Chapter Five
Welcome To The Circus
Harper
The Sons of Sin clubhouse looks worse at night.
That’s saying something, considering everything connected to this place already screams bad decisions, open warrants, and tetanus.
Steel rides ahead of the truck carrying me and my hastily packed life, his motorcycle cutting through the dark like a warning everyone else on the road should obey.
I sit in the passenger seat beside a man named Saint, who says almost nothing and somehow makes silence feel like an interrogation technique.
He doesn’t look like Steel.
Steel is blunt force. Saint is the knife you don’t see until it’s already between your ribs.
“Do all of you brood professionally,” I ask, “or is there a training seminar?”
Saint’s mouth twitches. “It’s included with the cut.”
“Do you get dental?”
“No.”
“Shame. With your lifestyle, that feels irresponsible.” This time, I see him actively fight a smile.
The truck slows as we approach the compound gate. Floodlights wash over chain-link fencing, parked motorcycles, men I assume are armed even if I can’t see it, and enough testosterone to qualify as an environmental hazard.
My stomach knots.
I hate that it knots. I hate that Steel’s bike pulls up beside the truck, and the knot loosens just a little.
He doesn’t look at me right away. He scans the gate, the roofline, the men posted near the entrance. His world is made of threats and angles. Mine is made of vitals and pressure, and keeping people alive long enough to get them to someone with a scalpel. We don’t make sense in the same sentence.
The gate opens, and Saint drives through.
“Welcome to the circus,” he says.
“I hate circuses.”
“Smart woman.”
Inside, the compound is awake despite the hour. Men move with purpose. Some stare at the truck. Others pretend not to. Women linger near the clubhouse doors, eyes sharp, curious, not unfriendly but not welcoming either. I am not a guest. I am a problem with a pulse.
Steel parks and reaches my door before I can open it myself. He pulls it open, then steps back. Not offering a hand, not touching, just waiting.
That shouldn’t matter, but for some unnamable reason it does.
I climb down on my own, duffel over one shoulder, and a first aid kit clutched in the other like a security blanket with bandages.
Steel’s gaze drops to it. “You brought supplies.”
“I’m a paramedic. Some women have emotional support lip gloss. I have trauma shears.”
Saint makes a quiet sound behind me. Steel’s expression doesn’t change, but I swear something flickers in his eyes.
“Come on,” he says.
“Bossy.”
“Yes.” At least he knows himself.
We cross the yard, and the whole place seems to adjust around him. Men straighten, conversations dip, and eyes move off me the second his shoulders tighten. He doesn’t say a word, but the warning travels anyway.
Don’t stare. Don’t approach. Don’t breathe too close.
I should hate it... I do hate it... Mostly.
The clubhouse door opens before we reach it. A woman stands there with gray-streaked dark hair, a dish towel over one shoulder, and the expression of someone who has buried bodies emotionally, if not literally.
Her eyes move over me once. Fast and thorough. Kind in the way a battlefield medic is kind.
“You Harper?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Mama M.”
I grip my duffel strap tighter. “Is that a legal title?”
She snorts. “Around here, it might as well be.”
Steel steps in beside me. “She needs a room.”
Mama M’s eyes cut to him. “She needs food.”
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
Mama M and Steel look at me at the same time, and it’s deeply unsettling.
“Fine,” I mutter. “I’m maybe hungry.”
Mama M nods like she has won a war. “Kitchen.”
I glance at Steel. “Do I get a phone call, or is this kidnapping with casserole?”
“You called me,” he says.
“I called because a man was at my window, not because I wanted to join the ‘Outlaw Summer Camp’.”
Mama M laughs, sharp and delighted. “I like her.”
Steel’s mouth snaps shut, and he grinds his teeth.
We step inside. The clubhouse smells like whiskey, smoke, leather, motor oil, and old violence.
It’s louder than outside, but not chaotic.
Men sit at tables, some with drinks, some with cards, some with guns visible enough to remind everyone that peace here is a temporary arrangement.
Every head turns, then every head turns away. Fast. Except a woman with dark hair and an enviable figure who watches me from the bar where she stands drinking a beer. She assesses me in the same way the men did, and I wonder who she is.
Steel’s presence presses against my back without touching me, but I still feel it everywhere.
A man at the bar doesn’t lo
ok away fast enough. Steel doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, but the man’s face drains of color, and he suddenly becomes fascinated with his beer.
“Subtle,” I mutter.
Steel leans just close enough for his voice to reach my ear. “I can be less subtle.”
Heat trips down my spine.
Absolutely. Fucking. Not.
My body needs to calm down, preferably with medication.
Mama M leads me into the kitchen, which is warm and bright and somehow feels like a different planet. She points to a chair.
