Gorgon
He watched Buck bicker with the fence crew near the gate, while Hulk checked the generator.
Trudi stepped out of the bar with coffee, handing him a mug, and disappearing back into the clubhouse.
Everyone was doing their part, pretending nothing had shifted.
But they all knew—one new person and one bad night was enough to tilt the balance of a place built on instinct and control.
And control was what kept them breathing most days.
He turned his head toward the frost-coated window of the spare room upstairs.
The curtains were half-drawn, and for a second, he thought he saw the faintest flick of movement—a shadow of her.
Kimi hadn’t left the clubhouse since their walk.
She hadn’t said whether she’d trust him or run again.
But the look in her eyes when he told her Cole’s trail hadn’t gone cold—that look, he knew too well.
It wasn’t just fear. It was guilt. And guilt made people unpredictable.
Inside the clubhouse, warmth hit him like a slap in the face. The place always smelled the same—like wood smoke, grease, coffee, too many bodies breathing the same air. He nodded to Trudi at the bar and motioned for her to follow him.
“Tell me what she’s been doing up there,” he ordered.
She wiped her hands on a rag, grinning up at him. “Hey, Trudi, how are you doing?” she grumbled. His stare cut straight through that sarcasm, and her grin vanished.
“She’s been quiet,” Trudi said. “She’s been keeping to herself. I can tell that she worries too much, because the poor thing jumps at shadows, even after I told her nobody here’s gonna bite.”
“She tell you anything?”
Trudi shook her head. “Not yet. But she’s not lying when she says she’s scared of that guy, whoever he is—Cole, right?” Gorgon nodded. “He’s not done. He didn’t look like the quitting type. You know the kind I’m talking about.”
“Yeah,” Gorgon muttered. “I used to be that kind.”
Trudi frowned. “You used to be smarter about people, too. What’re you keeping her for, Gorgon?
Because I’ve seen danger, and she’s wearing it like perfume.
” He didn’t answer because he didn’t have a good one.
He had no idea why he was protecting Kimi, and telling Trudi that she reminded him of her grandmother, or that when he looked in her eyes, he couldn’t help but want to help her, wasn’t going to happen.
She sighed. “Watch yourself, Prez. Storms like her are dangerous. You pick it up, and carry it, then it becomes part of you.”
He turned toward the stairs. “That’s my problem,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” she called after him. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Kimi’s door was open when he reached the top of the stairs. She was standing by the window again, her profile lit faintly by pale daylight. Her hair was braided now, loose and imperfect. “Is Trudi done tattling on me?” she asked without turning.
“She worries about her people,” he said evenly. “She worries about me.”
“Her people. That’s Interesting because I didn’t realize I was one of those yet,” she spat.
“You’re standing under my roof. That makes you one of mine,” Gorgon insisted.
She let out a short laugh that held no humor. “That’s not how belonging to someone or someplace works.”
“With us, it is,” he said.
Kimi turned then, arms crossed over her chest, to face him. “You think you can just claim people and call it protection?”
His voice dropped low. “You think protection and claiming are two different things? In a place like this, they’re the exact damn thing.” They stood facing each other, still air between them thick as smoke.
Finally, Kimi said, “Buck told me there’s law enforcement up north, past the ridge. It’s an RCMP station. If Cole’s as dangerous as you say, I should go there, let them deal with it, and leave your club out of my mess.”
Gorgon shook his head slowly. “Law doesn’t deal with men like him. They take your statement, file a report, and tell you to move on. Then he finds you again. Cops don’t stop storms; they take the report after it’s leveled your house.”
She pressed her lips together, her jaw tight. “So what, you plan to scare him into staying gone?”
“It’s worked before,” he insisted.
She studied him. “And you’re not worried about dragging your people into someone else’s war?”
“This club’s been in worse wars. You just found a club that isn’t afraid to get our hands dirty.”
Something in her eyes flickered—anger first, then something he couldn’t name. Maybe heartbreak, or maybe recognition.
“You really believe that you can handle Cole?” she murmured.
