Chapter Four #4
“I don’t know how to be a brother,” he says, so low only I hear it.
My heart aches for him. And it’s also bullshit. It’s complicated, but he’s been a brother to a woman under this roof. Becki’s not their blood, but sister all the same by obligation. Royal’s woman now. But once his. I don’t dare bring this up.
“You start by not making Amelia earn safety.”
His eyes open.
“She’s going to expect every kindness to turn into a bill,” I say. “Don’t become another man holding the balance due.”
His jaw flexes. “I don’t want anything from her.”
“I know. Make sure she knows.”
He looks toward the stairs.
“I looked at her,” he says, “and all I could think was, What trap is this?”
“That is the president.”
“Then I saw the photo.”
“That is the son.”
“And when she asked if she’d have to leave if she wasn’t his?”
His voice roughens.
I wait.
His gaze meets mine.
“I hated that she had to ask.”
“That is the brother.”
The word hits him.
Brother.
It’s strange on him. New. Heavy. Not a title he earned in blood at a table or a patch he took in front of men. Something softer, older, and more terrifying because it asks for more than loyalty.
It asks for tenderness.
Hudson Welles would rather take a bullet.
He looks down at me. “You make it sound like I’ve already decided she’s mine.”
“You did when you said she could stay.”
“That was protection.”
“Sometimes protection is the first language men like you learn before love.”
His mouth curves without humor. “Men like me.”
“Yes.”
“Dangerous men?”
“Stubborn ones.”
“I’m dangerous.”
“I know. I chose you on purpose.”
That gets me the smallest smile.
I take it.
Across the room, Brittany and Lottie come in from the kitchen with a paper bag, a notebook, and the determined expressions of women who have found a mission.
Lottie holds up the bag. “Toothbrushes, kid shampoo, crackers, and three juice boxes we found in the back pantry that may or may not be expired.”
“Don’t give expired juice to the child,” I say.
“They’re only a month past.”
“Lottie. We’ll go to the Piggly Wiggly in the morning.”
“Fine. I’ll drink them.”
Brittany waves the notebook. “I made a list for morning. Clothes for the boy, socks, underwear, pajamas, snacks, maybe a booster seat if hers is bad, and dinosaurs.”
Legend blinks. “Dinosaurs?”
“Derby promised.”
Legend closes his eyes like the night has finally defeated him.
Whiskey smiles into his glass.
Royal says, “I’d like to witness that shopping trip.”
“No one is tormenting Derby tomorrow,” I say.
Lottie looks personally wounded. “Then why did God let me live this long?”
I almost laugh.
The humor helps.
Not because the danger is gone. It’s not.
Jeremy Vale is still out there. Oregon still hangs over us.
Legend is fixin’ to question Lottie on what she knows about that.
Pearly Gates may be tied to the money. Royal’s sister showing up still makes the air feel charged with a pattern we can’t see fully.
But this is how women make shelter inside chaos.
A list.
Clean clothes.
Snacks.
Toothbrushes.
Dinosaurs.
Proof that tomorrow exists.
Legend watches the women gather supplies, and I can see the realization move through him. This isn’t only his decision anymore. The club has already begun to absorb Amelia and August into its machinery. Quietly. Practically. Without waiting for blood results or permission from the dead.
That’s family here.
Messy. Intrusive. Armed.
But family.
The front door opens and Oaks steps in, rain glistening on his cut. He looks from Legend to me, then to the photo on the table.
“Gate’s quiet,” he says. “Road’s clear for now.”
“For now,” Legend repeats.
Oaks nods. “Prospects are posted. Wildcat’s got the truck tucked behind the garage. Derby upstairs?”
“Guarding,” I say.
Oaks gives a grunt that sounds too knowing.
Legend catches it. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Oaks.”
Oaks looks toward the stairs. “Just saying Derby hasn’t guarded a hallway that seriously since somebody brought that stripper here with a jealous boyfriend and a purse full of stolen casino chips.”
