Chapter 7 #2
Landon closes the folder and tucks it under his arm. “I’ll call Brynn on my way back.”
Logan nods. “Tell her I’m coming by later.”
“I figured.”
Landon looks toward me on his way to the door. “You heading out?”
“Yeah.”
“Ambrosia run?”
I nod once.
He doesn’t say anything else, but there’s a look there. Brief. Measured. He knows I heard more than was said in the room, same as he did. He just filters different.
After he leaves, it’s only me and Logan.
The smoke sits thicker with fewer bodies in here, curling under the yellow light overhead.
Somewhere outside the room a kid laughs, high and bright and gone just as fast, probably one of the little terrors running wild through the clubhouse.
The sound doesn’t fit the room. Makes the contrast sharper.
Family life outside.
Potential war inside.
Normal.
Logan finally looks at me. “You think I’m wrong to keep this tight?”
“No.”
“Think I’m wrong to say lay low?”
I push off the wall. My back loosens with the movement, not much, just enough. “Depends how men hear it.”
His mouth pulls grim. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Then tell them twice.”
He huffs a humorless laugh. “Yeah.” Logan watches me like he’s deciding whether to say something else. He does. “If you see something off tonight—”
“I’ll handle it.”
He stares at me for a beat. “That’s not what I said.”
“I know.”
“You planning to ignore me already?”
I meet his eyes. “If I see something off, I’ll handle it smart.”
That’s the best he’s getting.
Logan studies me long enough to make clear he knows exactly what I mean by smart. Which is that if something feels wrong, I’m not riding away from it because a meeting ended with a reminder to be careful. He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ. Why do I bother with you?”
“Habit.”
That gets the ghost of a grin out of him, gone as quick as it came. “Get the money and come back.”
I turn toward the door. “That’s the plan.”
“Cobra.” I pause. His voice hardens again. “We have enough heat.”
I look back over my shoulder. “Then let’s hope nobody adds to it.”
His stare holds mine for a second, then he gives one short nod.
Conversation over.
I step out of church into the hallway, and the change in air hits immediately.
More space. More noise. Life moving. The clubhouse is full enough tonight that the place breathes around me, women talking in the common room, a television running somewhere, glass clinking, one of the prospects laughing too loud before another voice cuts him off.
The smell changes too, smoke giving way to food, liquor, old wood, and the lived-in scent of too many people sharing the same walls. I move through it without slowing.
Casey flies past the end of the hallway with Amy on her heels, both of them talking over each other about something that sounds like the end of the world in teenage girl language. Neither looks my way.
Good.
A second later Knox tears after them for no reason except he’s two and apparently believes chaos is a calling, with Remy close behind and Mason screaming something that probably makes sense only to other little feral things.
Mac shouts for them to stop running before they bust their asses, and somewhere in the middle of that I hear one of the men mutter that the boys come by it honest.
Probably true.
Doesn’t make them less destructive.
I step around the edge of the storm and keep going. Emma’s in the common room with Jason next to her, talking to Mac, Kya and Brooke.
Brooke glances up as I pass, her gaze catching mine for half a second. Not curious. Just aware. She’s one of the few who looks at me like that. Like she knows silence doesn’t mean absence. Just means I’m not wasting words. I give her a nod. Nothing more.
Outside, the cold hits harder. Winter dark has already swallowed the lot, leaving only the security lights cutting pale pools across gravel and chrome. My bike waits where I left it, black and mean under the glow, engine cold, metal reflecting just enough light to show shape and edge.
I pull my gloves on, swing a leg over, and fire it up. The engine growls to life beneath me, familiar and steady.
Inside church, Logan gave orders.
Out here, the world does what it wants.
That’s why instinct matters more.
A man can sit in a room and make plans all night. He can line up rules, strategies, contingencies, and all the rest of the polished shit that makes people feel in control. Then one wrong movement happens in the dark and the whole board changes.
I ease the bike out of the lot and onto the road, the clubhouse shrinking behind me in my mirrors.
Bartsville at night looks like any other small Alabama town if you don’t know where to look.
Storefronts shutting down. Streetlights buzzing.
Neon signs humming over bars and late-open spots.
