Chapter Thirteen
Slaughter
Two weeks.
I had been hiding in Medicine Park for two goddamn weeks, watching Hope Owens from the shadows like some kind of stalker.
I told myself I was waiting for the right moment, waiting for Shadow to calm down, waiting for Ghost to show up demanding my head, waiting for Reaper to arrive with the full weight of the Golden Skulls behind him.
But they never came.
And that confused the hell out of me.
I had rented the motel room indefinitely, paying cash week by week to the clerk who had stopped asking questions after the first three days.
The room had become a home away from home.
A place to sleep when exhaustion finally dragged me under, a place to shower and change clothes before heading back out into the night.
Because that was when I went to Lawton. At night. When the darkness could hide me and the streets were quiet enough that I could move unseen.
I watched her. God help me, I couldn’t stop watching her.
Her life was simple. Predictable. Almost painfully ordinary in a way that made my chest ache with something I couldn’t name.
Mornings, she was at the Owens Farm—helping with chores, tending to the greenhouse where all those homeopathic products were made.
I would park my bike a quarter mile down the road and walk through the fields, staying low, keeping to the tree line.
I would watch her through the greenhouse windows as she worked alongside her sisters, her hands moving with practiced efficiency as she poured soap into molds or labeled jars of lotion.
She was quiet. Reserved. Even with Faith and Charity, there was a distance to her. A careful politeness that shouldn’t have been there.
Tuesdays and Saturdays, she worked at the Lawton Farmers’ Market with Charity.
They would set up their booth early, the table covered in neatly arranged soaps, lotions, candles, and baked goods.
Hope would smile at customers, her voice soft and sweet as she explained the benefits of lavender oil or the difference between goat’s milk soap and shea butter. But the smile never reached her eyes.
I could see it from where I sat on a bench across the market square, hidden behind a newspaper I wasn’t reading.
There was a sadness in her eyes that seemed to swallow her whole.
A heaviness that made her shoulders curve inward, almost as if she were trying to make herself smaller. Like she was trying to disappear.
The other days, she waitressed at the Lawton Diner near the interstate.
I would watch from the parking lot, sitting on my bike with my helmet on, just another traveler passing through.
She would move between tables with practiced grace, refilling coffee cups and taking orders, her white apron tied around her waist and her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
She was polite. Gentle. Patient with the truckers who lingered too long and the families with screaming kids.
But she was hollow. I could see it in the way she moved, almost as if she were going through the motions, like she was present but not really there.
Like some essential part of her had been carved out and left behind that night at the pond.
Or maybe behind the garage at the Diamondback clubhouse, when I’d walked away without looking back.
Shadow went about his days like nothing had happened. I would occasionally see him at the farm, working on his bike or talking with Joan on the porch. He didn’t look angry. Didn’t look like a man planning retribution. He looked... normal.
And that didn’t make any goddamn sense.
Ghost never showed up. Not once in two weeks. I had been bracing for it. Expecting him to roll into Lawton with Reaper and half the Golden Skulls, ready to drag me back to Tennessee and make me answer for what I had done. But he didn’t come.
Reaper didn’t come. No one came.
And Angel, the Diamondback brother who I caught kissing Hope behind that garage, stayed away from her completely.
I had seen him at the clubhouse sometimes when I rode past at night, but he never went to the diner.
Never showed up at the farmers’ market. Never stopped by the Owens Farm. He just backed off. Completely.
I should have been relieved. Should have been grateful that he wasn’t pursuing her anymore, that he stepped aside and left her alone.
But instead, I felt... conflicted. Because Hope deserved better than a man who had called her by another woman’s name. She deserved better than a widower who couldn’t let go of his dead wife. She deserved better than me.
Angel could have given her that. He could have given her a normal life with a man who wasn’t broken beyond repair.
But he walked away, and I didn’t know if that made me a selfish bastard for being glad, or a coward for not doing the same.
She confused me. Everything about her confused me.
The way she claimed me at the barbecue, reaching for my hand in front of everyone, even though I had just punched Angel and caused a scene. The way she had let me take her virginity while I whispered another woman’s name.
Why? Why would she do that? Why would she let me touch her, hold her, make love to her when she knew that I thought she was someone else?
I didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand her. And I sure as hell didn’t understand why her brothers weren’t tearing me apart for what I had done.
It was late afternoon on a Thursday when I finally made the call.
I was sitting on my bike in the diner parking lot, watching Hope through the window as she refilled a trucker’s coffee cup. The sun was starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink, and the parking lot was mostly empty except for a few semis and a couple of beat-up sedans.
I had been sitting there for over an hour, trying to work up the nerve to go inside. To walk through that door and ask her the question that had been eating me alive for two weeks.
Are you pregnant? But I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t make myself move.
Because once I asked, once I knew the answer, everything would change.
If she weren’t pregnant, I could walk away.
Could go back to Tennessee and try to piece together what was left of my life.
Could let her move on and find someone who deserved her.
But if she is...
I pulled my phone from my pocket and stared down at the screen, my thumb hovering over the contacts list. I needed help.
Needed someone who could give me answers, or at least point me in the right direction.
Someone who knew Hope. Who understood the Miller/Owens family and all the complicated history that came with it.
I scrolled through my contacts until I found her name.
Arianna Miller.
Ghost’s wife. A woman who had been through hell and come out the other side stronger for it.
A woman who had been raised in a religious cult, rescued by the Golden Skulls, and adopted by Moonshine and Roxy Franks before marrying Ghost and giving him three daughters.
