41
Cade
The wooden boards of the back porch creak beneath us as Phoenix and I sprawl on deck chairs. The smell of motor oil and leather hangs thick in the evening air—smells that should feel like coming home, but I can’t appreciate any of it.
My mind is too full of her.
I knew Luna would fit in here, but nothing prepared me for what seeing her in my home would do to me. The welcome party is in full swing and there she sits in the middle of it all, soaking up the biker life like she was born to it.
Sophie’s dressed her in leather, and Christ—she looks like every dirty fantasy I’ve never let myself have, an innocent begging to be corrupted.
And I’m supposed to leave for Moscow tomorrow.
Phoenix stands and leans against the railing. His strong hands grip the wood like he’s bracing himself. “How’s the hunt coming along, son?”
I k now what he’s really asking. The question I’ve been dreading: When is it going to be over?
Still, I play dumb, if only to buy time. “What hunt?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Son.”
“Then don’t act like you understand what I feel, Phoenix.”
He turns to face me fully, those deep hazel eyes boring into mine. “Caden,” he reaches to pull out the rosary around my neck. “I don’t have to be a genius to know that you can’t stop.”
I meet his gaze head-on. “Maybe I should kill the person who introduced this to me in the first place, then.”
“Cade, you were fucked up long before I came on the scene.” His grip on the rosary tightens. “You couldn’t be bothered to string a hundred words together for almost ten years. Nothing touched you. Not all the men wanting to be you or women dying to fuck you. Not the drugs or booze.”
He lifts the tungsten beads higher. “Nothing, except this. I had to keep you sane somehow.”
“So you found me a vocation,” I snark.
“It’s called a badge, and it’s the fine line separating you from prison or the grave. And it gave you exactly what you needed to heal. Vengeance.”
I tuck the beads back under my shirt. “Well, looks like I’m still healing—”
“It’s enough, Caden. Twenty-two fucking years is long enough for a tantrum.”
“A tantrum?” Heat rises in my throat. “Screw you, dad! ”
“You are the most insolent bastard I’ve ever had the misfortune of raising.” His voice roughens with affection. “But also one with the biggest heart. Believe me when I say it’s time to stop, Son.”
Lov e wells up inside me despite everything. I’ve had three fathers, all of them twisted assholes, but only Phoenix ever had a clue what it meant to raise a son.
“You just want me here, riding with the brothers and calling the shots,” I growl, tasting bitterness on my tongue.
“Would that be such a bad thing? Look, you can’t undo what happened to your mother—”
“You think this is about Matilda?” I demand sharply.
“She was the one who started it, Cade.”
“It’s not just about her.” My fist clenches until my knuckles crack. “It’s about the evil men, too.”
The memories flood in, hot and toxic. “Look what they did to Kat.” Enslaved and molested for six years until I found her.
My throat tightens. “Look what they did to those sixteen thoroughly broken women in Philadelphia. And what Pascal Romano almost did to Maria, to little Victoria. To my own sister—your daughter, Phoenix.”
“What Clemenza Brando almost did to my woman.”
My eyes shut, chest squeezing painfully as I think of what could be happening to Luna right now if I hadn’t been in that club that night. She was a virgin, for fuck’s sake.
“What happens to the thousand other women who don’t have a deranged psychopath to burn down the world for them? This is a war that never ends.”
Phoenix sighs, “Yes, but soldiers retire.”
My laugh is hollow and sharp. “In caskets.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.” His voice softens. “There are people here who need you just as much.”
My jaw clenches, knowing where this is going. The answer, as ever, remains no. “There are dozens of local bikers who can step into your shoes, Phoenix.”
“ None of them is the leader we need.” His eyes pin me in place. “You have a network of spies all over the country and beyond. The club—hell, the whole of Harmony, including the sheriff’s department—wants you back home. As Prez.”
Harmony calls to me, as much as I hate it. But home isn’t where you find peace. Home is where you face your demons.
I scoff, “They want me because they don’t know what I am.”
He shakes his head, a sad smile playing on his weathered face. “They know enough. You’re Thomas Quinn’s son. Jackson Pype’s son and Phoenix Kellan’s son. If that’s not enough to fuck a boy up, I don’t know what is.”
I can’t help but grin at that. He’s not wrong.
“Caden.” Phoenix’s voice pulls me back to the present, still painstakingly making his point. “Half the town owes you a favor.”
“They owe you too.”
“You’re right. But you’ve got one up on me. You’re loaded.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I snark.
“Oh, you bet your ass we are.” His voice hardens. “Sting operations are everywhere now. Gangsters looking for hungry bikers to run bad deals all the time. The club needs its leader, Cade. One who can look a dodgy arms deal in the face and tell it to take a hike.”
I grunt noncommittally, but he’s not done. He glances at my scuffed boots. “You’re rolling in it, yet do you even spend ten dollars a month on yourself?”
“Oh, I think I spend a little over that,” I mutter, thinking of my bikes, jets, the network of informants, and expensive lodgings. And Scar. Always Scar.
Phoenix bulldozes past my sarcasm. “Dammit, Cade, if you want to be a savior so bad, come and do it right here! And if you think Harmon y is too small, maybe you’d want to go to Chicago—”
“And do what?” I sit up sharply, daring him to say it. Ever since his daughter married Nico, Phoenix has relocated the entire galaxy above the bastard’s head.
“You can do so much with Nico in the Outfit—”
“I hunt and kill men like Nico Vitelli, Phoenix,” I growl. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I break bread with that piece of shit.”
Phoenix studies me, his expression unreadable. “Well then, it’s too bad he’s your brother now, isn’t it?”
“A fucking shame,” I mutter, just as a burst of laughter cuts through the evening air, drawing my attention like a magnet.
Through the window, I spot Luna. Head thrown back, dark hair cascading like a waterfall. She’s a goddamn supernova, sucking up all the energy in the room. My rough-looking brothers gawk at her, completely enthralled. She could be selling them tin bikes, and they’d be lapping it up.
Longing coils inside me, and suddenly, I can’t take another second of this conversation. I stand and pat Phoenix’s back, the leather of his cut rough under my palm. “I better go get my woman before she has those bikers voting you out and her in as Prez.”
“She’s welcome to try.” Phoenix grunts but his hand catches my arm in a strong grip, stopping me from leaving. “The club will wait until you’re done with your tantrum.”
The words hang between us like smoke, and for a long moment, I say nothing. Finally, I go for complete honesty. “Afraid I can’t say when that will be.”
His shoulders sag, and he nods once, the sadness in his eyes betraying his breaking heart. “Live free . . . ,” he begins, invoking the Reaper Druids’ farewell.
“Die with your boots on,” I finish, sealing my fate.
Pho enix’s gaze search mine, as though looking for a crack in the armor I’ve spent years building. “I sure hope that woman in there understands that your life is in an hourglass.”
I glance back at Luna again. “She understands better than most.”
“Does she?” Phoenix’s eyes drift inward, distant. There’s pain and distrust there—old, buried, but never forgotten. The kind that tells a story of unrequited love. Love that was never enough. “You’re a lot of things, son. Stupid isn’t one of them.”