Chapter 2 - Ivy
*You want to leave, you can leave. Anytime. No one here will stop you.*
I'm standing in a strange clubhouse at four in the morning with two bikers I don't know, and one of them just gave me permission to leave.
Cole never gave me permission for anything.
I look up at Eli Blake, Phoenix, I remind myself, though I don't know if I'm allowed to use his road name, and try to reconcile what I'm seeing with what I expected.
The Vipers talked about him constantly. Demon especially loved to mock him, loved to tell stories about the president who was too soft to lead, too weak to do what needed doing. They made him sound pathetic. A joke. A man who built a club for cowards who couldn't handle real MC life.
The man standing in front of me doesn't look like any of those things.
He's tall, taller than Cole, broader too, with short dark hair and eyes so dark they're nearly black.
Sharp eyes that see everything and give nothing away.
He's covered in tattoos, both arms sleeved in ink, more on his neck and disappearing under his t-shirt.
The Iron Phoenix crest sits over his heart, and I can see the edge of it through the thin fabric.
A scar cuts across his jaw, stark white against tanned skin.
He looks like he's been fighting his whole life. He also looks at me like I'm a person, not a possession. Like my answer to his question actually matters.
That alone is so odd I don't know what to do with it.
"Okay," I manage. My voice sounds small in the big room. "Thank you."
"Sit." He gestures to the bar where the other man is standing. "You want something to drink? Water? Coffee?"
Coffee sounds like heaven. I haven't had real coffee in three days, just gas station sludge consumed while looking over my shoulder every thirty seconds. But I don't want to be an inconvenience, don't want to ask for too much too soon.
"Water's fine," I say.
He nods and moves behind the bar. The other man, older, maybe early forties, with gray threading through dark hair, pulls out a stool for me. The gesture is so casually polite that I almost cry.
I sit, keeping my back to the wall out of habit. Always know where the exits are. Always keep the room in view. Small lessons learned over two years that have become instinct now.
Eli sets a glass of water in front of me, and I notice his knuckles are scarred. Old fighting wounds, the kind that come from bare-knuckle brawls, not the kind you get from hitting someone who can't hit back.
Not like Cole's hands. Cole's knuckles were smooth except when he'd just hit me.
"This is Judge," Eli says, nodding to the other man. "My VP. Anything you tell me, you're telling him too. That okay?"
The fact that he's asking permission again does something strange to my chest. I nod, not trusting my voice.
Judge doesn't smile, but his expression softens slightly. "Ma'am."
"Ivy," I correct automatically, then wonder if I should have. Cole hated when I corrected anyone. Said it was disrespectful, said I needed to learn my place.
But neither of them reacts like I've done something wrong. Eli just nods.
"Ivy," he repeats, and somehow it sounds different in his voice. Safer. "Tell us what happened."
Where do I even start? With Cole? With the Vipers? With the slow realization that I'd walked into a nightmare, and the door had locked behind me?
I take a sip of water, buying time. The glass is cold in my hands, grounding. Real. This is real. I'm here, I'm out, I'm asking for help from the one man the Vipers feared enough to mock constantly.
That has to mean something.
"I was with Cole for two years," I start. My voice is steadier than I feel. "Engaged for three months. The wedding was supposed to be three days ago."
"Supposed to be," Eli echoes. He's leaning against the back of the bar, arms crossed, giving me space. I appreciate that more than he knows.
The memory makes my hands shake. I set the glass down before I drop it. "He was drunk. Passed out. I'd been saving money for eight months, small amounts, nothing he'd notice. I had three hundred dollars and one change of clothes. I walked out the door at midnight and didn't look back."
Judge makes a sound low in his throat. Not quite approval, not quite anger. Something in between.
"That took guts," he says.
I almost laugh. It didn't feel like guts. It felt like terror, desperation and the certainty that if I didn't leave that night, I never would. That I'd marry Cole and spend the rest of my life being whatever he decided I should be, enduring whatever he decided I deserved.
"It took fear," I correct. "He would have killed me eventually. Maybe not on purpose, but eventually he'd go too far, and I'd just be another accident. Another woman who fell down the stairs or walked into a door or drove off a bridge."
