Chapter Two
The alarm went off at three-fifteen, same as every morning for the past fourteen months.
Grace slapped it silent and lay in the dark for exactly thirty seconds—the only indulgence she allowed herself—then swung her legs off the bed and started moving.
The cuts on her forearms stung when she pulled on her work shirt.
She'd spent two hours after closing picking glass out of her skin with tweezers, and she'd probably missed a few pieces that would work their way out over the next week.
Didn't matter. The ovens didn't care about her arms, and the biscuits her six AM customers expected weren't going to make themselves.
She drove the ten minutes to the bakery on autopilot, the streets of Greenville empty except for the occasional freight truck rumbling through.
This was her favorite time—the world quiet, the day still full of potential, the kitchen waiting for her like a promise she made to herself every single morning.
The motorcycle parked outside her building was not part of the routine.
Grace pulled into the back lot and sat in her car for a moment, studying the figure leaning against the bike. Crossroad. The man from last night, the one who'd held her dustpan and watched her remake biscuits like she was some kind of fascinating specimen he couldn't quite classify.
He was still here. Or here again. Either way, the sight of him in the predawn darkness—arms crossed, head turning to track her car—sent something complicated through her chest.
Irritation, mostly. She didn't need a babysitter.
But underneath that, something else. Something that felt dangerously like relief.
She got out of the car and walked toward him, keys already in hand. "You been here all night?"
"Caught a few hours at the compound." His voice was soft, unhurried, that Delta drawl she'd noticed last night smoothing the edges of every word. "Came back around two."
"Two AM." She stopped a few feet from him, close enough to see the tired lines around his eyes. "You do this for every bakery that gets threatened?"
"Just the ones on blocks the Copperhead Kings are trying to take."
"Lucky me."
He didn't smile, but something shifted in his expression. "Mind if I check the building before you go in?"
Yes, she minded. She'd been unlocking this door alone for fourteen months and she didn't need some biker playing bodyguard.
But the memory of last night—the crash of glass, the hands grabbing her, the cold promise in Wade Sims' eyes—was still too fresh to ignore.
"Fine," she said. "But make it fast. I've got dough to start."
He moved past her to the door, and she caught something—leather, motor oil, the faint trace of cigarette smoke. Not unpleasant. Just very... male. The kind of scent that made her aware of the empty parking lot, the quiet street, the fact that she was alone with a man she'd met six hours ago.
Crossroad checked the lock, scanned the interior through the window, then did a quick circuit of the building's exterior before coming back to her.
"Clear," he said. "Nobody's been here since you left."
"Shocking." She unlocked the door and pushed inside, flipping on lights as she went. "Almost like criminals don't keep baker's hours."
He followed her in without asking permission, which irritated her more than it should have. Her kitchen. Her space. But she bit back the comment and started pulling ingredients instead, falling into the rhythm that had kept her sane through every bad day for the past fourteen months.
Flour. Butter. Buttermilk. Salt.
"You want to know what you're dealing with," Crossroad said. It wasn't a question.
"I want to know why two men thought they could walk into my building and throw me through my own display case." She measured flour by sight, dumping it into the industrial mixer. "So yeah. Talk."
He leaned against the doorframe—not entering the kitchen proper, she noticed, staying on the threshold like he understood this was her territory.
"Copperhead Kings," he said. "MC out of Tupelo. Started as a prison gang—their president, Darnell Price, did eight years in Parchman and built his club from the connections he made inside."
"Prison gang turned motorcycle club." She cut cold butter into cubes. "Charming."
"They run meth. Push it through small towns by taking over storefronts—intimidate the owners, force them out, use the buildings as distribution points.
" His eyes tracked her hands as she worked.
"They've been moving west into the Delta for six months.
Your block is the first serious push into Greenville. "
"And the Delta Destroyers care because...?"
"Because this is our territory." Something harder entered his voice. "The Delta—Highway 61, the river towns, every back road and crossroads from Memphis to Vicksburg—belongs to us. Has for fifteen years. The Kings are challenging that."
Grace added buttermilk to the mixer, watching the dough come together. "So this isn't about my bakery. It's about your turf war."
