Chapter 12
London
I push through the door of Kings Auto Shop, a brown paper bag clutched in one hand and two bottles of iced tea in the other.
Zeus is bent over the exposed engine of a custom Harley, his back to me, a wrench in his grip. His t-shirt is streaked with grease, pulled tight across his shoulders as he works. Music plays from a speaker on the workbench—classic rock, a heavy guitar riff.
I watch him for a moment. The way his hands move, the way his body shifts with easy confidence. This is his domain. Here, surrounded by chrome and steel and half-finished builds, the tension he carries everywhere else drains out of him.
"You gonna stand there all day, or you gonna bring me that food?"
I jump. He hasn't turned around.
"How did you know I was here?"
He straightens, tossing the wrench onto the workbench, and faces me. A grin spreads across his face—slow, crooked, devastating. "Heard you breathing."
"That's creepy."
"That's awareness." He crosses the distance between us in three strides, hooks an arm around my waist, and hauls me against him. His mouth finds mine before I can protest about the grease.
His free hand cups the back of my head, tilting me where he wants me, and I melt into his kiss the way I've melted into every kiss the past couple of weeks.
“I brought you lunch," I mumble against his lips.
"I see that." He doesn't let go. His thumb strokes the strip of bare skin between my shirt and jeans. "What'd you bring me?"
"Turkey club. Chips. Iced tea."
"Perfect." Another kiss—harder, deeper—before he releases me and takes the bag.
He drops onto a rolling stool and pulls me onto his lap sideways, one arm banding my waist while the other unwraps the sandwich. I loop my arms around his neck and look around the shop.
Three bikes are in various stages of transformation. The one he was working on is stripped down to its skeleton—frame and engine exposed, waiting to be reborn.
"What's that one going to be?" I nod toward it.
"Custom chopper. Extended forks, lowered seat, hand-stitched leather." He takes a huge bite of his sandwich and talks around it. "Client wants matte black with gold pinstriping."
"Sounds gorgeous."
"It will be." He presses his greasy lips to my temple, and I swat at him, laughing.
"You're getting me filthy!”
“I like you filthy.” His eyes gleam, possessive and playful all at once.
I steal a chip from his bag. "I'm going shopping with the girls this afternoon. Rowan wants to hit up a vintage store."
"Take my card." He shifts, reaching for his back pocket without dislodging me from his lap.
"I have some money—"
"London." One word, one look. The kind that says this isn't a negotiation.
I accept the card, choosing to pick my battles.
He finishes eating with me still perched on his lap, and I rest my head against his shoulder, watching dust motes drift through the shafts of light from the high windows. I'm content and safe and happy in a way I didn't think would ever be possible.
"I should let you get back to work." I press a kiss to his jaw.
"Mm." His arm tightens. "Five more minutes."
We take ten.
The afternoon with the girls is wonderful—vintage finds, terrible coffee from a corner shop, and Kayla making us try on ridiculous hats until we're all doubled over in laughter. I buy a soft flannel shirt and a pair of earrings that catch the light.
When I push through the clubhouse door, shopping bags looped over my wrist, I’m still smiling from a joke Rowan told in the car.
The main room is mostly empty. A couple of prospects are wiping down the bar. Music plays low from the speakers. I'm heading toward the stairs when a voice stops me.
"Well, well. The freeloader’s back."
Kandi leans against the wall near the hallway entrance, a glass of something that looks like wine in her hand, her platinum hair cascading over one bare shoulder. She's alone. No audience. No brothers in earshot.
I keep walking. "Not interested, Kandi."
"Oh, I think you will be." She pushes off the wall, stepping into my path. Her smile is razor-thin. "Interested in the truth, I mean."
Something about the way she says it sends an icy chill through me. I stop.
"What are you talking about?”
Her head tilts, eyes bright with malice. “I’m talking about your daddy."
My fingers tighten on the shopping bags. "I already know he's dead."
"Sure. But do you know why?" She takes a sip from her cup, savoring the moment. “Fiend wasn't just some member who caught a bullet in a bar fight, sweetheart. He was a rat."
The word drops like a stone into water.
"A traitor," she continues, leaning closer. "Sold this entire club out to a Colombian drug cartel. Got brothers killed. Nearly got the president's old lady murdered." She watches my face with hungry satisfaction. "Everyone in this club hated him. Still do."
My lungs refuse to expand. The shopping bags feel like they weigh a hundred pounds each.
"Aw." Kandi pouts, her eyes glittering. "Nobody told you? How tragic. Everybody knows. You’re the rat’s daughter.”
The hallway tilts. I grab the wall.
"And you know who was hurt the most by dear old daddy’s betrayal?” Kandi's voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “His bestie, Zeus. He was devastated. Destroyed.”
I don't give her the satisfaction of watching me react. I push past her—my shoulder catching hers hard enough to make her stumble and spill some of her wine—as I half-run back outside. The bags smack against my legs with each step. My vision blurs at the edges.
All three of them—Rowan, Sarah, and Kayla—are still in the parking lot chatting.
Their smiles drop the moment they glance my way and see the look on my face.
“Is it true? Was my father a traitor to this club?" My voice is a blade.
No one speaks, but their expressions tell me everything. Rowan takes a step toward me. Sarah closes the trunk of her car.
