6. SARAH
SARAH
The Iron Flames compound smelled of smoke and burned rubber when we drove through the damaged gate, but the only thing I saw was Noah running toward us.
Finn was out of the SUV before it stopped moving. He dropped to one knee despite the blood soaking his side, and Noah hit him hard enough to nearly knock him backward. Finn wrapped both arms around our son and buried his face against his neck.
“You came back,” Noah said.
“Told you I would.”
“The bad men tried to get in.”
“I know.”
“Uncle Reaper put us in a little room and made everyone be quiet. Maddie said he knows games, but he only knows cards.”
Finn laughed once, the sound rough and unsteady. “We’ll teach him some new ones.”
Noah pulled back and saw the blood beneath Finn’s vest. His face crumpled. “Are you dying now?”
“Not even close, kid. Looks worse than it is.”
That was a lie. The cuts Rook left across his ribs had bled through his shirt and into the waistband of his jeans, but Finn kept his expression calm while Noah touched the uninjured side of his chest.
“Promise?”
Finn glanced at me. “Yeah. I promise.”
He had warned me not to make promises I couldn’t keep, yet he offered one to Noah without hesitation because that was what our son needed from him. I understood then that fatherhood had not changed Finn. It had simply given all that fierce loyalty somewhere new to land.
Callie came from the clubhouse with Maddie beside her, while Reaper and Diesel moved through the yard checking the damage.
Two bikes had been destroyed near the west fence, several windows were broken, and a dark smear on the concrete marked where one of the attackers had fallen.
The Iron Flames had held the compound. The Black Thorns had still managed to make it feel violated.
“Elaina’s waiting inside,” Callie said, looking at Finn’s side. “Hawk told her you were hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re dripping on my floor,” Elaina called from the clubhouse doorway. “Bring your stubborn ass inside before I stitch you to the nearest chair.”
Finn looked at Noah. “Stay with Callie for ten minutes.”
“I’m coming.”
“There’ll be blood.”
“I already saw it.”
Finn’s mouth twitched. “Definitely your mother’s kid.”
“He’s yours too,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, sweetheart. I’m starting to notice.”
Elaina treated him in a small room off the clubhouse kitchen while Noah sat on my lap and watched with grave concentration.
Hawk stood behind his wife, his hand resting at the base of her spine as she cleaned the wounds.
Finn refused pain medication, then gripped the edge of the table hard enough to whiten his knuckles when the needle went through his skin.
“You can hold my hand,” Noah offered.
Every man in the room went still.
Finn looked at our son, then opened his fist and held it out. Noah slid his small hand into Finn’s, and Finn didn’t release him until Elaina tied the final stitch.
“No riding, fighting, lifting, or tearing these open for at least forty-eight hours,” she said.
Finn reached for his shirt. “Sure.”
“He isn’t going to listen, is he?” I asked.
Hawk shook his head. “Not even a little.”
Gunner entered before Elaina finished taping the dressing into place. He carried a folded sheet of paper sealed inside a clear bag and laid it on the table.
“Found this on one of the men who hit the west fence.”
The paper held a rough plan of the compound. Every camera was marked, along with the garage entrance, the private rooms, and the reinforced hallway leading to the panic room.
Finn studied it over Noah’s head. “Those cameras were installed six months ago.”
“And the panic-room door was moved after the Viper attack,” Reaper said from the doorway. “Rook left five years back. He couldn’t know any of this.”
“Someone gave him an updated map,” Gunner replied. “The cameras were looped for twenty-seven seconds when the first truck hit. Whoever did it used a valid remote credential.”
Hawk’s face went cold. “How many people have those credentials?”
“Eight. I’m locking down the system and rebuilding access from scratch. Until I know how they got it, nobody moves alone and nothing sensitive gets discussed near a phone.”
Rook’s words returned to me. One of them knows exactly how much a family is worth.
I looked around the room at the men gathered around us. Hawk with his hand still on Elaina. Reaper standing guard near the door. Gunner studying every reaction. Finn holding our son as though he had been born with the right to do it.
One of their brothers might have sold Noah’s name to Rafe.
“We need a chapel meeting,” Hawk said. “Now.”
“Knox stays here,” Elaina replied. “Unless you want to hold his insides in during it.”
