Chapter Three
Willa
The house sat apart from the main compound -- a solid structure with a porch that wrapped around the front and sides.
Nitro walked ahead of me, his stride unhurried, giving me time to take it in.
The breakfast he’d insisted on had been quiet -- coffee for him and juice for me, eggs, toast with no butter because he’d noticed I’d pushed it aside.
He’d talked about the club’s schedule, the Prospect rotation, a dozen other things that didn’t matter while I picked at my food.
Now we were here, the house looming ahead, and my chest felt tight enough to crack.
I’d been claimed in front of what had looked like twenty men.
Heard the word family used like it was something I was already part of.
Watched the room rearrange itself around me, making space I hadn’t asked for.
All because of what was growing inside me -- the twin heartbeats that belonged to the man walking three steps ahead.
“This is mine,” Nitro said as we reached the porch. “The club has security at the gate. I have cameras.” He nodded toward the corners of the porch. “Nobody gets in without me knowing.”
I followed him up the steps, my hand on the rail, my canvas bag against my back. It held everything I owned -- three changes of clothes, a hairbrush, a paperback with a cracked spine I’d read three times already. The only proof I had a life before this moment.
He unlocked the door with a key he pulled from his pocket -- no electronic keypad, no fancy locks, just metal and the turning sound it made. The door swung open into a space that felt immediately like him -- spare, ordered, the air inside carrying the scent of leather and faint cigarette smoke.
“Living room,” he said, stepping aside to let me pass. “Kitchen’s through there. Bathroom at the end of the hall. Two bedrooms.” He moved through the house ahead of me, turning on lights, opening doors just enough to show the spaces beyond without lingering.
The living room held a leather couch worn smooth at the arms, a TV mounted to the wall across from it, a coffee table with nothing on it but a remote control and a motorcycle magazine.
The kitchen had clean counters and cabinets with the doors closed, a refrigerator humming quietly, a coffee pot with an inch of black liquid still in the bottom.
He opened the door to the second bedroom -- a smaller space with a bed that looked like it had been made with military precision, a dresser, and a window with blinds drawn.
Then he was back in the kitchen, moving past me to the counter where he set down a key -- a flat metal thing with nothing attached to it, no keychain, no label.
“Here,” he said, placing it between us on the counter. “There’s another one in the drawer if you need it.”
I picked it up. It was warm from his pocket, slightly worn at the edges.
I closed my fingers around it and let my gaze move over the room -- taking in the back door visible through the kitchen, the window above the sink with its half-drawn shade, the hallway that led to the front.
Exits. Options. Ways out if I needed them.
Nitro noticed me looking. I saw it in the slight shift of his expression, the minute tension that appeared at the corners of his eyes. But he didn’t say anything, just moved to the sink and filled a glass with water, which he set on the counter near me without making me ask.
The house was quiet in a way that pressed in -- no television, no radio, no voices from other rooms. Just the low hum of the refrigerator and the sound of our breathing, slightly out of sync.
I kept my bag on my shoulder longer than I needed to, the strap digging into my skin, a reminder that I was still in control of at least one thing.
The living room held few personal touches -- a single framed photo of the Reckless Kings hung on one wall, the men arranged in rows, Nitro standing slightly apart from the rest with his gaze on the camera and his expression unreadable.
A jacket was thrown over the back of the armchair -- the only thing in the room that wasn’t precisely where it belonged.
Even the remote control on the coffee table was aligned perfectly with the edge.
I set my bag down near the couch -- not unpacking it, just setting it down. The small act of not-quite-committing hung in the air between us, a question neither of us had voiced yet.
“You hungry?” Nitro asked, breaking the silence. He’d moved to the kitchen, was standing at the counter with the refrigerator door open, his back to me. “I can heat something up.”
“I’m fine. You literally just fed me,” I said. “Just tired.”
He closed the refrigerator and turned to face me, his expression giving away nothing. “Back bedroom’s yours. Bathroom’s got towels. Extra blankets in the hall closet.” Each sentence dropped between us like something solid. “Anything in the kitchen’s yours. Don’t need to ask.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice. Four months ago, I’d followed him down a hallway with nothing but want driving me. Now I stood in his living room with the evidence of what that night had cost us both, and the road ahead felt impossible to map.
“I’m not staying,” I said, the words coming out before I could catch them. “Not permanently. This is just until I figure things out.”
He looked at me for a long moment, his gaze moving over my face the same way they had that night -- taking stock, reading the lines I tried to keep blank. “I know,” he said finally. And yet, despite his words, I had the feeling he was never letting me leave.
The key was still in my hand, warm from my grip. I slid it into my pocket. A decision, or the start of one. Not the one I’d planned to make when I’d walked through the gate yesterday, but the only one that made sense with what I knew now.
He moved past me toward the hallway, giving me a wide enough berth that we didn’t touch. “I’ll be in the garage if you need anything.”
Then he was gone, the door closing behind him with a soft click, and I was alone in a house that wasn’t mine, with a key in my pocket and two lives depending on what happened next.
I’d been in the house for three hours when the front door opened.
I’d unpacked nothing, changed nothing, touched almost nothing -- just moved from room to room, listening to the creak of the floorboards under my feet.
I’d found the towels in the bathroom, the extra blankets folded with military precision in the hall closet, the coffee mugs arranged by size in the kitchen cabinet.
All of it ordered, all of it belonging to a man who kept his world as controlled as the expression he wore.
