Chapter 9
Four days in the compound, and Mandy was going to lose her mind if she didn't find something to do with her hands.
The first day had been nothing but sleep and debriefings—Patriot asking questions, her telling the story again and again until the words lost meaning. The second day she'd tried to rest, tried to process, tried to sit still in her little room and let herself heal.
By noon, she'd been crawling out of her skin.
The third day, she'd found a broom.
"You know you don't have to do that."
Mandy looked up from the common room floor to find Grace watching her from behind the bar. The President's woman had dark hair streaked with silver, knowing eyes, and the kind of presence that said she'd seen everything twice and stopped being surprised years ago.
"I know." Mandy kept sweeping. "But if I sit still any longer, I'm going to start screaming and never stop. So."
Grace's mouth curved. "I remember that feeling."
"Yeah?"
"Mm-hmm." She set down the glass she'd been polishing and leaned against the bar. "When Patriot first brought me into club business, I spent three weeks scrubbing every surface I could reach. Drove the brothers crazy—they kept finding their stuff reorganized."
"What made you stop?"
"I didn't." Grace laughed. "I just got better at hiding it. Now I reorganize the storage room once a month and everyone pretends not to notice."
Mandy felt something ease in her chest. Not alone. She wasn't the only one who dealt with fear by making herself useful.
She finished sweeping and moved to the kitchen, where the disarray made her fingers itch. Dishes piled in the sink. Cabinets with no organizational system. A refrigerator that looked like a science experiment gone wrong.
By the time she'd emptied, scrubbed, and reorganized the first three cabinets, she had an audience.
"Well." Kate stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching with amusement.
She was tall and athletic, with the kind of efficiency that came from running a food truck and feeding hungry bikers.
Turnpike's woman, Mandy had learned—one of the old ladies who'd welcomed her without question. "Someone's nesting."
"I'm not nesting. I'm cleaning."
"Honey, when you alphabetize someone else's spice rack, that's nesting." Kate moved into the kitchen and started helping—pulling plates from cabinets, stacking them by size. "Not that I'm complaining. This kitchen's needed attention for months."
"The brothers don't clean?"
"The brothers think 'clean' means throwing away the pizza boxes before they attract wildlife." Kate's grin was sharp and warm. "We've learned to pick our battles."
More women filtered in as the afternoon wore on.
Rachel arrived with coffee and questions about the safehouse attack—she was a veterinarian, apparently, with steady hands and a practical view of violence.
Megan brought sandwiches and quiet company, her salon-owner poise somehow untouched by the chaos around her.
They didn't push. Didn't ask for details Mandy wasn't ready to give. They just... helped. Worked alongside her, cleaning and organizing and filling the silence with easy conversation about nothing important.
And when Mandy finally stepped back to survey the transformed kitchen, something that felt almost like pride bloomed in her chest.
"Not bad." Nicole had appeared at some point—mechanic's hands, garage owner's confidence, a directness that reminded Mandy of herself. "You do this professionally?"
"House cleaning. Six years." Mandy wiped her hands on a borrowed towel. "Or I did, before Trevor Boone decided I knew too much."
"You'll get back to it." Nicole said it like fact, not hope. "Once the club handles your problem, you'll pick up right where you left off."
"You sound sure."
"I am." Nicole's eyes were steady. "The Sons don't lose. And from what I hear, you've got one hell of a prospect watching your back."
Heat crept up Mandy's cheeks before she could stop it. "Riot's been... yeah. He's been great."
"Great." Nicole's smile turned knowing. "That's one word for it."
Before Mandy could respond, movement caught her eye through the kitchen doorway. Riot, crossing the common room with Powder, both of them carrying boxes toward the back. He was moving fast—he always moved fast—but his eyes found hers across the space like he had radar for her presence.
The look he gave her was brief. Heated. A promise and a claim wrapped up in three seconds of eye contact.
Then he was gone, disappeared down the hallway, and Mandy realized she'd stopped breathing.
"Mm-hmm." Nicole's voice was amused. "Great. Sure."
The thing about Riot was that he was everywhere.
Not physically hovering—he had prospect duties, tasks that kept him busy from dawn until long after dark. But every time Mandy turned around, he was there. Walking past the kitchen. Crossing the common room. Appearing at her elbow with coffee she hadn't asked for but desperately needed.
And every single time, that look. That hungry, possessive, barely-contained look that made her skin feel too tight and her heart beat too fast.
She watched him during quiet moments, when he didn't know she was looking.
Watched him haul supplies with the brothers, all that restless energy channeled into physical labor.
Watched him laugh at something Powder said, his whole face transforming from dangerous to devastating.
Watched him check weapons in the armory, hands moving with practiced ease over metal and ammunition.
He was beautiful. Not pretty—nothing about Riot was soft enough for pretty—but beautiful in the way that storms were beautiful. Powerful. Unpredictable. The kind of thing you watched from a safe distance, knowing it could destroy you if you got too close.
