Kimi
Breakfast was loud. Hell, the whole clubhouse seemed to be loud all the time.
Every scrape of fork against a plate, every laugh that broke out across the room, and every chair dragged across the scuffed wood floors felt amplified—like the whole place was testing her patience or her nerves, she wasn’t sure which.
Trudi smacked him lightly on the shoulder with a dish towel. “Knock it off, Duffer. Not everyone wakes up wanting to listen to your voice.”
Duffer grinned wider, unbothered. “Just being social.”
She could see it in the way the men deferred to Gorgon for answers.
The way even now, as he sat at the far end of the table, saying nothing, the room sort of gravitated around his quiet.
He didn’t need to look at anyone to keep them in line.
His presence alone did that. And she hated that she noticed how steady it made her feel.
After breakfast, Trudi shoved a pile of clothes into Kimi’s arms. “They’ll be big,” she said, “but warm. Better than that jacket you came in wearing.”
Kimi looked down at the bundle—black jeans, a flannel shirt, a thick Henley that smelled like motor oil and cedar smoke. “Who did you rob for these?”
Trudi smirked. “Don’t worry. They’re clean. Sort of.”
Kimi changed in the small washroom tucked behind the bar. She stared at herself in the cracked mirror. The clothes swallowed her up a little and made her look like a kid playing dress-up in someone else’s clothes. Maybe that was fitting.
She splashed cold water on her face, trying to wash away the exhaustion that clung to her. New clothes didn’t change the fact that she had no plan—only a secret sitting in the envelope hidden under the spare tire in her trunk. It was the envelope Cole had killed for once already.
When she came out of the bathroom, Gorgon was by the window, his arms folded, looking out toward the snow as if the horizon might confess something to him. He didn’t turn around when he spoke to her. “Clothes fit?”
“Good enough,” she said.
“Did you eat?” he asked.
“A bit,” she lied. She hadn’t taken a single bite of the delicious-looking breakfast that Trudi had made for her.
“Means no,” he said without missing a beat. Then he turned his head slightly. “Trudi, get her something to take outside.”
“Outside?” Kimi repeated.
He looked at her now, properly. “You’ve been cooped up long enough. Walk with me.”
She hesitated. “Last time you said that, I ended up with rules and threats.”
His mouth quirked just slightly as though he was just learning how to smile. “Then this time I’ll add coffee.” Trudi handed her a brown bag and a cup of coffee in a travel mug.
“It’s a ham sandwich,” she said in way of explanation before she headed back to the kitchen again.
“Let’s go,” Gorgon ordered, not waiting for her to follow him outside. The yard stretched wide and cold now that the sun had climbed higher. Snow glittered across the bikes like glass dust. A few of the men were working near the shop, the metallic ping of their tools filling the air.
Gorgon walked ahead of her, his boots crunching in rhythm over gravel and ice. He didn’t speak for several minutes, and Kimi didn’t push. Somehow, she knew the silence between them wasn’t empty. It was strategic on his end.
Finally, he said, “You’re hiding something.” It wasn’t a question, but not exactly an accusation. He was stating a fact, and he was right, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
Kimi nearly tripped on the ice. “You always open conversations like that?”
“Yes,” he said.
She sighed. “You could start with asking me how my day is going, you know.”
“If I wanted small talk, I’d talk to Buck.” He glanced sideways at her. “You said Cole was trouble. What kind of trouble are we talking about?”
“He’s the kind of trouble that doesn’t quit,” she said.
“That’s not an answer,” he spat.
“It’s the only one I’ve got,” she countered.
He stopped walking and turned toward her fully. The wind shifted, carrying the heavy, smoky scent of him—leather and cold air and something darker underneath. “You don’t lie well, Kimi.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, and her chin tilted up. “I’ve had practice.”
His gaze was steady, too steady. “You were running from him long before last night.” Again, he was making a statement, not asking her a question. She hated that he saw straight through her. He seemed to see everything.
“Did he hurt you?” he almost whispered. The question landed softly, almost gently—but her body still went rigid, every nerve lit with habit. Not because of the question itself, but because it brought back so many bad memories.
“I’m not broken,” she said through her teeth.
He didn’t move closer, didn’t push her for answers that she wasn’t ready to give him.
He just nodded once, like an acknowledgment rather than an apology.
“Didn’t say you were.” The wind scoured a whistle through the trees.
The sun peeked over the edge of a frozen roofline, bleeding pale gold into the snow.
Then he said something that she didn’t expect. “You remind me of my grandmother.”
