Chapter Four
Sophie
By the time I get Amelia upstairs, she is carrying three kinds of grief.
The father she came too late to find.
The husband she knows is still coming.
The little boy she believes she has failed.
I see all three in the careful way she walks down the upstairs hall, like the floor might make a decision about her if she steps too hard.
August is heavy against her shoulder, half-asleep, one fist tangled in the collar of her shirt, the other clutching that tired stuffed dinosaur like it’s the last familiar thing in the world.
I open the door to the room I chose for them.
It’s one of the smaller upstairs rooms, but it’s clean, warm, and farthest from the noise below.
It used to be a storage room before I moved enough things around to make the old jail livable for more than patched men and club whores.
The bed has a blue quilt folded at the end.
There is a lamp on the nightstand, a clean towel on the chair, and a stack of clothes on the dresser.
A toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, and a comb sit beside them.
It’s not fancy.
It’s not Paradise Falls. Though I have half a mind to take her there. And I would in a heartbeat if my father wasn’t hosting my brother and his wife.
But the door locks from the inside, and tonight that matters more than chandeliers.
The Kings’ clubhouse may be home to these men, but it’s still an old jail.
Bars remember.
Concrete remembers.
Children do too.
Amelia stops at the threshold.
I watch her take it in.
The clean sheets.
The lamp.
The pajamas.
The lock.
Her face don’t change much, but her eyes do. They fill with the kind of suspicion that breaks my heart. Not because she thinks we’re cruel. Because she is trying to figure out what kindness costs here.
“It’s just for tonight,” I say gently, though I already know I’m lying. “No one will come in unless you ask.”
Her gaze drops to the lock. “It works?”
“I checked it.”
She swallows.
August squirms in her arms. “I wanna lie down.”
That breaks the spell.
Amelia hurries in, all mother now, no pride in the way of her child’s exhaustion. She lowers him onto the bed, pulls off his shoes, and tucks the dinosaur under his arm. He kicks once at the blanket, whining low in his throat, then curls toward her before his eyes are even closed.
I leave them to join the men, talk some sense into Legend.
Then once Amelia’s safety is settled, I return with Derby.
Amelia didn’t lock the door. It’s ajar. August’s eyelids flutter when I crack it more to check on them, but he doesn’t fully wake.
Not until Derby’s boot hits the top stair behind us and the old wood gives a low groan.
August lifts his head.
“Mama?”
“I’m here,” Amelia whispers immediately. “I’m right here, baby.”
Her voice changes for him. It goes softer, but not weaker. That is the thing about mothers who are running. They can be falling apart inside and still make their voices into shelter.
I look over my shoulder at Derby, who is coming up with two boxes stacked in his arms and a garbage bag hooked around his wrist. One of the boxes is bent in at the corner.
The bag is stretched thin enough for me to see bright plastic dinosaurs, a pair of little shoes, and a pajama sleeve printed with cartoon trucks.
Derby looks like a man on his way to war. The fact that the war is against a child’s belongings don’t soften him much.
“You found my dinosaurs,” August mumbles.
Derby stops like the child has pulled a gun on him. “They were in the bag.”
“You carried them?”
“Looks that way.”
“Why?”
Derby glances at me like he expects rescue.
I don’t give it to him.
His jaw shifts. “Because if a prospect lost one, your mama would cry again, and I already reached my crying-woman quota for the night.”
Amelia goes still.
I turn my head slowly.
Derby realizes what he said a heartbeat after he says it. His face hardens, not at her, but at himself.
“I mean,” he says, rougher and quieter, “kids need their stuff.”
August nods as if this is the most reasonable thing a giant biker has ever said. “Blue Rex bites.”
“Good to know.”
“He only bites bad guys.”
Derby’s eyes flick to Amelia. “Smart dinosaur.”
For one small second, something passes between them.
Not romance. Not yet.
Recognition, maybe.
The kind that happens when two wounded people hear the same word in different sentences.
Bad guys.
Amelia looks away first, clutching August tighter. “Thank you for carrying the boxes.”
Derby shrugs, uncomfortable with gratitude. “Ain’t like they’re made of gold.”
“No,” she says softly. “They’re not.”
I hear the rest of it anyway.
They are what she saved.
That matters more.
Derby steps in and sets the boxes near the dresser.
Amelia turns fast. “Careful with that one.”
He freezes. “Which one?”
“The bottom one.”
His hands come away from the cardboard like he has been handling explosives. “What’s in it?”
“Pictures. Papers. Some of my mother’s things.”
The photograph.
The bracelet.
The handwriting that put a crack through Legend’s hard face downstairs.
