Chapter 7 — Cain
The coffee's still warm in my hand when she comes out dressed for the day.
Jeans, t-shirt, hair pulled back tight. She looks at me on her back porch and something in her expression goes determined.
"I'm coming with you."
I process that. The clubhouse means brothers seeing her with me. They'll understand immediately what it means. "You know what that signals."
"I know." No hesitation. "They'll think I'm yours."
"They'll be right."
Her eyes don't leave mine. "Then we don't have a problem."
Twenty minutes later she's standing beside my bike while I run through the basics.
Arms around my waist, not my shoulders. Follow my body through turns, don't fight the lean. Something feels wrong, squeeze my ribs twice.
She listens like she's memorizing instructions for a test. Climbs on behind me without hesitating.
Her arms wrap around my waist, thighs bracket my hips, breasts press against my back. Every point of contact registers. Not just sexually, though that's there. This is something else. She's trusting me with her safety at seventy miles an hour on two wheels.
I start the engine, and her arms tighten.
The ride takes sixteen minutes, and I feel her the entire time. How she moves with me through turns like she's been doing this for months instead of minutes. How her grip stays firm without panic. How her weight settles against me in a way that makes sense.
By the time I pull into the clubhouse lot I've already decided. She's not temporary. Whatever this is between us, I'm keeping it.
Tate's outside working on his Dyna. Holt's on the porch with coffee. Diesel's leaning against the railing talking to someone inside. All three see us the moment the engine cuts.
See her.
She doesn't move right away, probably getting her legs back under her.
When she slides off her hand braces on my shoulder for balance and every brother watching clocks that familiarity. That easy touch.
Tate catches my eye. Raises an eyebrow. I give him nothing.
Clint appears in the doorway. Takes in Anna, takes in me. Nods once. Approval and acceptance in a single gesture.
Inside I bring her straight to the back room. My workspace. Maps spread across the table, laptop open, monitoring equipment running. I've never brought anyone here who wasn't a brother.
"Coffee's in the main room," I say.
She disappears. Comes back with two mugs, sets one beside my laptop without asking, sits in the chair by the window.
Doesn't hover. Doesn't ask what she should do. Just exists in my space like she belongs here.
I pull up the access logs from last night. Marsh's username seventeen times over three weeks, always outside authorized hours. Always late night. Always accessing schedules he has no operational need for.
The pattern's obvious now that I'm looking for it. Should've caught it sooner.
"What are you tracking?" Anna's voice comes from directly behind me.
I didn't hear her move. She's looking over my shoulder at the screen, close enough I catch that soap smell.
"Access logs for watch schedules. Trying to confirm who gave Marrow the information they used on Walt."
"How do you distribute schedules?"
"Encrypted messaging. Officers and active watch only."
"Retention period on the logs?"
I look at her. "Six months."
"Can you map access timing against known Marrow movements? See if there's correlation?"
That's smart. Better than smart. I should've thought of it myself.
I open a second window, pull Marrow incident reports from the past month, overlay timestamps. Three separate incidents. Marsh accessed schedules thirty-six to forty-eight hours before each one.
"There." Anna points. "That's your pattern."
Twenty minutes. She found the connection in twenty minutes. I've been staring at this data for two days.
"You're right." I lean back. Process what this means. "Marsh has been feeding them intel for at least three weeks. Could be longer."
"The prospect you vouched for?"
"Yeah." The word tastes like failure. "Six months in. I approved his access levels."
Her hand settles briefly on my shoulder. "You couldn't have predicted it."
"Should've verified prospect protocols more carefully."
"You know now. So, what happens?"
I bring Clint to the back room. Show him Anna's correlation. He studies the screen without speaking for close to two minutes.
"Certain?" he asks.
"Ninety-eight percent. Set a trap with false intel through his access, see if Marrow moves."
"Do it." Clint looks at Anna. "Sharp eye."
She nods. Accepts it without making it a thing.
After Clint leaves I pull up the false schedule I uploaded last night.