Lottie perks up. “I remember her.”
Brittany says, “She had excellent boots.”
Legend pinches the bridge of his nose. “Focus.”
“We are focused,” Lottie says. “On boots and family emergencies.”
His VP steps closer to the table. “She really Mike’s?”
The room stills again.
Legend looks at the photograph.
“Maybe.”
Oaks studies him. “You okay?”
Men ask that like they hope the answer is no, because no gives them something to hit.
Legend don’t answer.
Oaks nods anyway.
“I’ll keep outside locked down,” he says. “If Vale comes, he won’t stroll in.”
That should comfort me.
Instead, the hair on the back of my neck rises.
Maybe because everyone keeps saying if.
Maybe because women know when a man is coming long before headlights appear.
I look toward the front windows. Rain streaks the glass black. The yard lights make everything beyond the gate look slick and unreal.
Behind me, Whiskey’s phone buzzes.
He picks it up, listens, and his face changes.
Not much.
Enough.
Legend sees it. “What?”
Whiskey lowers the phone. “Vale’s card was used forty minutes ago.”
“Where?” Legend asks.
“Gas station outside Official.” He means Paradise County.
The room goes quiet.
“How far?” I ask, though I already know from the look on Whiskey’s face.
“Twenty minutes,” he says.
The clubhouse shifts.
No laughter now.
Just men becoming weapons in increments.
Legend’s voice is flat. “He knows.”
I think of Amelia upstairs, curled around August in borrowed clothes. The locked door. The lamp left on low. The way she asked if she’d have to leave if blood did not save her.
“No,” I say.
Everyone looks at me.
Legend’s eyes narrow. “No what?”
“No, he don’t get to walk in here and become the center of her first safe night.”
My voice’s calm.
Too calm maybe.
“If he comes, he deals with you, outside, away from her son.”
Legend studies me.
Then he nods once.
“Agreed.”
A sound comes from upstairs.
A floorboard.
Fast footsteps.
Derby appears at the railing, one hand lifted to keep us quiet. “She’s awake.”
My stomach tightens. “Amelia?”
He nods. His face is grim. “Kid too.”
Of course.
Fear has its own hearing.
I start for the stairs, but a shout cuts through the yard before I reach the first step.
Not from inside the gate.
From beyond it.
“Amelia!”
The name tears across the wet night.
Male.
Smooth.
Furious under the polish.
Amelia’s husband has a preacher’s volume and a coward’s timing.
Every King in the room turns toward the door.
Legend’s face empties.
That’s the expression men should fear most.
I climb two steps and look up.
Amelia stands at the top of the stairs, barefoot in my too-short pajama pants, August clutched against her side. Her face is white. Her eyes are fixed on the front door like the devil has learned her name.
The shout comes again.
“Amelia Bell, I know you’re in there.”
August starts to cry.
Not loud.
Worse.
Quiet and terrified, his face pressed into his mother’s hip.
Derby steps in front of them before anyone tells him to.
He is no longer joking. No longer pretending irritation.
He is a wall.
A mean, tattooed, furious wall.
Legend looks up at Amelia.
For one heartbeat, brother and sister stare at each other across the old jailhouse air.
No proof.
No test.
No certainty.
Only a woman shaking at the top of his stairs and the man who hurt her calling from outside his gate.
That is enough.
Legend turns toward the door.
“Keep her upstairs,” he says.
Derby’s answer is immediate. “Done.”
I look at Amelia. “Stay with August.”
Her lips part, but no sound comes.
I soften my voice. “He doesn’t get past the gate.”
Jeremy shouts again, uglier now. “You think these people will save you?”
Legend smiles.
It ain’t nice.
It ain’t sane.
It belongs to Hell.
Then the man I love opens the clubhouse door and walks into the rain.
The Kings follow him.
I stay on the stairs between Amelia and the world that came to drag her back, and I understand with cold, perfect clarity that whatever blood says later, the choice has already been made.
Amelia made it to Hell.
And Hell has chosen her.