Chapter 11
The blood wouldn't come off her hands.
Jolene stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing with dish soap and hot water, watching the pink swirl down the drain. Tank's blood. Some brother she didn't know. Maybe her own—she'd found a cut on her palm somewhere in the chaos and couldn't remember getting it.
Her hands were shaking. Had been shaking for hours.
The compound was quieter now, the immediate crisis handled. Brothers drank in the main room, the low rumble of their voices occasionally broken by laughter that came too loud, too sharp—the sound of men bleeding off tension the only way they knew how.
She'd stitched Tank's wound. She'd fed magazines through a window while bullets flew. She'd held knives and meant it.
And now she couldn't stop shaking.
"Jolene."
Carmen's voice, soft at her shoulder.
"The brothers are calling you a warrior. Hatchet said you kept your head when half of them were scrambling."
Jolene laughed—a broken sound. "Warriors don't shake this hard."
"Honey, warriors shake after every battle. It's the ones who don't shake that you have to worry about." Carmen took the soap from her hands, set it aside. "The shaking means you're human. Means you felt it. That's not weakness—that's proof you're still alive."
Still alive.
She thought about the bullets chewing into the wall. The chaos. Tornado's face when he'd found her in the kitchen with knives in her hands.
Still alive.
"Where is he?" she asked.
Carmen didn't need to ask who. "Main room. Shadow patched up a gash on his arm, but he won't sit still long enough to let it heal properly."
Jolene dried her hands on a towel that was cleaner than it should be, considering the day they'd had. Her fingers had finally stopped trembling—or maybe they'd just gone numb.
"Go to him," Carmen said. "You both need it."
Jolene didn't ask what she meant. She already knew.
She found Tornado at the bar, a glass of whiskey untouched in front of him, a fresh bandage wrapped around his left forearm. The cut hadn't been deep—she'd seen Shadow stitch it while she was working on Tank—but it had bled like it meant business.
He looked up when she approached. The room was crowded with brothers, loud with the forced cheer of men who'd faced death and beaten it back, but when his eyes found hers, everything else fell away.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
She stopped beside his stool, close enough to smell the gunpowder still clinging to his clothes. His hand found her hip, pulled her closer—automatic, possessive, like he couldn't help himself.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I stopped shaking."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know." She leaned into his touch. "I will be. Just—not yet."
Tornado was quiet for a moment. Then he stood, abandoning the whiskey, and took her hand.
"Come with me."
He led her through the crowd, past brothers who called out congratulations and crude jokes about the president disappearing early.
Jolene barely heard them. The adrenaline that had kept her running all day was crashing now, leaving something else in its wake—something hot and restless, buzzing under her skin.
They reached his room. He closed the door, locked it, and turned to face her.
The look in his eyes stopped her breath.
Not tender. Not soft. Hungry.
"I almost lost you today," he said.
"You didn't."
"Doesn't matter." He crossed to her in two strides, his hands cupping her face, tilting it up to meet his gaze. "When I saw those trucks coming through the fence, when I heard the gunfire—all I could think about was getting to you."
"I can take care of myself."
"I know." His thumb traced her cheekbone, rough and urgent. "That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
His forehead dropped to hers. "The point is I need you. Right now. I need to feel you, know you're alive, know you're mine."
The word hit her like a spark to kindling.
Mine.
"Then take me," she said.
His mouth crashed into hers.
This wasn't like their first time—slow and careful, learning each other in the moonlight. This was fire. Desperation. The need to prove they'd survived pouring out in a rush of hands and teeth and gasping breath.
He walked her backward until her shoulders hit the wall, pinning her there with his body while his mouth devoured hers. She fisted her hands in his shirt and pulled, buttons scattering, fabric tearing. She didn't care. She needed skin. Needed proof.
"Jolene—"
"Don't stop." She yanked the ruined shirt from his shoulders. "Don't you dare stop."
He growled—actually growled—and lifted her like she weighed nothing. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her back pressed against the wall, and his mouth found her throat, her collarbone, the place where her pulse hammered like a drum.
"Mine," he breathed against her skin. "Say it."
"Yours."
"Again."