“I don’t waste time believing,” he said.
“I survive because I know what my club and I are capable of. We can handle your trouble for you.” She looked like she wanted to trust him, and he waited her out.
Outside, an engine revved—someone testing a rebuild in the shop.
The sound filled the gap between their words.
Then she surprised him. “I wasn’t lying,” she said quietly. “When I said I took something from him. It wasn’t cash, not jewelry. Just information.”
“What kind of information?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted to meet his, and for the first time, her voice trembled—not with weakness, but with the weight of what she hadn’t said. “The kind that could end him. And a few others like him. I didn’t steal it because I wanted revenge. I did it because I saw what they’d done.”
Gorgon’s jaw tightened. “So that envelope he’s after—”
She nodded her head, “It has proof,” she finished.
“Enough to ruin their names, money, and power. I thought if I brought it to someone who could use it right—” Her voice broke off before she forced herself to continue.
“But nobody uses things like that right. They just trade the same power among themselves.”
He didn’t flinch. He’d learned a long time ago that truth always costs the most. “Where is it now?”
“In my car. In the trunk under my spare,” she admitted.
He nodded once. “I’ll have Buck move it.”
Her hand shot out, grabbing his sleeve. “No. It’s mine.
” The contact made something raw spark between them.
Gorgon looked down at her hand, rough knuckles against his leather.
She pulled it back like the burn surprised her.
“I didn’t save myself to hand over the one thing that proves I still exist,” she said fiercely.
He almost smiled. “Didn’t ask for your surrender. Just your trust.”
“I don’t have any left,” she admitted.
“Then borrow some of mine.” The words left him before he could stop them, and the sound of them startled them both.
He wasn’t quite sure what he was offering her, but he was sure that they were both going to find out.
“Just give me a chance to prove myself and my club to you, Kimi. I promise—I can keep your secret.” She nodded, and he let out the breath he didn’t know that he had been holding.
She was finally letting him in, and he wouldn’t go and fuck that up now.
He needed to figure out why she mattered to him, and he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like the answers that he came up with.
By afternoon, the temperature had dropped again, and the sky turned gray.
The guys prepared the clubhouse perimeter just in case.
The SUV tracks weren’t far, and Gorgon trusted his men to secure the clubhouse and the surrounding land.
He watched his crew move with quiet efficiency, as Kimi stood near the porch with Trudi’s coat thrown over her shoulders.
She didn’t speak, but her eyes tracked his men’s every movement.
He caught her glance at him once, the faintest sign of something between defiance and gratitude, but it was enough.
As he walked the fence line one last time before dusk, Buck joined his side, his boots crunching through the snow. “You sure about this, boss?” Buck asked.
“No,” Gorgon admitted. “But I’m sure about the man chasing her.”
“What about him?” Buck questioned.
“He’s gonna make the mistake of coming back, and keeping Kimi close is the only way to protect her from him.”
Buck gave a grim smile. “And then? What happens when he comes back?”
Gorgon looked up at the horizon darkening under a heavy sky. “Then we remind him what happens when you cross King's territory carrying sins you can’t pay for.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Buck said.
“No, you go get some sleep. I’m wide awake anyway. I’ll take first watch,” Gorgon insisted. He left out the part about not being able to sleep for more than an hour or two a night for the past week. He told himself that he was just restless, but maybe he knew that she was coming even then.
Buck slapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll be back out at two to relieve you, boss.” He nodded his thanks and watched his second in command disappear into the clubhouse.
Gorgon stood alone beside the garage, looking toward the trees.
The air was too still and too quiet. It was the kind of quiet that always meant something was coming.
Behind him, the hum of laughter and warmth spilled through the walls.
Inside, there was safety. He knew that it was only temporary, but real—for now.
He touched the cigarette behind his ear, but didn’t light it—just kept it there.
The storm was circling closer. He felt it in his bones, in the land, in her name still echoing in his mind like smoke caught in winter air.
Some names are shields. Some are storms. He pulled his cut tighter across his shoulders and whispered, “Then let the storm come.”