Chapter 5
TINY
Sleep is a luxury I don’t indulge in anymore, especially not since Syvannah started screaming in her sleep again, the kind of screams that claw their way out of her chest after therapy and refuse to let either of us rest.
From the hallway outside her room, I catch the tail end of another nightmare, low whimpers threading through the dark, sheets rustling as she twists.
Her breath comes in quick, fractured bursts before it finally steadies.
I don’t go in. I can’t. The last time I did, she woke up terrified, wild-eyed and fighting until recognition cut through the panic, and that look nearly shattered me more than any road rash or bullet ever could.
If Syvannah’s still dreaming about him, then he’s not finished with her, and that truth sits heavy in my chest because it feels like something I should’ve stopped.
Instead, I sit on the floor across from her door, my back against the wall, waiting for her breathing to even out. Peanut curls up on my leg, her tiny purr cutting through the silence like she’s the only thing in this place that still knows how to be calm.
I pet the top of her head. “Guess we both can’t sleep, huh?” I whisper. Peanut blinks up at me, unimpressed, and I almost laugh.
The clubhouse stays dark except for the dim hallway bulb, the compound holding its breath under Capone’s earlier order. No rides. No unnecessary movement. Not until we get a line on Lattimer’s men. Everyone’s wired tight, waiting for something we can’t see yet.
Every small sound sets my nerves on edge, the low hum of the fridge, faint laughter drifting from the common room, even Bones and Pearl upstairs going at it like the world isn’t still bleeding beneath the surface.
Torch’s boots pace faintly down the hall, restless and steady.
None of us are sleeping. We’re just pretending.
I can’t stop replaying the day Syvannah disappeared, or the night she came back.
It was supposed to be a quiet night. We had just returned from dismantling part of the Black Market Railroad, and the fallout with Aerianna’s FBI partner had everyone tense but satisfied.
Red was buried in diagnostics, Trigger was cleaning his guns with obsessive focus, and Bones was arguing with Pearl over whose whiskey was whose. Capone and Danyella, Blayze and Monica, Derange and Jezebelle, and Torch and Daisy had all slipped off for privacy.
I was in the garage tuning my bike when Syvannah walked in, grease on her cheek and that half-smile that always caught me off guard.
“Need a hand?” she asked.
“Always,” I said, and I meant it in more ways than one.
We joked about nothing for twenty minutes, and every time she said my name, I had to remind myself I was supposed to protect her, not want her. Then her phone buzzed, and the air shifted.
She said Nadia needed a ride. Something about a late studio repair. She waved, grabbed her keys, and promised she’d be back by midnight.
She didn’t come back.
By the time we realized the call hadn’t come from Nadia, her phone was dead, and the highway cameras showed her car heading toward the desert, right into Lattimer’s hunting ground.
Capone’s roar from Church could’ve shaken heaven itself. “Nobody sleeps until she’s found!”
We rode through the night, tearing down highways and backroads, checking motels and rest stops from L.A.
to Barstow. Trigger punched a wall until his knuckles bled.
Torch shattered a bottle against his own bike.
Bones nearly got himself shot, starting fights with strangers.
It stopped being strategy and became desperation, loyalty mutating into something feral and reckless.
At dawn, we had nothing. Capone called us back, his voice raw with exhaustion, and when his gaze locked on mine, he didn’t need to say much.
“She was under your watch.” His tone was not cruel, just factual, yet it hit me hard. Guilt swarmed in my stomach. Another one I failed to protect.
Two days later, we heard the engine before we saw the headlights.
Torch was on the porch, cigarette burning low between his fingers. I was half asleep in the garage when I heard him shout, “Capone! Get out here!”
I ran for Trigger and came back with him at my heels, the gravel crunching under our boots as her dust-coated car crawled through the lot like it barely had the will to move.
The driver’s door opened, and Syvannah stumbled out barefoot and shaking, a blanket wrapped around her naked, bruised body.
Torch moved first, gun drawn, scanning the perimeter. Capone’s voice was sharp and low. “Get Derange! Now!”
I moved before I thought, before anyone could stop me. Syvannah saw me, and she just… collapsed.
I caught her before she hit the ground. Syvannah folded into me, cold and trembling, her skin slick with sweat and blood. She tried to speak, and only one word came out. My name.