I was in the kitchen when I heard the door, my back to the entrance, my hands braced on the edge of the counter. My heartbeat kicked up before my brain had fully processed the sound -- the awareness of another person entering a space you’ve claimed, even temporarily.
Nitro’s boots made a different sound on the hardwood than mine had -- heavier, more certain. I didn’t turn around, just straightened up and reached for the glass of water I’d been drinking, giving myself something to do with my hands.
He nudged me away from the sink to wash his hands. “Closet in the bedroom’s empty. Drawers too.”
I looked up at that, caught the careful neutrality of his expression. “I’m not unpacking. Not yet.”
The corners of his eyes tightened for a brief moment. “Whenever you’re ready. No rush.”
We stood there, the exchange stalled between us, neither of us moving. His expression didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted to the stillness of a man who’d made his decision and was waiting to see if I’d accept it.
The afternoon light came through the kitchen window in a long, golden bar, cutting across the floor between us. In it, dust motes swirled and settled, rising and falling with each breath we took. I watched them instead of his face, using the moment to think.
“I’ll take the room,” I said finally. “Tonight.”
He nodded. “It’s yours as long as you need it.”
I picked up my bag from where I’d set it near the couch.
I walked toward the hallway, my steps sounding too loud in the quiet house.
Behind me, I heard the sound of running water, the click of the light being switched off.
But he didn’t follow -- just stayed in the kitchen, giving me the space to make whatever choice came next.
* * *
The bedroom was dark except for the thin strip of light under the door from the hallway and faint moonlight coming through the window.
I lay on top of the covers, still dressed in the jeans and shirt I’d worn the day before, my hands folded over my belly, staring at the ceiling.
My bag sat on the floor beside the bed, unzipped but not unpacked -- a reminder that this was temporary, a pause rather than a commitment.
The clock on the nightstand read 2:17 in soft red numbers that cast just enough light to make the shadows deeper.
I’d been lying there for hours, watching the numbers change, listening to the house settle around me.
The room was spartan but not cold -- a queen bed with a plain navy comforter, a dresser, a closet with the door partially open to reveal an empty rod and a single hanger.
The curtains didn’t quite meet in the middle, leaving a gap that let in a slice of moonlight across the foot of the bed.
I turned onto my side, facing the empty half of the bed, and pulled my knees up slightly.
The twins shifted with the movement. I rested my palm against the curve, feeling the firmness beneath my hand.
Four months ago, they’d been nothing but a possibility.
Now they were the reason I was lying in this bed, in a house that wasn’t mine.
The door opened without a knock.
I didn’t startle -- had heard the footsteps in the hall, the pause outside the door. But my body went still, every muscle tense as Nitro stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind him.
He didn’t turn on the light. Didn’t speak. Just moved to the bed -- no wasted movement, no unnecessary sound. He lay down on top of the covers on the other side of the bed, not touching me, leaving plenty of room.
Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved to close the gap.
We lay there in the dark, side by side but not together, separated by a distance that felt both too small and too vast to cross.
My breathing stayed shallow and controlled -- the rhythm of a woman pretending to be asleep while hyperaware of every breath from the body beside her.
But I could feel the awareness radiating off him, telling me he was just as awake as I was -- both of us lying rigid in the dark, staring at the ceiling, cognizant of every small shift, every swallowed breath, the exact distance between his arm and mine on the mattress.
At some point deep in the night, I turned my head and looked at his profile in the dark.
His jaw was set, eyes open, staring at the ceiling the same way I was.
In the faint light, I could make out the line of his nose, the curve of his mouth, the angle of his shoulders that spoke of tension carefully controlled.
He was as awake as I was -- had probably been awake as long, lying in his bed with the same thoughts keeping sleep at bay.
I didn’t know why he’d come in here. He’d lain beside me with no explanation.
Something about the shared insomnia, the mutual refusal to pretend, cracked the silence open just enough that I could breathe through it.
We were both here -- both trapped in the same impossible situation, both making the best of a road neither of us had planned to travel.
He’d claimed me in front of his brothers.
Had given me his key without being asked.
Had offered me a bed without asking for anything in return.
Not because he wanted to, necessarily -- though something in the way he’d held himself since I’d walked through his door suggested he did -- but because it was what the situation required. What his code demanded.
I turned back to the ceiling. The exhaustion that had been following me for weeks pressed in again, heavier now that I was horizontal, now that the immediate adrenaline of the day had begun to fade.
My body felt leaden, my limbs too heavy to lift, but my mind kept circling -- round and round the same questions, the same fears, the same impossible choices.
Beside me, Nitro didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Didn’t close the distance to touch me or pull me closer or offer the comfort of another body in the dark.
But after a moment, I felt the mattress shift slightly as his hand, resting between us, uncurled -- fingers open, palm up, not pushing for more but there if I wanted him.
An offer without demand. A connection without ownership.
I stared at it in the dark, at the pale shape of his hand against the darker blanket, at the silent invitation waiting for me to accept or ignore. No pressure. No expectation. Just open, waiting, giving me the choice he hadn’t given me in Church.
My eyes felt too heavy to keep open. The day -- the confrontation, the claiming -- pressed down on my shoulders, on my chest, on the backs of my eyelids. I let them close, just for a moment, just to rest. Just to give myself a pause before whatever came next.
The last thing I saw before sleep took me was his hand, still open, still waiting.