"It's about both." He straightened from the doorframe.
"The Kings chose your block for a reason.
Highway access, commercial district, close enough to the waterfront for distribution routes.
If they take this ground, they'll push deeper.
More blocks, more businesses, more people getting shoved through their own windows. "
She turned off the mixer and started portioning dough onto a floured surface. Her hands knew this work so well she could do it in her sleep—had done it in her sleep, some mornings, the motions automatic while her brain caught up to consciousness.
"The man from last night," she said. "The big one. You knew him."
"Wade Sims. Their enforcer." Crossroad's jaw tightened. "He's the one they send when they want to make a statement. Handles the beatings, the property damage. The first wave of intimidation before they move in for real."
"So last night was just the beginning."
"Yeah."
She shaped biscuits with quick, practiced cuts, laying them on a tray with the precision of someone who'd done this ten thousand times. "And you think they'll come back."
"I know they will." He moved then, just a step closer, still not crossing into her kitchen but close enough that she could see the road rash scarring his left arm.
"The Kings don't back off. They escalate.
Sims will report that you didn't fold, and Price will send him back with more men and a bigger message. "
"Then I'll be here when he comes."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
She looked up from her biscuits and found him watching her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. Not threatening. Not leering. Something else—like he was trying to figure out whether she was brave or stupid and hadn't landed on an answer yet.
"I'm not leaving," she said flatly. "This building—this business—is the first thing I've ever owned. I grew up on my mother's couch and my aunt's floor. I waitressed for three years to save enough to open these doors. I'm not walking away because some Tupelo meth dealers think they can scare me."
"Nobody's asking you to walk away."
"Then what are you asking?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Let us help. The Destroyers. We're going to war with the Kings whether you're in the picture or not—they crossed into our territory and that means blood. But you're in the middle of it now, and that makes you our responsibility."
"Your responsibility." She slid the tray into the oven, the heat washing over her face. "I've been responsible for myself since I was fifteen years old. I don't need a motorcycle club deciding I'm their charity case."
"It's not charity." His voice dropped, something rough underneath the drawl. "It's protection. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Yeah." He held her gaze. "Charity is pity. Protection is recognizing someone worth keeping safe."
The words landed somewhere in her chest and stuck there, warm and unwelcome. She turned away, grabbing a rag to wipe down the counter, needing something to do with her hands.
"The man who grabbed me last night," she said, not looking at him. "Sims. He put his hands on me like I was nothing. Like I was furniture he could move around."
"He won't do it again."
The certainty in his voice made her turn back. "You sound sure about that."
"I am." Simple. Absolute. The words of a man who'd already made a decision and wasn't interested in discussing alternatives. "Nobody puts hands on you again. That's not a promise—it's a fact."
She should argue. Should tell him she didn't need his protection, his promises, his facts. Should remind him that they'd met six hours ago and he had no right to talk about her like she was something he was claiming.
Instead, she heard herself say: "The coffee's in the cabinet above the sink. Filters are in the drawer."
Something shifted in his expression—surprise, maybe, or satisfaction. He moved into the kitchen properly now, finding the supplies, starting a pot with the easy competence of a man who'd made coffee in a thousand strange places.
"Church is this afternoon," he said. "The club's meeting to plan our response. You'll probably see more bikes around the block after that."
"As long as they're buying biscuits and not just loitering."
"I'll pass that along."
The coffee started brewing, filling the kitchen with a smell that almost competed with the biscuits. Grace checked the oven, adjusted the temperature, and let herself breathe for the first time since she'd seen his motorcycle outside.
"If your club wants to help," she said, turning to face him, "they can start by not tracking road dust across my clean floors. I just mopped last night, and I'm not doing it again because a bunch of bikers don't know how to wipe their boots."
Crossroad looked down at his boots—dusty, worn, definitely not wiped—and then back at her. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I'll make sure they know."
"See that you do."
She turned back to her biscuits, but she could feel him watching her. Could feel the weight of his attention like a hand on the back of her neck.
It should have made her uncomfortable.
It didn't.