“Sit.”
“Is everyone here allergic to saying please?”
“Yes,” Steel and Mama M say together.
I sit, and Mama M sets a plate in front of me. Eggs. Toast. Bacon. Something fried and probably illegal in three states.
“It’s 4:00 in the morning,” I say.
“And you look like you haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
“She hasn’t,” Steel says.
I glare at him. “How would you know?”
“You had coffee at the station. Half a protein bar in the rig. Nothing after.”
The room goes quiet, and I stare at him. Mama M stares at him. Saint, who has materialized in the doorway like a gothic accountant, stares at him. Steel looks back at me with zero shame.
“You counted my snacks?”
“You were on shift.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s mine.”
I pick up the fork because if I don’t, I might throw it at his forehead. “I am going to need everyone in this room to understand that surveillance is not romance.”
Mama M coughs into her hand, and Saint turns away, shoulders shaking.
Steel’s eyes narrow. “Who said romance?”
The fork freezes halfway to my mouth. There it is. A word neither of us should touch. Romance. It lands in the kitchen like a lit match dropped into gasoline.
My face goes hot. “No one.”
“You did.”
“I was making a point.”
“A bad one.”
“You are the bad point.”
Mama M slaps the counter. “Eat before the two of you set my kitchen on fire.”
I obey because she scares me more than the men with guns.
The food is good, annoyingly good. I eat too fast, which annoys me more. Steel notices but doesn’t comment. For once, the man shows survival instincts.
When I finish, Mama M takes the plate, and something in her expression softens. “Room’s ready down the hall. The door locks from the inside, and the window bars are solid. Bathroom’s shared, but no one goes near that hall without permission.”
“Whose permission?” I ask.
Steel says, “Mine.”
I close my eyes. “Wrong answer, gargoyle.”
Mama M looks delighted, and Saint looks like he’s filing that nickname away for future damage.
Steel stares at me. “Yours,” he says after a beat.
That shuts me up. I hate when he does that. Adjusts, gives ground, and makes it impossible to keep swinging at the version of him I have already decided to hate.
I stand, grabbing my duffel. “Show me the room.”
Steel takes one step, and I lift a finger. “Mama M can show me.”
A flicker passes through his eyes, not quite anger but not restraint either.
“Fine,” he says.
Mama M leads me down a narrow hallway, past closed doors and low voices. Steel stays behind. I know because I don’t feel him at my back anymore, and the absence is louder than his fucking presence.
The room is small but clean. Bed. Dresser. Chair. A lamp that looks older than I am. The window has bars outside and a lock that actually works. I check it anyway.
Mama M watches from the doorway. “You’re safe here,” she says.
I drop my duffel on the bed. “People keep saying that.”
“Doesn’t make it feel true?”
“No.”
She nods like she expected that. “Good. Safe women get careless.”
I look back at her. There’s no pity in her face, and I like that.
“I don’t belong here,” I say.
“No one does at first.” She nods in agreement.
“I’m not staying.”
“You should. But most don’t.”
I laugh, but it comes out tired. “You always this comforting?”
“Only when I like someone.”
I don’t know what to do with that, so I unzip my bag and start pretending to organize things.
Mama M doesn’t leave. “You should know something about Steel,” she says, and my hands pause.
“I don’t need to know anything about Steel.”
“Sure you do.”
I sigh. “Fine. Does he sleep upside down? Sharpen knives recreationally? Punch drywall when sad?”
“He doesn’t bring women here.”
That stills everything. My heartbeat. My hands. The room. I force myself to keep moving. Shirt in the drawer. Socks beside it. Trauma shears on the nightstand, because I am who I am.
“Maybe he finally found someone irritating enough to weaponize,” I say.
Mama M hums. “Maybe.”
I glance at her. “What does that mean?”
“It means you should sleep while you can.”
“Terrible answer.”
“The only kind we give around here.”
She leaves me alone, and I stand in the room for exactly thirty seconds before I realize I can’t stay inside it. The walls press too close.
I grab my first aid kit and step back into the hall. The clubhouse has settled into a lower hum. Men talk near the bar, someone laughs, and somewhere outside, a bike engine turns over and dies. Normal sounds for abnormal people.
Steel is near the back door, speaking with Savage and Saint.
I know Savage by reputation more than anything else. He’s the President of this MC, the one with the cold eyes. The kind of man who makes a room feel like it has laws again, even if those laws are written in blood.
He notices me first even though Steel turns before Savage says anything. His gaze sweeps over me. Face. Hands. Kit. Feet.
“You should be sleeping,” he says.
“You should be less predictable.” Saint’s mouth twitches again.