Chapter 7 #2
And when it blew up, she was standing right there holding a plate of food she'd made me, and she had to hear it from a stranger instead of from me.
She deserved to hear it from me.
In the dark, in my bed, the way I told her about Wren.
She deserved the chance to sit with it before it became club business.
I didn't give her that. And she still doesn't hate me.
That nod in the common room. The guilt wrecking her face, the tears she was barely holding, and underneath all of it—she did what she believed was right.
She chose the club over me.
I can't be angry about that. It's exactly what I would have done.
"She did the right thing," I say without looking up.
Brick is quiet for a moment. "Yeah," he says. "She did."
He stands and claps my shoulder—firm, real, not the awkward half-gesture Boulder gave me—and heads for the door.
"Brick." I lift my head.
He stops with his hand on the knob and turns back.
"Thanks for showing up," I tell him.
He nods once and leaves.
The door closes.
The room is ten by twelve again, and the light on the far wall says it's late afternoon, and Nova is in Vegas, and I'm here.
* * *
The days keep passing.
I do push-ups until my arms give out. Sit-ups until my abs burn. I run through exit strategies in my head, contingency plans for situations that don't exist, because my brain needs something to work on or it'll turn on me.
I think about Nova more than I should.
The way she laughed at Compass during Sunday dinner. The coconut shampoo in my shower and the sweatshirt on my chair that I still haven't moved. Her hand flat on my chest in the dark, right over my heart, like she was checking to make sure it was still going.
Lashes stops by on the fifth day.
She doesn't come inside—just stands in the doorway with one hand on her belly and looks at me with an expression I recognize.
She knows what it feels like to be locked in a room. She knows what the walls do to a person after enough days.
"You need anything?" she asks, her fingers resting on the doorframe.
"I'm good," I tell her from the edge of the bed. She doesn't believe me. I can see it. But she doesn't push. "Ruby made tamales," she says. "I'll bring you some."
She does. They're still warm when she comes back, wrapped in foil on a paper plate.
She sets them on the dresser and leaves without another word. The room smells like masa and chile for hours afterward, and it's the closest thing to comfort I've had all week.
On the seventh day, Amara sends for me.
Rooster walks me down the hall.
He still won't look at me directly, though I catch him glancing sideways once as we pass the common room.
The clubhouse is quiet in the middle of the day. Most of the brothers are out, Ruby's radio is playing low in the kitchen.
Amara's office door is open. She's behind her desk, papers stacked neatly, laptop closed.
Python is standing against the far wall with his arms crossed. His face gives nothing away.
"Sit down," Amara says, nodding toward the chair across from her.
I sit.
She folds her hands on the desk. "Montana confirms your prospecting history. Clean record, no Kodiak contacts, no communication with Curtis Brown or any Kodiak affiliate during your time there or here. We've gone through your phone, your messages, your financials, your call logs. There's nothing."
I don't say anything. There's nothing to say to confirm something I already knew.
"You're clear," she says. "The investigation is closed. You'll get your cut back today, and your weapon."
I press my palms flat against my knees. "Thank you, Prez." The words feel small next to what I've lost this week, but they're the right ones.
"Don't thank me." Her voice sharpens slightly. "Thank me by understanding that I had to do this. An Enforcer from an enemy MC showed up at my gate and claimed one of my prospects as his son. If I'd ignored that, I wouldn't deserve this chair."
"You did what you had to," I tell her. "I'd have done the same."
Python shifts against the wall. His arms uncross. Something in his posture loosens, and I realize he's been carrying tension all week that he's only now letting go.
He believed me. Maybe not from the start, but somewhere during the investigation, he landed on my side. He just couldn't say it until now.
Amara leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. "Trust takes time to rebuild, Doom. You've been cleared, but that doesn't erase the week. Some of the brothers are going to need time."
"I understand that," I say, meeting her eyes.
"Good." She picks up a folder and moves it aside, and the official business is done.
I don't stand up.
She notices. Her eyebrow lifts.
"You know I'm not a threat," I say. My voice is level but there's weight behind every word. "You ran the investigation. You saw the records. You know."
"I do," she confirms, tapping a finger once on the desk.
I lean forward in the chair, elbows on my knees. "My girl is struggling right now." The words come out before I think about them, and once they're in the room I don't take them back.
My girl. That's what Nova is. Whatever we are, whatever we haven't said to each other yet, that's the truth of it. "She's in Vegas. She went because of what she did for this club, and it's eating her alive. I need to go to Vegas, Prez."
Amara's expression stays steady, but something behind her eyes shifts. She's weighing it.
"You're asking to leave the compound the same day you're cleared from an investigation," she says.
"Yes, ma'am," I answer without hesitation.
"Go," she says. "Take your bike. Check in with Damon when you get there—I'll call ahead so he knows you're coming. Don't start problems in his charter."
I shake my head. "I won't."
"And Doom." She catches my eyes and holds them. "Whatever's between you and Nova, you handle it right. That woman put herself on the line for this club. She deserves a man who shows up, not one who disappears."
"I'm not disappearing," I tell her, standing up from the chair. "I'm going to get her."
Python pulls my Sig from behind his back and tosses it across the room.
I catch it one-handed and slide it into the holster on my hip.
The weight of it settles against my thigh, and something in my chest unclenches for the first time in seven days.
My cut is hanging on a hook by Amara's door. I take it and shrug it on, and the leather drops across my shoulders, and I stand there for a second just feeling it.
The familiar pull across my back. The patches against my chest. A week without it and I'd forgotten how much of myself lives in this vest.
I walk out of Amara's office and down the hallway and through the common room where I sat seven days ago getting stripped of everything that told the world who I was.
Rooster is by the front door. When I pass him, he finally looks at me.
"Vegas?" he asks, his eyes dropping to the cut on my shoulders.
"Vegas," I say.
He nods. Still working through it. Still figuring out where we stand.
I push through the front door and into the Chihuahua sun.
My Dyna is parked where I left it a week ago, the chrome dulled with a layer of desert dust.
I throw a leg over, turn the key, and the engine catches on the first try.
The rumble runs through my legs, up my spine, and settles into my chest beside the heartbeat that's already picking up speed.
Eight hundred miles between me and a woman who chose the club over me and broke her own heart doing it.
I pull out of the compound and ride.