3. Chapter 3
Colt
Doc cornered me in the garage on a Tuesday morning.
He didn't ask. Didn't lead with explanation. Just walked up while I was watching Rod replacing a carburetor and said, "You've got an appointment at two. Non-negotiable."
The way he said it—flat, final, like he'd already discussed it with Prez, and this decision had been made without my input—made my jaw clench.
"An appointment for what?" I didn't look up from the bike.
"Medical clearance. You're cleared to ride, but we need psychological evaluation on file. Insurance purposes." Doc was lying. We didn't have the kind of insurance that required psychological evaluations. We had the kind of insurance that paid out in cash and asked no questions.
But I let him have the lie because I was tired, and confrontation felt like too much effort.
It wasn't until I showed up to the address Doc had written down—a small clinic in a professional building, nothing that screamed biker-friendly—that I realized what was actually happening.
The receptionist gave me a sympathetic smile when I walked in. That was my first sign. That smile said she'd seen men like me before. Men who came in angry. Men who didn't want to be there.
"Ms. Caroline is ready for you," she said, pointing down a hallway.
I stood in the waiting room for exactly three minutes, reading the motivational posters about resilience and recovery, feeling my blood pressure climb with each second that passed.
A therapist. The club had hired me a goddamn therapist. Not because they were concerned for my wellbeing, but because they saw me as a problem that needed solving. A liability. A weapon that was malfunctioning and needed to be recalibrated.
The door to her office opened and a woman walked out.
She was small. That was my first instinct—the assessment.
Five-four, maybe five-five. Dark hair pulled back in a braid.
Professional clothes in neutral colors. She had the kind of carefully composed expression that I recognized immediately as a shield.
The face someone wore when they were trained to hide what they actually thought.
"Colt?" She extended her hand. "I'm Caroline."
I didn't take it. Didn't acknowledge the gesture.
Instead, I walked past her into the office and remained standing, my arms crossed, my presence taking up as much space as I could manage.
Her office was too small to pace in, too calm to contain my fury.
The walls were that same neutral beige. The furniture was minimal.
Everything was designed to be inoffensive. Safe.
I hated it immediately.
"You can sit down," she said, closing the door behind her.
"I'm fine standing."
She didn't argue. Just moved to her chair and settled into it like my refusal to sit was completely expected. Like she'd anticipated every move I'd make before I made it.
"Doc explained why you're here?"
"He lied," I said flatly. "Insurance. We both know there's no insurance evaluation. The club sent you to fix me because they think I'm broken."
Caroline didn't flinch. Didn't get defensive about the accusation. She just folded her hands in her lap and looked at me with dark eyes that somehow saw too much. "Are you broken?"
The question was designed to trip me up. One of those therapy tricks—turn it back on the patient, make them admit their own diagnosis. I was familiar with the tactic. I'd been interrogated by professionals who understood psychological manipulation.
"I'm fine," I said.
"Your club seems to disagree."
"My club is wrong."
"Then why are you here?"
I turned away from her, walked to the window, and looked out at the parking lot. She had a perfect view of my truck from her office. That meant she could see everyone who came and went.
That meant she'd already noted the scratches on my knuckles, the bruising on my face, the general state of disrepair I was in.
She'd made assumptions about how I'd gotten those marks.
She'd probably already written notes about me in her file—the dangerous biker with impulse control issues and a predilection for violence.
"Because Ditch asked me to," I said finally. "Because he said if I didn't come, he'd worry more. And I don't want him to worry."
It was the first honest thing I'd said, and it cost me.
Caroline didn't celebrate the honesty. Didn't write it down in front of me or make me feel like I'd made progress. She just acknowledged it with a slight nod. "That's important. That Ditch's opinion matters to you."
"Don't," I warned her. "Don't do that thing where you take what I said and twist it into something therapeutic. I'm not here because I need therapy. I'm here because my brothers matter, and they're worried about me, and I'm tired of worrying them."
"Okay." She uncrossed her hands and leaned forward slightly. "Then let's start with what you're experiencing. The boxing matches. Can you tell me about them?"
The question was casual. Like she was asking about the weather instead of asking me to volunteer information about my self-harm patterns.
I could refuse to answer. Could walk out right now and tell Ditch this was a waste of time.
He'd try to convince me to come back, but he wouldn't force me.
The club respected choice, even when that choice was self-destructive.
"I'm training," I said.
"Underground matches. Fighting recklessly."
She'd done her research. Lena had told her. Or Doc. Or someone else in the club who'd decided that monitoring my behavior was more important than respecting my privacy.
The realization that I was being discussed, analyzed, worried over in my absence made something spike hot and sharp in my chest.
"It's a way to stay sharp."
"By taking damage you could avoid?"
"I win."
"Against untrained fighters, or against trained opponents?"
I didn't answer. She didn't push.
Instead, she shifted tactics. "Tell me about the black-site. The capture and what happened while you were there."
That was where I shut down completely. I turned back to face her, and I let every ounce of rage and danger I could channel into my expression come to the surface. I used the presence I'd been training with for years—the ability to fill a room with threat just by existing in it.
The skill that had served me well as Sergeant at Arms. The technique that made prospects think twice before testing boundaries.
"Not happening."