Eli's expression doesn't change, but something flickers in those dark eyes. Something cold and violent that should scare me but somehow doesn't.
"He put his hands on you," Eli says. It's not a question. He can see the bruises, can probably guess at the ones hidden under my clothes.
I nod anyway. "Often."
"In front of other members?"
"Sometimes." The shame of that still burns.
Men watching while Cole backhanded me across the face, while he grabbed my wrist hard enough to leave marks, while he shoved me into walls.
Men who looked away not because they were uncomfortable but because they didn't care.
"No one ever said anything. No one ever stopped him. "
"No," Eli says, and there's something in his voice that makes me look up. "They wouldn't. That's who the Vipers are now. That's what Demon's made them."
Demon. The president. The man Cole worshipped, the man who runs the Vipers like a kingdom and treats everyone in it like subjects. I've only met him a handful of times, but each encounter left me feeling dirty, like I needed to scrub my skin raw just to feel clean again.
"You know him well," I say. It's not a question either.
The Vipers talked about Eli and his brother Carter like they were traitors, deserters, men who couldn't handle the real work. Which meant they knew them once. Knew them well enough to hate them.
"Yes. Unfortunately. Until I left the Vipers"
The room feels colder suddenly. I knew Eli had history with the club, that's why I came here, why I thought he might help, but hearing him confirm it makes everything more real. More dangerous.
"Why?" The question slips out before I can stop it.
"Because they killed good men for wanting to stay good." His jaw tightens, the scar standing out white against his skin. "Because Demon turned the club into something rotten and anyone who objected ended up dead. Carter and I tried to stop it. We failed. We barely made it out alive."
The pain in his voice is old but not faded. The kind of wound that never quite heals, just scabs over enough to function around.
I understand that. I'm covered in wounds like that.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
"Don't be sorry for me." He shakes his head. "Be sorry for the men we couldn't save. They deserved better than what Demon gave them."
Judge shifts beside me, and I glance over. His expression is neutral, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way he's holding himself too still.
"Cole will come looking for me," I say, because they need to know what they're getting into. "The Vipers don't let people leave. It's not about him loving me. I don't think he's capable of that. It's about the insult. I embarrassed him. Embarrassed the club. They'll treat it like I declared war."
"I know. Let them." Eli's voice is cold, certain, utterly without fear. "They come here, and they'll find out what war actually looks like."
The conviction in his words should terrify me.
This is exactly the kind of violent posturing Cole loved, the kind of masculinity that always preceded someone getting hurt.
But somehow, coming from Eli, it feels different.
It feels like protection instead of threat.
Like he's drawing a line in the sand and daring anyone to cross it.
Like he means it when he says I'm safe.
"I don't want anyone getting hurt because of me," I say. "I just need somewhere to stay. Somewhere to hide until I can figure out what to do next. I have money. Not much, but I can pay—"
"No." Eli cuts me off, but his voice is gentle. "You're not paying us to keep you safe, Ivy. That's not how this works."
"Then how does it work?" I'm honestly asking. I don't understand this world, these rules. The Vipers operated on fear and control and violence. What does the Iron Phoenix operate on?
"You came to us for help," Judge says. "You walked through that door asking for protection. That's all we need to know."
"But you don't know me. You don't owe me anything."
"We owe it to every person the Vipers have hurt," Eli says, and there's that pain again, bleeding through the cracks in his control. "Every woman Demon's men have touched, every victim they've created. We owe it to them to be better. To do better. That starts with you."
I came here hoping for basic human decency, maybe a safe place to sleep for a night or two before I figured out my next move. I didn't expect this… This fierce, immediate protection from men who don't know me at all.
I definitely didn't expect it to make me want to cry.
"Thank you," I manage, and it feels inadequate. Too small for what they're offering.
"How'd you end up with Cole?" he asks, and there's no judgment in the question. Just curiosity.
I take another sip of water, organizing my thoughts.
"I was alone," I start. "My parents died when I was nineteen. Car accident. I had no siblings, no extended family. I was working at a diner in Viper territory, barely making rent. Cole came in one day and he was... charming. Attentive. He made me feel like I mattered."
God, I was so stupid.