"Yours, Cade. I'm yours."
Her use of his real name broke something in him. She felt it—the last chain of his control snapping—and then they were moving, falling, tumbling onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and desperate hands.
He stripped her with none of the reverence of their first night.
This was need, pure and raw, hands tugging at fabric like it had personally offended him.
She helped—kicked off her jeans, pulled her shirt over her head, lay bare beneath him while his eyes raked over her like she was water in the desert.
"Beautiful," he rasped. "Every goddamn inch of you."
"Stop talking." She pulled him down. "Show me."
He showed her.
His mouth traced fire across her body—not gentle, not sweet, but claiming. Marking territory. Reminding them both that they were alive, they were here, they had made it through.
When his hand slid between her thighs, she arched into him with a cry that would have embarrassed her if she'd been capable of embarrassment. She wasn't. All she could feel was his touch, his heat, the overwhelming reality of him.
"More," she gasped. "I need more."
"I've got you."
"No." She grabbed his face, made him look at her. "I need you. All of you. Now."
He didn't make her ask again.
When he joined with her, they both groaned—relief and pleasure and the primal satisfaction of connection. He set a pace that matched the pounding of her heart—hard and fast and relentless, nothing held back.
She matched him.
Every thrust, every gasp, every desperate clutch of fingers on skin. She wasn't fragile, wasn't delicate, wasn't something to be handled with care. She was his equal, his partner, his match in this as she was in everything else.
"Look at me," she demanded.
His eyes snapped to hers—wild, burning, undone.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "You hear me? I'm right here. I'm not leaving."
Something cracked in his expression. Vulnerability beneath the hunger, fear beneath the fire.
"Promise me."
"I promise."
He drove into her harder, faster, chasing something they both needed. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, riding the wave with him, letting it build and build until—
"Cade—"
"I know. Let go. I've got you."
She shattered with his name on her lips, the pleasure crashing through her like a storm. He followed a heartbeat later, burying his face in her neck, her name torn from his throat in a voice that didn't sound like him anymore.
They lay in the wreckage of his bed, tangled together, breathing hard.
The room was quiet now. The adrenaline had finally burned out, leaving something softer in its wake. Her head rested on his chest, rising and falling with each breath. His hand traced lazy patterns on her back, soothing, gentle—all the tenderness he hadn't shown before.
"I meant it," she said quietly.
"Meant what?"
"That I'm not going anywhere." She propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at him. "I know this is dangerous. I know Delgado is still out there. I know tomorrow could bring another attack, another fight, another chance for everything to go wrong."
"And?"
"And I'm still not going anywhere." She touched his face, traced the line of his jaw. "This is where I belong now. With you. With the club. I'm done running from things that scare me."
Tornado's eyes searched hers. Whatever he saw there made something in his expression ease—tension she hadn't realized he was carrying, finally letting go.
"When this is over," he said. "When Delgado's dead and the pipeline is burned and there's nothing left to threaten you—"
"Yes?"
"I'm going to rebuild your café. Club money. Club hands. Whatever it takes."
Jolene's breath caught. "You don't have to—"
"I want to." He pulled her closer, pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I want to give you back what they took. I want to watch you build something again."
She didn't know what to say to that. Didn't have words for the feeling swelling in her chest—gratitude and hope and something that felt terrifyingly like love.
So she just kissed him instead.
Soft this time. Slow. The fire had burned down to embers, leaving warmth in its place.
"Sleep," he murmured against her mouth. "We've got planning to do tomorrow."
"I know."
But she didn't move. Neither did he. They just lay there in the darkness, wrapped around each other, letting the quiet settle over them like a blanket.
The compound was safe for now. Two brothers wounded, none dead. Ochoa was gone and Delgado was wounded.
Tomorrow they would plan. Tomorrow they would fight.
But tonight—tonight she was exactly where she belonged.
Jolene closed her eyes, pressed her face into Tornado's shoulder, and fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.
She didn't dream about the gunfire.
She dreamed about breakfast in a café she hadn't built yet, sunlight streaming through windows that didn't exist, and a man in a leather cut sitting at a counter seat she'd keep empty for him forever.