Chapter Nineteen #2
Legend leans both hands on the table. “Old Kings chapter in Lonerock, Oregon. Years back, it was run by a biker called Smiley.”
“Who names these people?” I snap.
Oaks lifts a brow. “You’re called Derby.”
“Not now.”
Legend keeps going. “Smiley went MIA.”
“MIA?”
“Disappeared. Some say he ran. Some say Hot Mama killed him. Some say he deserved worse and she showed mercy by making it quick.”
I stare at him.
“Hot Mama took over,” Legend says.
I blink. “Took over what?”
“The chapter.”
“The Kings got a woman president?”
Legend’s mouth twitches, but there is no humor in it. “Anarchy is in the name.”
“That legal?”
“None of this is legal.”
Fair.
Still.
I look around the room like somebody is going to admit this is a joke. Nobody does.
“National allowed that?” I ask.
Legend’s face hardens. “National allows a lot when blood is involved. Hot Mama is Big Daddy’s half sister.”
That name lands different.
Big Daddy, national club president. A man with enough power to make chapters stand straighter just by calling. If Hot Mama is his blood, that explains why she still breathes after breaking every old rule men pretend came down from God instead of their own insecurity.
Legend continues, “When Hot Mama took over, men left. Couldn’t stomach taking orders from a woman. She patched women in their place. Wild Thing and Animal stayed.”
“Who?”
“Smiley’s old VP and enforcer. Depending on who’s telling it, she shacked up with both, one, neither, or they’re both too scared to clarify.”
Holler snorts. “I met Wild Thing once. Man looked like he’d fight a bear for fun and apologize to Hot Mama for getting fur on her porch.”
Oaks nods. “Animal’s worse.”
I rub a hand over my face.
This is insane.
All of it.
Women presidents. Hot Mama. Queens. Amelia gone west with her kid and Lottie, into a chapter of women outlaws run by national blood and surrounded by men named like rabid dogs.
“She took Amelia to an MC?” I ask quietly.
Legend holds my stare. “She took Amelia to a place men like Vale don’t walk into.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to make you understand.”
“I understand she left.”
That lands.
The room goes quiet.
My voice sounds like gravel when I speak again. “She left after last night.”
I should not say that.
Not in this room.
Not in front of Holler or Oaks or Royal or Legend.
I don’t care.
Holler looks away.
Oaks’s expression shifts.
Legend’s face tightens, not with judgment. With recognition. He knows what it is to have a woman walk away because she thinks distance might save everyone from what love makes men do.
Whiskey is the one who speaks softly. “She left to keep you from finishing Vale.”
I turn on him. “And?”
“And she may not be wrong.”
I cross the space before I know I’m moving.
Oaks catches my arm.
Legend says my name once.
Enough.
Barely.
Whiskey doesn’t flinch. “You beat him outside family services yesterday.”
“He sent a threat to a kid.”
“Yes. And you gave him footage. Amelia sees the pattern.”
I want to hate him.
I do.
But the truth is sitting there again, smug and dressed better than I like.
I look at Legend. “Get me the address.”
“Derby.”
“Address.”
“She is safe there.”
“Safe from Jeremy doesn’t mean safe from me losing my mind.”
“That’s your problem to handle.”
I laugh, sharp. “You want me to stay here?”
“I want you to think before you ride across the country full of jailhouse temper and betrayal.”
“Too late.”
Legend steps around the table. “Listen to me. Hot Mama’s place ain’t just a chapter. They run a women’s shelter out there. Half shelter, half rehab, half witchy spa. Women go in broken, get a crystal shoved up their cunt or whatever, and come back scary as hell.”
Holler sighs. “Lottie came back with the crown and two knives I still ain’t found.”
I don’t find this funny.
Not even a little.
“August is there?” I ask.
Legend nods. “With other kids. With women who know how to hide people. With enough guns and loyalty that Jeremy Vale would have better odds walking into a bear den wearing bacon pants.”
“Poetic,” Royal murmurs.
“Shut up,” half the room says.
I look at the table because if I look at any of them too long, I will start swinging.
She is safe.
August is safe.
The words should calm me.
They don’t.
Because safe means nothing if she thinks leaving me was the price.
I pull the note from my pocket and throw it on the table.
Legend looks at it.
Oaks reads it over his shoulder.
Holler mutters, “Damn.”
Whiskey’s face goes still.
Royal’s eyes go strange and dark.
I look at all of them. “Please don’t follow.”
Nobody speaks.
I point at the note. “She slept in my bed, told me she wanted real, then left that on my kitchen table.”
Holler winces. “Yeah. That’ll turn a man inside out.”
I glare at him.
He lifts both hands. “Not defending. Just naming.”
Legend picks up the note, folds it carefully, and hands it back to me.
“You going there to drag her back?”
“No.”
The answer comes fast.
From somewhere deeper than rage.
I don’t know it’s true until after I say it.
Legend studies me. “Then why?”
“To ask her if she wants me there.”
That shuts the room down for a second.
Even Royal looks less likely to say something that needs a punch.
Oaks’s face softens in the smallest way. “Good answer.”
“Didn’t ask you.”
“Still.”
Legend nods once. “I’ll give you the route.”
Relief and fresh rage hit together.
“But,” he says.
Of course.
“If Hot Mama says no, you don’t start a war with Big Daddy’s blood.”
I stare at him. “She got my woman.”
“She sheltered your woman. My possible sister,” he adds, voice lower, rougher. “And my nephew if blood says what we think it says.”
That lands.
Legend ain’t calm about this.
