Chapter 22
The clubhouse had been scrubbed clean for the first time in living memory, and Forge was pretty sure that was Grace's doing.
He stood in his room, staring at the mirror, trying to remember the last time he'd cared what he looked like. Before Graterford, probably. Before five years of prison-issue khaki and the understanding that appearance was either armor or target, nothing in between.
His cut hung on the door behind him, freshly cleaned, patches bright against the leather.
He'd polished the hardware himself that morning—snaps, zippers, the metal Sons of Liberty insignia that caught light like a blade.
The patch he'd earned in blood and silence, waiting for him through five years of concrete and steel.
Tonight, it would carry new weight.
A knock at the door. Gallows' voice, stripped of its usual granite: "Time, brother."
Forge pulled on the cut, felt it settle across his shoulders, and walked out to claim his woman in front of every man who mattered.
The main room had been transformed.
Tables pushed back against the walls. The bar gleaming under lights that someone had dimmed to something warmer than the usual harsh fluorescents.
Brothers filled the space in a loose semicircle, cuts on, faces serious—the same men who'd been throwing beer cans at each other's heads last week now standing with the solemn weight of ritual.
This was tradition. Sons tradition, older than any of them, passed down from the founders who'd built this club on the bones of revolutionary defiance.
When a brother claimed his woman, the brotherhood witnessed.
When he declared her his, they accepted.
And once accepted, she was family—protected, defended, permanent.
Forge had seen four claiming ceremonies before Graterford. Had stood in this same room while Patriot claimed Grace, while Gunner claimed Rachel, watching brothers formalize what everyone already knew. He'd understood the weight of it then.
He understood it differently now.
Patriot stood at the center of the room, cold blue eyes carrying something warmer tonight.
The President had changed into a fresh shirt under his cut—his version of formal—and when Forge approached, the nod he gave carried the gravity of a commanding officer acknowledging a soldier who'd proven himself beyond question.
"Brother." Patriot's voice filled the room without effort. "You ready?"
"Been ready."
"Then let's bring her in."
Grace disappeared through the back hallway, and the room went still. Not tense—expectant. The held-breath silence of men waiting for something worth witnessing.
When Dana appeared in the doorway, Forge forgot how to breathe.
She wasn't wearing vintage tonight. No armor from another era, no costume from someone else's past. She wore a simple black dress that fit her like it had been made for the moment, her light brown hair down around her shoulders instead of pinned up, and she looked like—
Everything. She looked like everything.
Her eyes found his across the room, and her chin lifted. Not defiance—certainty. The steady gaze of a woman who'd made her choice and wasn't interested in second-guessing it.
Grace and Rachel flanked her, walking her forward through the brotherhood like an honor guard.
Brothers shifted to let them pass, and Forge caught the small gestures—Gunner's respectful nod, Bayonet's silent acknowledgment, Turnpike stepping back to give her room.
Men who'd watched her hold a compound under assault and swing a wrench at an intruder. Men who'd already decided she belonged.
She stopped in front of him, and the room contracted to the two of them.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi." His voice came out rougher than he intended, scraped raw by something he couldn't name. He cleared his throat. "You look—"
"Don't say nice. I'll hit you."
"I was going to say mine." His hand found her waist, pulled her a step closer. "You look mine."
Something blazed in her eyes—heat and happiness and the fierce pride of a woman who'd survived everything the world had thrown at her and come out standing.
Patriot's voice cut through the moment, commanding without being cold.
"Brothers. We're here tonight because one of ours has chosen.
Forge came to this club as a prospect. He earned his patch in a way none of us hope to match—five years behind bars, never once breaking, never once pointing at the brotherhood.
He proved his loyalty in a cell. He proved his worth in blood.
And now he's asking us to witness something. "
The President turned to Forge, and the formality of the moment settled over the room like a weight.
"Forge. You're claiming this woman as your old lady.
Before your brothers, before the club, in front of every man who wears this patch—you're declaring that she's yours.
That means she's under your protection and ours.
That means she's family, same as blood, same as the patch on your back.
Do you understand what you're taking on? "
"I do."
