Chapter 27
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— Colt —
The boys had been spending more time at the clubhouse.
Not every day—Lilac had rules about that, and I respected them—but often enough that the brothers had started to adjust. The explicit magazines had been relocated to Handful’s room permanently.
The more colorful language had been toned down, at least when little ears were around.
Even the club girls knew to cover up when Knox and Luca were in the building.
That Thursday, Lilac came in with us. Not staying—she had a library shift—but she’d wanted to see where the boys spent their Thursday afternoons.
She stood in the doorway to the common room for about ten minutes, watching the brothers pretend not to watch her back.
The brothers were careful. No one made it weird.
Handful said hello. Glitch nodded. Dutch came out of his office long enough to shake her hand and say something I couldn’t hear that made her mouth curve.
One of the club girls came through the common room while Lilac was still in the doorway. She slowed when she saw her—that particular kind of slow that wasn’t accidental—and let her gaze move over Lilac the way you look at something you’ve already decided doesn’t belong.
“So you’re the ex-wife,” she said. Just enough of an edge to mean something.
I was standing near the bar. “Her name is Lilac. She’s my wife. Know your place or find somewhere else to be.”
Her face went red. She looked around the room—checking who’d heard, hoping for somewhere to land—and found nothing. She left without a word.
I looked at Lilac. I’d been braced for it—the discomfort, the wide eyes, the quiet recalibration of what exactly her sons had been spending their Thursday afternoons around.
Instead she was standing in the doorway with her arms folded loosely and she rolled her eyes.
Not dramatically. Just the small, private kind that meant seriously?
I’d seen her do that exact thing at the Death’s Head clubhouse.
Those girls had tried her too—sized her up the same way, tested the same edges.
She’d never flinched, never snapped back.
Just looked at them the way you look at something too small to be worth your time and went back to whatever she was doing.
She didn’t remember any of that but my girl still didn’t take any shit.
She held my gaze for half a second. Then she turned to the boys, said her goodbyes, and headed for the door.
I saw Holden clock it. Saw him push off the wall and follow her out. My first instinct was to go after them, but Dutch was suddenly at my side.
“Leave it,” Dutch said. “He’s been working up to that for weeks.”
So I stayed where I was. Watched through the window as Holden caught up with Lilac in the lot.
He wasn’t smooth about it. He stopped a few feet away and said something short, his hands in his pockets.
She went still. I couldn’t read her face from this distance.
He said something else, something that looked like it cost him, and looked down at the gravel.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded, once, and said something back.
Holden walked back inside without looking at me.
“What’d you say?” I asked when he passed.
“Nothing that concerns you.” He picked up a pool cue. “You teaching these kids to play or what?”
I watched Lilac through the window a moment longer. She stood by her car with her keys in her hand, head down, thinking. Then she got in and drove.
“Who’s winning?” Holden leaned against the pool table, watching Luca line up a shot.
“Luca’s got the lead.” I grinned. “Kid’s got better aim than half the prospects.”
“That’s not saying much.” But Holden was smiling. He crouched down next to Knox. “Hey, little man. You want to try something?”
Knox looked up, curious. “What?”
“See that ball by the corner pocket? If you hit it just right—” Holden positioned Knox’s cue, adjusting his grip. “—you can sink it and set up your next shot at the same time. It’s called playing position.”
Knox listened intently, his face scrunched with concentration. He took the shot—and missed, the ball bouncing off the rail.
“Almost.” Holden didn’t seem disappointed. “Try again. A little softer this time.”
I watched my brother—my hard-as-nails, take-no-prisoners brother—patiently teaching my six-year-old how to play pool, and I had to look away for a second.
“If you’re brothers,” Knox said, frowning at the table like he was working out a math problem, “does that make you my Uncle Holden?”
Holden went very still. “Guess it does, if you want it to,” he said gruffly.
“Cool.” Knox turned back to the table. “Uncle Holden, show me again?”
Over the next hour, the clubhouse transformed.
Handful taught both boys a new card trick—“advanced level,” he claimed, though I saw him simplifying it when they struggled.
Glitch let Luca look at his computer setup, explaining what all the screens were for in terms a six-year-old could understand.
Even Dutch stopped by, staying long enough to arm-wrestle Knox-letting the boy win, of course-and compliment Luca’s pool stance.
“They’re good kids,” Dutch said, standing next to me while the boys destroyed Handful at cards.
“They are.”
“They’re yours.”
