Tempted By Shadow (Sons of Ruin: Tucson Chapter #6)

1. Naomi

NAOMI

The “Welcome to Tucson” sign feels like it’s giving me the middle finger.

I pass it doing seventy, my ancient car shuddering like it’s not sure it has another mile in it. Join the club, sweetheart. Neither am I.

Two years. Two years since I packed everything I owned into this car and drove to Vegas with a man who swore he was going to change my life. He did, I guess. Just not the way either of us planned.

Tyler.

I don’t even want to think his name, but it’s been rattling around my skull for the last however many hundred miles.

Tyler with his stupid grin and his big plans.

Tyler, who made me feel like I was finally doing something other than being King’s little sister.

Tyler, who looked at me like I was the answer to every question he’d ever asked.

Turns out the only question he was really asking was, “Who’s going to pay for my next fix?”

I didn’t know about the drugs when we left.

I swear I didn’t. He was charming and exciting and everything my overprotective brother would hate, which — let’s be honest — was half the appeal.

King told me Tyler was a loser. King told me not to go.

I didn’t listen because I never fucking listen and look where that got me.

Vegas was good for about six months. Tyler got a job at some club downtown, and I was bartending at a dive off the Strip that paid better than it had any right to.

We had a shitty apartment with a view of a parking garage and we ate takeout on the floor because we couldn’t afford a table.

I told myself that it was romantic. I told myself we were building something.

Then the partying got heavier. The late nights got later. The people he was hanging around started looking at me like I was something they wanted to consume rather than talk to. Tyler started disappearing for days at a time, coming back with blown pupils and excuses that made less and less sense.

I found a pipe in his jacket pocket one night when I was looking for his car keys. I threw it against the wall and watched it shatter. He looked at me like I were the one who had done something wrong.

I was already packing when he vanished for good.

Three weeks ago. I woke up, and he was just... gone. No note, no text, no explanation. His phone was disconnected. His clothes were still in the closet, but his wallet, his keys, his favorite jacket — gone.

What a prick.

I told myself I was relieved. I told myself this made it easier. I didn’t have to have the conversation, didn’t have to explain why I was leaving, didn’t have to watch him try to manipulate me into staying. He did the hard part for me.

Then I checked my bank account and found out he’d cleaned that out too.

So here I am. Broke. Humiliated. Driving back to the one place I swore I’d never crawl back to, about to do the one thing I swore I’d never do.

Ask my brother for help.

The desert stretches out on either side of the highway, all rust-colored rock and stubborn scrub brush. I used to love this landscape. Used to feel like it was mine — wild and harsh and refusing to be anything other than what it was. Now it just feels like a reminder of everything I ran away from.

I take the exit toward the clubhouse without letting myself think about it too hard. If I think about it, I’ll turn around. I’ll find some other way. I’ll sleep in my car and eat gas station hot dogs until I figure something out.

But I’ve been figuring things out for two years, and look where that got me.

The Sons of Ruin compound looks exactly the same.

Chain-link fence, rows of bikes gleaming in the afternoon sun, the low sprawl of the clubhouse with its weathered wood and the painted skull-and-wrench logo on the side.

I park in the visitor lot and sit there for a full minute, hands gripping the steering wheel, trying to talk myself into getting out of the car.

King is going to be a dick about this.

He’s going to say, “I told you so.” Maybe not in those exact words — King’s too controlled for that — but it’ll be in his eyes.

In the set of his jaw. In the way he looks at me like I’m still the nineteen-year-old who threw a fit when he told her she couldn’t date the bassist from that shitty rock band.

I deserve it. That’s the worst part. He was right about Tyler. He’s always right. And I never, ever listen.

I grab my purse and get out of the car before I can change my mind.

The lot smells of oil and leather and desert heat, familiar in a way that makes my chest ache. I spent half my teenage years in this place and everyone knew me. I was always just the President’s baby sister. The one everyone protected. The one everyone smothered.

As I walk up to the clubhouse, I see a prospect working on a bike near the garage bay.

He’s bent over the engine, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, forearms flexing as he works.

Dark hair. Lean build — not hulking like some brothers, but solid.

The kind of body that fills out a white t-shirt in ways I should not be noticing right now.

He looks up as I approach, and something in my stomach does a stupid little flip.

Nope. Absolutely not. I am about to grovel to my brother. I do not have the bandwidth to be attracted to some prospect whose name I don’t even know.

But I can’t quite help myself as I walk past him. Never could resist poking at things I shouldn’t.

“Yikes.” I let my eyes sweep over the scattered tools, the half-disassembled engine, the grease staining his knuckles. “My brother has got you doing the shitty jobs?”

He straightens. Dark eyes meet mine — sharp, startled, something flickering behind them I can’t quite read. His jaw tightens like he’s biting back whatever he was going to say.

I don’t wait for a response. I keep walking, letting my hips swing just a little more than necessary, telling myself it’s habit and not performance.

At the door, I almost glance back.

Almost.

I don’t. But I feel him watching me the entire way.

King’s in his office when I find him, exactly where I knew he’d be.

Same worn leather chair. Same desk covered in papers and empty coffee cups.

Same man — bigger and more imposing than anyone has a right to be, with that scar through his eyebrow and those cold, assessing eyes that miss absolutely nothing.

His wife is with him. Demi. I’ve met her a few times, never for long. Auburn hair, sharp face, the kind of woman who looks like she’d cut you if you gave her a reason. King married her about six months after I left — a whole dramatic thing with her father’s club that I only heard about secondhand.

They both look up when I appear in the doorway.