Supply run to a location we don't use, tight time window, perfect ambush setup if Marrow gets the information. Anna pulls a chair over, watches me work, asks questions intelligent enough I have to actually think about the answers.
By noon the false intel is uploaded, access restricted to key personnel including Marsh. Now we wait.
The door opens. Kyle, newer prospect, maybe three months in. He sticks his head through. "Cain, you need me to—"
Stops. Stares at Anna bent over the table examining maps, the line of her body in those jeans.
Something cold moves through my chest.
I don't say anything. Just look at him.
Kyle's eyes snap to mine. Color drains from his face. "Sorry. I'll just—" He backs out fast. Door closes.
Anna straightens. Turns. One eyebrow raised.
"You just death-stared a prospect for existing in my vicinity," she says.
"He was staring at your ass."
"So?"
"So that's not allowed."
She studies me. "Very alpha behavior."
"You're mine. Everyone here should understand that."
I expect her to push back on the possessiveness, the claiming language. Instead her mouth curves slightly. "Territorial."
"Extremely."
"Good."
That lands different than I expected. Settles something restless in my chest that's been there since she climbed on my bike this morning.
We work through the afternoon. She's good at pattern recognition, sees gaps in my analysis, thinks like a lawyer while I think operationally and somehow it works. Complements instead of conflicts.
Around three Clint gestures me into the hall.
"Used her access road this morning," he says quietly. "Seven AM. Equipment run, Marrow was watching the main routes. Meant to tell you earlier."
I glance through the doorway at Anna studying the maps. Should tell her. Will tell her when we're done here.
"She's sharp," he says, following my gaze. "Keeping her?"
"Yes."
"Good." He glances at the closed door. "Brothers will have opinions."
"Don't care."
"Neither do I. Just informing you." Pause. "She knows what we are?"
"She knows."
"And she's here anyway."
"She's here anyway."
Clint nods. "Then she's solid."
By five the trap's fully operational. Marsh will access it in the next twenty-four hours or he won't. We'll know tomorrow.
"We should head back," I tell Anna.
She closes the laptop she's been using, stands, stretches. I watch her body move and catalog it for later.
The ride to her property feels different. Settled. Her arms around me are familiar now instead of charged with newness. Natural.
This is what I wanted without realizing I wanted it. Coming home with her, comfortable in the silence between us.
We pull up to her place. She slides off, hand on my shoulder for balance. "Need to check the back cameras. Make sure they're still functional."
"I'll come."
We walk the path to where the access road crosses her boundary. Late sun through the trees. Quiet except for evening birds starting up. Then we round the bend and the tire tracks are obvious.
Fresh. Deep treads from heavy vehicles. Multiple sets.
Anna sees them the same moment I do. Goes completely still. She walks to the camera, and accesses the footage. I watch her face change as she scrolls.
"Three trucks." Her voice has gone flat. "This morning. Nine-fifteen. Two hours after we left for the clubhouse." She turns the phone. "That's Holt's truck. I saw it in the lot."
Fuck.
"The club needed to move equipment fast," I start. "Marrow's been watching main routes so Clint ordered—"
"You used my road." She cuts me off clean. "Without calling. Without asking. After we explicitly agreed on transparency."
"It was time-sensitive."
"I don't care." Her jaw sets hard. "We had an agreement. Twelve hours notice for planned use. Emergency use with immediate notification after. You promised me. Yet, this morning your club drove three trucks across my property and you didn't tell me until I found the tracks myself."
She's right and I know it. I should've checked in with her the moment I realized Clint had authorized the access. Should've called from the clubhouse. But I was focused on Marsh, on the leak, on club business, and her property agreement didn't factor into my immediate priorities.
That was the mistake.
"You're right. I should've told you."
"Yeah, you should’ve. Hours ago. Instead, I'm finding out from camera footage like some kind of surveillance report. Do you understand why that's a problem?"
"Yes."
"Do you? Because from where I'm standing this looks exactly like what I was afraid of. Club needs something, club takes it, you apologize after and expect that to fix it."
"That's not what happened."
"Then explain what happened."
