Chapter One #3
And somehow he nailed it, because anything bigger than that probably would have cracked something open in me that I’m barely holding together.
I nod, still holding onto the composure I’ve been forcing into place since the second those floodlights came on.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m aware I probably look strangely calm for a woman sitting on the floor of a dark office with her back pressed against a desk and adrenaline still tearing through her bloodstream.
But I’ve always been good at looking okay when I’m not.
It’s a survival skill at this point.
One I learned the hard way after the Alliance, after those rooms and those men and everything they did to me in them, that I avoid thinking about whenever humanly possible.
Put-together is armor.
Put-together gets things done.
With a hint of a smile, he extends his hand to me.
It’s not a gesture of assistance, or the mechanical offer of help that someone makes when they want to move a situation along.
He simply holds his hand out, open, and waits, and the gentleness of it hits me somewhere underneath the armor in a place I wasn’t entirely expecting.
And I take it.
The second our hands connect, my breath hitches, those damn fireworks igniting inside my chest like they always do whenever we touch.
He pulls me to my feet with an ease that makes the whole thing feel effortless, and for a moment after I’m standing, the geometry of the room arranges itself so that we are very close together in the dark, his hand still closed around mine, bringing him level with me in the low light.
I am aware of the warmth of his palm against my fingers.
I am also aware that I haven’t let go yet.
I also become aware that he notices.
And yet, he doesn’t pull away.
He doesn’t shift his weight or make a small, polite adjustment of any kind. Instead, he stays where he is, holding my hand, looking at me in the silence of my father’s office for one beat longer than the situation strictly requires.
Outside, engines rumble low in the yard, boots crunch on gravel, and voices carry faintly through the open night air. Reality pulls back into place.
Regretfully, I release his hand and straighten the folder under my arm.
“Come on,” Will says softly.
We step out into the cold Nevada air. The yard is alive with movement. Bikes idle under the floodlights, their engines rumbling deep and steady. The brothers spread across the property in a relaxed sweeping pattern, some checking the fence line, others scanning the dark edges of the mine yard.
Sin stands near the gate, talking quietly with Ghost beside one of the bikes.
The moment Sin sees me, the conversation stops, and he walks straight toward us.
His eyes sweep over me once, quick and assessing, taking inventory the way men like him always do.
“You all right, Millie?” he asks. The question is simple, but the weight behind it isn’t.
I nod. “Yeah.”
His gaze doesn’t leave my face. “They get anywhere near you?”
“No. I saw them from the office window. Called you right away.”
He studies me for another second, clearly deciding whether he believes that answer is the whole truth. “They touch anything?” he asks.
“Not that I saw. They were photographing the fence line, the maintenance shed. Mapping things out, I think.”
Ghost grunts softly beside him, already pulling his phone from his pocket. “Dashcam caught the plates,” he says.
Sin nods once. “Good.” His attention shifts back to me. “You sure they didn’t get close?”
“I’m sure.”
Only then does something in his posture ease. “All right,” he says. “We’ll sweep the property and make sure nothing else got compromised.”
Will steps forward beside me. “I’ll take her back home.” It comes out more as a statement than an offer.
Sin glances between us, the look in his eyes briefly unreadable, then he nods. “Yeah, good. Deek can bring her car back.”
From somewhere behind us, Deek calls out, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be the hero.”
Will gestures toward the truck parked near the office. “Let’s get you outta here.”
I nod and fall into step beside him while we cross the gravel yard. The floodlights cast long shadows across the ground, bikes still idling nearby while a few of the brothers move along the fence line, beginning their sweep of the property.
The cold night air bites at my lungs while we walk, the adrenaline still humming faintly through my system.
Will reaches the truck first and pulls open the passenger door, stepping back so I can climb in.
The metal step creaks under my boot as I haul myself into the seat, and the familiar smell of dust and leather wraps around me the moment the door shuts.
A second later, Will rounds the hood and slides into the driver’s seat.
The engine rumbles to life, deep and steady, and we pull away from the office while the club falls into motion around us.
The ride home is smooth and unhurried, the bikes spreading themselves around the truck in the easy formation of an escort that knows the roads. I sit in the passenger seat of Will’s truck and watch the mine property get smaller in the side mirror.
The floodlights are still blazing over the east fence line.
Someone will deal with them.
The club will sweep the property.
Ghost will pull the video.
Sin will make calls.
The machinery of it all moves without me, and I am grateful for that tonight.
I look down at the folder on my lap. My father’s documents, the reason I was there, the reason any of this happened tonight, are sitting in a manila folder with a rubber band around them and my father’s handwriting on the tab.
I haven’t opened it.
I promised myself I wouldn’t open it.
It wasn’t my business until my father decided it was, and for the last few weeks, I’ve been forcing myself to respect that line, even while the weight of it pressed harder on me every single day.
But those two men with their phones and their photographs and their patient, methodical survey of the McClane Mining property weren’t a coincidence.
They weren’t curious. They were preparing for something, and whatever it was was connected to something, and I think the answer to why they were there is sitting in my lap.
I stare out through the windshield while the highway tears out ahead of us beneath the headlights, endless dark desert broken only by the glow of passing signs and the low growl of the engine beneath my feet.
Beside me, Will drives with that same grounded steadiness that seems wired into him.
One hand loose on the wheel, his eyes sharp and completely locked in.
Just a solid, dependable presence that makes everything around him feel a little less likely to fall apart.
Tonight, I let the mine disappear into the darkness behind us while I sit in the warmth of the truck cab, trying to breathe around the weight of everything sitting in my lap. The unanswered questions, the documents, the fear—all of it.
Tomorrow will come soon enough.
And for the first time tonight, I stop trying to outrun it.