Kimi blinked. “That’s a new line.”
He huffed out his breath, almost resembling a laugh.
“She was Cree. Fierce enough to stop the wind when she prayed. The kind of woman who’d look at a bear and tell it to move without raising her voice.
” His lips twitched, just barely. “She said some people were born carrying storms inside them. You look like one of them.”
Kimi stared at him, unsure what to do with that. “And what does a man like you do with someone carrying a storm?”
He met her eyes. “Keep them from drowning in it.” The words hung between them longer than they should have—warm breath in the cold air, two people pretending they didn’t just step into each other’s gravity pool.
They walked to an old barn that sat on the corner of the property. Kimi quickly crossed the room and sat down in the corner on a bale of hay. “You have animals here?” she asked.
“Not in this barn, not anymore. My grandmother used to keep a few cows in here. I swear, you can still smell them in the summer months. We only have chickens in a building just outback from the clubhouse. That’s how we keep fresh eggs up here,” he said.
She wasn’t sure, but Kimi could swear she saw a ghost of a smile on his lips whenever he talked about his grandmother.
Hell, that was the most words he’d said all strewn together since she got there.
“You need to eat,” he said, nodding to the brown paper bag that Trudi handed to her.
She peeked into the bag and pulled out the ham sandwich, opening it and holding half of it out to Gorgon.
“I’ll eat, but only if you have half,” she insisted.
She stared him down until he sighed and sat down next to her on the hay bale and took half the sandwich.
She almost wanted to laugh at how grumpy he seemed at her offering him half her sandwich, but she didn’t.
Instead, she took a big bite and hummed her approval around it.
“When was the last time you ate anything?” he asked, taking a bite of his half.
“It’s been a couple of days,” she admitted with her mouth full. “I just couldn’t seem to stomach food.”
“What’s changed?” he questioned. She paused, trying to decide if she should tell him that just talking to him seemed to calm her anxiety.
Or that the kindness of the people in his club made her feel less anxious about staying there with them, but she thought better of it. Instead, she just shrugged.
They sat there in silence, eating their halves of the ham sandwich, and for the first time, in a damn long time, she felt almost safe—normal even. And she was pretty sure that had everything to do with the man sitting next to her on the hay bale.
By the time they circled back toward the clubhouse, Trudi stood on the porch, arms folded. “Road team’s back,” she called. “Buck says you’ll want to hear this.”
Something in Gorgon’s posture tightened. “What is it?”
“Found tracks matching that SUV that was here last night, out by the old cutline. It looked like it stopped a while, emptied some cans, and then headed northbound again.” She shot Kimi a sympathetic look, and her stomach twisted tight.
She knew what that meant. Cole wasn’t leaving.
He was looking for a way around Gorgon’s men.
Gorgon didn’t seem surprised. “He won’t stop.
He’ll try again soon,” he said casually.
Then he looked back at her, his expression unreadable.
“Whatever he’s after—it’s not done, is it?
” She had expected him to ask her questions while they ate the ham sandwich, or on the walk back, but he hadn’t.
She thought that she had dodged a bullet, but she was wrong because that bullet was coming back at full force and headed straight for her.
Cole was going in for the kill shot, and if she stayed there, she’d be giving him the chance to take it.
Kimi shook her head slowly. “It won’t ever be over. Not until he gets what I took.”
He studied her face. “What’d you take?”
“Something that can cost him his freedom,” she breathed.
That caught him off guard for half a breath. “You want to explain that?”
“No,” she said quietly. “But if I don’t, more people get hurt. I have no choice but to tell you about it.”
He stepped closer, voice low enough that only she could hear. “Then start trusting someone before it’s too late.”
Kimi swallowed hard, her pulse hammering in her throat. “That’s the problem, Gorgon. The last time I trusted someone, they burned down everything I had left.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Then stop trusting the wrong people.” When he walked away toward Buck and the others, the yard seemed to breathe again.
Kimi stood on the porch, arms tight around herself, listening to the low murmur of strategy and engines and men who moved like a single body under one command.
Cole was out there—not running. He wasn’t hiding; he was waiting.
And she knew what was in that envelope would light the match for what came next.
But as she looked toward Gorgon, his shape framed against the snow, another truth slid through her chest like a secret she hadn’t meant to keep—she wasn’t afraid of Cole anymore.
She was afraid of what this place—what he—might awaken in her.
Because for the first time in longer than she could remember, she didn’t want to keep running.
And even though she knew that it might be a mistake, she wanted to trust Gorgon—with everything.