Chapter 17
Trish found him in the chapel.
The compound had settled into its late-night quiet—brothers sleeping or on patrol, the common room empty, the lot full of bikes gleaming under security lights. But the chapel door was cracked open, and she knew where he'd be.
She pushed through and found him sitting beneath the original charter, exactly where she'd found him that first night. The night everything changed.
"Can't sleep?" she asked.
"Don't want to." He looked up at her, and something in his eyes made her breath catch. Not heat, exactly. Something deeper. Heavier. "Sit with me?"
She crossed the room and sat in the chair beside his. Their chairs. The ones they'd claimed without ever discussing it.
"Jamie's dead," she said.
"He is."
"Warren knows we're coming."
"He does."
She looked at the charter on the wall—five signatures, faded but still legible after twenty years. "Is it almost over?"
"Almost." He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. "Scout's tracking Warren's movements. He's holed up somewhere, trying to figure out his next play. But he's out of options. Out of men. Out of time."
"And when you find him?"
"I end it." His thumb traced circles on the back of her hand. "Then we rebuild. The laundromat. Our life. Whatever comes next."
The words settled over her like a promise. Our life. Like it was already decided. Like they were already building something together.
"I've been thinking," she said. "About the laundromat."
"What about it?"
"When we rebuild—when I rebuild—I want to do something different." She turned to face him. "Mae's vision was keeping the lights on for the neighborhood. A safe place to go at night. I want to keep that, but I want to add something."
"What?"
"Job training. For kids who need it. Teach them how to fix machines, how to run a business, how to build something that lasts.
" She squeezed his hand. "There are so many kids in Back of the Yards who don't have anywhere to go.
Who don't have anyone telling them they can be more than what the streets want them to be. "
Stockton was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough.
"That's what the Wolves were supposed to be. In the beginning. Not just protection—a different path. A way out that wasn't death or prison."
"Then we do it together." She met his eyes. "The club protects the neighborhood. The laundromat gives people hope. Same mission. Different tools."
"Same mission." He lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Different tools."
The gesture was small—tender in a way she hadn't expected from a man who'd spent the night killing. But that was Stockton. Violence and gentleness, wrapped in the same package. The founding member who'd built a pack to hunt predators, and the man who'd covered her with his jacket while she slept.
"I love you," she said.
The words came out easy now. Natural. Like breathing.
"I love you too." He released her hand and stood, pulling her up with him. "Come to bed."
"Here?"
"My room." He cupped her face in his hands, tilting her head back to meet his gaze. "I want to hold you. Feel you. Know that everything we're building is real."
She kissed him.
Not the desperate fire of that post-combat night. Not the tentative exploration of their first time. This was something else—deliberate, certain, the kiss of a woman who'd made her choice and wasn't looking back.
He made a sound low in his throat and deepened the kiss, his hands sliding into her hair, his body pressing close. When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
"Room," he said. "Now."
They made it to his door without touching anyone else.
He closed it behind them and turned to find her already pulling off her jacket, her eyes never leaving his face.
"Slow," she said. "I want this slow."
"Whatever you want."
He crossed to her and took her hands, stilling them.
Then he started undressing her himself—carefully, reverently, like unwrapping something precious.
Her jacket. Her shirt. Her jeans. Each piece removed with attention, with intention, with the focused concentration of a man who wanted to remember every moment.
She returned the favor. His cut first—she laid it carefully on the chair, respecting what it meant. Then his shirt, revealing the faded Wolves tattoo she'd traced so many times. Then the rest, until they stood facing each other with nothing between them.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"You've said that before."
"I'll keep saying it." He pulled her close, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat. "Until you believe it."
They moved to the bed together, unhurried. He laid her down and stretched out beside her, propping himself on one elbow, his free hand tracing patterns on her stomach.
"Tell me something," he said.
"What?"
"Something you've never told anyone. Something you've been carrying alone."
She thought about it. The weight of ten years. The loneliness. The nights when keeping the lights on felt like the only thing keeping her alive.
"After Danny died," she said slowly, "I used to talk to him. At night, in the apartment. Tell him about my day, about the customers, about whatever was happening. Like he was still there."
Stockton's hand stilled on her stomach.
"I did that too," he said quietly. "With Ellen. For the first year, I couldn't fall asleep without saying goodnight to her. Even though I knew she couldn't hear me."