A woman who knew what it was like to be broken and put back together.
I hit the call button before I could talk myself out of it, pressing the phone to my ear as it rang once, twice, three times.
“Hey you,” her sweet voice rang out over the line, warm and familiar. “I was just thinking about you.”
Relief flooded through me at the sound of her voice, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. “Sorry for calling so late, Ari. I can call back later if you’re busy.”
She laughed softly. “I’m always busy, Slaughter. I have three daughters and a husband who is driving me crazy. So what’s up? You know Stella is angry at you, right?”
I smirked at that, even though my chest was tight with anxiety. “What else is new? Stella’s always mad about something.”
“Yeah, well, she’s focused all her anger on you for some reason, but she won’t say why. Only that she’s gonna wring your neck when she gets her hands on you.”
I cringed at that because I knew the answer. Just like I knew Digger couldn’t keep a damn secret to save his life and had told his wife, my sister-in-law, what I had done and what had happened.
“That’s gonna be hard considering I’m twice her size and tower over her.”
Ari laughed. “You think that’s gonna stop her?”
I grumbled. “No.”
“So, what’s up? Where are you, by the way?”
“That’s why I’m calling.”
“Sounds serious.”
I hesitated, staring through the windshield at the diner where Hope was wiping down a table. “Ari, how much do you know about the Miller/Owens family? Specifically, Hope—Ghost and Shadow’s sister?”
The line went quiet for several seconds, and I could hear the faint sound of movement on the other end as Ari shifted, probably stepping away from wherever she had been. When she spoke again, her voice was careful. Measured. “Why are you asking?”
“I met Hope.”
“I see,” she whispered, her voice distant and reserved. “Maybe you should speak to Balthazar about this. I’m not sure what I should say.”
“Ari, I can’t speak to Ghost or Shadow about this.”
“Why not?”
I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck, not sure what to tell her when I heard her take a deep breath. “I see,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry, Ari. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I was drunk and—”
“It doesn’t matter, Chapman,” she cut me off gently. “What’s done is done. What matters now is what you do next. What does Hope think?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her. I’m not even sure why I’m asking, but she isn’t like her other sisters.”
“No, she isn’t,” Ari agreed softly. “And neither is Faith.”
“What do you mean?”
She was quiet for a moment, and I could hear her thinking, choosing her words carefully.
“The Miller/Owens family has a... complicated history,” she said finally.
“Samson Miller was raised in the Catholic Church. Devoted himself to his religion until his parents died, and then he spiraled into a deep depression. He met Abigail Swanson, a nun in training who gave up the nunnery to be with him. They had three sons in quick succession: Balthazar, Malachi, and Ezekiel.”
I knew some of this already. Knew that Ghost and Shadow had a brother named Malachi who had gone by the road name Grimm. Knew that Grimm had been a sick son of a bitch who tried to rape and kill Ari before she put a bullet in him.
But I let her continue.
“Samson feel into the club life hard,” Ari went on, her voice steady despite the painful subject matter.
“When he joined the Golden Skulls, he quickly met and fell for a woman named Shirley Owens, a club whore. Together, they had four daughters: Faith, Hope, Charity, and Joy. That’s why Faith and Zeke are only five months apart.
When the problem with Malachi started, Shirley moved the girls from Purgatory, California to Phoenix, Arizona shortly after Joy was born. ”
“And Hope?” I asked quietly.
Ari sighed. “Hope is... different. She’s quiet.
Gentle. She doesn’t fit the mold of what you would expect from a woman raised in our world.
Neither does Faith, for that matter. They’re both softer than their brothers, more reserved with reason.
But that doesn’t mean they’re weak, Chapman.
It just means they process things differently. ”
I swallowed hard, my throat tight. “I need to talk to her, Ari. But I don’t know how. I don’t know what to say.”
“Then start with the truth,” she said simply. “Tell her what happened. Tell her why you did what you did. And then listen to what she has to say.”
“What if she hates me?”
“What if she doesn’t?”
The question hung in the air between us, heavy and impossible.
“You need to speak with Hope,” Ari said firmly.
“I will try my best to run interference with Ghost, but you need to speak with Hope before you do anything else. And for what it’s worth, Chapman.
.. I think you and Hope could make a go of it if that’s what you both want. You are both similar in a lot of ways.”
My chest tightened. “Similar how?”
“You’re both grieving,” she whispered softly. “You’re both carrying pain that no one else can see. And you’re both trying to figure out how to move forward when everything inside you is screaming to stay stuck in the past.”
I closed my eyes, pressing the heel of my hand against my chest where the ache had taken up permanent residence.
“Look, Chapman, I need to go,” Ari said gently. “Just talk with Hope. Be honest with her. And whatever happens... don’t run. She deserves better than that.”
And just like that, the line went dead.
I sat there in the parking lot, staring at the phone in my hand, Ari’s words echoing in my mind.
You’re both grieving. You’re both carrying pain that no one else can see. Don’t run.
Through the diner window, I could see Hope laughing at something a customer said. A polite, practiced laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. She looked tired. Sad. Like she was holding herself together with sheer willpower and nothing else.
And I knew what I had to do.
I had to talk to her. Had to ask her the question that had been eating me alive for two weeks. I had to face the consequences of what I had done, no matter how terrifying that was, and I just had to figure out how to do it without getting myself killed.
Or worse—without breaking her heart all over again.