Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Doom
I wake up before Nova does.
The room is gray with early light.
Her arm is across my chest, her face buried in the crook of my neck.
Her breath is warm and slow against my collarbone, and the chain at my throat presses lightly against her cheek.
I don't move for a few minutes. I just lie there and listen to her breathing.
It's been almost a week since everything happened.
Nearly a week since I watched my father take his last breath, and didn't feel anything when he did.
Since Nova led me upstairs and put me in the shower, held me up while the water ran pink, and I let myself fall apart for the first time in years.
The club has been calm since. Rotations doubled on the gate. Intel coming in from Alejandro's network about the Kodiak MC’s response. So far, nothing. They haven't moved yet.
But they will.
I roll onto my side and tuck a piece of Nova's hair behind her ear. She makes a small sound and burrows closer. I let her sleep.
When I slide out from under her, I pull a clean t-shirt from the dresser and head downstairs barefoot.
The clubhouse smells like coffee. Compass is already in the kitchen, half a mug down, his cut on the chair beside him. He looks up when I come in.
"Morning."
I nod and head for the coffee pot. "Pancakes?"
Compass tips his chair back on two legs and grins. "If you're making them, hell yeah."
That's been our thing since Compass came in.
He waits to see if I'm cooking. If I am, he hangs around the kitchen until I plate them.
I pull out the cast iron and start the batter.
Eggs, flour, milk, buttermilk from the carton Ruby left in the fridge.
I crack the eggs one-handed against the side of the bowl the way my mother used to.
Brick comes in halfway through.
He pours himself coffee, leans against the counter, and watches me work for a long few moments. "Anything you need today?"
I glance at him. "Today?"
He's looking at his coffee like it has answers in it. "Just asking."
"No," I tell him, pouring batter into the pan. "I'm good."
He nods. He drinks his coffee.
He leaves without finishing the conversation, and I notice it because I notice everything, but I don't ask.
Razor comes through a few minutes later for a refill.
He doesn't say anything. Just claps a hand on my shoulder on his way past, the brief contact of a brother. He keeps walking.
I plate Compass' pancakes. He thanks me and digs in.
Something's going on. I don't know what.
But, whatever it is, the club will tell me when they're ready, so I pour myself another cup and go back to the stove.
Amara catches me on the way through the main room around noon.
"Tonight, eight o'clock," she says. She's got a clipboard in her hand and her hair pulled back. She doesn't slow down when she talks to me. "Celebration in the courtyard. Everyone."
I stop where I am. "What for?"
"The way things have shifted." She lifts her chin at me without looking up from her clipboard. "Be ready."
I dip my chin. "Prez."
She keeps walking.
I stand in the main room with my third cup of coffee for a long second.
The way things have shifted.
I read it the way I read everything—surface meaning, possible meanings underneath, what isn't being said.
Most likely: Mateo's home, the Diego business is closed, the club's coming through the attack against the Kodiak MC intact so far.
A breather before whatever comes next.
That makes sense.
Amara likes to mark the moments her brothers are still breathing because in this life, it’s never guaranteed.
I drink my coffee and let it go.
The courtyard transforms through the afternoon.
Oakleigh's up on a ladder stringing white lights between the orange trees.
Ruby and Kelsey are in the kitchen with Xiomara and Itzel, making something that smells like cumin and roasting peppers.
Python and Zorro drag the long tables out of the storage shed and set them in two rows down the center of the courtyard.
I help where I'm asked.
I haul ice and move a cooler.
I run a borrowed extension cord from the garage to the speaker Razor sets up on the south wall.
Prospects don't ask questions, and I haven't been doing this for years to start now.
Around six, the food starts coming out.
Carnitas in clay pots. Pots of beans.
Stacks of fresh tortillas Ruby's been pressing for two hours.
Trays of pan dulce Kelsey picked up from the panadería on the corner.
Brothers start arriving from the houses up the street.
Dante shows up with Amara on his arm.
Python comes through with Astra and Lyra.
Lyra runs across the courtyard the second her feet hit the stone and tackles Xiomara, who's been waiting for her by the swing set.
Mateo walks in slowly with Imani at his elbow.
He's leaning on a cane the carpenter down the road carved for him last week. He's thinner than he was a month ago. His color isn't all the way back, but he's standing on his own, and there's a steadiness in him that wasn't there in that compound in Juárez.
