Chapter Four #3
He drags a chair from the small landing and sets it where he can see the hallway, the stairs, and Amelia’s door. It’s exactly what Legend would want. It’s also more careful than Derby wants anyone to notice.
“She has a child,” I say softly.
“I got eyes.”
“She has a husband who will come.”
“I got fists.”
“She has spent a long time being controlled by a man who called it love.”
His face hardens. “I ain’t him.”
“No,” I say. “But she doesn’t know that yet.”
That lands.
He looks at the closed door again, and the line of his mouth changes. Less irritated. More grim.
“Yeah,” he says. “I got that.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
Downstairs, the low thrum of the clubhouse continues. Men moving quietly. Whiskey’s voice on the phone. Legend’s deeper rumble. A bottle setting down. The old building creaking around all of us like it’s settling in to hold one more secret.
Derby sits in the chair, elbows on knees.
“You think she’s really his sister?” he asks.
“I think she came here needing him to be her father.”
“That ain’t the same.”
“No.”
He nods once. “Legend is taking it hard.”
“He’s trying not to.”
“Same thing with him.”
That makes me look at Derby a little differently.
He sees more than he pretends to.
Maybe all of them do. Maybe pretending not to is just how men like this survive softness.
“He don’t know how to have a sister,” I say.
Derby huffs. “Hell, most men barely know how to have a conversation.”
“True.”
“I heard Royal’s sister showing up made him half crazy.”
“Royal started half crazy.”
Derby grins. “Fair.”
Then his smile fades. “Still. Two sisters. Bout the same time.”
“Close enough. I know.”
“You think it’s connected?”
“I think women in trouble are rarely coincidences. But I also think if we turn Amelia into a conspiracy before she gets one night of sleep, we’re no better than the men who made her run.”
He looks at me then. There’s respect in his eyes, though he would probably chew glass before naming it.
“You’re good at this queen shit,” he says.
I raise a brow. “Queen shit?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. I just like making you uncomfortable.”
“Congratulations.”
I touch his shoulder once as I pass. “Guard mean, Derby. But let the door stay hers.”
His jaw tightens.
Then he nods.
I go downstairs.
The main room has changed again. It’s still the Kings’ clubhouse, still rough, still smelling of leather, bourbon, smoke, and every sin imaginable, but the energy has shifted into purpose.
That’s how this place works. Chaos comes through the gate, and the men either make a joke out of it, a fight out of it, or a plan.
Tonight, they are making a plan.
Legend stands at the long table with the old photograph in front of him.
Whiskey sits beside him with a notebook open, phone pressed to his ear.
Wildcat is near the bar, sorting through the items from Amelia’s truck with more care than he shows most engines.
Royal isn’t at the table anymore. He stands in the far corner near one of the old cell doors, half in shadow, gaze unfocused in the way it gets when his mind is somewhere ugly.
Legend doesn’t look up when I enter.
He knows it’s me.
I can tell by the way his shoulders ease before his face does.
“She settled?” he asks.
“Enough.”
“Kid?”
“Asleep.”
“Derby?”
“Trying very hard not to care.”
That gets a low sound from Whiskey that might be a laugh.
Legend finally looks up. “This ain’t funny.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not.”
He studies my face and hears the rest.
I’m worried.
Not only about Amelia.
About him.
About the photograph beneath his hand.
About a father who keeps becoming more complicated because the dead can’t defend themselves and don’t deserve full defense anyway.
I walk to the table and touch the back of Legend’s wrist. His hand is curled beside the photograph, not quite touching it. Mike Welles smiles from the paper like nothing he does will ever have consequences.
I hate him a little tonight.
Not because he was Legend’s father.
Because he may have been Amelia’s too and still she had to arrive here as a desperate woman with no one else.
“What did you find?” I ask Whiskey.
He ends the call and sets the phone down. “Jeremy Alan Vale. Thirty-eight. Insurance agent in Paducah. Married to Amelia Bell Welles. She didn’t change her name. One child listed in public records, August Michael Vale.”
“Michael?” Legend says.
I close my eyes for half a second.
Of course.
Amelia named her son after a ghost.
Whiskey nods. “Could be coincidence.”
Legend gives him a look.
Whiskey continues. “Vale has two LLCs. One clean enough if you don’t look hard. One messy. Money moves through community outreach programs, church-linked accounts, and insurance settlements that smell wrong.”
“Pearly Gates?” I ask.
“Not direct yet. But adjacent. Same lawyers. Same donors. Same people pretending charity washes money better than soap.”
Legend’s jaw works. “And Oregon?”
“Too early.”
