29. Ethan
Ethan
Prez makes good on his word inside two weeks, once Brick's steady enough on his feet that nobody feels wrong about leaving the compound for a few days.
Ten of us ride out to Harte of Steele territory, trucks trailing behind loaded with lumber and tools instead of guns for once, and there's something almost strange about rolling up to that dirt track without a single ounce of tension riding along with us.
Bear meets us at the gate, already in work clothes instead of his cut, and claps me on the shoulder like we've been doing this for years instead of months. "Good to have the extra hands. This project's been three sizes too big for us alone since the day we started it."
The village sits a half mile past their main compound, a cluster of half-framed buildings and one finished cottage standing off to the side like proof of what the rest is supposed to become.
Ruby's the one who shows us around, a sharp, capable woman who I gather runs the whole operation, walking the site with a clipboard and a list of priorities longer than my arm.
"Housing first." She points out the framed buildings one by one. "Then the workshop, so the women here have something to build toward, not just somewhere to sleep. Recovery's not just safety. It’s purpose too, once safety stops being the only thing a person's got room to think about."
"You built all this?" I ask, genuinely struck by the scale of it.
"Built the idea. Everybody else built the rest." She nods toward a big, quiet man hauling lumber twice as fast as anybody else on site. "Crow's been out here every day since we broke ground. Some of us understand what it means, having somewhere safe to land, better than others."
We spend three days swinging hammers alongside brothers from Harte of Steele MC.
There’s something about manual labor strips away whatever awkwardness might've lingered between two clubs still getting to know each other.
Knuckles and Crow fall into an easy rhythm passing lumber back and forth, barely needing words between them anymore.
Brax spends an evening with Bear going over load-bearing calculations like the two of them have been doing this together for years.
I catch sight of Mallory a few times, bringing water and sandwiches out to the crew, easy and unguarded in a way that still catches me off guard every time I see her, considering everything Prez told me about what she survived.
Hawk's rarely more than a few feet from her the whole three days, quiet, watchful, the kind of presence that doesn't need to announce itself to matter.
On the last evening, the whole crew, both clubs together, sits around a bonfire eating whatever Ruby's kitchen crew put together, and I find myself next to Ruby herself, quiet for a minute before she speaks.
"You're the one who married the Del Torro girl." It’s not a question.
"Word travels."
"Words always travel in this life." She studies the fire for a while.
"You know, this place only exists because enough people decided protecting somebody wasn't a debt to be repaid, just a thing worth doing regardless.
Your Prez didn't have to send anybody out here.
Your whole crew didn't have to spend three days doing manual labor for a project that's got nothing to do with your own club's business. "
"Feels like it's got everything to do with it, honestly." I turn my beer in a slow circle. "My wife needed somewhere safe to land once, not so different from what you're building out here. Feels right, paying a little of that forward."
Ruby's quiet for a moment, something soft moving behind her eyes. "That's exactly the kind of answer that tells me this alliance is going to hold."
We ride out the next morning, tired, sunburned, our hands blistered from three days of honest work instead of the kind that leaves a different sort of mark.
I think, riding home beside Prez, that this is the part of ?the life nobody warned me about either.
Not just the violence, not just the danger.
This too. Building something with your own hands for people you'll maybe never see again, just because the building itself matters.
Brick would call that earning something. I'm starting to understand he'd be right.