Brick is two steps behind him with his hand on the small of Imani's back.
Brick looks at me across the courtyard. He doesn't smile. He just holds my eye for a second and then looks away.
Lashes comes down from upstairs in a yellow sundress, her belly bigger than the last time I really looked.
Mei is with her, holding her hand like a sister.
I'm at one of the tables setting out cups when Nova walks into the courtyard.
She's wearing a dress I've never seen before.
Dark green. Her hair is loose, the way I like it, falling past her shoulders.
Her lips are a deep, bright red, like a candy apple and crimson had a baby.
She crosses the courtyard and comes to me, slides her hand into mine, and goes up on her toes to kiss me. "Hi," she says against my mouth.
"Hi."
She squeezes my hand once and lets go, then goes off to find Lashes.
I stand there with the cups for a second longer than I need to.
Eventually, the party gets going.
Music from the speaker. Laughter. Kids running between the tables and the swing set. Boulder making a plate the size of his head while Kelsey laughs at him.
Ruby slapping Zorro's hand away from the pan dulce until everyone else has eaten.
I eat standing up against the back wall.
Nova catches my eye from the table where she's sitting with Mei and Lashes. She smiles at me, and I almost smile back.
An hour in, Amara stands up.
She's been at the head of one of the tables eating with Dante, and when she stands, the courtyard goes quiet immediately.
The music drops. Conversations trail off. Heads turn. That's how presidents do it. No announcement. The room automatically shifts.
She holds her beer in one hand and looks around the courtyard. Brothers and ol' ladies. Kids running between tables.
The full family in one place.
"Six days ago," she says, "we didn’t lose anyone. That's not always how it goes. So tonight, we drink, eat, and we remember that we are still here, all of us, because every single brother in this courtyard had every other brother's back."
The brothers raise their beers. The room rumbles low with agreement.
"The work isn't done," Amara continues. She doesn't soften her voice for any of this. "We all know the Kodiak MC isn't going to leave us alone. We killed their Enforcer, and they’ll come for us. We've got months ahead that are going to test every one of us. But that's a worry for tomorrow."
She looks across the courtyard. "Doom."
My stomach drops half an inch.
The entire courtyard turns to look at me.
Amara waves me forward with two fingers. "Get up here."
I set my plate down and walk to her.
My boots sound louder than they should against the stone.
Nova is watching me from her table.
Brick's eyes are on me from where he's standing behind Imani's chair.
Razor's leaning against one of the orange trees with his arms crossed and a small smile I haven't seen in seven days.
I stop in front of Amara. "Prez."
She studies my face for a second.
"You've been a prospect with this charter long enough," she says. "Too long, if you ask Python. He's been bitching about it for months."
A laugh moves through the brothers. Python lifts his beer.
Amara doesn't smile. She just keeps her eyes on me.
"You earned this a dozen ways over. The Diego rescue.
The way you carried the investigation. The way you handled your father.
The way you came back through to the other side of it without losing yourself.
You showed me a man who knows the difference between blood and family, and who chose family every single time. "
Her voice doesn't rise. She's not making a speech. She's naming the thing for what it is.
She turns her head toward the trees. "Razor."
Razor pushes off the tree.
He walks across the courtyard with my cut folded over his forearm.
My cut.
The bottom rocker stitched on, the prospect rocker gone.
The patches I've watched other men wear for years now sitting on the leather that's been mine since I came up.
He stops in front of me and holds it out. "You earned this, brother."
I take it.
The leather is warm from his arm. The patches are crisp.
I can feel the stitching under my thumb where the bottom rocker meets the back panel.
Python steps up next. "Welcome in, brother."
Boulder comes next, holding a brand-new red bandana.
He hands it to me without a word, but his eyes are wet, and he claps me on the shoulder hard enough to bruise.
I pull off my prospect cut—the last time I'll ever take it off—and Amara takes it out of my hand.
I put my full cut on.
The leather drops across my shoulders, and the weight of it feels different than it ever has before.
The bottom rocker pulls at the back. The patches sit against my chest. I've worn this cut for years, and I've never worn it like this.
I might have been born with Bears and Kodiak blood in my veins, but I was always meant to be a Reaper's Reject.
The courtyard erupts.
Brothers shouting. Beers raised.
Ruby is crying into her hands.
Kelsey has both arms around Lashes, who has both hands over her mouth.