Chapter Eleven #4
Every instinct screamed at me to run to the porch, to throw myself into Kane’s arms just to prove he was still real. I made myself stay near the bar with a hand on the back of a chair. If something went wrong between the fence and the clubhouse, I’d only be a liability.
The door opened. General stepped in first, moving with solid control, showing no obvious injury. Relief hit me hard enough to make my vision swim.
Kane came through the door next. I scanned him for blood, limps, or any new holes.
Nothing visible. But something in him seemed different.
Tighter. His eyes appeared darker. His jaw remained clenched, refusing to soften even when he saw me.
Sweat dampened his hair at the temples. The scent of the woods and smoke clung to his clothes, mixed with a metallic scent which made my stomach flip -- the smell never accompanied polite conversations.
Atilla turned to Marci. “Keep the kids out of sight. They don’t need to see Roth.”
“Already on it.” Marci raised her voice. “Ducklings! Movie marathon in the TV room. Who wants popcorn?”
The kids swarmed her, attention yanked toward snacks like a lifeline.
Behind Kane, Knuckles and Rook dragged Roth between them. His arms were bound behind his back. A black hood covered his head. His legs didn’t seem to want to cooperate, and they held him up more than he walked. A muffled sound came from under the hood, something between a groan and a curse.
The room went silent. Men’s expressions slammed shut. Women’s eyes grew sharp and cold. The air around us seemed to freeze.
I stepped forward without meaning to. Kane caught my gaze and held me in place with one look. He shook his head once.
Not now.
My feet refused to move another inch.
“Atilla?” General’s voice cut through the silence, barely louder than a whisper but somehow filling the room.
“Storm cellar,” Atilla answered from near the pool table. “Side entrance. No parade.”
I watched Atilla nod to the men. They moved Roth toward the smaller door by the pantry, the one that led around the side of the building.
Kane fell in beside him, one hand gripping the back of Roth’s arm with controlled force.
Every line of Kane’s body screamed restraint -- like the urge to do damage lived under his skin, held back by discipline.
He passed close enough I could’ve reached out and touched him.
I didn’t.
He paused anyway. His hand slid off Roth for just a second and landed on my hip -- firm and quick. Not a caress. A check-in. A silent message: I’m here. I’m still me.
“You good?” His voice came low.
My throat worked. “You’re asking me that after you kidnapped a man for me?”
“It wasn’t just for you.” His eyes held mine. “But yeah. You’re high on the list.”
A shaky laugh escaped me. “Kids are safe. No cartel at the gate. I didn’t set anything on fire.”
“Good.” His gaze flicked toward the door where Roth disappeared. “You keep it that way.”
I looked past him at the hooded figure. My skin crawled.
“You brought him back alive,” I managed. “You keeping him that way for a while?”
“Long enough.” Kane’s voice stayed hard. “We need what’s in his head. After that… we’ll see.”
Roth shifted under the hood, trying to angle toward my voice.
Kane’s grip tightened. “Walk.”
Roth froze, then moved. They disappeared through the side door. The silence they left felt worse than the noise.
Atilla stepped closer to me, studying the way I stood too still, the way my hands clenched and unclenched like they couldn’t decide what to do. “You did good today,” he said. “In the basement.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I’ve got cameras down there.” Atilla’s tone stayed matter-of-fact, like surveillance was as normal as coffee. “I watched you hold those kids together while your heart tried to climb out of your chest. That matters.”
Heat crept up my neck. “It felt like nothing compared to… that.” I jerked my chin toward the door.
“It was everything.” His eyes stayed sharp. “We can’t do what needs doing out there if we’re worried our hearts are wandering around unprotected in here. You gave Kane the freedom to focus.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I just colored and told a story.”
“With a gun on your hip,” he countered. “Don’t minimize it.”
Muffled voices drifted through the walls. Footsteps. A faint metallic clank that made my stomach turn. Then nothing.
“The hard part starts now,” Atilla continued. “Spade’s in his element. General too. They’ll get what we need out of Roth. It’s going to get ugly. You don’t need to see that.”
“I want to.” The honesty surprised me as much as it probably surprised him.
Atilla’s head tipped, eyes narrowing. “No, you don’t. Men like him… you don’t want their last words rattling around in your skull. You’ve already got enough ghosts. Let us carry this one.”