"Maybe they could."
"Maybe." His hand resumed its gentle movement. "Or maybe we just needed to believe someone was listening."
"I stopped about a year ago." She covered his hand with hers. "I woke up one morning and realized I hadn't talked to him the night before. And instead of feeling guilty, I felt... ready. Like I'd finally let him go."
"That's not letting go." Stockton leaned down and kissed her softly. "That's moving forward. There's a difference."
She pulled him closer, and this time when they kissed, there was no urgency. Just warmth. Connection. The slow unfolding of two people who'd found each other after loss.
He touched her like he had all the time in the world. Slow strokes. Gentle exploration. Learning her body not with the desperation of need but with the patience of someone who planned to be here for years.
She did the same. Mapping the scars on his ribs. Tracing the lines of his tattoos. Finding the places that made him shiver, the spots that made him groan.
"Thomas," she whispered against his throat.
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you walked into my laundromat."
He laughed—a low, rough sound that vibrated through both of them. "I'm glad you didn't throw me out."
"I thought about it."
"I know." He shifted, settling between her thighs, his weight bracing on his forearms. "That first night, you looked at me like I was either going to save you or destroy you. You weren't sure which."
"I wasn't." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Now I know."
"Which is it?"
"Both." She arched up to kiss him. "You destroyed the woman I was. And you saved the woman I'm becoming."
He stilled above her, something raw and open crossing his face.
"Trish—"
"Don't." She pulled him down. "Don't say anything. Just... be with me."
He sank into her slowly, and she felt every inch—the stretch, the fullness, the absolute rightness of having him there. They held still for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air.
Then they began to move.
Slow. Deliberate. No race to the finish, no desperate chase for release. Just two bodies moving together, two souls intertwined, two people who'd chosen each other with eyes wide open.
"Mine," he said against her mouth.
"Yours."
"Always?"
"Always."
The words weren't new. They'd said them before, in heat and desperation and the aftermath of violence. But here, in the quiet of his room with the compound sleeping around them, they meant something different.
Permanence. Promise. The foundation of whatever came next.
She felt the pleasure building—slow and inevitable, like a tide coming in. His rhythm matched hers, their bodies finding a pace that belonged only to them.
"Stay with me," he said. "Right here. Right now."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"After. When this is done. When Warren's dead and the laundromat's rebuilt and everything's settled." His voice was rough, his movements slower now, drawing out the moment. "Stay with me."
"Yes."
"In this life. In this club. In whatever we build together."
"Yes." She pulled his mouth to hers. "Yes to all of it."
He kissed her deeply, and the pleasure finally crested—gentle but overwhelming, rolling through her in waves. She cried out against his mouth, feeling him follow her over the edge, his whole body shuddering.
They lay tangled together afterward, sweat cooling, hearts slowing, the silence warm around them.
"The laundromat," she murmured against his chest. "We're really going to rebuild it?"
"We really are." He stroked her hair. "New machines. New lights. That job training program you want. All of it."
"And you'll help?"
"I'll be there every step. Founding member labor." His chest moved with a quiet laugh. "I'm good with electrical work. Ask anyone."
She smiled against his skin. "I might take you up on that."
"I hope you do."
His hand found hers in the darkness, fingers intertwining. The same gesture from the chapel. The same connection. But deeper now, sealed with sweat and skin and promises.
"We should sleep," she said.
"We should." But he didn't let go of her hand.
She closed her eyes, feeling his heartbeat beneath her cheek. Thinking about Danny—his laugh, his warmth, the life they'd planned together that had ended too soon. Thinking about Ellen—the woman she'd never met but felt like she knew through Stockton's grief.
The dead. The gone. The loves that had made them who they were.
Danny would have liked Stockton, she realized. Would have respected him. Two men who built things, who protected things, who refused to let the darkness win.
And Ellen—from everything Stockton had said—would have understood. Would have wanted him to find this. To stop being alone.
The dead would want us to stop being lonely, she thought.
It wasn't betrayal, what they'd found. It was continuation. The love they'd had before, transforming into the love they'd have now. Different shapes of the same thing.
She fell asleep with Stockton's hand in hers.
And in the darkness, she could almost feel Danny and Ellen smiling.
Somewhere. Somehow.
Glad that the living had finally stopped grieving and started living again.