"London—" Kayla starts.
“And you all knew?”
"Yes." Rowan's voice is quiet. "We knew."
The confirmation lands like a fist to the sternum. My knees feel weak.
“We didn't want to hurt you," Sarah says. "Zeus asked us to let him be the one to tell you. He wanted to do it when you were ready—"
"When I was ready?!” A laugh scrapes out of me. "I've been here over a week. When exactly was I going to be 'ready' to hear that my father was a—a—"
I can't say it. The word traitor sticks in my throat like broken glass.
Rowan pulls out her phone. I watch her thumbs move across the screen urgently.
"London, please," Kayla says, reaching for me. "Let us explain—"
"London—" Zeus races across the lot toward us, his chest heaving, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Obviously, he’s who Rowan was texting. He must have sprinted from the shop. His eyes find me, and his expression fractures—guilt and dread and desperation all at once.
"When were you going to tell me?" My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes. "That my father was an enemy? That he betrayed this club?" I have to swallow before I can finish. “How can you even stand to look at me?”
I'm vaguely aware of the three women slipping away without a word—Rowan reaches out to touch my shoulder as she passes, then thinks better of it and pulls her hand away.
Then it's just us.
Zeus doesn't move. His hands hang at his sides, and his face carries the look of a man who's been dreading this moment.
“Let’s sit down," he motions to a picnic table nearby. "I'll tell you everything."
"I don't want to sit—"
"London. Please."
The rawness in his voice, the plea buried beneath the command, makes me reconsider. My feet carry me over to the wooden plank bench. I sit. Zeus sits across from me.
And he tells me the whole story.
Fiend's gambling debts. The cartel approaching him. How it apparently started small—schedules, routes—then escalated. Tank and Biggy, two prospects, murdered outside the warehouse where they hold cage-fighting matches.
And my father fed them information that nearly tore the club apart from the inside.
His voice doesn't waver. He doesn't make excuses for my father, but he doesn't vilify him beyond the facts either.
Then he tells me about Rowan. About how my father kidnapped her, drove her to a cliff, intending to throw her off and kill her to destabilize the club.
"We tracked them," Zeus says. His hands are flat on the picnic table, palms down, like he's anchoring himself.
"I rode beside Chaos. When we got there, Fiend had a gun on Rowan.
" He makes a gun with his thumb and index finger and presses it to his temple.
"Chaos stepped out to distract him. Fiend shifted—pointed the weapon at Chaos instead of Rowan. I had a clear shot, and…"
He meets my eyes. "I don’t miss. Ever.”
I stare at him, not knowing what to say, how to react.
“I killed your father, London. I pulled the trigger and put a bullet right between his eyes."
My father was trying to murder an innocent woman, Rowan, my friend.
And Zeus killed him. He killed my dad.
It’s so hard to reconcile all this—Zeus held me through the night. He shared stories of the time he spent with my father. He made me laugh, made me come, and made me feel.
Being close to Zeus, along with getting to know Rowan, Kayla, and Sarah—for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged somewhere.
I press my palms against my eyes. I can't organize a single coherent thought. They all crash into each other a million miles a minute.
"I need space." The words come out muffled behind my hands. "I need to think."
"Okay." He nods. “I understand.”
I feel his eyes on me as I get up, gather my shopping bags, and stumble to the clubhouse, but I don’t meet his stare. I can’t even look at him.
There are empty rooms now that the visiting club has left, and I enter one that’s two doors down from his. The bed is made with fresh sheets. Someone left a water bottle on the nightstand.
I sit on the edge of the mattress with my duffel at my feet.
I'm not angry at Zeus. How could I be? He did what any loyal brother would do. What any good man would do when an innocent life hung in the balance.
Granted, he didn’t tell me. He let me walk around this club as though I belonged, as though my father was someone important in this club, while everyone but me knew the truth. But I’m not even mad about that.
The problem isn't Zeus.
The problem is me.
My father—the man whose blood runs in my veins—was the worst thing that ever happened to this club. He got brothers killed. He nearly killed Rowan. He betrayed every person who ever trusted him.
And I'm his daughter.
I showed up at these gates with nothing but his name in my pocket. I thought I was let in, that I was welcomed, because being Fiend's child gave me a right to be here.
But Fiend didn't earn rights. He forfeited them. Any connection to him isn't a bridge—it's a stain.
I’m the daughter of the club's most hated traitor. I don’t understand how Zeus can stand to look at me—how any of them can.
How long before the whispers start? Before brothers who respect Zeus question his judgment? Before my presence becomes a constant reminder of the man who stabbed him in the back?
I’ll hurt him just by existing in his world.
I can't do that to him.
The decision crystallizes with a cold, sharp clarity that leaves no room for debate.
I hoist my duffel over my shoulder.
The compound is quiet when I slip out. The prospect at the gate glances at me, then at my bag.
He cocks a brow as if to ask me if I’m going somewhere.
“If Zeus asks,” I keep my voice steady. "Tell him I'm safe. Tell him—" My throat closes. "Tell him I'm sorry."
The prospect nods, uncertain but not authorized to stop me.
I walk through the gate feeling like my heart is being shredded with each step I take away from the man I love.