Chapter 10
The golden hour washes over me as I ride. The wind is blowin' my hair, the sky all the colors of hell. Gorgeous bands of reds and purples softened up by deep peach and dark teal. A nightmare conjured up from the vacant mind of an insane artist.
Absolutely stunnin'. Unbelievably real. Indisputably foreboding.
There's no other way to interpret this sky.
Not after what happened this morning.
The body count felt like infinity, which was fitting. Because it seemed to take an eternity to bury them all. Even with the excavator, it was a chore.
The entire day felt like the definition of futility.
There's no fuckin' way we're gettin' away with this.
There's no fuckin' way this doesn't end in some televised shoot-out. The United States government vs. Badlands MC.
We're dead. We're all dead.
And I'm the one to blame for it.
Savannah is the only thing I care about right now. Who knows how long I have. Forty-eight hours? Seventy-two, if I'm lucky.
I've got things to say to that woman. Things that can't wait because this is it. The war is over. I've finally chosen my side. The archangel on my chest never had a chance. It's the screamin' demons that always had the upper hand. They always knew what truly lived inside me.
The Ashby Ranch rises up over the ridge like it always does. Perfect. Untouchable. Green grass that shouldn't exist in September, black fences that only people with money can really appreciate.
I slow the bike as I approach the gate. It's open.
Not quite dark yet, but almost. That in-between time when the world holds its breath.
She must hear me comin' because she's already on the porch when I round the last curve. Smilin'. White dress flowin' around her legs. Hair loose. Like a world that includes Demon Kane still exists.
Like I didn't just bury thirty-six bodies, includin’ Havoc. Twenty-five traitors. Five Feds, includin’ Brandy. And five women that were probably also Feds, but there was no way to sort that out, so… yeah. It is what it is.
I park the bike, kill the engine, and let the silence crash down. My leg comes over the bike slow, every muscle in my body screamin' from diggin' and draggin' corpses.
Savannah’s smile drops the second she really sees me.
I know what she's lookin' at. The dirt caked into every crease of my jeans—dark red Montana clay that looks too much like dried blood even though it’s not. There’s dust in my hair, on my face, streaking across my cut. My boots are covered in it. My fingernails black crescents.
She doesn't move toward me, just stands there, fifteen feet between us, her hand on the railing. "Legion." Her voice cracks. "What's wrong?"
I open my mouth. Close it. Blow out a breath and try again. But the words won't come out. How the fuck do I explain this? The death, the blood, the end.
Because that’s what this is. The fuckin’ end. Of everything. Me, me and her, the club, everyone still alive in the club. Families ruined today. June’s a widow. Orphans, and women, and the whole fuckin’ future of everything went up in ashes this morning.
No. Angels and ashes don’t belong together. So I say, "There's this book. It's… red, I think." Like the blood all over the floor this morning. "Leather. I don't remember much about what it looked like, just… there's a book, Savannah. Your mama. She…"
I inhale. Exhale.
I have no idea how to explain this.
"Pictures," I finally manage. "Of me. Do you know what I'm talkin' about? Do you know where it is?"
I don't even know how to describe the look on Savannah's face.
It's intense concentration wrapped around somethin' else—disbelief maybe, or acceptance, or both things wound together so tight you can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
Her mouth opens slightly like she's gonna say somethin', then it closes.
Her eyes search mine with this desperate, hungry need to understand what I'm askin' and why I'm askin' it now, covered in grave dirt and the residue of violence I can't wash off no matter how hard I scrub.
She knew.
She knows about this book. Has looked at it.
Studied it probably. I can see the questions all over her face—questions about what Eleanor did, questions about what I let her do, questions about why I never mentioned it, why I never explained, why I kept silent about one more goddamn thing in a life already buried under secrets.
And she never once asked me about it.
Never brought it up. Never demanded answers. Never used it as a weapon the way she could've—the way anyone else would've.
That realization hits me harder than Brick's bullet would've if I'd been slower this mornin'. Harder than the knowledge that I just murdered the club president in cold blood and buried him in Montana clay that'll hold his bones forever.
She doesn't say nothin'. Just… extends her hand. Small. Delicate. Palm up. Offerin' herself as a guide through whatever fresh hell this day is about to become.