“Easy, baby girl,” I whispered, pulling her against my chest as the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “You’re home.”
Her breath hitched. “He said… he said to tell you…” She tried to warn me, to repeat whatever message he’d planted in her mouth, but I held her tighter because the only thing that mattered in that moment was the fact that she was breathing.
I shook my head. “Don’t. You’re safe now.”
She started crying then, quiet at first, then harder. I held her tighter. I didn’t care that my shirt was soaked through with blood, that Capone was barking orders in the background, or that Trigger was already kicking over barrels in a rage.
Syvannah was breathing. That’s all that mattered.
I carried her inside as the Clubhouse erupted behind us. Derange was already setting up in the common room, hands steady, voice calm as he examined Syvannah. Torch paced like a storm. Dagger offered a quiet prayer no one else could hear.
Bones went nuclear.
The last time an Ol’ Lady was kidnapped, he almost lost his life protecting her.
He stormed out back, found Pearl hanging near the bar, and they disappeared into his room.
Fifteen minutes later, the walls shook. Everyone heard it.
No one said a word. That’s how some of us deal with something like this. Fists, with fury, or flesh with flesh.
Capone didn’t even look up when he said, “Let him. He needs it.”
Now, sitting outside her door, I still see the look in Syvannah’s eyes when she collapsed into me. Not relief, not love. Just shock that someone had come for her and held her while she cried. Shocked that anyone had come for her at all.
And that kills me because she should know she would never face this alone.
I should’ve been the one to stop it from happening. I should have been faster, smarter, and less trusting.
I push off the wall, disturbing Peanut’s slumber, and step closer to Syvannah’s door. Her breathing is steady, the nightmare over.
My hands flex, wanting to open the door and make sure she’s really okay, but I stop myself. She doesn’t need a guard dog tonight. She needs space to heal, even if it kills me to give it to her.
Peanut rubs against my foot, meowing softly. I scoop her up and stroke behind her ears. “You’ve got better instincts than I do, kid.”
Faint laughter drifts from the common room.
Red and Dagger are arguing over a busted radio, Torch is offering sarcastic commentary, and Trigger is telling them both to shut up.
Life creeps back in around the edges, whether we’re ready for it or not.
That’s what family does. We keep moving, even when it hurts.
I look once more at Syvannah’s door, then head out to join them. I grab a beer from Seth and drop into a chair near Capone.
He glances up from the table when I walk in. “You good?”
“Getting there.”
He nods. “Good. Because the next time Lattimer sends a message…”
He lets it hang, the promise heavy between us.
Trigger finishes it for him, voice like gravel. “We’re sending one back.”
Dagger lifts his beer. “To the Royal Bastards.”
We raise ours, the clink echoing like gunfire.
For a few seconds, it almost feels like peace. Then the guilt creeps back in, quiet and certain.
I’ll keep breathing. Keep fighting. Keep pretending I can protect her. But the truth is, I already failed once. If Lattimer ever touches her again, no one in this city will live long enough to tell him he shouldn’t have.
The jukebox hums to life a minute later, static and low guitar cutting through the quiet.
“Tomorrow, we move early. Supply run to the docks. No screw-ups. No detours.” Capone disappears toward his office, and the rest of us drift toward the bar like moths that have forgotten the fire still burns.
Bones and Pearl are back at the bar, pretending nothing happened in his room.
It’s a lie we all agree not to touch. Bones looks lighter, cockier, reckless in that way that usually comes before blood.
Pearl’s lipstick is smeared, her eyes glassy, but she smiles when she sees me. I nod once, nothing more.
The rest of the night fades into half-jokes, cheap beer, and music that’s older than most of us.
When I finally step outside, the air is cool and heavy with exhaust. The compound’s lights glow against the dark like small, stubborn stars.
I take a breath that doesn’t quite reach my lungs.
Tomorrow, we ride. A routine supply run to the docks, but everyone knows it’s really about checking if Lattimer has eyes on our routes again.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t know if I’m hoping for quiet or a reason to let everything inside me finally break loose.
Morning burns hot and fast over the city. The sun climbs early, bleeding gold over rooftops as we line up in front of the clubhouse. Six bikes, one van, enough firepower to level a warehouse if things go bad.
Capone gives a curt nod from the porch. “Docks and back. Eyes open.”
