6. Colt #2
I stare at him. Chains points toward Raze as if the bleeding bastard on the ground is somehow his defense.
“She agreed to the drink. Nobody dragged her there.
Raze would've treated her right if she'd stopped acting like she was too fucking good for—” I hit Chains, not as hard as Raze but hard enough that he staggers back and looks genuinely shocked.
“You brought him to her house.”
“She ain't a kid anymore.”
“She told you he scared her.”
His face shifts, though barely. Enough for me to know Jayne told him exactly that.
“You knew he scared her,” I say. “And you still pushed her at him because he's VP and you thought keeping him happy might get Cyrus to put a patch on that empty fucking cut.”
Chains's eyes go flat. “That ain't what happened.”
“Then tell me what did.”
“He liked her. I figured one drink wouldn't hurt anybody.”
“You figured your daughter was useful to you after you fucking betrayed your club.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you, Chains.” I step closer. “You sold out brothers who would've died for you, and when that still wasn't enough to get you what you wanted, you started using Jayne too. The VP just called her a whore and you're fine with that?”
His fist comes at me, but I see it early enough to slip most of it. My return punch drops him to one knee.
The fight around us is already dying, though it was never even.
Raze is on the ground holding his ribs. Two Perdition men are sitting against the tree line, another bent over with blood dripping from his nose.
One Perdition man is still on his feet, but he isn't looking for another fight now that there is nothing left to prove.
Kane's voice cuts across the road. “Enough.”
Kingdom Come stops, not instantly because men aren't machines, but fast enough to show exactly whose word matters here. I wipe blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand. Raze glares up at me and Chains gets slowly to his feet. Kane walks toward them. “You're going back to Cyrus.”
Raze laughs once, then winces because apparently I did something useful to his ribs. Kane looks down at him. “I want him to see you.” Raze's laugh disappears.
“I want him to see exactly what his plan bought him, and I want him to hear that the only reason you're riding away is because I decided you were more useful carrying the message than bleeding out on my road.”
Kane points toward the Perdition bikes. “Leave the guns and fuck off.” Raze pushes himself upright.
“This ain't over.” Kane's expression doesn't change.
“Didn't say it was.” Perdition collects itself badly.
Chains reaches his bike last and Griz watches him all the way.
Chains looks back once, maybe expecting something after all. But Griz gives him nothing.
The Perdition engines start and I watch them ride until the last taillight disappears around the bend. Only then does the pressure in my chest ease enough for one thought to get through everything else. Jayne. I told her I'd be back, and now I get to keep the promise.
The compound gates are open before we reach them and Jayne is already outside the clubhouse.
I see her from halfway across the yard and she sees me at the same time.
There are people around us, bikes pulling in, brothers talking over engines, but none of it matters once she starts walking toward me.
I barely get the bike onto its stand before she reaches me. Her hands go straight to my face.
“You're bleeding.”
“Not much.”
Her eyes move over me, checking harder than she probably realizes. “Anywhere else?”
“Nothing worth worrying about.”
Then I kiss her. There is nothing careful about it. I get one hand behind her neck, the other around her waist and pull her into me while every mile of Blackwater, every gun pointed our way and every second I spent listening to Raze talk about her burns out in the feel of her mouth.
Jayne grips my cut and kisses me back just as hard. When we finally separate, she's breathing against my lips.
“You came back.”
“I said I would.”
Kane passes behind us on his way toward the clubhouse and stops long enough to look at Jayne.
“Happened exactly as you said it would.”
She turns toward him and Kane doesn't dress it up.
“You saved three brothers tonight.” Jayne's eyes move briefly to Judge, then back to me.
Something in her face changes. Not relief that she has been accepted.
She was never asking for that. Relief that the thing she risked herself to do mattered. Kane gives her a nod and walks inside.
I take her hand. “Come with me.” The second we're inside my room, Jayne turns and puts both arms around me. I hold her and there's no talking for a while. I don't need it. Eventually she leans back enough to see my face. “What happens now?” I run my hands down her arms.
“Twelve years ago, I wanted you to stay and didn't say it because I thought loving you meant respecting whatever you decided, even if it tore me apart.”