"Clint gave the order while we were running the trap. Needed equipment moved on a route Marrow wasn't monitoring. I didn't know until—"
"Until when?" She steps closer, angry enough I can feel heat coming off her. "When did you find out?"
I try to calculate. When did Clint mention it? "Around three this afternoon."
"Three… When we were still at the clubhouse together.
" She laughs but there's no humor in it.
"You had hours to pick up your phone and send me a text.
'Hey, club used your road this morning for urgent business, here's what happened.
' Hours, Cain. You were sitting ten feet from me for two of those hours. "
She's absolutely right and I have no defense that doesn't sound like excuses.
"I fucked up," I say. "Should've told you immediately. I was focused on the investigation and I didn't think about the agreement we made. That's on me."
"It's not about thinking." Her voice drops, goes colder.
"It's about your word meaning something.
The Devils in Detroit promised things constantly.
Promised they'd protect businesses if they paid.
Promised they wouldn't recruit kids under eighteen.
Promised the violence would stay contained.
Every single promise was worthless. Everyone's word meant nothing. "
There's the real issue. Not the property access. The broken promise.
"This isn't the same thing," I say.
"Isn't it?" She gestures at the tire tracks. "You promised transparency. You broke that promise the first time it was inconvenient. So tell me how you're different from them."
"Because I'm standing here admitting I was wrong instead of making excuses. Because I'm going to do better. Because my word to you matters more than I realized it did until right now."
She's quiet for ten seconds. Watching my face.
"So what happens next time?" Her voice is still cold. "Next time the club needs this road urgently and I'm not immediately available? You going to take it and apologize after?"
"No."
"No?"
"Next time I call you first. Even if it's three in the morning and the situation is urgent. I call, I explain, I don't use your property without your explicit permission."
"And if I say no?"
The question hangs there. I could lie. Could hedge. Choose honesty instead.
"If you say no for a good reason, we find another route. If you say no because you're testing whether I'll respect your boundaries, I'll argue with you until you're convinced letting us use it is the right call. But I won't use it without your permission. Not again."
She stares at me. "That's a big promise."
"I know."
"You already broke one today."
"I know that too."
The silence stretches. Cicadas are loud now, evening chorus building. The sun's dropping behind the trees, light going orange.
"I want to believe you," she says finally. "I'm trying to believe you. But you're asking me to trust that you'll keep your word next time after breaking it this time, and I've seen what happens to people who keep trusting men who break promises."
"I understand."
"Do you?" Her eyes are fierce. "Because if you break your word to me again, I'm done. No second chances. No explanations."
The finality in her voice makes it clear. This is her line. Cross it again and she walks.
"Understood," I say.
"Good." She doesn't soften. Still angry, still hurt. "Now leave. I need space to think and I can't do that with you here."
That hurts more than expected. "Anna—"
"I mean it. Go." She turns away from me. "I'll text you later."
I should stay. Should push until this is fully resolved. But she asked me to leave and I just promised to respect her boundaries.
I walk back to my bike. She doesn't follow.
The ride home feels wrong. Like I left something critical behind that I can't retrieve.
My phone buzzes fifteen minutes later.
Tomorrow 7pm. Bring the finalized easement paperwork. We need to talk about boundaries.
I text back. I'll be there.
Stare at my phone for another minute. Add: The promise is real. I meant every word.
Her response takes four minutes.
We'll see.
I put the phone down. Sit on my couch in the dark.
She didn't forgive me. Didn't say we're okay. Just acknowledged that I said something and she's reserving judgment on whether I meant it.
Fair.
I broke my word to her and she's making me earn her trust back. That's reasonable. Smart, even.
Doesn't make it easier.
I lean back against the cushions and think about tomorrow. About what I need to say to make this right. About whether saying anything will be enough or if I just need to prove it through action over time.
Probably the latter.
Words got me into this. Words won't get me out.
Action will.
My phone vibrates with a text from Clint: "Marsh bit. 0217 hours. In custody."
The trap worked. Leak confirmed, being handled. One threat contained.
Doesn't fix what I broke with Anna, but at least it's something.