddenly feels too small and exactly the right size all at once.
Mariah measures flour with intense concentration, getting half of it in the bowl and half on the counter.
Quinn cracks eggs with one hand, a skill that makes Mariah gasp in admiration, and I mix everything together while trying not to think about how natural this feels, how right.
How much I want it to be real.
Quinn catches me staring again and raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"Nothing. Just..." I gesture vaguely at the scene. "This is nice."
"It is nice." She says it simply, like it's just a fact, like there's nothing complicated about a single dad, his daughter and the woman he hired yesterday making cookies together after fighting off five Vipers.
Maybe there isn't. Maybe I'm the one making it complicated by overthinking everything, by trying to plan three steps ahead when sometimes you just need to be present in the moment you're in.
Mariah steals a fingerful of cookie dough and grins at me, chocolate chips smeared on her chin, completely unrepentant.
"I saw that," I tell her.
"It's for quality control," she says, parroting something she must've heard on a cooking show.
"Can't argue with quality control," Quinn chuckles and says, swiping her own fingerful of dough and popping it in her mouth.
I should probably enforce the rule about not eating raw dough. Should be the responsible parent who makes sure everything gets baked properly. Instead, I reach into the bowl myself, taste the sweet dough, and share a grin with both of them.
For just this moment, there's no war. No Vipers regrouping and planning retaliation. No next threat to calculate or contingency to map out.
There's just this: flour on the counter, chocolate on my daughter's chin, Quinn's laugh still echoing in my kitchen, and the fragile peace of knowing everyone I care about is safe and happy.
"Daddy?" Mariah tugs on my shirt. "Can Quinn stay forever?"
"We'll see, baby girl," I say, because it's the only answer I can give right now that's honest. "We'll see."
But watching Quinn help Mariah roll cookie dough into perfect balls, watching them work together like they've always belonged in each other's lives, I know what I want the answer to be.
I know exactly what I want.
The question is whether I'm brave enough to reach for it.