Chapter Five #2
Jeremy’s face goes still.
“They’ve not called me crazy,” she continues. “They’ve not threatened to take August from me. They’ve not told me I’m embarrassing them. They gave my son a bed. They gave me a door that locks. That is more than you’ve given us in a long time.”
The yard goes silent.
Pride punches me right in the chest.
Not soft pride. Not sweet.
The rough kind that makes me want to grin and break someone’s teeth at the same time.
Jeremy’s mask cracks again.
This time, something ugly shows through.
“You need to stop talking before you make this worse for yourself.”
There he is.
There is the man from the bruises.
Sophie moves forward half a step, but Legend is already there.
His voice drops. “You threatening a woman at my gate?”
Jeremy’s gaze snaps to him. “I’m speaking to my wife.”
“That ain’t an answer.”
“Amelia,” Jeremy says, ignoring Legend now, “go inside. Get August. We are leaving.”
She shakes her head.
He breathes out through his nose, irritated now. “Don’t make me involve the police.”
“You already did,” Whiskey says.
Jeremy glares at him. “I have every right to protect my son.”
“Our son,” Amelia says.
“Then act like his mother.”
The words hit her.
I feel it.
Her whole body pulls inward like he struck her without lifting a hand.
That’s it.
That’s the line.
I step in front of her.
Not all the way. Not so she disappears. Just enough that Jeremy has to look at me if he wants to cut her again.
“She is acting like his mother,” I say.
Jeremy’s eyes move over me. “And what are you supposed to be?”
The question hangs there.
I could say brother.
Could say club.
Could say nothing.
Behind me, Amelia’s breath catches.
At the gate, Jeremy waits, smugness crawling back into his face because he thinks he has found the weak point. Amelia alone. Amelia surrounded by men who may protect her but don’t have a name that means anything in his kind of world.
I look at Legend.
His eyes narrow slightly.
He knows before I say it.
Hell, maybe I know before I say it too.
I turn back to Jeremy and smile like I’ve just made the worst decision of my week.
“I’m the man she came to.”
Amelia goes completely still behind me.
The yard shifts.
A few brothers look over.
Oaks’s mouth twitches.
Whiskey’s eyebrows lift like he just watched paperwork catch fire.
Sophie says nothing.
Legend also says nothing, which means I may live through this.
Jeremy looks from me to Amelia. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re telling me my wife came here for you?”
“Looks that way.”
Amelia makes a tiny sound behind me. It might be outrage. It might be panic. It might be both.
I keep my eyes on Jeremy.
He stares at me for a long moment, then laughs under his breath. “No. No, that’s not possible.”
The insult ain’t in the words.
It’s in the way he says them.
Like Amelia couldn’t possibly choose a man like me unless she was broken, stupid, or being forced.
My grin gets meaner.
“Careful,” I say.
Jeremy’s lip curls. “She doesn’t even know you.”
“She knows enough.”
“Amelia.” His voice sharpens. “Tell this man to stop embarrassing you.”
The old command is there.
Not loud. Not obvious to anyone who hasn’t lived under a man’s moods.
Amelia hears it.
Her shoulders jerk.
Then something incredible happens.
She steps out from behind me.
Right into the rain.
Right into view.
She doesn’t touch me. She doesn’t have to.
“He’s not embarrassing me,” she says.
Jeremy’s face changes.
Because he expected obedience.
He got a woman with too much fear and just enough backup to turn it into defiance.
“Amelia,” he warns.
I angle my body toward her, giving her the room to stand and the cover to fall back if she needs it.
She doesn’t fall back.
“I’m not going with you,” she says.
“We’ll see what a judge says about that.”
Legend laughs once. “You think a judge gets to walk into Hell and collect women for you?”
Jeremy’s polished face tightens. “I think the law applies even here.”
Royal speaks softly. “The law gets shy at our county line.”
Oaks adds, “Sometimes it turns around and drives the other way.”
A couple brothers chuckle.
Jeremy ain’t amused.
Good.
Amelia’s fingers tremble at her sides. I see her trying to hide it. I want to take her hand, but I don’t. I don’t know if touching her right now helps or hurts, and for once in my life, I have enough sense not to grab what I want.
Jeremy points at her. “You’re making yourself look unfit.”
Her face drains again.
I move before I can stop myself.
My hand goes to the gate. I don’t open it. I just hit the metal hard enough to make the whole thing rattle.
Jeremy steps back.
Everyone does.
Except Amelia.
“Say one more word about her being unfit,” I tell him, “and I’ll come through this gate.”
Legend says, “Derby.”
There is warning in it.
Also permission if Jeremy is stupid enough to continue.
Jeremy collects himself, brushing rain off his sleeve like he can wipe away fear. “This is assault.”
