Chapter Seven
The compound looked like someone had converted a cotton gin into a fortress.
Megan stood in the gravel lot, taking in the two-story brick-and-iron complex while bikes rumbled into formation around her.
The main building was massive—industrial bones softened by decades of use, with a long covered porch and windows that had seen better days.
Smaller structures dotted the property, and the whole thing was surrounded by fencing that said stay out without needing words.
She had her tattoo kit in one hand and her portfolio in the other.
Four years of flash art and custom designs. She hadn't been able to save the originals—they'd been destroyed when Tully collapsed the wall into her shop—but she'd photographed everything for her portfolio, and she wasn't leaving that behind for anyone.
A prospect was unloading equipment nearby. He glanced at her bags with curiosity.
"Touch my inks," Megan said, "and I'll tattoo something regrettable on you while you sleep."
The kid's eyes went wide. "Yes ma'am."
"Smart boy."
Levee appeared at her elbow, solid and steady as always. "Making friends already?"
"Setting expectations." She shifted her kit to her other hand. "Where am I staying?"
"I'll show you." He nodded toward the main building. "But first—you should see where I work."
Something in his voice made her look twice. This wasn't just a tour offer. This was Levee showing her something that mattered to him.
"Lead the way."
The compound was bigger than it looked from outside.
Levee walked her through the main floor—a sprawling clubhouse with a bar that had clearly seen decades of hard use, pool tables, old photographs covering the walls.
Brothers called greetings as they passed, and Megan cataloged names and faces with the automatic attention of someone who'd survived by reading rooms.
But Levee didn't linger on the common areas.
He led her down a staircase, through a heavy door with multiple locks, and into the basement.
The armory.
Megan stopped three steps in, her breath catching.
It was beautiful in the way that well-maintained tools were beautiful—racks of weapons organized by type and caliber, ammunition stored in labeled containers, workbenches covered in cleaning supplies and spare parts. Everything had a place. Everything was immaculate.
And at the center of it, Levee transformed.
She'd seen him in her shop—quiet, watchful, slightly out of place among the flash art and client chatter. She'd seen him in the welding shop, all focused intensity and structural thinking. But here, in this basement filled with iron and oil, he was home.
His hands moved over the weapons with a precision she recognized.
The same way I move over needles and ink.
"This is where you spend your time," she said.
"When I'm not checking your block, yeah." He picked up a rifle from a rack, checking the action with automatic efficiency. "Every weapon in the club comes through here. Maintenance, repairs, modifications. If it fires, I keep it running."
"How many are there?"
"Enough." He set the rifle back with the same care she used positioning flash art on a wall. "Cottonmouth built this collection over fifteen years. My job is making sure it stays ready."
She moved deeper into the space, running her fingers over the edge of a workbench. The wood was worn smooth from use, stained with oil and solvent. It reminded her of her own station—the marks left by years of focused work.
"You treat them like I treat my equipment," she said.
He looked at her, something flickering in his steady eyes. "How so?"
"Like they're an extension of yourself. Like keeping them maintained isn't just a job—it's respect for the craft." She met his gaze. "I've watched you clean a gun. It's the same way I watch myself clean a machine. Same focus. Same... I don't know. Reverence?"
"Most people don't notice that."
"Most people don't pay attention."
The moment stretched between them—electric, charged with things neither of them was ready to say. Levee was looking at her like she'd surprised him, like she'd seen something he hadn't expected anyone to see.
Then footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the moment broke.
"Levee." Cottonmouth's voice preceded him into the armory. The president appeared at the base of the stairs, taking in Megan with those river-mud eyes that saw everything. "Settling in?"
"Just showing her around." Levee's voice was neutral, but Megan caught the way his body shifted—slightly in front of her, protective without being obvious.
"Good." Cottonmouth nodded. "The old ladies want to meet her. Jolene's got dinner going."
"We'll be up."
Cottonmouth's gaze lingered on Megan for a moment—assessing, measuring, the same way she assessed new clients before putting needle to skin. Whatever he saw, it seemed to satisfy him.
"Welcome to the compound," he said, and headed back upstairs.
The old ladies were waiting in the clubhouse kitchen.
Four women, ranging from their late twenties to their mid-thirties, with the easy confidence of people who'd long since figured out their place in the world. They looked up as Megan entered, and she felt herself being evaluated all over again.
Great. More tests.