Royal’s voice comes from the shadows. “It won’t stay too early long.”
We all look at him.
He steps forward. “The woman running the old Oregon chapter has been quiet. Quiet people are either dead, planning, or waiting.”
Legend looks at the photo. “Amelia left Oregon in grade school.”
“Children can carry names without knowing they’re carrying matches,” Royal says.
A chill moves through me.
I don’t like when Royal is right.
I also don’t like how much this room wants a pattern. Patterns make men feel safer. If everything connects, then everything can be cut. But some things are only cruel because the world has too many cruel men in it.
“Whatever Oregon is, Amelia doesn’t understand it,” I say. “I barely do.”
Legend’s eyes lift to mine. “You sure?”
“I’m sure she’s exhausted, terrified, and ashamed of needing help.
I’m sure her son asks if doors lock. I’m sure Derby nearly swallowed his own tongue trying not to scare her after he ordered her to sit.
I’m sure she changed clothes with her back to me and still apologized with her whole body for taking up space. ”
The room goes quiet.
Good.
Let them hear it.
Let every man in this clubhouse understand that a woman’s fear isn’t only evidence. It’s also injury.
Legend’s face tightens. “He bruised her.”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough. Not bad enough for her to stop explaining.”
Whiskey’s expression darkens.
Wildcat mutters, “Bastard.”
Legend turns his head toward the door.
I know that look.
That’s the look he gets when violence ain’t an emotion anymore. It’s a weapon he’s already picked up.
“Not tonight,” I say.
His gaze returns to me.
“Don’t go hunting this Jeremy Vale out of anger before Amelia knows where she stands. She’s had enough men make decisions and call them protection.”
Legend’s mouth tightens. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you know it in your head. Your hands may need reminding. Plus, it will be twice as hard for you if she chooses to go back to her husband.”
Whiskey suddenly becomes very interested in his notebook.
Wildcat looks down.
Royal smiles faintly because he enjoys any moment where someone survives telling Legend the truth.
Legend steps closer to me.
I don’t move back.
The men may mistake this for a confrontation. It’s not. This is what loving Legend means in our world. The man I’m supposed to marry carries a kingdom made of iron, blood, and old debts. I carry the parts of him that kingdom don’t know what to do with.
His voice lowers. “He put hands on a woman who may be my sister.”
“Yes.”
“And a child is upstairs asking if doors lock.”
“Yes.”
“You want me calm?”
“No,” I say. “I want you clear.”
His eyes stay on mine.
Then he exhales slowly through his nose.
The edge doesn’t leave him.
It focuses.
That is better.
He looks back at Whiskey. “Find everything.”
“Already digging.”
“Quietly until I say otherwise.”
Whiskey nods. “Vale has a cousin in county dispatch and a friend in the sheriff’s office outside Paducah. Nothing local to Paradise County yet, but that don’t mean much.”
“Sheriff Dix?” I ask.
“Not tied yet,” Whiskey says.
Good.
I like Sheriff Dix as much as one can like a lawman who spends half his life pretending he doesn’t know what the Kings are doing.
His daughter Twila is another matter. Sharp-eyed, stubborn, and too comfortable staring men down.
Whiskey never says much about her when her name comes up, which is exactly why I notice.
“Tell Dix nothing yet,” Legend says.
Whiskey’s mouth curves. “Wasn’t planning to invite law to the family reunion.”
Family reunion.
The words settle wrong.
Or maybe too right.
Legend looks at the photo again.
His face goes still.
The room gives him space without meaning to. Even Royal looks away. That’s how grief works with men like this. They will watch a fight, watch blood, watch a body lowered into the dirt. But personal grief makes them act like eye contact is rude. The bikers go about their business giving us privacy.
I don’t look away.
“You can say it,” I tell him.
Legend’s eyes stay on the photo. “Say what?”
“That you’re angry at him.”
He laughs once, harsh and quiet. “Soph, that ain’t new.”
“No. This is different.”
He picks up the photograph, holding it by the edges. “He had a whole life out there.”
“Yes.”
“A woman in Oregon. Maybe a daughter. Maybe he knew. Maybe he didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Either way, she grew up without him.”
I step closer. “Yes.”
His throat moves. “So did I half the time, and I lived in his damn shadow.”
That is the truth under all of it.
Not only Amelia’s loss.
His.
Legend had Mike and still went hungry.
Amelia didn’t have him and starved differently.
I place my hand on his chest, right over the patch. “You’re allowed to grieve what he failed to give you.”
His eyes close.
For one second, the president disappears.
There’s only the man I love, tired and wounded by a father who has been dead for years and still manages to disappoint him.