2. Cross
CROSS
By the time Kingdom Come’s gates come into view, the back of my cut feels wrong. A handful of patches don’t weigh enough to matter, but ten years of leather sitting the same way across my shoulders leaves an absence I can feel every time the wind catches it.
I slow before the turn and let the bike roll the last few yards toward the closed gates.
There’s a man on watch behind them. He sees the bike first, then me, then the empty back of my cut.
His hand goes to the radio clipped near his shoulder.
I kill the engine well outside the boundary and put both boots on the ground.
The brother at the gate doesn't tell me to leave, but he doesn't open it either.
A minute later Kane comes out of the clubhouse with Judge beside him and two more men spreading wide enough to make the message clear.
Nobody’s pointing a gun at me, but I’d be an idiot to assume there aren’t several aimed from places I can’t see.
Kane stops on the other side of the steel.
His eyes go over me once and settle on my cut.
“You lose something?”
“Left it where it belonged.”
Judge’s gaze narrows. “Yesterday it belonged on your back.”
“Yesterday was yesterday.”
One of the men behind them shifts. Kane doesn’t. “You rode with Cyrus against us.”
“I did.”
“And now you’re sitting outside my gate with no colors.”
“That about covers it.”
Kane studies me while I keep my hands where he can see them and make no move toward the gate. Coming here was my call. So is whatever happens next.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Five minutes of your time.”
“For what?”
“A conversation.”
Judge gives a short humorless laugh. “You ride at us one day and ask for a conversation the next?”
“I didn’t come here asking for a patch.”
Kane’s expression doesn’t change, but something in his attention sharpens. “Then talk.”
I look past the steel. “Chains is feeding Cyrus everything he knows about Kingdom Come. Men, routines, old weak points, anything he thinks makes him useful. Cyrus is listening because right now he values betrayal more than judgment.”
Judge’s jaw tightens. “Yesterday should’ve been enough to tell him this is costing Perdition more than it’s worth. It didn’t. He walked back into our clubhouse talking about Kane, not Kingdom Come. Every problem is personal now.”
Kane rests one hand on the gate. “And that bothered you so much you cut off your patches?" He glances at my bare leather again. “Why today?”
“Because Chains is now wearing Perdition colors after selling out the men he rode with for years, and Cyrus treated him like he’d brought home a prize. That made things simple.”
Judge says, “Simple enough to defect to the club you were fighting yesterday?”
“I haven’t defected to Kingdom Come. I left Perdition.”
“There a difference?”
“Right now, there is. I expect nothing.”
Kane looks at me for another long moment. “And what happens when Cyrus decides you belong to him?”
“He already has.”
Kane’s eyes harden. “He coming?”
“Eventually. He’ll send men first if he thinks they can drag me back without making this bigger.”
“And you brought that to my gate.”
“I brought you warning before he brought you bullets.”
The silence stretches before Kane turns his head slightly. “Open it.”
Judge looks at him. “Kane.”
“I said open it.”
The gate starts moving. Nobody lowers their guard. I walk the bike through instead of starting it, stop where Kane points and leave the key in the ignition when one of his men tells me to.
Kane looks at the stripped cut from closer range. “Every patch?”
“Except my name.”
“You leave the rest with Cyrus?”
“On a bench in his garage.” His mouth shifts, not quite approval but close enough to notice.
“You carrying?”
“Of course.”
Judge holds out a hand. “Then for now, you’re not.”
I take the gun from my waistband slowly, clear it and pass it grip first. My knife follows.
Nobody pats me down or tries to humiliate me.
They’re giving me enough dignity to see whether I deserve it, which tells me plenty about Kane.
We’re halfway toward the clubhouse when the brother at the gate calls out.
“Car coming.”
Everybody turns. I know the car before it gets close enough to see the driver, and for the first time since I rode out of Perdition, my control slips.
“What the fuck is she doing?”
Kane looks at me.
“I didn’t ask her to come.”
The car brakes hard outside the gate. Lola is behind the wheel, hair loose around her face, both hands locked on it as she stares through the steel at a line of armed Kingdom Come men.
For one second I think she might reverse, but the stubborn woman gets out and walks toward the gate with her chin up, like she was invited instead of arriving at the compound her father has spent months threatening.
Judge moves closer to Kane. “Is that Cyrus’s daughter?”
“Yeah,” I say.
His attention snaps to me. “Is the whole of fucking Perdition behind you? Did you know she was coming?”
“No, I didn't.”
Lola hears that through the gate. “Nice to see you too.”
Every part of me wants her back in that car, but there’s nowhere useful to send her. If Cyrus knows she helped me, Perdition isn’t safe. If he doesn’t, turning up here will make sure he does.
Kane steps toward the gate. “Why are you here?”
Lola looks at him rather than me. “Because my father sent men after Cross to bring him back.”
“We assumed that.”
“I sent them the wrong way.”
I stare at her. “You did what?”
She finally looks at me. “You heard me the first time.”
“You should’ve stayed home.”
Her face changes immediately. “You don’t get to tell me what I should’ve done after detonating my life and riding away.”
“I didn’t make you lie.”
“No, you just made sure the choice was between helping you and watching my father have you dragged back to die. Anyway, Raze heard me, and now I'm fresh out of choices.”
Kane cuts in before I can answer. “Save it. Both of you.”
Lola folds her arms. I shut my mouth because Kane’s right and because somebody here is going to start enjoying this if we keep going.
Judge looks at Lola. “Why should we believe any of this isn’t Cyrus sending both of you in?”
“You shouldn’t.”
