Epilogue
X stared at his reflection in the bunkhouse mirror and hated every inch of what he saw.
The black Henley was too tight across the shoulders. The jacket—leather, vintage, the one he’d spent actual money on—hung wrong no matter how he adjusted it. His hair, which had looked perfectly tousled five minutes ago, now looked like he’d slept in a wind tunnel.
“Puta madre,” he muttered, and tried finger-combing it for the third time.
River leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, grinning like a man who’d just found the last piece of a puzzle. “You look like shit.”
“You look like someone who’s about to get his face rearranged.”
“Threatening the guy who’s driving you to town? Bold strategy.” River pushed off the frame and sauntered into the room. “Where’s the big night happening?”
“Restaurant in Solace.” X turned back to the mirror, gave up on his hair, and adjusted his collar. “Nothing fancy. Nothing she’ll think is trying too hard.”
“Mariah Duval? The woman who ironed her jeans for a barn dance? She’s absolutely going to think you’re trying too hard.” River dropped onto X’s bunk, setting off a chorus of springs. “Which is good. She should.”
X shot him a look. River’s grin widened.
The nerves had been building since noon.
X had changed shirts three times. Checked his phone every ten minutes.
Walked past the main house twice without going in because Johanna would have taken one look at him and known exactly what was happening, and he couldn’t handle that kind of quiet, maternal assessment right now.
Not when his palms were sweating through a jacket that cost more than his first motorcycle.
His phone buzzed on the dresser. He lunged for it.
Don’t be late.
Two words from Mariah. No emoji. No softening. Just the command, delivered in the same crisp tone she used when telling Tate to brush his teeth or informing a customer that yes, the peonies were seasonal, and no, she couldn’t magic them out of thin air in February.
X’s thumb hovered over the screen. A dozen responses died before they reached his fingers. He settled for On my way, added a thumbs-up for good measure, and locked the phone before he could second-guess himself.
“She text you?” River asked.
“She told me not to be late.”
River barked a laugh. “Of course she did.”
“It’s endearing.”
“It’s terrifying. You’ve got it bad.”
X didn’t argue. He’d had it bad since the first time Mariah Duval had looked at him across the table in the kitchen at Nessie’s Place and decided, visibly, that he wasn’t worth her time. He’d spent months proving her wrong.
Tonight was supposed to be the thing that came after all that.
Dinner. Conversation. No wedding reception, no missing sisters, no Sons of Sin hunting through the timber.
Just a table and good food and Mariah’s hand maybe finding his, and X allowing himself to believe that some things in his life could be simple.
He grabbed his keys. Checked his wallet. Made sure the small velvet box in his jacket pocket hadn’t shifted—not a ring, Jesus Christ, he wasn’t that far gone, just earrings he’d found in Missoula, silver and understated, the kind of thing Mariah would pretend not to like and wear every day anyway.
“Keys,” River said, holding out his hand. “I’m driving. You’re in no state.”
“I can drive.”
“You drove into a ditch last week because Troubadour farted and you thought it was a gunshot.”
“Extenuating circumstances. The last few weeks have been stressful.”
“I’m your DD so hand them over, pendejo.”
“Aw, c’mon, you can’t call me that. You’re white-bread white. It doesn’t work.” X tossed the keys.
River caught them one-handed, still grinning, and followed X out into the yard.
Evening had settled over Valor Ridge cool and clear, the mountains going purple at the edges, the security lamps throwing long shadows across the dirt.
Walker’s house glowed yellow through its windows.
Boone’s cabin was dark—the man had finally surrendered to Bear’s medical tyranny and was sleeping off whatever painkillers had been shoved down his throat.
Evander’s truck sat near the barn. He’d driven down from the mountain that morning, brought Rainey with him, and the two of them had disappeared into the main house for a long time.
X could only guess what they were talking to Walker about, but imagined they wanted to refurbish one of the guest cabins on the outskirts of the ranch just like Jax and Nessie, like Anson and Maggie.
Maybe in a few months, he and Mariah would be asking the same of Walker.
Kavik materialized from the shadows and planted himself in X’s path, ears up, tongue lolling, radiating the annoyance of a dog who had figured out his human was dressed up and therefore leaving.
“Not tonight, hermanito.” X scratched behind the husky’s ears. “You’ll eat the tablecloth. Again.”
Kavik whined. Dropped onto his haunches and assumed the expression of profound betrayal that had earned him two million TikTok views and a sponsorship from a dog treat company.
“Go find Goose. He’s sadder than you are.”