Jayne's expression grows serious.
“I won't do that again,” I tell her.
“You're going to stop respecting my decisions?”
“No.” I pull her closer. “I'm going to stop pretending I don't have an opinion about them.”
That gets a smile.
“If you ever decide you don't want me, tell me. I'll hear it. I can't stop being what I am, and I can't promise there are no risks. But we talk about it if it ever becomes an issue again.”
Jayne rests her hands on my chest.
“I have a house.”
“Keep it.”
“I have a life outside this compound.”
“I know.”
“I'm not giving it up.”
“I don't want you to.”
She studies me for a moment. “You're making this annoyingly difficult to argue with.”
“I can say something stupid if it helps.”
“It probably would.”
I laugh and slide my hands around her waist.
“What I want is you, Jayne. At your house. Here. In my bed when you want to be, kicking me out of yours when you're sick of me. I don't care what it looks like as long as we stop losing years because neither of us says what we mean.”
Her eyes shine.
“I don't want to leave you.”
“Good.” Something in my chest that has been tight for twelve fucking years finally gives and I kiss her more slowly this time.
Jayne presses closer, fingers sliding into my hair, and when I pull back her forehead rests against mine.
“You know what I can't get over?” I ask.
“What?”
“I spent twelve years wishing you'd come back.”
Her thumb moves over the bruise forming on my cheek.
“Then believe me when I tell you I'm not walking away.”
I look at her, then kiss her again because there isn't a better answer in the world.
EPILOGUE
JAYNE
Six weeks later, I still have my house and Colt still has his room at the compound.
Some nights we sleep at my place, some nights at his, and occasionally we spend half an evening arguing over whose place has the better coffee before ending up wherever we were always going to end up anyway.
It isn't tidy or conventional, but it works.
I pull into the Kingdom Come compound on Saturday afternoon with groceries on the passenger seat and find Colt exactly where I expected him to be, bent over his motorcycle outside the garage with his cut hanging from a nearby chair.
He looks up when I get out. His gaze drops to the bags in my hands.
“You moving in?”
“I brought chips.”
“Same thing.”
“I also bought coffee, because what you people serve in that clubhouse should be illegal.”
Griz appears in the garage doorway. “Nobody asked you to drink it, kid.” I look at him.
He holds my gaze for half a second, then takes one of the bags from me as he passes.
The first few times I came back after Blackwater, conversations still paused when I walked into a room.
Nobody accused me of anything, but trust doesn't rebuild because Kane makes a ruling and everybody politely agrees.
So I kept coming, not to prove anything, but because Colt was here and because despite everything my father did, some of these men have known me since I was small enough to sit on the clubhouse bar swinging my legs while somebody found me a soda and a bag of chips.
Eventually the pauses stopped and Griz started calling me kid again.
Nobody made an announcement about either thing, but I'm glad.
Colt wipes his hands on a rag and comes toward me.
“You working tomorrow?”
“Morning. I've got some things to finish at home in the afternoon.”
I haven't given up my life to disappear behind Kingdom Come's gates.
Colt hasn't asked me to. My house still looks like mine, my work is still mine, and there are now several of his shirts in my laundry basket because apparently that is how relationships establish territory.
His hands settle on my waist. “You staying tonight?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
I glance toward the clubhouse. “Whether Uncle Griz shares those chips.”
“He won't.”
“Then I'm going home.”
Colt smiles and pulls me against him. “Liar.” I kiss him before he can get any more pleased with himself. His hands tighten on my hips, and the kiss changes quickly enough that I remember we are standing in the middle of the compound in broad daylight. I pull back. “You have a room for this.”
“I do.”
“And yet we're still standing here.”
“Fixable problem.” I laugh when he starts steering me backward.
Six weeks ago, I thought loving Colt meant deciding whether I could live with the fear that comes with him.
I had it wrong. The fear didn't disappear.
Neither did the motorcycles, the guns, the patch or the man who will walk toward danger when his brothers need him.
What changed is that I finally stopped believing love only counts when it feels safe.
Colt opens the clubhouse door and looks back at me.
“You coming?”
I take his hand.
“Try stopping me.”