“I ain’t missing—”
Noah tightened his grip on Finn’s hand. “You said you’re not dying.”
Finn looked down at him and surrendered without another word.
The others left. Callie took Noah to find clean clothes, and I waited until the door closed before turning on Finn.
“You were going to walk into another meeting while you’re bleeding through fresh stitches.”
“Club’s got a leak.”
“The club has six other men in that room. Noah has one father.”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t get to come back after five years and tell me how to live.”
“No, I get to tell you that throwing yourself into every bullet between here and Rafe isn’t protection. It is another way of leaving us.”
Finn came off the table and crowded me against the wall, one hand settling around my throat. He didn’t squeeze. He simply held me still while his face lowered to mine.
“I ain’t leaving you.”
“You can’t promise that if you keep acting like blood loss is an inconvenience.”
“You want me sitting in bed while the man who threatened my son is breathing?”
“I want you alive when Noah wakes tomorrow. I want you here long enough for him to learn every bad habit you have and decide he likes sharks more than skulls. I want to be angry at you for years, Finn, not stand beside another empty grave because you were too stubborn to let somebody else fight.”
His grip tightened slightly, enough that my pulse jumped against his palm.
“Years?”
I realized what I had said too late.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you plan to punish me forever.”
“You still don’t fucking understand.” His forehead pressed against mine.
“I don’t know how to forgive you yet, Sarah.
I don’t know how to look at him without seeing everything I missed, and some days I’m gonna hate you for that.
But there is no version of this where I take him from you, because I know exactly what it feels like to have those years stolen. ”
My breath caught.
“There also ain’t a version where I watch you pack another bag,” he continued. “You stay because he’s yours. You stay because you’re mine. We fight until we figure out how to live with what happened, but we do it under the same roof.”
I closed my hand around his throat.
Surprise flashed across his face as I pushed him backward onto the examination table. He caught himself before his injured side struck the edge, his hands settling around my hips when I climbed over him.
“Then here’s mine,” I said. “You do not get yourself killed. You don’t ride out without telling me where you’re going, and you never use Noah to threaten me into staying.”
“Wouldn’t need to.”
“Because I’m already yours?”
“Because you came back.”
The answer stripped the anger from my next breath. I kissed him before he could say anything else, gripping his throat while his mouth opened beneath mine. Finn groaned and pulled me closer, but when he tried to turn us, I pressed him down.
“You’re hurt. I decide how this goes.”
His gaze darkened. “Careful, sweetheart. You might find out how much I like you bossy.”
“I already know.”
I opened his jeans and freed his hard cock, stroking him until the smugness disappeared from his face.
He pulled a condom from his wallet and rolled it on while I shoved my jeans down and kicked one leg free, then he hooked his fingers into my panties and tore them aside rather than wait for me to remove them.
“Finn—”
“Quiet,” he growled. “Whole damn club’s outside.”
I lowered myself onto him, taking him slowly until he filled me. His head fell back, his fingers digging into my hips, but I kept one hand around his throat and refused to move.
“Who do you belong to?” I asked.
His gray eyes locked on mine. “You know the answer.”
“I want to hear it.”
“You.” His voice scraped beneath my palm. “Now ride me before I forget I’m stitched together and fuck you against that wall.”
I did.
Every roll of my hips dragged a low curse from him, but he let me keep control, his hands gripping my ass while I rode him hard enough to make the metal table creak.
The anger between us burned differently now.
It was still possessive and rough, but beneath it was the desperate relief of having survived another night.
His thumb found my clit and circled until my thighs shook around him. I tightened my grip on his throat, leaned close, and bit his lower lip.
“Mine,” I whispered.
“Always.”
I came with my face buried against his neck, smothering the sound while he thrust up into me and followed, his arms closing around my back without disturbing the bandage on my arm.
For once, neither of us pulled away immediately.
I stayed wrapped around him, his heartbeat slowing beneath my palm, until a hard knock struck the door.
“Knox,” Gunner called. “One of the men from the road is talking. Rook’s heading to the south yard at midnight to make sure the route is clear.”
Finn’s entire body went still beneath me.
“Rafe?” he called back.
“No sign of him. Just Rook and a small crew.”
Finn looked at me, and I knew the night was not over. This time, when he reached for his gun, I didn’t tell him to stay.
I told him I was going too.