I walk forward and take it, and she leads me inside the mansion I lived in for weeks without ever really seein' it—without ever really believin' I belonged in a place this clean, this expensive, this far removed from the world I was born into.
We go up the stairs, her bare feet silent on the hardwood, my boots leaving evidence of evil with every step.
I follow her into her bedroom and for one horrible moment, I wonder if the book has been on some shelf in this room the whole time.
Wonder if I walked past it dozens of times when I was livin' here, recoverin' from the infection that nearly killed me, driftin' through this house like a ghost who couldn't quite figure out how to haunt properly.
Wonder if she kept it out in the open, displayed like a trophy, or a warning, or a confession she wanted me to find, but couldn't bring herself to speak aloud.
But it's not.
She takes me into her closet—this massive walk-in space bigger than Mercy's entire bedroom at the trailer—and in the back, behind rows and rows of prairie dresses in soft colors that make her look like some kind of virgin sacrifice, even though we both know better, there's a panel.
It slides open on her command, revealin' an elevator.
An elevator. In a closet. In a bedroom.
Of course there's a fuckin' elevator. Of course the Ashbys have secret passages, and hidden rooms, and layers upon layers of privacy built into their fortress.
Of course Savannah grew up in a house where you could disappear into the walls, where you could hide from cameras, and expectations, and your own mother's obsessive need to document every breath you took.
Of course there is.
The elevator requires a key in the form of a code—numbers Savannah punches in without hesitation. We get in. The doors close. We descend.
The ride down feels longer than it probably is, and I'm acutely aware of how small this space is.
How Savannah's pressed against my side even though there's room to stand apart.
How she's still holdin' my hand like she's afraid if she lets go, I'll disappear into the same abyss that swallowed Brick, and Roach, and Ledger, and all the others who thought they could survive by choosin' the wrong side today.
We exit.
And I step out into a shrine of photographs.
All of it, Eleanor's work. Everywhere. Floor to ceiling.
Wall to wall. Thousands upon thousands of images preserved in climate-controlled perfection—negatives in archival sleeves, prints in acid-free boxes, contact sheets organized by date, and subject, and whatever system made sense inside Eleanor Ashby's brilliant, broken mind.
This is where she kept her real legacy. Not the Instagram empire. Not the coffee table books, or the magazine spreads, or the perfectly staged moments she sold to millions of followers who thought they were seein' authenticity.
This is where I end this day. I almost laugh. It’s almost funny.
But none of this is funny.
None of this has ever been funny.
Back in time, I'm twenty-five years old and ridin' my bike into Glendive, Montana on a Thursday afternoon in September.
Eleanor’s studio is in the quaint downtown.
Sandwiched between the Yellowstone River and the train tracks.
The buildin' is old, nondescript brick. Single steel door. Number painted in faded white. I’ve been here before, obviously.
Been coming to this place for seven years by the time this day comes around.
But it’s different now. There’s no sign anymore. Nothin’ that says she’s in there.
I kill the engine and sit there for a minute, smokin', wonderin' what the fuck I'm doin' here. Wonderin' why I keep comin' back every time she calls, every time she leaves a note on my bike, every time she drops another breadcrumb about my father. A man I never knew. A man I never wanted to know.
But I know why.
Because Eleanor's the only person who ever looked at me like I mattered. Like I'm somethin' worth preserving. Like my existence is evidence of beauty instead of evidence of sin.
I flick the cigarette into the street and walk inside.
The space opens up into somethin' that doesn't match the exterior at all.
Professional photography studio. Lights on tall stands with umbrellas and softboxes, pristine white backdrops suspended from ceiling-mounted rails, camera equipment organized on rolling carts—everything precise, and deliberate, and expensive.
The kind of setup photographers dream about.
And there's Eleanor.
She's thinner than she was last month. The change isn't dramatic. Yet. But it will be soon. Her face has this gaunt quality that wasn't there before, like somethin's consuming her from the inside out.
But she's smilin'.
Actually happy. Not the practiced Instagram smile she wears for cameras, or the polite social mask she shows donors and politicians. Real happiness. The kind that lights a person up from within, the kind that makes her look younger despite everything that’s tryin’ to eat her alive.