Chapter 25
By three that afternoon, those four walls didn’t feel like a safe place anymore – they felt like a cage.
The embarrassment from Rose’s comment had faded, but left me restless, pacing back and forth.
For six months my life had been nothing but go, go, go – work, run, keep my mind busy enough not to think.
Now I was locked behind gates, with nothing to do but let my thoughts drift right back to everything I’d been running from.
A sharp knock at the door pulled me right out of my head. Ivy was leaning in the frame, big mixing bowl tucked against her hip, hair pulled up in a messy bun, apron dusted with flour.
“Alright then,” she grinned. “You’ve been holed up in here long enough. Diamond and I have decided to stage an intervention. You’re coming to help us get dinner sorted before you wear a hole in that floor.”
I laughed, relieved more than anything. “Please. Drag me anywhere. I’m about five minutes away from rearranging the furniture just for something to do.”
“Come on then,” she giggled, leading me down the hall to the huge kitchen right off the main bar.
As soon as we stepped through the double doors, the smell hit me – garlic roasting, tomatoes simmering, fresh bread baking, herbs filling the air. It was nothing like the cold, perfect kitchens I’d known growing up. This place was built for feeding a whole army.
Diamond was over by the big range, stirring a pot of sauce so big you could bathe in it. She looked up and smiled soft and warm, the kind that made all my walls start to crumble.
“There you are, love,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Don’t be shy. Around here, you learn one thing quick: a biker that’s well fed is a quiet biker.”
“What are we making?” I asked, rolling my sleeves up ready.
“Lasagna and garlic dough balls,” Ivy said, setting the big bowl down. “The men are on their way back from a long run and when they roll in tonight, they’re going to be starving. Pres, Bones, Rage… they’re all locked up going over plans right now, so it’s just us girls.”
Just hearing his name sent heat rushing straight to my cheeks. I stared hard at the dough in front of me, hiding my face behind my hair as I pushed my hands into the soft flour-dusted mix.
For the next two hours that kitchen was the best place I’d ever been.
Back home, food was fancy plates and quiet talk of business deals.
Here, we had music blaring, flour flying, stories being thrown about like confetti.
Ivy rolling pasta and singing way too loud, Diamond telling tales of the mad things the men got up to.
For the first time in forever, I didn’t feel like an outsider. They didn’t care who my family was, or how much money I had. They just cared that I was there.
“You’ve got good hands for this, k?z?m,” a low warm voice said from the doorway.
I looked up to see Aysel leaning there, watching us with that sharp but kind look in her dark eyes. She walked over, pinched a little bit of dough, nodded like she approved.
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.
“She’s a keeper, this one,” Ivy called out, wiping flour off her forehead. “Didn’t even flinch when Diamond and I kidnapped her from her room.”
Just then the big doors swung open.
The laughter died down a little as Rage walked in.
He looked worn out, cut unzipped, hair messy, like he’d been carrying the weight of the whole world on his shoulders.
But the second his eyes landed on me, everything changed.
He froze where he stood, and that hard Enforcer look just melted away, replaced by something deep and dark and so warm it made my breath catch.
“Afternoon, ladies,” he rumbled, voice low and rough as he walked over to the counter, eyes never leaving mine.
“Don’t you dare come in here dragging mud on my clean floors,” Aysel warned, but she was smiling, like she knew exactly what was going on.
“Just getting some water,” he murmured, reaching into the fridge.
But instead of walking back out, he leaned right over the counter, closer to me.
The smell of rain, leather and coffee wrapped all around me.
He lifted one big rough thumb, brushed a little smudge of flour right off the tip of my nose, so gentle it made my skin tingle.
“Got a little something there, sweetheart,” he said quiet, like it was just the two of us in the whole room.
“Tha… thank you,” I breathed, looking right up at him, heart hammering so hard I was sure everyone could hear it.
“Rage! Get out of my kitchen, you’re distracting the staff!” Ivy laughed, tossing a little pinch of flour at him.
He chuckled low, stepping back, gave me one last look that felt like a promise, then wandered back out.
I stared down at the dough, grinning like an idiot.
I’d lost my job, I was stuck behind gates, and I was running from my own family…
but as I listened to the women laughing around me and still felt the ghost of his thumb on my skin, I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t running alone anymore. I belonged here.