Capone, Blayze, and Derange are hanging back with the women and children. Derange has Naomi strapped to his chest while she sleeps peacefully. Monica, Danyella and Jezebelle have the rest of the Little Bastards inside, keeping them occupied.
Engines fire in unison. The sound hits like thunder. I feel it in my ribs, in my scars, in the quiet part of me that still mistakes motion for peace.
We cut through the city fast. Me, Trigger, Torch, Dagger, Bones, and Red in the van behind us. Traffic is light. The air tastes like fuel and dust. For a while, it almost feels normal. Then instinct kicks in.
“Eyes up,” I mutter into the comm. “Tail on our six.”
Trigger’s voice crackles back. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Two bikes. Los Demons colors. Trying to blend with traffic.”
“Motherfuckers never learn,” Dagger growls.
Capone’s voice filters through the static from base. “Stay on route. If they follow, we’ll deal with it.”
I ease off the throttle and watch the mirrors. The Demons hang back, pretending to be casual, waiting for their chance.
The city thins out ahead of us. Factories give way to sun-bleached warehouses and empty lots.
Every mile south, the noise fades, leaving just the hum of engines and the itch between my shoulder blades.
The air feels too still, too quiet, like the road’s holding its breath.
I catch Trigger’s gaze in the mirror. He nods. He feels it too.
It happens in the space between one heartbeat and the next. A rust-colored truck lurches from a side street and slams into the van’s flank. Red’s curse bleeds through the comm just as gunfire erupts, sharp cracks tearing the morning open and sending shards of asphalt spraying beneath our tires.
Trigger and Torch drop low, drawing their weapons. Dagger peels left, engine howling. Bones yells something I don’t catch and charges straight into the chaos.
I throttle hard, sliding in behind the attackers. Their patches flash red and black. The lead shooter swings his rifle slowly toward me. I fire once, steady and controlled, and watch him fold backward off his bike, his body tumbling across the pavement in a blur of denim and dust.
Another rider sprays rounds wide, a bullet clipping my mirror and sending glass spinning into the road. I duck, skid, and return fire in one smooth motion, the shot blowing his front tire and sending his bike cartwheeling in a shower of sparks.
The world narrows to noise and muscle memory of smoke, screams, asphalt, and heat.
Red’s voice breaks through the comm. “Van’s hit but rolling!”
“Keep it that way!” Trigger barks back, already reloading.
Less than a minute later, it’s over.
Steam hisses from the wrecked truck, smoke drifting into a sky too bright for what just happened. Bodies lie scattered across the road.
Dagger kneels beside one of the fallen. “Christ,” he mutters. “He’s a kid. Eighteen, maybe.”
I walk closer. The boy’s eyes are open, still surprised. A crooked Los Demons patch was barely sewn onto his vest. No scars yet. No stories.
The blood on my gloves is still wet, and when I search for anger or regret, there’s nothing there. Just a hollow stretch of quiet where both should be.
Trigger grips my shoulder. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I lie.
He studies me a beat, then nods. “Let’s clean this up and roll. Capone will want a full report.”
We move without speaking, pouring gasoline, checking the road, and wiping down what needs wiping.
Dagger pours gasoline over the wreck while Torch checks the road for witnesses.
When the fire catches, it climbs fast, flames swallowing twisted metal and spilled blood alike, turning the wreckage into heat and smoke until nothing is left but blackened frames.
Bones kicks a broken helmet, muttering something that sounds like a prayer and a curse combined.
By the time we roll through the gates again, the sun’s merciless overhead.
My gloves are stiff with blood and smoke. My shirt reeks of fuel.
Capone’s waiting on the porch, cigarette burning low. “How bad?”
“Five down,” Trigger says. “One kid.”
Capone’s jaw tightens. “Los Demons want a war, they’ve got one.”
No one cheers. We just stand here, heat and silence pressing in.
I head to the garage and drop my gloves into the oil pan, watching the blood dissolve into grease until it disappears like it never belonged to anyone.
Peanut’s waiting by the door, tail flicking. I crouch and let her climb into my lap. Her small, innocent purr vibrates against my chest.
For a second, I let it be enough.
But when I look at my reflection in the chrome of my bike, I don’t see a man looking back. I see the outline of one, washed in gasoline and smoke, clinging to the last gentle thing in a world that keeps demanding more.