"So you're the one who's got our armorer tied in knots." The speaker was a woman with sharp features and an apron covered in flour—Grace, Megan remembered from the ride over. Crossroad's wife, owned a bakery.
"I'm the one whose shop got demolished," Megan corrected. "The knot-tying is news to me."
A bark of laughter from the woman at the stove—tall, dark-haired, with the bearing of someone who ran her own show. Jolene. Cottonmouth's woman.
"Oh, I like her," Jolene said. "The loud ones are usually the most honest."
"Who says I'm loud?"
"Honey, you walked in here and threatened a prospect within thirty seconds of arrival." Another woman—Nora, the farrier—grinned from her seat at the table. "That's loud in the best way."
Megan felt something loosen in her chest. She'd expected hostility, or at best, the cool assessment of women protecting their territory. What she was getting felt more like... recognition.
"Sit down," Jolene said. "Food's almost ready. And you look like you haven't had a real meal in days."
She wasn't wrong. Megan took a seat at the worn kitchen table, setting her portfolio on the floor but keeping her tattoo kit close. Force of habit.
The fourth woman—Ruth, quiet and watchful, with tattoos of her own climbing her forearms—nodded at the kit. "You bring your work everywhere?"
"It's all I've got left." The words came out harder than she intended. "My shop's gone. My flash is destroyed. This kit and this portfolio—that's four years of my life."
Silence.
Then Jolene set a plate in front of her—fried catfish, greens, cornbread that smelled like heaven—and pulled up a chair.
"So rebuild."
Megan blinked. "What?"
"Rebuild." Jolene's voice was matter-of-fact.
"You're not the first woman who's walked into this compound with nothing but what she could carry.
You won't be the last. These men will move heaven and earth for someone they've claimed—and that armorer has been circling you for months.
So you rebuild. Here, with us, until it's safe to go back. "
"And the compound could use some color on the walls," Grace added. "All this testosterone makes the place feel like a bunker."
"I'm not—" Megan started, then stopped. What was she going to say? I'm not his. Was that even true anymore?
"You fought beside him." Ruth's voice was soft but certain. "Nora told us about the welding shop. You helped fortify. You didn't hide when the bullets started flying."
"I hid in a back room."
"With a weapon." Nora's grin sharpened. "That's not hiding. That's positioning."
Megan looked around the table at these women—strong, direct, completely unintimidated by the violent world they'd chosen. They weren't judging her. They were welcoming her.
"I don't know how to do this," she admitted. "The... compound thing. The old lady thing. I've been on my own since I was seventeen."
"So were most of us." Jolene's hand covered hers briefly—warm, calloused from work. "Being alone isn't a personality trait, honey. It's just what happens when nobody's worth staying for. These men are worth staying for. You'll figure that out."
The room they gave her was small but clean—a converted office in one of the outbuildings, with a narrow bed, a desk, and a window that looked out on the compound lot.
Megan sat on the edge of the bunk, her tattoo machine in her lap.
The weight of it was familiar. Grounding. The one constant in a life that had been turned upside down in less than a week.
She thought about her shop—the flash art she'd drawn at three AM, the chair she'd saved for two years to buy, the neon sign her first client had helped her hang. All of it destroyed because some developer wanted her building.
She thought about Sutter's body in the welding shop. About the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite and the way Levee had walked toward her through the smoke like a man who would burn the world down to keep her safe.
And she thought about him.
The way he moved in his armory, surrounded by the tools of his trade. The precision of his hands. The quiet intensity that made her want to take him apart and see what he was made of.
He built things to last. Levees, fortifications, weapons that would fire true for decades if maintained properly.
And he looked at her hands the way she looked at clean skin.
Like he was seeing what it could become.
The tattoo machine hummed as she turned it on, testing the action out of pure habit. The needle caught the light—sharp, precise, ready to create something permanent.
I don't know what I'm doing, she thought. I don't know what this is, or where it's going, or what happens when Brandt is gone and I don't have an excuse to stay.
But for the first time since she'd smelled gas in her shop, the fear had been replaced by something else.
Possibility.
She turned the machine off and set it on the desk. Then she pulled off her boots, stretched out on the bunk, and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow she'd figure out the next move. Tonight, she was safe.
And somewhere in this compound, there was a man with heavy hands and steady eyes who looked at her like she was worth building a future around.
That was enough.
For now.