Derby’s expression shifts. “I set it easy.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me for caring about your stuff.”
Her mouth opens, then closes.
She doesn’t know what to do with that. Kindness.
He doesn’t seem to know what to do with having said it either. Derby’s not naturally kind.
I step between them with a small mercy. “The clothes on the dresser are clean. They’re mine, so the pants may be short, but they’re soft. There’s a bathroom across the hall. I can find child-size pajamas tomorrow if August needs them.”
Amelia looks down at herself like she has forgotten she is wearing clothes at all.
Her shirt is wrinkled and stretched at the shoulder from carrying August. Dust streaks one hip.
There is a pale patch on her jeans where the fabric has worn thin.
Her shoes are cheap canvas, one lace tied in two knots.
Her wrist disappears beneath a sleeve she keeps pulling down without realizing it.
She is exhausted, bruised, and dressed in the evidence of a life she fled too fast to fold.
Still, there is something elegant about the way she holds herself. Not fancy. Not untouched. Elegant in the way a woman can stand in borrowed light and still refuse to let shame decide her posture.
“I can wash these,” she says.
“Of course.”
“I don’t need much.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
Her chin lifts a little. “I mean, I’m not trying to take over your house.”
“This isn’t my house.”
Derby huffs under his breath. “Could’ve fooled every man downstairs.”
I give him a look.
He looks pleased with himself for half a second, then sees Amelia watching us.
Her face has changed.
She is studying me now. Not the clothes. Not the room. Me.
Maybe she hears what Derby said. Maybe she sees that I can give a look to a dangerous man and survive it. Maybe she sees that power in this place doesn’t only wear a cut.
I want her to see that.
I need her to.
“The clubhouse belongs to the club,” I say. “But I keep rooms ready because women end up needing them more often than anyone wants to admit.”
Amelia’s eyes drop. “Women like me.”
“Women,” I correct.
She flinches at the correction, not because it’s harsh, but because it’s blunt.
Derby shifts his weight near the door.
I look at him. “Thank you. We can handle the rest.”
He doesn’t move.
“Derby.”
“I’m supposed to watch ’em.”
“From the hall.”
His jaw tightens. “That door locks?”
“Yes.”
“Window?”
“Painted shut, but it opens if you know how to argue with it.”
He looks at Amelia. “You need it open, holler. Don’t break the glass unless somebody breaks through the door first.”
Amelia’s eyes widen a little. “That’s comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
“Clearly.”
His mouth twitches.
She almost smiles again.
August stirs on the bed. “Mama.”
Amelia turns instantly. “I’m here.”
“Door?”
Her face folds in a way that hurts. “I’m going to lock it, baby.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He settles.
Derby’s eyes go flat and mean, not at August, not at Amelia, but at whatever taught a child to ask that question.
I know then.
Whatever Derby says, whatever jokes he makes, whatever distance he tries to keep, this is the first hook in him. Not Amelia’s body. Not her mouth. Not the ridiculous underwear that brought her into his road.
That child asking for a locked door.
Derby looks at me once, and for the first time tonight, he ain’t hiding all of it.
He knows what I know.
This ain’t gonna leave him alone.
“I’ll be in the hall,” he says.
Amelia straightens. “You don’t have to stand guard.”
“I do if Legend says I do.”
Her shoulders tense.
He catches it quicker this time. Good. The man can learn when the lesson bites.
“What I mean is,” he says slowly, like politeness is a foreign language he learned from a criminal pamphlet, “nobody gets up these stairs without going through me. Door stays locked. I don’t come in. I don’t listen. I don’t bother you. I sit my ass down the hall and look mean.”
August opens one eye. “You are mean.”
Derby looks offended. “You don’t know me.”
“You look mean.”
“I look handsome.”
August considers that. “No.”
Amelia makes a small strangled sound, and I press my lips together so I don’t laugh.
Derby points at August. “Tomorrow, I’m getting the ugly dinosaur.”
“No,” August says sleepily. “Blue Rex needs a friend.”
“Mean dinosaur, then.”
August smiles with his eyes closed. “Okay.”
There.
There it is.
The first tiny thread.
Derby feels it too because he turns toward the door like the room has gotten too hot.
“Lock it behind me,” he says.
Then he leaves.
Amelia waits until he is in the hall, then crosses the room and turns the lock. The click is small.
Her breath after it is not.
I pretend not to notice how deeply she inhales.
I take the clothes from the dresser and carry them to the bed. “These should work for tonight.”
She touches the fabric as if it might disappear. “They’re nice.”
“They’re comfortable.”