“No,” I say. “This is me being polite through a fence.”
Oaks grins. “He is, actually. You should see him impolite.”
Jeremy looks toward Amelia again. “You need to think carefully. You are tired. You are upset. These people are using you because of some fantasy about your father.”
Amelia’s face twists.
Wrong move, asshole.
Legend steps closer to the gate. “Her father?”
Jeremy realizes his mistake.
Too late.
Whiskey glances down at his phone, thumbs moving fast.
Jeremy tries to recover. “She has had an obsession with finding Mike Welles for years. Her mother filled her head with stories. It’s unhealthy.”
Legend’s voice is very soft now. “How did you know she came here?”
Jeremy hesitates.
Not long.
Long enough.
Whiskey says, “He tracked the old phone ping until it died. Probably called someone after that.”
“I was trying to make sure my family was safe,” Jeremy says.
“Your family left you,” I tell him.
His eyes snap to mine. “You don’t know anything about my family.”
“I know your son asks if doors lock.”
That lands like a bullet.
Amelia makes a broken sound.
Jeremy’s face empties for one second.
Not guilt.
Calculation.
That scares me more than rage would.
“You people have no idea what you’re getting involved in,” he says.
Legend steps closer. “Then educate us.”
“I have friends.”
“So do we.”
“Respectable friends.”
Royal smiles. “Our condolences.”
Jeremy’s mask finally starts to slip in earnest. The rain is getting to him. The gate is getting to him. Amelia standing beside me is getting to him. The fact that nobody here bows to his nice shoes and courtroom voice is getting to him.
He looks at Amelia one last time. “This will get ugly.”
Her voice shakes. “It already was.”
For one second, I think he might lunge for the gate.
I almost hope he does.
Instead, he steps back.
Smart men live longer.
Cowards too.
“I’ll be back with an officer,” he says.
Legend smiles again. “Bring two. One might get lonely.”
Jeremy’s gaze cuts to me. “And you. Whatever game you think you’re playing with another man’s wife, I promise you, it will cost you.”
I lean against the gate.
“Good,” I say. “I like expensive things.”
His eyes go flat with hate.
Then he turns and walks back into the dark toward a black SUV parked crooked along the road, headlights off, engine running. I clock the plate. So does Whiskey. So does Wildcat. So does every man in the yard with sense.
Jeremy gets in.
The SUV rolls away slow, like leaving is his choice and not the only thing keeping his teeth in his mouth.
No one speaks until the taillights disappear.
Then Amelia makes a sound that takes every bit of heat out of me.
It ain’t a sob.
It’s worse.
It’s the sound of a woman whose body has just realized the danger is gone for one minute and has decided to collapse before the next one comes.
I turn.
She is still standing.
Barely.
Sophie reaches her first, but Amelia’s eyes are on me.
Wide.
Shocked.
Angry.
Afraid.
“What did you just do?” she whispers.
Fair question.
I look at the gate, then at the empty road, then back at her.
“Improvised.”
“That wasn’t improvising. That was telling my husband I came here for you.”
“You didn’t deny it.”
Her mouth drops open. “I was too busy trying not to faint.”
“Still counts.”
“Derby,” Sophie says.
It’s warning and amusement wrapped together.
Amelia points at me with one shaking finger. “Don’t make jokes right now.”
I shut my mouth.
That is new for me.
Legend notices.
His eyes flick from Amelia to me, and I can see the calculation start. President brain. Brother brain. Dangerous combination.
“Inside,” Legend says. “Now.”
We move as a group.
Not rushed. Not slow.
The gate is locked behind us. Prospects reposition. Oaks stays outside with Wildcat and two others. Royal disappears somewhere into the rain, which probably means someone will regret being born before sunrise. Whiskey walks with his phone already to his ear, voice low.
I follow Amelia inside because I’m still on her and the kid, and because if I walk away right now, I’ll look like an asshole even by my standards.
The clubhouse door shuts behind us.
Warmth hits. Smoke. Bourbon. Old wood. Fry grease. The kind of smells that usually tell me I’m home.
Tonight they wrap around Amelia like one more thing to survive.
She stands just inside the door, arms around herself, rain dampening her hair and the borrowed shirt. Sophie is beside her, but Amelia is looking at Legend now.
“That was him,” she says.
It ain’t a question.
Legend nods once. “Yeah.”
Her face crumples, but she holds it together with pure spite.
Good girl.
No.
Not girl.
Woman.
Good woman.
That thought comes fast and hard enough to make me scowl.
I don’t need this.
I don’t need her.
I don’t need her kid upstairs with his sad eyes and bitey dinosaur.
I sure as hell don’t need Legend looking at me like I just volunteered to be the lead clown in a circus made of custody threats and possible sister blood.
Amelia lifts her chin. “I’m sorry.”