Chapter 33 #3
Mac’s expression shifts. Softens for exactly one second. Then hardens again because this is not the time for softness. “I know,” she says. “But he doesn’t have you.”
That should matter.
It doesn’t. Not enough. Because he was here. Because he touched me. Because he got close enough to grab my wrist and look at my daughter and smile like he was already picturing how this ends.
I hear shouting outside.
Bikes.
A lot of bikes.
Then boots pounding toward the entrance with the kind of speed and violence that means the cavalry just stopped pretending this was containable.
And then Joker is there.
I don’t see him come in.
One second the world is chaos and noise and panic and fluorescent lights and Lexi’s tears and the smell of fear in the back of my throat.
The next second he’s in front of me. And everything in me recognizes him before my brain can even form the thought.
My body moves on pure instinct.
I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I don’t remember the fight or the hurt or the space between us or any of the jagged things still left unsaid.
I just go. Straight into him. Hard enough that he actually takes half a step back when I slam into his chest with Lexi crushed between us and a sob tearing out of me before I can stop it.
He catches all of us. Immediately. Like he was built for exactly this.
One arm wraps around Lexi. The other around me. His whole body closing around both of us like a wall I don’t have to think about climbing because it’s already there.
“Angel.” His voice is low and rough and terrifyingly steady. “Look at me.”
I try. I really do. But I’m crying now and shaking so badly my teeth are chattering and all I can get out is, “He was here.”
Joker goes so still it’s scary. Not because he’s calm. Because rage just locked every part of him into place so hard it became silent. His hand cups the back of my head. The other keeps Lexi pinned safely between us. “I know.”
“He touched me.”
That one does it. I feel the exact second the words land. Not in some dramatic way. In the way his entire body changes. Sharpens. Turns into something colder and more lethal than I’ve ever felt from him before.
His forehead presses hard to mine for one second, like he’s grounding himself through contact before he lets go and starts killing people. “Did he touch her?”
The question is low. Controlled. Deadly.
I shake my head hard and clutch Lexi tighter. “No.”
Thank fucking God.
Joker exhales once. Hard. Violent. Then his mouth brushes my forehead in a kiss so rough and brief it feels more like a vow than comfort. “She’s okay,” he says.
I break all over again at that. Because she is. Because she’s still in my arms and breathing and crying and warm and not gone. But only barely enough to leave bruises I know none of us are walking away from clean.
Behind him, I can hear the rest of the club moving like war just got called.
Logan barking orders. Shadow and Blaze already splitting directions. Cain somewhere nearby sounding one bad second away from murder. Sirens outside. People yelling. The whole world spinning into motion around us.
And still Joker doesn’t move first.
Not until he makes sure I’m breathing. Not until he checks Lexi with one hard, sweeping glance and confirms for himself that she’s physically okay. Not until he knows exactly where the pieces of his family are before he turns his attention outward.
That’s what wrecks me most. Not the violence. Not the fury.
The fact that even now, in the middle of chaos, I come first. We come first.
“Joker,” I whisper.
His eyes snap back to mine instantly. And there’s no distance there now. No fight. No hurt. No careful, painful space. Just us. Just instinct. Just the raw, brutal truth of what happens when fear strips everything else away.
He slides one hand to the back of Lexi’s head and the other to my jaw, holding both of us like we are the only thing tethering him to this earth. And maybe we are.
Then, because I can’t hold it in anymore, because my whole body is shaking apart and the only place that still feels remotely solid is the man standing in front of me, I break.
Completely. Not quiet. Not controlled. Not graceful.
I fold into him and sob against his chest while Lexi cries between us and his arms close around both of us like he’d tear the whole world down before he let it touch us again.
And somewhere in the middle of all that panic and grief and relief and terror, with his cut under my hands and his body wrapped around mine and my daughter still safe in my arms by a margin so narrow it makes me physically ill to think about, the truth finally rips free.
The one I’ve been trying not to say. The one I’ve been trying not to believe because if I say it out loud, then it becomes real in a way I can’t survive pretending around anymore.
I press my face harder into Joker’s chest and whisper the words into the fabric over his heart. “He’s never going to stop.”
And the worst part?
The part that makes something cold and hopeless crack open in the center of me?
Is that for the first time since I ran,
I think we both know I’m right.