Chapter 7 #2
"Surveillance first. Diesel, you and the new guys watch the roads in and out of town, rotating shifts.
Anyone unfamiliar, we want eyes on them before they get anywhere near the harbor.
" Reaper's gaze swept the room. "Gabriel, you and Rafael handle coordination with the coast guard contact — quietly, no reason to spook anyone into moving faster than they were planning to. "
"And Lena and Nico?" I asked.
"Round-the-clock, starting tonight. Someone at the house at all times, someone on the school run, someone at the café if she insists on keeping the place open." Reaper's eyes found mine, steady, certain. "We protect what's ours, Hawk. That's not a debate in this club. That's just how it works."
Elio, standing near the back with an arm slung easy around Sienna's shoulders, raised a hand. "I can take tomorrow's school run. Sienna's got the shop covered, and frankly I could use an excuse to terrify a six-year-old's classmates with my general demeanor."
"You're not terrifying," Sienna said. "You cried at Lucia's dance recital."
"That's classified information."
"It's really not, you cried loudly, several people asked if you were okay."
The room broke into a ripple of laughter despite everything, and even I felt some of the tension in my chest ease half a degree, grateful for the reminder that this club — my club — could hold both grim resolve and easy warmth in the same breath.
"Alright, focus," Reaper said, though he was fighting a smile himself. "Diesel, first watch is yours. Hawk—" his voice softened slightly, "—you're with Lena tonight. Rest of us rotate from there."
Diesel caught my eye on the way out, falling into step beside me toward the door.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I've got a good feeling about this. We've handled worse odds. Remember the situation with Elio's old employer? Compared to that circus, this is practically routine."
"That supposed to be reassuring?"
"Extremely reassuring. I lived through that one with all my limbs intact, didn't I?
" He clapped my shoulder, some genuine steel underneath the usual joking.
"Besides, you've got more motivation than you had six years ago.
Back then you were protecting a town. Now you're protecting your kid.
Different gear entirely, brother. I've seen fathers move mountains for less. "
"You're not a father."
"Not yet. Give it time." He grinned, unbothered, though something more serious flickered underneath it.
"But I've watched Marco with Lucia enough to know what it does to a man.
You're not the same guy who rode out of here six years ago, Hawk.
That guy was running on duty and guilt. You're running on something a lot harder to shake loose.
We've got your back, Hawk. All of us. Whatever it takes. "
I believed him. I believed all of them, standing in that parking lot with the whole club rallying around a threat that had followed me home.
But belief and certainty are different animals, and somewhere around two in the morning, lying awake beside Lena while she finally slept, old instinct crept back in and started whispering the same argument it had whispered six years ago.
You're the target. Not them. If you're gone, the target moves with you.
I lay there a long time, staring at the ceiling, running the same calculation I'd run six years ago in almost the exact same position — weighing the club's protection against the simple, brutal logic of removing the danger from the equation entirely by removing myself.
I got as far as swinging my legs out of bed before Lena's hand closed around my wrist in the dark.
"Don't," she said, voice rough with sleep but absolutely certain. "Whatever you're thinking. Don't."
"I wasn't—"
"You were." She sat up, flicking on the small bedside lamp, and the look on her face stopped whatever half-formed excuse I'd been building.
"I know that look, Tomas. I watched you wear it the night before you disappeared for six years.
You're doing the math again. Weighing whether leaving keeps us safer. "
"It might."
"It might also just be you running from the hard part again, dressed up as sacrifice.
" Her voice cracked, equal parts fear and fury.
"You promised me. Tonight, in the kitchen, you looked me in the eye and promised me you weren't leaving again.
Was that a promise, or was that just something you said to get through the conversation? "
"It was a promise." I sat back down heavily on the edge of the bed, the fight going out of me as fast as it had risen. "I'm sorry. Old habits. Six years of solving every problem alone doesn't just disappear because I want it to."
"I know it doesn't. But you have to let us in this time. All of us — me, the club, everyone who just spent tonight organizing themselves around keeping you and this family safe. That only works if you actually let it work, instead of quietly deciding halfway through the night that you know better."
She was right, and the shame of it settled heavy in my chest, six years of hard-learned solitary instinct colliding directly with everything I'd promised to become.
"Okay," I said finally. "I hear you. I'm not going anywhere. I mean it this time — really mean it, not just say it and then reconsider at two in the morning."
"Good." Some of the fierceness eased out of her, replaced by exhaustion. "Because Nico asked me today if you were going to stay forever. I told him yes. Don't make me a liar to my own son, Hawk. Please."
That landed harder than anything Reaper or Diesel had said all night. I pulled her back down against my chest, holding on like the contact itself could undo the instinct that had nearly walked me out that door.
"Never again," I said, into her hair, meaning it with everything I had left. "Whatever comes, we face it together. I promise you that, and this time I'm not letting old habits talk me out of it."
We lay there a long while after, her breathing slowly evening back out against my chest, and I stayed awake watching the gray light creep in around the curtains, turning over everything the night had cost and clarified in equal measure.
Six years of instinct didn't unlearn itself in one conversation.
But I understood something now that I hadn't fully understood before — that staying, really staying, meant fighting the urge to run every single time it resurfaced, not just the first time.
Diesel texted at dawn, brief and businesslike. Nothing overnight. Roads clear. Rotation holding.
I texted back a simple Good. Thank you. and set the phone down, watching Lena sleep beside me, watching the pale morning light catch in her hair the same way it had that first afternoon in the fish market.
Whatever Vitale's people were planning, whatever came next, I understood now with total clarity that the fight in front of me wasn't just about ending an old threat.
It was about proving, to Lena, to Nico, to this club that had rallied around me without hesitation, that I'd actually changed — that the man who used to solve every problem by disappearing was gone for good, replaced by one who understood, finally, that the only way through was together.
I got up quietly a while later, careful not to wake her, and stood at the window watching the street below, empty and calm in the early light.
Somewhere out there, whatever remained of a threat I'd carried for six years was still circling, still deciding its next move.
But for the first time since riding back into Cala Sirena, I didn't feel like I was facing it alone in the dark.
I felt the whole weight of the club behind me, steady and certain, and something in that certainty let me finally, properly breathe.
I climbed back into bed as the sky started to lighten, and Lena stirred against me without fully waking, murmuring something too quiet to catch before settling back into sleep, one hand finding mine in the dark the way it always seemed to, even unconscious, like some part of her simply refused to let go anymore.