River was already in the driver’s seat of X’s truck, engine running.
X climbed in. The cab smelled like leather and the pine air freshener he’d hung from the mirror.
River pulled out of the yard, gravel popping under the tires, and aimed them down the long driveway toward the gate. “You nervous?”
“No.”
“You’re bouncing your knee.”
X stopped bouncing his knee. “I’m not nervous. I’m anticipatory.”
“Anticipatory.” River snorted. “Big word for a guy who once described tequila as ‘the good burny juice.’”
“Fuck off and drive.”
The headlights cut twin cones through the gathering dark. The gate stood at the end of the driveway, electronic, operated by a remote clipped to the sun visor. River slowed as they approached, reached for the remote.
The van had appeared from nowhere.
It screeched up to Valor Ridge’s entrance, its headlights off.
X’s skin prickled with warning, and he reached for his hip. No weapon. He’d left it in the bunkhouse. Date night. Civilian clothes. The one night he’d decided not to carry, and the universe, being the universe, had immediately arranged a test.
“River,” he said.
River saw it. His hand froze on the remote. The gate stayed closed.
The van slowed. Stopped. Its brake lights flared red in the darkness, painting the gravel in blood-colored light.
The side door slid open.
A body hit the dirt, one arm bent beneath him at an angle that made X’s stomach turn.
The van’s engine revved. Tires spun. Gravel sprayed.
Then it was gone, taillights shrinking to pinpricks and vanishing around the bend, and the night went quiet except for the sound of X’s own heartbeat hammering in his ears.
He was out of the truck before River had killed the engine.
Blood. A lot of blood. It had pooled beneath the man, black in the security lamps’ glow, seeping into the gravel.
X dropped to his knees and rolled the man onto his back.
Creed Calder. Or what was left of him. He looked like something fed through machinery and spit out the other side as hamburger.
His face was swollen and bloodied, his nose flattened and crusted with dried blood.
His lip had been busted so thoroughly that X could see teeth through the tear.
One eye was swollen completely closed; the other, half-open, tracked nothing, the pupil blown wide and unresponsive.
His throat bore bruises in the distinct pattern of fingers.
His shirt—what remained of it—was dark and stiff with blood, torn in long strips across the chest where someone had worked him over with something that wasn’t fists.
“Jesus Christ,” River breathed. He’d come up behind X, phone already out, dialing. “Walker. Yeah. Gate. Now. It’s Creed. They dumped him. He’s—” River’s voice cracked. “He’s fucked up, man. Really fucked up.”
X pressed two fingers to Creed’s carotid.
The pulse was there—thin, thready, skipping beats like a faulty engine.
Creed’s chest rose and fell in shallow, ragged pulls.
Each breath produced a wet, clicking sound that X had heard before, in places he tried not to remember, and knew it meant the Grim Reaper was near.
“Ambulance,” X said. “Now. Tell them massive trauma, multiple fractures, probable internal bleeding.” He was already stripping off his jacket, balling it up, pressing it against the worst of the bleeding on Creed’s chest. The fabric went dark immediately.
Warm. Slick. “And call Brandt. He needs to know.”
River was already on it, voice steady despite the way his hands shook. X kept pressure on the wound. Creed’s skin was cold. Shock setting in, or blood loss, or both. His one working eye had fixed on something beyond X’s shoulder—the sky, maybe, or nothing at all.
“Stay with me, cabrón,” X said. He leaned closer. “You hear me? Stay the fuck awake.”
Creed’s eye drifted. Found X’s face. Held. Something moved behind the swelling—recognition, maybe, or the ghost of it. His mouth worked. No sound came out. Just a bubble of blood that popped on his split lip.
X’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
He ignored it. Adjusted the jacket, found a new angle of pressure. Creed’s breathing had gone even shallower. The wet sound had gotten worse.
The phone buzzed again. And again.
River was pacing, phone to his ear, running through symptoms with someone on the other end—Bear, probably, or dispatch.
His voice had taken on that clipped, controlled quality that meant he was holding it together by sheer force of will.
Behind him, headlights swept across the yard as Walker’s truck barreled down the driveway.
X’s phone kept buzzing.
He shifted his weight. Kept one hand pressed to Creed’s chest. With the other, he fished the phone from his pocket, thumbed it open without looking.
Mariah. Three messages.
X?
Where are you?
Are you still coming?
The screen glowed in the dark. X stared at it. Creed’s blood was warm on his palm. Somewhere in the distance, the first faint wail of a siren cut through the night.