Chapter 6
I push through the door to Brick's office with my ribs screaming at me to stop moving. The taste of my own blood lingers on my tongue, a familiar reminder of consequences.
The room goes quiet.
Five men, five cuts, five pairs of eyes taking in the damage.
The fluorescent light buzzes overhead, casting harsh shadows across weathered faces and battle-scarred knuckles.
Nobody asks if I'm okay.
That's not how this works.
Questions about pain are for civilians, for people who haven't chosen this life. Inside these walls, wounds are just evidence of commitment.
I plant my boots on the hardwood floor, shoulders carrying the weight of my cut that feels heavier than usual.
"Savannah stays," I say, voice rough, but absolutely resolute. "Forty-eight hours. Inside these walls. Under my cut and my personal guard."
Not a request or a suggestion—a statement of fucking fact.
I don't really have the right to make this demand, but I do it anyway.
The club hierarchy has rules, chains of command that don't bend for personal vendettas or old flames, but Savannah's place here needs to be established immediately.
As in, right fucking now, before anyone has time to think about what her presence means.
Brick doesn't move from behind his desk.
Just fixes me with those ice-chip eyes that haven't blinked since I walked in.
His fingers rest on the scarred wood, steady as stone.
The silence stretches like a rubber band about to snap, tension building in the stale air that reeks of cigarettes, gun oil, and old leather.
Then everyone talks at once.
"You bring her straight here? Any trackers?
Burner phones?" Roach paces the three steps his lanky frame allows in the cramped space.
His fingers twitch like they're looking for a trigger, nervous energy radiating off him in waves.
"Those Ashby fuckers got resources. Satellite. Private security. They could be—"
"Unbudgeted liability." Ledger slams his ledger book closed. The sound cracks through the room like a gunshot. His glasses catch the light as he glares at me over the rims. "A fucking Ashby on our property? You know what that costs us? In legal exposure alone—"
"Gate's soft tonight." Havoc doesn't look at me, just stares at the map on the wall, fingers tracing invisible routes across the terrain he knows better than his own face. "Two prospects, green as grass. If Ashby riders show up, we're fifteen minutes from full strength, minimum."
Diesel says nothing. Just moves three steps to stand at my back, arms crossed over his chest like steel beams. I feel the shift in the room's gravity.
Whatever else these men think about me bringing Savannah here, my sergeant at arms has just made his position clear.
Blood for blood, brother for brother.
My ribs throb with each heartbeat, a metronome of pain keeping time with my racing thoughts. The brand on my chest feels like it's burning all over again, the memory of the hot iron and pledged loyalty searing through skin and muscle.
But I start talking because everyone's nervous and no one needs that.
In this room, fear is contagious, and right now, I need these men steady, not spooked.
So I take a slow breath and let the pain keep me focused and present.
I need that now more than ever—this sharp, relentless reminder that I'm still here, still standing despite everything this world has tried to do to break me.
"Let me spell out what happened." My voice stays level, quiet even.
Not because I'm calm—because I'm so fucking far beyond rage that I've circled back to something that looks like peace.
It's that dangerous stillness that comes when you've passed through the fire and emerged as something harder, colder, more focused than before.
"Savannah and I were having sex out at this silo where we always hook up. Cash, Wyatt, and Marcus White Jr.—Senator White’s son—showed up with ranch hands. They beat me until I couldn't stand, kidnapped me, and tied me to a support beam in a hunting cabin. Savannah—"
I have to stop, swallow the blood that's pooling under my tongue. The metallic taste floods my mouth, bringing back memories of The Pit, of fights where I learned to keep going even when my body begged to quit.
"Marcus took her to another cabin on the Ashby land. Kept her tied to a bed for three days. Drugged her. Did things I'm still putting together."
The room goes still.
Even Roach stops fidgeting.
The air changes, thickens with a tension I recognize—the collective rage of men who understand exactly what I'm not saying, who know what happens to women in cabins where no one can hear them scream.
"Colt Ashby broke ranks. Got me out. Brought horses.
" I press my palm against my side where something's definitely broken inside.
Each breath sends jagged shards of pain through my ribs, but I keep my face blank, unreadable.
"We rode to the cabin where Savannah was.
Found Marcus standing over her with a syringe.
I beat him until Colt pulled me off and shot him with a tranq gun. "
Havoc nods once, his eyes meeting mine. He understands exactly what I'm not saying. He knows what I did to Marcus so far has nothing to do with what I will still do to him when this is all over.
"We didn’t have no phones on us. So no one tracked us that way.
We didn’t have any vehicles, we crossed Ashby land on horseback.
So they didn’t track us that way either.
We went straight to the trailer and I made exactly one call on the landline.
" I point to the floor beneath us, to the clubhouse that's become more home than the trailer ever was.
"I called here. Colt took the horses back to the ranch and told me he was gonna handle his brothers. "
"And the senator's son?" Brick finally speaks, each word measured like expensive whiskey, poured with deliberate precision. His steel eyes track every twitch of my face, reading the truth beneath my words.
"Alive." The word tastes like failure. "No bodies. No murder charges. No federal spotlight on Badlands before the next gun run."