Mandy had never been good at safe distances.
"You're staring."
She jumped, nearly dropping the stack of towels she'd been folding. Grace had appeared beside her, silent as a cat, with a knowing smile that said she'd seen everything.
"I wasn't—"
"You were." Grace took half the towels and started folding. "Not that I blame you. He's something to look at, that one."
"He's my bodyguard. Protector. Whatever." Mandy felt her face heating again. "It's not like that."
"Honey." Grace's voice was gentle. "I've been an old lady for fifteen years. I know what 'like that' looks like. And the way that boy watches you? That's not protection. That's obsession."
Mandy's hands stilled on the towels. "Is that... bad?"
"Depends on how you feel about it." Grace set down her stack and turned to face Mandy fully. "These men—our men—they don't love halfway. When they decide someone's theirs, that's it. Forever. No take-backs, no second thoughts. It's all or nothing."
"That sounds terrifying."
"It is." Grace's smile was soft. "It's also the most incredible thing you'll ever experience. Being loved by a man who would burn the world down for you." Her eyes flickered toward the doorway, where Patriot had just appeared with a question on his face. "Nothing else comes close."
She moved away to join her man, leaving Mandy with a stack of towels and a heart that wouldn't stop racing.
All or nothing. Everything or nothing.
Looking across the room, she found Riot watching her again. That look. That heat. That unspoken promise of things she wasn't sure she was ready for.
Mandy looked away first. But she could feel his gaze on her skin long after he'd gone.
Midnight found her in the supply closet.
She couldn't sleep—hadn't slept properly since the safehouse, despite the exhaustion that dragged at her bones. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Kyle Renner's face. Felt blood on her hands. Heard the sounds of men dying in the dark.
So she'd gotten up. Found the supply closet. Started organizing, because at least when her hands were moving, her mind could quiet.
"You know it's the middle of the night, right?"
Mandy spun, heart slamming against her ribs, and found Riot leaning in the doorway. He was barefoot, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants that hung low on his hips, hair mussed from sleep that obviously hadn't come.
"Couldn't sleep," she managed.
"Yeah." He stepped into the closet, suddenly making the small space feel smaller. "Me neither."
"Nightmares?"
"Something like that." He was close now—close enough that she could smell soap and something warmer underneath. "Kept thinking about you. Wondering if you were okay."
"I'm fine."
"Mandy." His voice dropped, soft and rough. "You're reorganizing a supply closet at midnight. That's not fine."
She felt her chin come up, defiant even though he was right. "So what? You're wandering the halls at midnight. That's not fine either."
"Never said I was fine." He stepped closer, and she backed up until her shoulders hit the shelving. Nowhere else to go. "I said I was thinking about you."
The air between them went thick. Heavy. Charged with something that had been building for days, every look and every accidental touch and every moment of eye contact across crowded rooms.
"What were you thinking?" Her voice came out breathless.
"Dangerous things." His hand came up to brace against the shelf beside her head, caging her in. Not threatening—never threatening—but unmistakably possessive. "Things I shouldn't be thinking about a woman I'm supposed to be protecting."
"Like what?"
His eyes dropped to her mouth. Lingered there. Then dragged back up to meet her gaze with an intensity that made her knees weak.
"Like how you looked at the safehouse, holding that knife. Like how you taste when you're scared. Like how much I want to kiss you right now, even though it's a terrible idea and we should both walk away."
Mandy's breath caught. "That does sound dangerous."
"Mm-hmm." He leaned closer, close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath on her lips. "So why aren't you walking away?"
"Maybe I'm tired of playing it safe."
"Mandy—"
"Four days." She grabbed his shirt, fisting the fabric, holding him there. "Four days of watching you, wanting you, pretending I didn't notice every time you looked at me like you wanted to devour me. I'm done pretending."
His control snapped.
The kiss wasn't gentle. It was desperate and hungry and everything she'd been craving since the moment he'd walked into Jenny's apartment and looked at her like she was worth saving.
His mouth claimed hers, tongue sweeping inside, one hand tangling in her hair while the other gripped her hip hard enough to bruise.
She kissed him back with everything she had. Poured all the fear and fury and desperate hope into the press of her lips, the scrape of her teeth, the way her body arched into his like it belonged there.
When they finally broke apart, both gasping, his forehead pressed against hers and his eyes were dark with want.
"This changes things," he said roughly.
"I know."
"I won't be able to let you go. After this. After tonight." His grip on her hip tightened. "You understand what that means?"
"That you're going to be impossibly possessive and territorial and drive me crazy?"
His laugh was low and rough. "Something like that."
"Good." She pulled him down for another kiss, shorter this time but no less heated. "I'm counting on it."
They stood there in the supply closet, wrapped around each other, both of them unable to sleep and neither of them willing to let go.
It wasn't fine. Nothing about any of this was fine.
But for the first time since her life fell apart, Mandy thought it might actually be okay.