2. Shadow
SHADOW
Ican’t stop thinking about her.
It’s been four hours since she walked across the lot and I’m still replaying it like a goddamn movie. The way she moved — tired but fierce, like she were daring the world to get in her way. The dark hair. The sharp mouth. The way she looked at me like I was barely worth noticing.
“My brother has got you doing the shitty jobs?”
Brother. That word should’ve been a cold shower. Instead, I stood there like an idiot, grease on my hands and nothing useful coming out of my mouth, watching her walk away.
The President’s sister.
Fuck.
I’m in the garage now, finishing the carburetor rebuild I abandoned when she showed up. My hands know what they’re doing even when my brain doesn’t, and right now my brain is useless. Stuck on loop. Dark hair. Sharp mouth. Hips swaying as she walked away without looking back.
I knew King had a sister. Everyone knows. She took off a couple years ago, chasing some guy to Vegas, and King doesn’t talk about it. Which means nobody talks about it. Club rule number one: you don’t poke at the things King doesn’t want poked.
But knowing she existed and seeing her walk past me like that are two different things.
Stop it.
She’s King’s sister. The President’s baby sister. Off-limits in more ways I can’t even count.
And I’m a prospect. Twenty-five years old, no family worth mentioning, no future outside these gates. The patch is everything. It’s the first thing I’ve ever wanted that might actually be mine if I don’t fuck it up.
I’m not going to fuck it up over a woman.
Even one who walks like that. Talks like that. Looked at me like—
Seriously, I need to get a grip.
I force myself to focus on the rebuild. Piece by piece. Gasket, float, needle valve. Mechanical. Predictable. Nothing like the chaos that just walked into the clubhouse.
I started hanging around the clubhouse about two and a half years ago.
Didn’t have anywhere else to be. My mom had checked out — drugs, mostly.
She’d disappear for days, then weeks, then one day she just didn’t come back.
My dad was never in the picture. I was nineteen, sleeping on a different couch every week, and the Sons of Ruin compound was the only place that didn’t look at me like I was a problem waiting to happen.
I washed bikes at first. Swept the garage. Ran errands nobody else wanted to run. Grunt work, nothing important, but I showed up every day, and I didn’t complain, and I didn’t steal. That’s a low bar, but you’d be surprised how many guys can’t clear it.
King noticed. He didn’t say much — King never says much — but he started giving me more to do. Harder jobs. Stuff that mattered. And when I asked about prospecting, he didn’t laugh me off.
Then I fucked it up.
I was still running with some guys from before. Old habits. They wanted me to drive for a job, and I was stupid enough to say yes. We got caught. I was looking at serious time, and the public defender they assigned me had about fifteen minutes to give a shit about my case.
King showed up instead.
He didn’t have to. I wasn’t patched. I wasn’t even a prospect yet — just some kid who washed bikes and wanted something more. But he walked into that holding cell like he owned the place, looked at me for a long minute, and said: “You want a way out of this, or you want to keep being a dumbass?”
I wanted a way out.
He made some calls. Talked to some people.
I don’t know what he said or what it cost him, but three days later I was out and the charges were gone.
He told me I had one chance. One. I could prospect for real, earn my place, build something — or I could go back to the streets and wait for the next arrest to stick.
Two years ago. Right around the time his sister took off for Vegas, I found out later. Our paths never crossed.
Two years of prospect work. Two years of proving, over and over, that I’m not the kid who almost threw everything away for a stupid joyride. That I’m worth the chance King took on me.
The club is the first place I’ve ever belonged. The first time anyone’s looked at me and seen something other than a fuckup waiting to happen. The patch isn’t just leather and thread — it’s proof. Proof that I can be more than where I came from. Proof that King was right to take a chance on me.
I owe him everything. My freedom, my future and my life, probably.
Which is why I’m not going to think about his sister in the way I want to.
I’m going to finish this carburetor, clean up, and forget she exists.
That’s the plan. Simple. Professional. The kind of plan a prospect who wants his patch should stick to without question.
The plan lasts about four hours.
King finds me in the garage that evening, wiping down tools and trying to look like I haven’t been useless all afternoon. He’s got that look on his face — the one that means he’s about to give me something to do that I’m not going to like.
“Shadow.”
“Yeah, Prez.”
He leans against the workbench, arms crossed. King’s not a big talker. Never has been. When he has something to say, he says it and moves on. No buildup, no softening. It’s one of the many things I respect about him, even when it makes him hard to read.
“My sister’s back in town.”
I keep my face neutral. Don’t react. Don’t let him see that those four words just made my stomach drop.
“She’s settling into an apartment over on Cedar,” he continues. “I want eyes on her.”
“Eyes on her how?”
“Not full protection. Just keep tabs. Make sure she’s not getting into anything stupid.” His jaw tightens, just slightly. “She’s got a history of making bad choices. Following the wrong people. I want to know if she’s about to make another one.”
“You want me to tail her.”
“I want you to watch out for her. Report to me. Anything that looks off, anything that seems wrong — I hear about it first.” He pauses. “She’s not going to like it. She’s got a problem with being told what to do. But she doesn’t need to know you’re there.”
It’s a shit job. Babysitting. The sort of thing you give a prospect because prospects don’t get to say no. And because if it goes wrong, nobody important takes the fall.
“Sure thing, Prez.”
King nods, pushes off the workbench, and heads for the door. Then he stops. Looks back at me with those cold eyes that see way too much.
“She’s my sister, Shadow. The only family I’ve got left. Don’t let anything happen to her.”