I looked toward the side door, chest tight with the urge to follow, to see his face, to reclaim a piece of myself by standing in front of him and not flinching. But another part of me -- the part that had kept me alive -- recognized a boundary.
“Can I watch from the monitor?” I tried.
“No.” Atilla didn’t budge. “We’re not recording sound down there. Spade takes notes. That’s enough. You’ll get what you need to know. Not every detail. Not every scream. That’s mercy, Jade. For you. Not for him.”
Mercy from Atilla didn’t sound like Roth’s twisted version of it. It sounded like protection with edges.
“Okay,” I forced out.
“Good.” Atilla’s gaze softened just a fraction. “Now go breathe. Eat. Sit with the women. We may need you and your brother’s scribbles again once Spade hears what he wants.”
Breathing sounded doable. Eating sounded like a joke.
Time dragged into an hour that felt like three. The clubhouse stayed on edge. The women moved around each other in quiet, efficient patterns -- cleaning as a coping mechanism, prepping food, checking doors, checking phones. The men who stayed above ground held positions like statues.
I tried to keep my hands busy. I wiped down counters that were already clean.
I helped Solena refill water bottles. I started a batch of cookie dough and realized halfway through I was measuring flour with the precision people used for bomb disposal.
Marci caught my wrist gently and guided the bowl away.
“Sit,” she ordered without malice. “Your hands are starting to tremble. I’ll finish.”
“I’m fine,” I lied -- and even I didn’t believe it.
“You’re surviving,” Marci corrected. “Different category.”
My phone stayed silent. Spade didn’t send updates. No news, I reminded myself, meant they were in control.
Eventually the side door opened. Kane stepped inside. His knuckles were scraped. A smear of something dark streaked the sleeve of his hoodie. His eyes looked older, like he’d watched something ugly and had to lock it away behind his face so he could keep functioning.
I moved toward him without thinking. “You need a medic?”
He shook his head. “Not my blood.”
My stomach flipped. “How bad?”
“Bad.” Kane’s gaze held mine. “Effective.”
He sank onto the couch like someone had cut his strings. I sat beside him, close enough that our sides touched, and threaded my fingers through his. His hand tightened around mine immediately, like that contact was the only thing keeping him from drifting too far into whatever he’d just done.
For a long moment, he didn’t talk. He just sat there, shoulders slowly easing down.
When he finally spoke, his voice stayed low. “He talked. More than I expected. Less than Spade wanted. They’ll go back in later. Roth’s clinging to the fantasy that his men will ride in and save him if he holds out. Spade’s tearing that fantasy apart.”
“Did he say Jason’s name?” My throat tightened around it.
“Yeah.” Kane’s jaw flexed. “Spade shut him down when he tried to make excuses. He’s not letting Roth rewrite history to make himself feel noble.”
Something in my chest loosened a notch. I hadn’t realized I needed that.
“He begged,” Kane added after a beat. “Tried to bargain. Tried to throw Diaz under the bus.” A harsh breath. “Watching him crumble… that felt good.”
“I wish I felt sorry,” I admitted, staring down at our hands. “But all I can think is he got what he deserved.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder, the weight of him real and warm.
“Does anything feel different?” I asked, because part of me kept waiting for the moment that would make the fear stop.
He took a long breath, like he was sorting through his own thoughts carefully. “I thought it would feel like something had been fixed. But watching him shiver while he realized nobody was coming… that hit harder. He looked small. Pathetic. Not like the man who made you feel trapped.”
I lifted my head and really looked at him -- his jaw, the scar along his cheek, the line at the corner of his mouth that deepened when he carried too much. He looked exhausted, but he also looked present -- still here, still mine in the way that meant safety, not possession.
“You came back,” I said quietly. “You promised, and you came back.”
“Yeah.” His voice softened. “Told you I would.”
“My heart is still trying to catch up,” I admitted. “It stayed in my throat all afternoon.”
He kissed my temple. “It can move back now. We’re home.”
Home. The word landed differently this time -- less like borrowed space, more like something I could actually hold.
Somewhere on the far side of the property, Roth sat tied to a chair in the dark, his delusions of Diaz’s approval cracking into dust. Diaz didn’t know yet that one of his leashes had been cut.
When he found out, the simmer would turn into a boil.
We had maps. We had a club that had decided, out loud, this fight belonged to them too.
I had Kane’s hand in mine, steady as a heartbeat. And for the first time since all this chaos started, I could almost believe the future might hold something other than running.