"Okay," she said quietly. "We can move to something else. What does a typical day look like for you?"
"I wake up. I don't sleep much. I go to the gym. I train. I work. I go to the club. I sleep less. Repeat."
"Do you eat?"
"Yes."
She waited, and I realized she was expecting more detail. When I didn't provide it, she made a note. Not on paper directly in front of me, but I saw the movement of her pen, the slight shift of her attention toward the notepad on the armrest of her chair.
"Are you tracking my descent into mental illness?" I asked bitterly.
"I'm observing your patterns. Hypervigilance. Fragmented speech when discussing routine. Avoidance of detail when describing daily living activities. These are trauma responses, not moral failings."
"I don't need a diagnosis."
"You don't, but the people who care about you need to understand what they're dealing with. The boxing matches, the insomnia, the isolation—these are your brain's way of managing overwhelming stimulus. It's an adaptation. But it's also destructive."
"It works."
"Does it? Or does it work temporarily, and then you have to do it again?"
The question landed because it was true. The matches gave me four, maybe five hours of quiet. Then the memories came back. Then I'd have to book another fight. Then I'd have to find another way to hurt myself into silence.
I didn't say any of this. Just stared at her with the kind of intensity that would have made most people uncomfortable. Caroline met my eyes without flinching. She didn't look away. Didn't soften. Didn't give me the fear response that usually made people back down.
For the first time since I'd come home, someone wasn't afraid of me.
That was somehow worse than if she'd been terrified.
"The therapy process requires vulnerability," she said. "It means talking about things that feel impossible to discuss. It means admitting that there are situations where being strong doesn't solve the problem. I know that's uncomfortable. I know it feels like weakness."
"It is weakness."
"No," she said, and her voice carried certainty.
"Surviving torture and not using it as an excuse to hurt everyone around you—that's strength.
Being willing to sit with the damage instead of boxing it into silence—that's strength.
Trusting people enough to ask for help—that's the hardest kind of strength, and it's the one that actually leads somewhere. "
I felt something crack inside my chest. Just slightly. Like the weight I'd been carrying was pressing on glass and that glass was starting to shatter. I didn't like it. Didn't want to feel it.
"I don't want this," I said.
"I know."
"I don't want to sit in this room and talk about what happened to me. I don't want to process trauma. I don't want to feel less angry because feeling angry is the only thing keeping me together."
"I know," she said again. "But you're also not healing. You're surviving. There's a difference."
I looked at the clock on her wall. Forty-seven minutes had passed. Thirteen minutes left in the session. I could sit in this discomfort for thirteen more minutes. I could endure it the way I'd endured everything else.
"If I keep coming back," I said slowly, "this stays between us. Nothing I tell you goes back to the club."
"I can't promise that. If I believe you're an immediate danger to yourself or others, I have mandatory reporting requirements. But otherwise, what you discuss in here stays confidential. That's professional ethics."
I nodded. That was better than nothing.
"And if I decide it's not working?"
"Then you can stop. I'm not here to force you into recovery. I'm here to offer tools if you want them."
That was the lie therapists always told. That they were giving you a choice. Like staying on this path of self-destruction was a valid option equal to choosing recovery. Like both directions were equally viable.
They weren't, and she knew it. But I appreciated the fiction she was maintaining.
"Next Tuesday," I said. "Same time."
"If you want."
I was already moving toward the door.
"Colt?" Her voice stopped me. "The fact that you came today—that you're here at all—that matters. The club didn't ambush you because they think you're broken. They care about you."
I didn't respond. Didn't say that care and surveillance felt the same from the inside.
Didn't say that being watched while falling apart just meant you had an audience for the destruction.
Didn't say that the only thing worse than self-destructing alone was self-destructing while people you loved watched and couldn't do anything about it.
I just walked out.
The drive back to the club was long enough for me to think about what had happened in that office.
About the way she'd sat there, completely unfazed by my anger.
About the way she'd made eye contact with every threat I'd made and didn't flinch.
About how she seemed to understand the difference between strength and the pretense of strength.
Most people in my life treated me like I was breakable. They spoke quietly around me. They watched for signs of explosion. They kept their distance.
Caroline had done the opposite. She'd looked directly at the wreckage and hadn't turned away.
I didn't know if I wanted that. Didn't know if I could tolerate someone actually seeing what I'd become.
But I'd agreed to go back. Agreed to next Tuesday.
And that terrified me more than anything else had since I'd come home.
Ditch was outside when I pulled in. He looked up, and I could read the question in his expression. How'd it go? Was it terrible? Should he apologize?
"I'm going back," I said before he could ask. "Next week. Same time."
Relief flickered across his face.
"Don't make a thing about this," I warned.
"I won't."
But the relief didn't fade. Just got replaced by something else. Something that looked like hope.
And I wasn't ready for hope. Hope meant I had to actually try to survive this instead of just waiting for the self-destruction to finish the job.
I walked past Ditch without another word and headed for my apartment. The weight I'd been carrying hadn't lessened. But something had shifted. Something small and fragile had cracked open inside of me.
I had no idea what would come pouring out if I let it keep breaking.
But I'd agreed to go back. Agreed to try.
The thought followed me into sleep that night, and for the first time in weeks, I slept without dreaming.