6. Cross #2
Lola cries against my stripped cut and grips the leather at my back.
I hold her tighter. She never needed me to make the choice for her.
She just needed to know that when she made it, she wouldn't be standing there alone.
EPILOGUE
Two months later, I'm standing outside Kingdom Come church wearing my cut without club colors for the last time.
At least, that's the plan.
Kane hasn't told me how the vote will go, and I haven't asked. If I've learned anything since riding through these gates with nothing but my name stitched to my chest, it's that Kingdom Come doesn't make promises it hasn't decided to keep.
The stripped leather doesn't feel as strange now.
For the first few weeks, I noticed the missing weight every time I put it on.
Ten years under Perdition colors doesn't disappear because a knife cuts through some thread.
There were mornings I reached for patches that weren't there and nights when I woke expecting to hear Cyrus shouting across a clubhouse that isn't mine anymore.
Then those moments started happening less often. Perdition MC still exists, of course.
Raze took the gavel after Cyrus died and ended the war before the blood on the road was dry. His first message to Kane was simple. Perdition stays out of Ransom and Kingdom Come stays out of Perdition territory.
Nobody pretended that made us friends.
Raze didn't suddenly become a good man because he shot a worse one. He saw where Cyrus was taking the club, saw the chair about to disappear with everything else and made his move when the rest of Perdition finally stopped being afraid enough to follow.
Kane had understood it in his own club long before Perdition had. He never needed to destroy Perdition because Cyrus was already doing that himself.
Chains found that out quickly. Raze didn't want a man whose first contribution to Perdition was proving he'd betray the club that patched him. Kane didn't want him back, and Colt made it clear there wasn't a road into Ransom that ended anywhere near Jayne.
So Chains left. No Kingdom Come colors. No Perdition colors. Just his name on his old cut and whatever was left of the choices he'd made.
I try not to think about the similarity too often because it feels too much like tempting fate.
The church door opens and Judge sticks his head out. "You planning to stand there all day?"
"Depends. You lot voting on whether to shoot me?"
"Already had that vote."
"How'd it go?"
"Come inside and find out."
I follow him in. The room is full. Kane sits at the head of the table with the gavel in front of him, Judge taking his usual place to the right. Every patched Kingdom Come brother who could be here is here.
Griz is leaning back in his chair with his arms folded, and that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.
I close the door behind me.
Two months have changed more than the club.
Lola still has bad nights. Sometimes she wakes up crying before she knows she's doing it and reaches for me without opening her eyes. Other nights, she doesn't want me near her. The first time she did that, I thought I'd done something wrong.
The second time, I learned to leave her alone.
Most days are better now. Not fixed. Better.
She gets angry with Cyrus before she gets sad about him.
She can miss the father who taught her to ride a bike while hating the president who threatened to drag her home.
Both things can apparently be true at the same time.
I've stopped trying to make sense of it for her. I'm there when she wants me, and I give her space when she doesn't. Every day since the night at the gates, she's still been here when morning comes.
That matters more than anything she could've promised while grief was fresh.
Kane taps the gavel once against the table.
"Cross."
I look at him.
"You came through our gates two months ago wearing another club's history and none of its colors.
" Kane continues. "You didn't ask me for a patch.
You asked me to listen. My father believed fear kept men loyal.
Cyrus believed the same thing." He looks around the table rather than only at me. "We all saw where that road ends."
The room gets quiet.
"A club doesn't survive because men are afraid to leave. It survives because the men inside it choose to stay."
Griz's eyes move to Kane. Something passes between them that started long before I ever rode through these gates.
Kane looks at me again. "You came here with nothing but your name and no promise we'd ever give you anything else. When it mattered, you still stood on this side of the gate."
He picks up the gavel. "I'm putting Cross forward for full colors. Cross has proven his worth to this club."
Nobody reacts to the lack of prospect time. That argument, if there ever was one, has apparently already happened.
Kane looks down the table. "Second?"
Griz speaks before anyone else. "Second."
That surprises me enough that I look at him. He shrugs. "Don't make me regret it."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Kane calls the vote, and it goes around the table quickly. Every hand rises.
For one second, I don't know where to look. Ten years in one club should probably make this feel less important.
It doesn't.
Kane stands and picks up a new set of Kingdom Come MC patches lying across the empty chair beside him.
KINGDOM COME MC. LIVE FREE DIE FREE.
Kane holds them out. "Welcome home, brother."
I take them from him.
By the time I come out of church, half the compound seems to know already.
Somebody shouts. A bottle appears from nowhere. Judge slaps my shoulder, and Kane tells somebody to get the fuck off his table before they break it.
I barely notice any of them because Lola is standing near the end of the bar. She's smiling at me. Not the careful smile she used for the first few weeks after Cyrus died. Not the one that meant she was trying to prove she was okay so nobody would ask. This one is genuinely happy for me.
I walk toward her. "Well?"
I hold up the new patches, ready to be sewn onto my cut, and for a moment she doesn't say anything.
Then, "They'll look good on you, Cross."
I look back at her. "Better than the last ones?"
"Much."
"That's brutal. I wore those for ten years."
"You also spent most of those ten years being an asshole to me."
"We already established that I was never the man you thought I was."
Lola comes around to face me. "Thank God for that."
Then she kisses me.
The first time Lola kissed me, she pulled away like wanting me had frightened the hell out of her.
This time, her arms go around my neck and stay there. I slide mine around her waist and kiss her back while Kingdom Come makes enough noise behind us to wake half of Ransom.
Lola smiles against my mouth.
I kiss her again.
And she holds on.
THE END