“I won’t.”
He holds my gaze for a second longer than comfortable. Then he’s gone.
I stand there in the empty garage, rag still in my hands, and think about what I just agreed to.
Keep tabs on Naomi. Follow her around. Watch her.
The same Naomi I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for four straight hours.
This is going to be a problem.
Three days later, I’m starting to think I might actually be good at this.
I’ve tailed her to the grocery store twice. Watched her apartment from across the street while she unpacked boxes. Followed her to a coffee shop downtown where she spent two hours filling out job applications on her laptop, chewing on a pen and occasionally swearing at the screen.
She hasn’t noticed. At least, I don’t think she has. I’m staying back, keeping my distance, trying to be just another guy on a bike in a city full of bikes.
Professional. That’s what I’m being. Professional.
Never mind that I know she takes her coffee black. Never mind that I’ve memorized the way she walks — quick, purposeful, always looking like she’s got somewhere better to be. Never mind that I’ve spent more time thinking about that parking lot smirk than I have about anything else in weeks.
I report to King every evening. “Nothing to report” has become my standard line. She goes to the store. She goes to the coffee shop. She comes home. She doesn’t go out at night, doesn’t meet with anyone suspicious, doesn’t do anything that suggests she’s about to make another bad decision.
She’s just... living. Quietly. Like someone trying to put themselves back together.
I don’t tell King that part. Don’t tell him that I can see the exhaustion in her shoulders even from across the street.
Don’t tell him that she sits on her balcony some nights, alone, staring at nothing.
Don’t tell him that watching her makes me feel as though I’m seeing something I shouldn’t be allowed to see.
I’m being professional.
It’s Thursday evening when it all goes to shit.
I’m parked across the street from her apartment building, pretending to check my phone, when the front door swings open and she walks out. Nothing unusual. She does this most evenings — walks to the corner store, grabs something for dinner, comes back.
But tonight she doesn’t head for the corner store.
Tonight she stops on the sidewalk. Looks left. Looks right. And then her eyes land on me, and I know — I fucking know — that I’m done for.
She walks straight toward me.
Not in my general direction. Not past me. At me. Eyes locked on mine, jaw set, moving like a woman who’s about to ruin someone’s day.
I think about starting the bike. Getting out of here before she reaches me. But that would be admitting I was doing exactly what I was doing, and some stupid part of me still thinks I can play this off.
She stops three feet away. Crosses her arms. Looks at me like I’m the dumbest person she’s ever met.
“You’re really bad at this, you know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She laughs — short, sharp, not really amused.
“The tailing thing. I spotted you day one. Day. One. You’re on a Harley.
You’re wearing a prospect cut. You park in the same three spots in rotation, like that somehow makes you subtle.
And you’ve been outside my apartment building for about six hours total over the last three days. What exactly was your plan here?”
I don’t have an answer for that. At least not one that won’t make me sound like an idiot.
“King asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“Yeah, I figured.” She doesn’t look surprised. Just tired. And annoyed. Mostly annoyed. “That’s very on-brand for my brother. Can’t let me have five minutes of independence without sending someone to make sure I don’t burn down the city.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that.” She uncrosses her arms and sighs, some of the fight going out of her. “Look, I get it. You’re a prospect. King says jump, you ask how high. That’s how it works. I know that — I grew up watching it. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at him. But since you’re here, anyway...”
She trails off. I wait. My heart is doing something stupid in my chest, and I’m suddenly aware of how close she’s standing. Close enough that I can see the flecks of amber in her dark eyes. Close enough that I can smell her perfume — something floral that doesn’t match her sharp edges at all.
“You may as well come in,” she says. “If you’re going to babysit, you might as well do it somewhere with coffee.”
She turns and walks toward her building without waiting for a response.
I should stay on the bike. I should text King and tell him she saw me. I should be professional about this, report in, let someone else take over the surveillance.
Instead, I’m swinging off my bike and following her.
Every step feels like a mistake. The kind of mistake I’m going to regret. The kind that ends with me losing everything I’ve worked for — the patch, King’s trust, my place in the only family I’ve ever had.
She holds the door open for me, and doesn’t say a thing. Just gives me a look that’s half challenge, half something else I can’t read. Something that makes my blood run a little hotter than it should.
I follow her up the stairs.
Her apartment is on the second floor. Third door on the left. The stairwell is narrow and poorly lit, and I’m suddenly very aware of how close she is and the way she moves.
I notice other things too, the kind of details King would want to know about.
The stairwell needs better lighting. The lock on the main entrance is flimsy — wouldn’t take much to force it.
There’s a fire escape at the end of the hall, rusted but functional.
Her door has a deadbolt, at least. Though it doesn’t look robust exactly.
But none of that is useful right now. Not when every brain cell I have is focused on not staring at the way her jeans fit as she climbs the stairs ahead of me.
She stops at her door and fishes keys out of her pocket. Glances back at me over her shoulder.
“You coming in or what?”
I should say no. I should tell her this isn’t a good idea, that I’m just here to do a job, that we should keep this professional. I should remind myself who her brother is and what I owe him and how badly this could go wrong.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say. “I’m coming in.”
She turns the key. Pushes open the door. Walks inside without looking back, like she already knows I’ll follow.
One coffee, I tell myself as I step over the threshold. I can do one coffee. Keep it professional. Ten minutes, tops. Then I’m out of here and this never happened.
But even as the door swings shut behind me, I know I’m lying to myself.
This isn’t going to be professional.
And I’m not getting out of here in ten minutes.