Ledger snorts, tapping his pen against the desk. The rhythmic click-click-click counts down the seconds until my fate is decided. "Alive doesn't mean whole. What's the tangible cost to us? Hard numbers."
I reach into my pocket, fingers finding the rubber-banded stack that Brick handed me just weeks ago. Prison payout. New life money. The cash that was meant to give me and Mercy a fresh start away from everything we came from.
I peel the rubber band off and place the stack on the desk with steady hands that don't betray how much this costs me.
"You guys can take whatever's left of my stack. Dock whatever you need for security costs, additional men, whatever fines the club sees fit." I don't blink, don't hesitate. Nothing matters except keeping Savannah here, under my protection. "This buys her safety until we figure out the next steps."
The pounding in my head intensifies, matching the throbbing in my ribs. My mouth is blood and the edges of my vision are starting to blur, darkness creeping in like the shadows that always seem to find me.
I really need a drink right now. Something strong enough to dull this fire burning through my side, to quiet the screaming demon in my head.
But this business needs settling first.
The club comes before comfort. Always has.
I plant my feet wider, lock my knees to keep from swaying. The floor seems to tilt beneath me, but I refuse to show weakness.
Not here. Not now. "So. Are we good?"
Brick still doesn't look satisfied. His eyes narrow to winter slits, the kind of cold that kills men who underestimate it.
The money I've thrown down—my whole future—isn't enough.
I can see it in the way his jaw works, grinding thoughts between his teeth like he's processing something bitter and unpalatable.
"There's more," I say, the words scraping out of me like they're made of barbed wire and desperation. "The Ashbys owe me now."
I feel Diesel shift his weight behind me, leather creaking as his massive frame adjusts. This is new information to him too. I can practically hear the gears turning in his head, calculating what this means for the club.
"Cash and Wyatt know. They know this isn’t over.
I will…” I sigh. Tired. Hating that I have to make this promise.
“I will give up my right to vengeance for the sake of the Club. I will smooth it all over. They’re old money.
They’re used to this kind of bargaining.
It’s a second language to them. It’s a game, ya know? If I want in, they’ll play."
Brick's expression doesn't change, but I see the thinking going on behind his eyes—cold, precise arithmetic of power and leverage.
His face might be stone, but his mind is always counting.
"And Marcus White Jr.—the senator's boy—" I add. "He's tranquilized but breathing. He’s obviously a psychopath. But his father has a name to protect. You know how boys like that are. In the shadow they rise, in the shadow they fall. Nothin’s gonna happen. I’m gonna make sure of it."
The room pulses with my heartbeat, or maybe it's just the blood rushing in my ears. The fluorescent light above us flickers once, casting momentary shadows across Brick's weathered face.
"Hell,” I say, ready to sweeten the deal.
“Maybe it’s a blessin’ that those Ashby boys lost their fuckin minds?
That I live rent free in their heads? I mean, there’s gotta be at least a dozen back-door gun corridors through Ashby land, right?
" I've got their full attention now. Kidnapping me isn’t enough to put it all on the line. Torturing my woman, not even close.
But securing a new route? One that’s not on any map? Yeah. That’s somethin’ they can get behind. That’s worth certain high-risk situations.
I'm not sure I mean it. Even less sure I could actually deliver it.
But I'll say anything right now to keep Savannah here with me, to build a fortress around her that not even Ashby money can break through.
Brick drums his fingertips against the desk, a slow rhythm that matches the throb in my broken ribs. His eyes never leave mine, searching for weakness, for lies, for the faintest trace of bullshit.
Looking at him, meeting his gaze, takes more strength than I have right now. But he cannot sense weakness or it's over. So I hold as the seconds tick off, one by one, until we’re way up in the double digits.
"Level-Two lock down until dawn," he finally says, each word a stone dropped into still water, creating ripples that will change everything.
"Havoc, post two extra riflemen at the gate.
Anyone approaches, they get one warning shot.
Roach, I want our surveillance feeds scrubbed clean—nothing has come in, nothing's gone out in the last seventy-two hours. Ledger—"
Ledger's pen stops its nervous tapping against his notepad.
"Fine him a thousand for seventy-two hours of radio silence." Brick's eyes narrow as they slide up to meet mine. "And for dragging club resources into a personal war." His voice is flat, emotionless, but I can practically hear his thoughts.
He knows exactly what he's taking from me.
A thousand dollars I don't have anymore, not after emptying my pockets on his desk.
Ledger starts scribbling on a piece of paper, then comes at me with a knife. I open my palm, he cuts it, then I place my opposite thumb in the pool of blood and press it to the IOU. "Done," I say. Looking Brick in the eyes as he scoops up my twenty grand. "Now. Are we good?"
Brick holds my gaze as he hands my stash over to Ledger.
"You get one night. That's it. I hope she's worth it, Kane.
" Then he adds, "Dawn church," as he pushes back from his desk.
"Full table vote on the Ashby girl's status.
Whether she stays or goes. Whether she's yours to protect or just another problem we need to bury. "
I finally breathe again, feeling my lungs fill up after having forgotten how to breath.
One night.
It's better than nothing.