7. Susan #2
The air inside the Chapel is dense. It smells of old wood, aged leather, and impending violence. An oak table dominates the room, the club’s winged reaper logo carved deeply into the center of the wood.
Logan Gunnar, the President of the Broken Halos, sits at the head of the table. His presence commands the room—a cold, calculated authority that demands respect. Austin Gunnar, the Vice President, stands by his shoulder, arms crossed over his chest.
Mac leans against the back wall, a cup of black coffee in his hand. He takes one look at Alas’s hand branded to the back of my neck and gives a low, approving snort.
"Prospect," Logan says, his voice low and flat. He looks at me. His gaze is assessing, razor-sharp, but devoid of threat. "Susan. Take a seat."
Alas doesn't sit. He guides me to the wooden chair near the center of the table, pressing me down by the shoulder, and then takes his place standing behind me. His large hands rest on the back of my chair. A human wall between me and the rest of the room.
Austin tosses a manila folder onto the center of the carved reaper.
"Petra’s intel," Austin says, tapping the folder. "The clerk filed it an hour ago. Right-of-passage easement. They’re claiming civil legal rights to the south dirt track on your property."
I look at the folder. The sting of the violation burns fresh.
"It’s a bluff," Logan states, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the table.
"They don't have the backing to force a civil dispute in open court, but they know the sheriff can't arrest them for trespassing if they carry stamped paperwork.
It buys them a window to move product over the ridge without local law enforcement interference. "
"They aren't moving anything over that ridge," Alas says from behind me. The violent promise in his voice drops the temperature in the room. "The trail is dead."
"The Syndicate lieutenant is escalating," Austin says, looking between Logan and Alas. "They used scouts. Then wiretaps. Now they’re weaponizing civil law. If they establish a permanent supply line through the bee farm, they cut our northern patrol grid in half."
Logan looks at me.
"The property is in your name, Susan," Logan says.
"The club can flood the tree line with brothers.
We can lock down the perimeter. But the paper gives them an excuse to bring local authorities into the crossfire.
If we engage them on your land, it becomes a public warzone.
You need to evacuate. We have a secure bay here at the compound. "
The word evacuate hits my ears like a physical blow.
Two years of fighting. Two years hauling my grandfather’s legacy through frozen winters, failed queens, and plummeting honey yields. Two years refusing to let the wild meadow swallow the property.
I look at the manila folder. I look at Logan Gunnar.
I don't shrink. I don't apologize.
"I’m not leaving my farm," I say. My voice rings out in the acoustics of the Chapel, sharp and final. "My grandfather built those hive boxes with his bare hands. The bees are preparing for the winter cluster. If I leave them, they die. If I abandon the land, the Syndicate wins by default."
Silence drops over the room. Total.
Mac stops drinking his coffee. Austin tilts his head, a faint gleam of respect lighting his eyes.
Behind me, Alas’s massive hands tighten on the back of my chair. The wood groans under his grip. The pride radiating from him is a physical wave of heat against my back. I’m his woman, and I’m standing my ground in a room full of killers, unafraid.
"I don't need the club to flood the tree line," I tell the President of the MC. "I don't need an evacuation team. I’m holding the property."
Logan’s eyes narrow slightly. "You can't hold a mile of dense pine against the Syndicate alone, Susan."
"She isn't alone," Alas says, the words breaking out of his throat like a threat.
He steps out from behind the chair, moving to stand at my side. He places his hand flat on the oak table, leaning into Logan’s space. A prospect challenging a patched President. The tension in the room spikes to a lethal high.
"The farm is mine," Alas states. The unhinged possession in his voice leaves zero room for debate.
He isn't talking about the deed. He's talking about me.
"The south trail is mine. The perimeter is mine.
Nobody steps foot on that dirt unless I put them in it.
The club stays off the ridge. I handle the Syndicate. "
Logan stares at Alas. The silence stretches, taut as a wire about to snap.
The iron door of the Chapel suddenly swings open.
The hinges groan in protest. Footsteps, deliberate, echo against the floorboards.
A man steps into the room. He wears the leather cut of the Broken Halos, the Vanguard rocker stitched across his chest. Oliver Gunnar. The brother who once lived alone up on the high ridge, the ghost who clears threats before they ever reach the compound.
He doesn't look at Austin. He doesn't look at Mac.
Oliver walks to the center of the table. He reaches inside his leather cut and pulls out a folded topographical map of the eastern ridge. He drops it flat onto the carved reaper logo, right on top of the Syndicate’s legal folder.
He taps one blunt finger onto the squiggly contour line marking my south dirt trail.
"It runs through," Oliver says. His voice is low and hollow, carrying the chill of the high altitude.
He lifts his hand, his cold, flat gaze cutting to Alas.
"Hold the line."
Oliver doesn't wait for a response. He doesn't ask Logan for permission. He turns on his heel, his boots echoing on the wood, and walks right back out the door. The iron panel slams shut behind him.
The finality of the Vanguard’s mandate settles over the table like concrete.
The club’s top enforcer, the man who dictates the tactical survival of the ridge, just endorsed Alas’s claim. He didn't order an evacuation. He didn't authorize a club-wide defense. He looked at the unpatched prospect standing over my chair and gave him the war.
Logan looks at the map Oliver left behind. He slowly leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. The cold authority in his eyes shifts into something deeply respectful.
"You have your orders, prospect," Logan says quietly. "Hold the line."
Alas doesn't nod. He doesn't say thank you. He just steps back, his hand immediately returning to the nape of my neck.
"Meeting’s over," Alas says.
He pulls my chair back, his hand on my neck firm and unyielding, guiding me out of the seat. I stand up, keeping my shoulders square. I look Logan in the eye, giving him a single, respectful nod.
We walk out of the Chapel together.
The walk back through the clubhouse hallway feels different than the walk in. The oppressive weight of isolation, the crushing dread of fighting a faceless enemy alone, is gone. It’s been incinerated by the fire radiating from the man walking beside me.
We push through the front doors, stepping out into the cold mountain air of the compound yard. The sky has clouded over, a gray warning of an impending front moving down from the peaks.
Alas doesn't lead me to the truck.
He stops in the middle of the gravel yard, turns me by the waist, and backs me up against the passenger door of my grandfather's Ford. The cold metal bites through my flannel, but the massive, furnace-hot wall of Alas’s chest instantly traps me.
He crowds into my space. His hands come up, framing my face, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. His chest heaves, his breathing ragged and deep.
"You didn't run," he breathes, his voice dark and low.
"I told you," I say, my hands rising to catch the cotton of his t-shirt. "I'm not hiding. And I'm not leaving."
Alas’s eyes are black, consumed by an obsession so total it defies logic. He stares down at my mouth, the muscle in his jaw jumping frantically. He’s vibrating with the need to mark, to claim, to rip the world apart and rebuild it around me.
He leans down, pressing his forehead against mine. His breath is hot against my skin.
"I'm going to turn that south trail into a graveyard," he vows, the promise vibrating straight from his chest into mine. "They want a piece of paper? I'll bury them with it. Nobody touches you. Nobody takes your land."
I hold his shirt tighter, grounding myself in his strength. I spent two years believing I had to be a fortress. If I let anyone in, the walls would crumble and the farm would be lost.
I look up into the feral, devoted eyes of the most dangerous man in Pine Valley.
I don't have to be a fortress anymore. I have a man who stands the line for me.
"Take me home, Alas," I tell him softly. "We have a line to hold."