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re Spencer through and through. That stubbornness, that protective streak, that way they study people before trusting them.” Dutch shook his head. “They’re your sons, Colt. Anyone with eyes can see it.”
“I missed so much time—”
“And you’ve got a lifetime to make up for it.” Dutch clapped me on the shoulder. “The club’s behind you, brother. Whatever you need. Those boys—they’re family now. Our family.”
I watched Knox celebrate a winning hand while Luca tried to figure out how Handful had cheated. Watched my brothers laugh and joke with my sons like they’d known them forever.
“Family,” I repeated.
“Damn right.” Dutch’s voice was firm. “And we protect our family. Always.”
Bea arrived at four.
She did that sometimes—home sessions, she called them, where she came to the environment instead of pulling the boys out of it. Let them show her their world instead of asking them to translate it into play therapy in an office setting.
Today they were at the clubhouse, so she came to the clubhouse.
I watched Holden see her through the window first.
He’d been at the bar, not paying attention to much of anything, half a beer in hand.
Then the gate camera beeped and he glanced at the monitor and went very still in a way that had nothing to do with threat assessment.
He set down his beer, straightened up, and ran a hand through his hair once—a gesture I’d never seen him make in my life.
“Relax,” I said, passing him on the way to let her in.
“Shut up.” But there was no heat in it.
Bea came inside with a canvas bag over one shoulder.
Knox spotted her from across the room and shouted her name loud enough to make Handful flinch.
She laughed and crouched down to his level, letting him drag her over to show her whatever card trick he’d been perfecting.
Luca drifted over with more dignity, waiting for a pause in Knox’s performance before showing her the pool shot his Uncle Holden had taught him.
I glanced at Holden. He was watching from the bar with his arms crossed—the posture of a man trying to look like he wasn’t watching.
Bea looked up at some point and her eyes found him. She nodded—professional, easy. He nodded back.
That was all.
But I filed it away.
Later, as I was loading the boys into my truck to take them home, Luca hung back.
Knox had already climbed in and was chattering about what trick Uncle Handful had promised to teach him next time. But Luca stood on the gravel, his hands shoved in his pockets, looking at the clubhouse with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“You okay?” I asked, crouching down to his level.
He nodded slowly. For a long moment he just looked at the clubhouse. Then he finally met my eyes, and there was something vulnerable in his expression that I hadn’t seen before. “And they call me and Knox family. Like we belong here.”
“You do belong here. If you want to.”
“I wasn’t sure before.” His voice was small. “If I wanted to. You were so scary at first, and I thought maybe you’d go back to being that way. That the nice part was fake.”
My chest ached. “It wasn’t fake, Luca. I was never going to hurt you or your mama. I was just—”
“I know.” He cut me off, and there was a certainty in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “I know that now. I’ve been watching you. For weeks and weeks. Waiting for you to mess up.”
“And?”
“You didn’t.” He said it like it surprised him. Like he’d been expecting me to fail and was still processing that I hadn’t. “You just kept showing up. Kept being nice to Mama. Kept being patient with me even when I was mean to you.”
“You weren’t mean. You were protecting your family. I respect that.”
Luca was quiet for a long moment. Then he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around my waist, his face pressed against my stomach.
I froze for a second, stunned. Then I hugged him back, holding him close, feeling his small body tremble.
“I decided,” he mumbled against my shirt.
“Decided what?”
He pulled back just enough to look up at me, and his green eyes—my eyes—were bright with tears he was too proud to let fall.
“You’re my daddy.” The words came out rough, like they’d been stuck in his throat for weeks. “For real. Because you earned it.”
I swear my heart stopped. “Luca—” My voice cracked. I couldn’t help it.
“Don’t cry,” he said quickly, even though he was blinking hard himself. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s the biggest deal.” I pulled him back into the hug, my face pressed against his hair. “It’s everything. Everything.”
We stood there for a moment, both of us pretending we weren’t emotional wrecks. Then Luca climbed into the truck, buckling his seatbelt with the solemnity of a six-year-old who’d just made a monumental decision.
“Can we come back tomorrow?” he asked. “Uncle Handful said he’d teach me how to shuffle cards like a pro.”
Daddy. Uncle Handful. Family.
I had to grip the steering wheel to keep my hands steady.
“Yeah, buddy. We can come back tomorrow.”
Knox was still chattering, oblivious to the seismic shift that had just occurred. But Luca caught my eye in the rearview mirror as I pulled out of the lot, and the tiniest smile crossed his serious face.