"Then say it. So everyone hears."
Forge turned to Dana, and the words he'd been carrying for days—weeks, maybe, since the first time she'd looked at him like he was worth saving—finally found their way out.
"I'm not good at speeches." His hands tightened on her waist. "Five years inside taught me that words are cheap and actions are everything. So I'm not going to stand here and make promises I can't keep or say things that sound pretty but don't mean anything."
He paused, feeling the weight of every eye in the room, the gravity of what he was about to say.
"What I will say is this: you're mine. You've been mine since you handed me a jacket I thought was gone forever and told me I was worth salvaging.
You've been mine since you watched me do the worst thing I'm capable of and touched my face anyway.
And you'll be mine tomorrow, and next week, and next year, and every year after that until I'm dust."
Dana's eyes were bright, her jaw tight with the effort of holding back tears.
"I did five years proving loyalty to this club," Forge continued, his voice dropping low enough that the room had to lean in to hear. "I'd do fifty for you. Not because the club asks me to—because you're the reason I want to be free. You're the reason freedom finally means something."
He reached into the inner pocket of his cut and pulled out a pendant—silver, simple, stamped with the Sons of Liberty insignia. The claiming token. He'd had Warrant engrave the back himself, two words that said everything: Worth Saving.
"This makes it official," he said, fastening the chain around her neck. "You're my old lady. My family. And anybody who comes for you comes for every brother in this room."
Dana touched the pendant where it rested against her collarbone, fingers tracing the metal. When she looked up, her expression was fierce enough to stop traffic.
"I'm not just yours," she said, loud enough for the room to hear. "You're mine too. That goes both ways."
Something erupted in the room—not quite cheering, rougher than that.
The sound of twenty men who lived by violence and loyalty recognizing both in the woman standing in front of them.
Fists pounded tables. Boots stamped floors.
Pounder let out a whoop that probably violated noise ordinances in three states.
Patriot's hand landed on Forge's shoulder, heavy and warm. "Welcome to the rest of your life, brother."
"Wouldn't want it any other way."
Then the room broke open, and the party swallowed them whole.
The celebration hit like a flash flood—fast, loud, impossible to resist.
Someone cranked the music. Bottles appeared on every surface.
Brothers lined up to shake Forge's hand and kiss Dana's cheek, the ritual of acceptance playing out one man at a time.
Gunner gripped his forearm hard enough to bruise and said "About damn time.
" Gallows offered a nod that from anyone else would have been nothing but from him was practically a standing ovation.
Bayonet materialized at Dana's side, pressed a knife into her palm—small, elegant, bone-handled—and said "Welcome to the family" before disappearing like smoke.
Dana stared at the knife. "Did he just give me a weapon as a welcome gift?"
"That's Bayonet's love language," Forge said. "He gave Grace a throwing set."
"That's... actually kind of sweet."
"Don't tell him that. He'll be horrified."
Pounder crashed into them like a human wrecking ball, beer sloshing, grin splitting his face wide enough to show the chipped molar he'd earned in the warehouse assault.
"Brother. Brother." He grabbed Forge's shoulders, eyes suspiciously bright.
"Six years ago, you stepped in front of a knife for me.
Took five years for something I should've paid for.
And now you're standing here, claimed up, happy—" His voice cracked.
"I just want you to know. What you did. I'll never—"
"Pounder." Forge gripped the back of his neck, pulled him close. "Shut up and drink your beer."
"Yeah." Pounder blinked hard, sniffed once. "Yeah, okay. Love you, brother."
"Love you too."
Pounder disappeared back into the crowd, and Dana leaned against Forge's side, her hand resting on his chest over his heart.
"He's going to cry into someone's beer before the night's over," she said.
"He cries into someone's beer at every party. It's tradition."
Grace and Rachel descended next, pulling Dana into a huddle of feminine solidarity near the bar.
Forge watched them go—watched Grace press a drink into Dana's hand, watched Rachel lean close to whisper something that made Dana laugh out loud, watched the three of them fold together like they'd been doing this for years instead of weeks.
His woman. In his club. With his family.