Chapter 7 — Isla #3
He cups my face, avoiding the bruised side. "I need to go to the meeting. Figure out the approach for dawn. You going to be okay here alone for a couple hours?"
"The other women are here?"
"Yeah. Sydney, Katherine, all of them. They'll check on you."
"Then I'll be okay."
He kisses my forehead, my unbruised cheek, my mouth so gently I barely feel it. Then he's gone and I'm alone in this small room with my suitcases and the memory of two dead men and the knowledge that in a few hours Chuck is riding into danger that might kill him.
I lie down on the bed fully clothed and stare at the ceiling. My face throbs where I was hit. My wrist aches where the man grabbed me. My whole body is shaking with adrenaline crash.
Around midnight Katherine knocks softly and comes in with tea and crackers. "Thought you might need something."
"Thank you."
She sits on the edge of the bed. "First time seeing club violence?"
"Not exactly. I saw Chuck beat someone unconscious last night. But this was different."
"Because you were the target."
"Yeah."
She's quiet for a moment. "It doesn't get easier. Watching them go into danger. Knowing they might not come back. But it does become part of your normal if you choose to stay."
"Is it worth it? The fear?"
"For me it is. Because Holt makes me feel seen and safe and loved in ways I never have before. Because Louis needs me and I love him like my own. Because the family here is real." She pauses. "But you have to decide for yourself whether Chuck is worth the fear."
"I've known him three days."
"And? You feel what you feel. Time doesn't make feelings more or less valid."
I think about that. About how much I've felt in three days. How much has changed. How I'm supposed to be leaving for Millbrook tomorrow but instead I'm lying in a clubhouse bedroom with a split lip and the memory of Chuck killing two men to save me.
"What if I stay and it doesn't work? What if I'm not strong enough for this life?"
"Then you'll find out. But at least you'll know instead of spending your life wondering what could've been." Katherine stands. "Try to sleep. Dawn comes early."
She leaves and I'm alone again.
Around one-thirty I hear the meeting breaking up. Voices in the hall, boots on floors, engines starting outside. Some brothers leaving to handle something, others staying.
My door opens and Chuck slips in, closing it softly behind him. He looks exhausted.
"Meeting done?" I ask.
"Yeah. We've got a plan." He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls off his boots. "They're at a rental property two counties over. Three total, Crane and two loyal members. We go in at dawn, end this fast and clean."
"What if something goes wrong?"
"Then we handle it. But it won't go wrong." He looks at me. "I need you to promise me something."
"What?"
"If I don't come back—"
"Chuck, don't—"
"If I don't come back," he continues, "you go to Millbrook tomorrow like you planned. You live your life. You don't let this world destroy you. You promise me that."
My throat is tight. "I can't promise that."
"Yes, you can. Because I need to know you'll be okay."
"And I need you to come back."
He's quiet for a long moment. Then he lies down beside me and pulls me close, his body warm and solid against mine. "I'll come back. I promise."
"You can't promise that."
"Yeah, I can. Because you're here and I'm not done with you yet."
I press my face against his chest and breathe him in. Leather and sweat and something underneath that's just him. We lie there in the dark and I try not to think about dawn coming.
Eventually his breathing evens out and I think he's asleep but then he says quietly, "Have you decided? About leaving tomorrow?"
The question I've been avoiding all night.
"I don't know yet."
"Isla…"
"I need to see you come back first. Then I'll decide."
He's silent for a moment. Then, "Fair enough."
We lie there and I don't sleep. Just listen to his breathing and watch the window start to go gray with dawn.
Around five-thirty I hear movement in the clubhouse. Brothers arriving, engines starting, voices low and serious.
Chuck stirs beside me and checks his phone. "Time to go."
We get up and he pulls on his boots. I watch him check his weapon, settle his cut over his shoulders, transform from the man who held me all night into something harder and more dangerous.
In the main room all the brothers are gathering. Six of them total: Clint, Chuck, Tate, Cain, Roan, Diesel. Armed and ready and silent.
The women are there too, gathered at the edges. Everyone says quiet goodbyes. Promises to be careful. Kisses that might be the last ones.
Chuck comes to me and cups my face. "I'm coming back."
"Promise me."
"I promise, darlin'. I'm coming back to you."
He kisses me hard and thorough and then he's walking out with the other brothers. Engines roar to life. They pull out in formation and disappear into the gray dawn.
The women and I stand there in the clubhouse watching them go.
Sydney touches my shoulder. "They'll be back. They always come back."
But I can hear the uncertainty under her confidence and I know she's as scared as I am.
All we can do now is wait.