King’s expression doesn’t change, but something shifts behind his eyes. “Naomi.”

“Hey.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Surprise.”

He stands. Comes to me before I can even think about putting up a wall. And then — before I can brace myself — he pulls me into a hug.

It breaks me a little. This huge, terrifying man who runs a motorcycle club and probably has bodies buried in the desert somewhere, holding me like I’m still his baby sister. Like I still matter.

“About fucking time,” he says against my hair.

I laugh, and it sounds wet. “That’s what I figured you’d say.”

He pulls back, hands on my shoulders, looking at me like he’s cataloging every way the last two years have changed me.

I know what he sees. The weight I’ve lost because groceries cost money and Tyler’s priorities were elsewhere.

The shadows under my eyes from too many nights spent wondering where he was and whether I even cared anymore.

The way I’m holding myself like I’m waiting for the next blow.

“Tyler?” he asks.

“Gone.” I say it flat, factual. “Woke up one morning, and he wasn’t there. No note, nothing. Took most of my money with him.”

King’s jaw tightens. That’s all — just that tiny flex of muscle. But I know my brother. I know what that means.

“I told you—”

“I know.” I cut him off before he could finish. “I know, okay? You told me he was a loser. You told me not to go. You were right. Congratulations. Can we skip the part where you rub it in and go straight to the part where you help me figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do now?”

A muscle ticks in his jaw. Then, slowly, he nods.

“Alright. You hungry? There’s food in the kitchen.”

Just like that. No lecture, no extended “I told you so,” no making me grovel. He just... takes me in. Because I’m blood. Because that’s what King does.

Demi materializes at my elbow as King heads for the door. “Come on,” she says, her voice warmer than I expected. “Rogue’s been attempting to cook again. We should probably supervise.”

I follow her through the clubhouse, past the main room with its bar and pool table and clusters of brothers drinking and talking shit.

The music’s low — some classic rock station — and the air smells like beer and motor oil and something cooking in the back.

A few of them nod at me. Diesel tips his chin, all gruff silence, same as he’s always been.

Ghost looks up from his phone in the corner, acknowledges me with a flick of his eyes, then goes back to whatever he was doing.

Rogue — I recognize him from before, the VP with the easy smile — actually grins when he sees me.

“Holy shit, the prodigal sister returns.” He abandons whatever he was doing at the stove and crosses to me. “Two years, Naomi. Two years without anyone to call me on my bullshit. Do you have any idea how insufferable I’ve become?”

“Pretty sure you were insufferable before I left.”

“She’s back.” He throws an arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the kitchen. “King, she’s back, and she still hates me. Everything is right in the world.”

It’s like I never left. That’s the thing that gets me. I was gone for two years, I made every wrong decision I could have made, and they’re acting like I just stepped out for coffee. No judgment. No questions. Just the same easy chaos I grew up in.

I eat whatever Rogue puts in front of me — some kind of chili that’s actually not terrible — and let the conversation wash over me. Demi asks careful questions about what I’ve been doing. Bella, Rogue’s girlfriend, tells me about the coffee shop downtown that’s hiring.

By the end of the night, King’s called in some favors and found me an apartment.

It’s small. It’s cheap. The carpet’s seen better decades and the water pressure is probably a joke. There’s a stain on the kitchen ceiling that looks vaguely like a map of Texas, and the window in the bedroom doesn’t lock right — I’ll have to stuff a towel in it until I can figure out a fix.

But it’s mine. Not Tyler’s. Not King’s. Mine.

I stand in the middle of my new living room at eleven PM with boxes stacked around me and absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do next.

Start over, I guess.

The thought should be exciting. Fresh start. Clean slate. All those inspirational bullshit phrases people put on motivational posters.

Instead it just feels exhausting. Heavy in a way that makes my bones ache.

I unpack enough to find sheets for the bed.

Stock the fridge with the basics King’s guys dropped off — milk, eggs, bread, cheese, a carton of orange juice someone thought to include.

Enough to survive on until I can get myself sorted.

I find my phone charger at the bottom of a box marked “RANDOM SHIT” and plug it into the outlet by the bed.

Then I lie in my new apartment, in my old city, and stare at the ceiling.

What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

Get a job. That’s step one. Bella mentioned the coffee shop. I can pour coffee. I can smile at people and pretend I don’t want to crawl out of my own skin. It’s not like I have a lot of options here.

Build something. Step two. Something that’s mine, that can’t be taken away, that doesn’t depend on a man or a club or anyone else.

Stop being the woman who follows losers to Vegas and ends up broke and alone in a borrowed apartment.

That’s the actual goal, isn’t it? Stop being me. Become someone who makes better choices.

I close my eyes and try to let sleep pull me under. But my brain won’t stop spinning, won’t stop replaying every bad decision that led me here.

And somewhere in the middle of all that self-recrimination, I think about him.

The prospect. Sleeves rolled up. Dark eyes sharp and startled when I threw that line at him.

The way his jaw tightened like he were fighting himself.

The way I felt him watching me all the way to the door.

I shove the thought away. I don’t need that.

I don’t need another man to complicate my life, especially not one of my brother’s prospects.

That would be the stupidest possible decision I could make right now, and I’ve made a lot of stupid decisions.

I’m supposed to be learning from my mistakes, not finding new and creative ways to repeat them.

But as I finally drift off, it’s not Tyler I’m thinking about.

It’s that prospect, and the look on his face when our eyes met.

Like he’d just seen something he couldn’t look away from.

Like I was trouble walking straight toward him.

Which, I guess, is exactly what I am.