She continues, “Raze took four men north because I told him Cross went toward the county line. He knew I was lying, but he went with it anyway. The others won’t stay north once Cyrus realizes. They’ll cover Route Thirty-Two and the main road into Ransom first.”
Kane glances toward the brother on the radio. “Check it.”
The man turns away and speaks quietly. Lola keeps her eyes on Kane. She looks tired now that she’s standing still and angry, though that part isn’t new. The fear underneath is, and I don’t like it.
The radio cracks a minute later. The brother at the gate listens, then looks at Kane. “Two Perdition bikes just passed the west junction heading for Thirty-Two. Another pair went north ten minutes ago.”
Kane’s gaze returns to Lola.
“Open it,” he says.
Lola walks through, and the gate closes behind her with a heavy metallic sound. She glances back once, and I know exactly what she’s thinking because I thought the same thing when it shut behind me. There’s a difference between being allowed in and knowing you can leave.
Kane makes that clear before either of us can ask. “You came here on your own. You’re a guest, not a prisoner. But until I know what Cyrus is doing, nobody leaves without telling me first. That’s for your protection and mine.”
Lola nods once. “Fine.”
Her eyes move over the compound. She doesn’t gape. She grew up in an MC; gates, bikes and armed men aren’t new to her. What catches her attention is the way Judge leans toward Kane and says something low enough that I don’t hear it.
Kane answers him and Judge shakes his head.
Lola watches the whole exchange because at Perdition, disagreeing with Cyrus in front of other people has become a good way to turn a conversation into a loyalty test. Here, apparently, the president and VP can disagree for ten seconds without anybody reaching for a weapon.
Kane points toward the clubhouse. “We’ll talk inside. Briefly.”
The questioning lasts maybe fifteen minutes. Kane asks whether any plans were already moving before I left, and Judge asks Lola exactly what she told Raze. Nobody repeats the same question six ways as if that will magically turn us into spies.
I tell them what I can without pretending I know more than I do. Cyrus is furious. Chains has been running his mouth. Raze is angry about the beating they took and less eager for another one than he was twenty-four hours ago.
Lola adds, “My father won’t leave Cross walking around free. Not after the patches. He’ll see it as public humiliation.”
“So you understand why I’m not deciding what you two are to this club tonight.”
"I didn't ask you to," I reply.
“No. You asked for five minutes.” He sits back. “You got them.”
Kane’s gaze stays level. “For now, you stay inside the compound. Under watch. You don’t walk into church, you don’t touch club business that isn’t put in front of you, and you don’t carry a weapon unless I say otherwise.”
“Fair.”
He turns to Lola. “You can stay too. Room’s yours, door stays unlocked. If you decide to leave, you tell Judge or me before you go so we can make sure the road is clear.”
Her mouth tightens at the idea of needing permission to announce her own departure, but she has enough sense not to confuse caution with captivity.
“Fine,” she says again.
Kane looks between us. “Anything else?”
Lola and I answer at the same time.
“No.”
Judge almost smiles. The room they give me is on the compound, two doors down from Lola’s. Whether Kane wants the two Perdition problems together or it simply makes guarding us easier, I don’t ask. I’m standing outside my door when Lola comes down the hallway after dropping her bag in hers.
She stops when she sees me. I should go inside. Instead I say, “You shouldn’t have come.”
Her laugh has no humor in it. “We’re really doing this again?”
“You could’ve kept your mouth shut and stayed out of it.”
“I did keep my mouth shut. That’s how you got out.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“That doesn’t make you less responsible for blowing everything apart.”
The anger I’ve been holding since her car appeared outside the gate finally gets loose. “I took patches off my own back. You lied to your father because you decided you couldn’t stomach what he was going to do. Don’t put that on me because you hate what it says about him.”
She goes very still. I know I hit the thing she doesn’t want touched, and then I see the hurt under it and hate myself for being satisfied.
“You always do that,” she says.
“Do what?”
“Stand there like you’re the only person in the room who understands anything.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It’s exactly what you do. You look at me like I’m stupid for loving my father. Like I’m weak for not seeing him the way you do.”
“I’ve never thought you were stupid.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“You want the truth?”
“I doubt I’ll survive the privilege.”
There she is, sharp enough to cut when she’s cornered.
I step closer and her eyes drop briefly to my mouth.
Mine go to hers, and the air changes so fast it pisses me off.
Years of arguments running too hot and me keeping my hands to myself because touching Cyrus’s daughter would've been the stupidest thing I could do in a club where Cyrus liked owning every weakness a man had.
I stop before the space between us disappears. “The truth is I expected more from you.”
Her eyes flash. “There it is.”
"Not because you're stupid. Because you're absolutely not. That's kind of my point."
She looks like she wants to slap me. “You think that makes it better?”
“No.”
“At least we agree on something.”
She turns toward her room.
“Lola.”
Her hand closes around the door handle, but she doesn’t look back. I want to tell her I’m glad she came and that I spent the ride here thinking about what Cyrus might do when he discovered she’d helped me. Both sound too close to something I’m not ready to give her.
"Just save it, will you? I've had enough bullshit for today." She goes inside and shuts the door.
I stand there longer than I should. A few minutes later, Kane comes down the hallway with Judge. His expression tells me whatever small breathing space we had just ended.
“Cyrus called,” he says.
I straighten. “What’d he say?”
“That he knows you’re here. Knows Lola is too.”
My eyes go to her closed door.
Kane continues, “He says the next call comes with terms.”
“When?”
“Before midnight.”
Kane looks toward Lola’s room, then back at me. “You still think this stops with you?”
“No.”
I haven’t thought that since her car appeared at the gate. What I don’t know is whether Lola understands it yet, or how long it’ll be before she decides saving my life cost more than I was worth.