He is holding it by the throat.
Amelia ain’t only mine to worry over.
Not mine.
Hell.
I don’t even know what word fits anymore.
Legend’s sister. August’s mother. Jeremy’s wife in the eyes of the law. My fake girlfriend. My real everything after one night that apparently turned me into an idiot with a pulse.
Legend keeps talking. “I’m pissed Lottie went around me.
I’m pissed Amelia left without telling me.
I’m pissed my family keeps getting bigger through disasters.
But I know Hot Mama. Well enough to know this means she wants something from me.
Not well enough to trust her with my wallet or my back, but enough to know she doesn’t hand women to men they ran from. ”
“I ain’t the man she ran from.”
“No,” Legend says. “You are the man she ran to and then ran from because she thought loving you would put blood on your hands.”
The words hit so hard I turn away.
Nobody should say loving you in this room.
Nobody should make it sound like that.
Like a thing already known.
I shove the note back in my pocket. “Route.”
Wildcat starts printing from a machine in the corner because apparently he predicted this part. Whiskey hands me a burner phone.
I stare at it. “What’s this?”
“Phone that will work. With numbers you need. Mine. Legend’s. Oaks. Holler. A contact that may or may not answer if Hot Mama allows it.”
“Hot Mama gets a vote on my calls now?”
“Hot Mama gets a vote on everything inside her gates,” Holler says. “That’s sort of her charm.”
I don’t want charm.
I want Amelia.
I want August.
I want to look that woman in the face and ask why she thought breaking both of us was protection.
I want to hold her until she stops being scared of my hands.
I want to tell her I would rather learn restraint for the rest of my life than wake up to a cold bed and her phone on the counter ever again.
I want Jeremy Vale dead.
That one still sits there, honest as sin.
But for the first time since the package, it ain’t the loudest thing in me.
That scares me too.
Legend follows me outside while Wildcat brings the printed route. The sky is gray and low, wind cutting across the yard. Widowmaker waits near the porch, black and impatient. I check her out of habit. Tires. Bags. Fuel. Straps. She is ready because she is always ready.
I am not.
Too bad.
Legend stops beside me. “Don’t ride stupid.”
I give him a look.
He doesn’t blink.
“I mean it,” he says. “You go down on the way there, Amelia gets one more reason to think loving you kills men.”
That is unfair.
Also effective.
“I won’t.”
“You stop when you need sleep.”
“Sure.”
“Derby.”
I turn on him. “What?”
His expression shifts.
For one second, he ain’t just the president. Not just the man whose wedding fell apart and whose possible sister ran to Oregon. He is my brother. And not in the MC brother sense.
“You get there, you ask.”
“I said I would.”
“You don’t punish her for using the freedom I gave her.”
My jaw locks.
Because that is exactly my wound.
I gave her freedom, too, then bled when she opened the door.
“She left my bed,” I say.
“I know.”
“After.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His eyes go dark. “Yeah. I do.”
Sophie sits unspoken between us.
All her hurt. All his. Their postponed wedding. Her father’s secret. His lie. Becki’s confession. Every person in our orbit hiding pain and calling it timing.
I look away first.
“She left to save me,” I say, and the words taste bitter. “Like I asked for that.”
“No one ever asks for the part that hurts.”
I hate wise Legend.
I prefer when he is threatening people.
Wildcat hands me the route and a small bag. “Cash. Charger. Protein bars. Basic tools. Extra burner. And before you insult the protein bars, I packed jerky too.”
“Thank you.”
He looks startled.
I am too.
Oaks comes down the porch steps and tosses me a small plastic dinosaur.
I catch it.
“What the hell is this?”
“Brittany bought it for August’s fort. Figured you might need proof of legal authority when you get to dinosaur court.”
My throat tightens.
I shove the toy into my saddlebag. “You all done being sentimental pricks?”
Oaks grins. “Not even close.”
Holler walks up last.
He looks uncomfortable, which I enjoy.
“If you see Lottie before I do,” he says, “tell her I’m mad as hell.”
“I’m not delivering a lie.”
He laughs. “Then tell her I said to pack snacks next time.”
I stare at him.
He shrugs. “She’ll know I mean I love her.”
“Your marriage is weird.”
“Says the man riding cross-country after a woman who told him not to follow.”
Fair.
I swing onto Widowmaker.
The engine comes alive under me, loud and mean and mine. The little dinosaur keychain taps against the ignition, ridiculous and perfect and painful.
Legend steps back.
“Derby.”
I look at him.
“If she says come home, bring her home. If she says stay away, you come back alone.”
My fingers tighten on the bars.
For one heartbeat, I can’t answer.
Then I nod.
Because that is the cost of giving a woman keys.
Sometimes she uses them.
Sometimes you follow and still have to wait outside the door.
I pull out of the clubhouse yard and hit the road west.
The wind takes the first breath from my lungs.
Good.
I did not need it.
Kentucky rolls under Widowmaker’s tires, gray and green and wet, every mile putting me farther from the house where she left and closer to the place she ran.
I don’t know what I will find in Oregon.
Queens. Hot Mama. Some woman president who may or may not have killed a man named Smiley.
A shelter full of ghosts. Caroline’s past. Amelia’s fear. August’s questions.
I only know this.
Amelia used the keys.
Now I’m using the road.
Not to drag her back.
Not to put her in another cage.
To stand in front of her, empty-handed if I have to, and ask the one question that matters.
Do you want me here?
Widowmaker roars west beneath me.
And God help every mile between us if her answer is yes.