People going home. People getting drunk.
People minding business that has nothing to do with mine.
I ride with the cold slicing through my cut and the church conversation replaying in pieces that matter.
Brynn’s calls. Background voices. Questions in town.
RICO still present. Someone searching. The details stack wrong in my head, not enough to break shape yet, but enough that the feeling won’t leave.
Most men try to reason instinct into something cleaner.
Something explainable. They don’t trust what comes without words.
I do.
I learned a long fucking time ago that the body notices before the brain catches up. A shift in air. A tone that doesn’t fit. A silence that’s too deliberate. A man’s eyes landing one second too long where they shouldn’t. That kind of knowing keeps you alive.
By the time Ambrosia comes into view, the streets are darker and the town’s evening noise has thinned into something leaner.
The club sits where it always does, lit in red and gold, looking like exactly what it is to the people who know and like harmless sin to the ones who don’t.
The parking lot’s got a few cars left, less traffic this early in the evening than later when the place fills with noise and perfume and bad decisions.
I pull in and cut the engine, then sit still for one breath while the night settles around me. Nothing obvious. No movement out of place. No car idling where it shouldn’t be. No figure lingering too long in the shadows. Still, the feeling doesn’t go.
I get off the bike and head inside.
Heat hits first, then music, then the layered scent of liquor, expensive perfume, sweat, and money passing hands.
Ambrosia runs smoother than most places because Allison knows exactly what the fuck she’s doing.
Even early, the girls move easy, the staff stays sharp, and nobody in here mistakes softness for weakness.
I scan the room once because that’s what I do. Exits. Faces. Hands. Posture. Nothing catches hard enough to stop me.
Allison spots me from behind the bar and lifts her chin.
She’s working, not sitting back like some decorative queen on a throne.
That’s another reason the place runs right.
She expects things done properly because she does them properly.
I cross to the bar. She already has the deposit bag ready under the counter by the time I reach her. “You’re early,” she says.
“Church ended.”
Her mouth flattens just slightly. “That good, huh?”
“Not really.”
She slides the bag across and lowers her voice. “Anything I need to worry about here?”
I look around once more, slower this time. Still nothing immediate. Still nothing I can point at and say there. That. That’s the problem. “Keep the girls alert,” I tell her.
Her expression sharpens at once. No panic. Just focus. “Specific?”
“Not yet.”
That answer doesn’t please her, but she doesn’t waste time bitching about it. She nods once. “I can do that.”
I take the deposit bag and tuck it secure. “Landon may adjust some things.”
“Because of church?” I meet her eyes. That tells her enough. She curses softly under her breath. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
One of the girls calls for her from the other end of the bar, and she glances that way before looking back at me. “You heading straight back?”
“That’s the plan.” Same words I gave Logan. Same problem with them. Plans only matter until they don’t.
Allison studies me for half a second longer, maybe seeing something in my face, maybe just knowing me well enough to understand when I’m listening to something that hasn’t shown itself yet. “Be careful.”
I don’t answer that. Never do. I turn and head back toward the door, the pulse of music following me out into the cold. The dark feels different now. Not louder. Not more dangerous in any obvious way.
Just wrong.
Subtle enough that most people would miss it. The parking lot looks the same. The road looks the same. Streetlights still buzz overhead, and a car passes on the far end of the block without slowing. But the feeling crawls up my spine anyway, hard and certain.
Something’s off.
I stand beside my bike, helmet hanging from one hand, and let my gaze sweep the street one more time.
No visible threat. No clear target. Nothing I can hand to another man and have him agree with immediately.
Doesn’t matter. Instinct doesn’t ask permission from proof.
It just tells you when to pay attention.
I put the helmet on slow, eyes still moving, mind already shifting away from church, away from RICO, away from the room full of smoke and men trying to map danger they couldn’t yet see.
Because whatever’s out here tonight feels closer.
And I’ve learned the hard way that when the dark starts pressing in like this, it’s usually because something is about to step out of it.
I listen.
Sort. Strip it down. Calls to Brynn. Questions about her brother. Voices in the background. People asking around town.
That’s not pressure after the fact.
That’s build.