Chapter 30
The noise sat over the clubhouse like a constant pressure.
It wasn’t particularly loud and, by Wallhalla standards, it wasn’t even unusually chaotic, but for Reeze it was enough.
Cutlery clattered against plates, boots struck the concrete floor, a few of the Assholes members were arguing loudly at the long table, Nathalie shouted something from behind the bar and Molly’s laughter rose above it all when Boris refused to give her hat back.
None of those sounds meant anything on their own, but together they scraped along his nerves until Reeze ran a hand through his hair yet again.
His mother, naturally, noticed. Ingrid was still standing a few metres from where he had left her, seemingly untouched by the crowd and the noise around her, but wearing the same expression she had used throughout most of his life whenever she saw considerably more than he wanted her to.
“So.”
One word, and Reeze already knew exactly where the conversation was going.
He let out a breath through his nose. “What?”
“Are you going to keep pretending this is an ordinary Wednesday?”
Reeze held her gaze for a moment before allowing his attention to drift towards the gates.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth usually works.”
He didn’t even know where to begin. Dennis and Josh had made it perfectly clear they weren’t going anywhere, Sunkholes were still testing the edges, and at the same time Reeze had to keep track of the club’s security, supplies, people, deliveries and everything else that came with the patch on his chest. “They’re marking us. ”
“I noticed.”
He didn’t doubt that for a second. Ingrid had probably recognised exactly what was happening before half the people in the room had even been told the details.
“They want you to react the wrong way.”
Reeze’s jaw tightened. That was exactly what made him so fucking angry.
Not simply that they were following him, or that they were prepared to sit outside the gates and watch, but that every part of it was deliberate.
Dennis kept moving his little pieces around and waiting for Reeze to do exactly what he wanted.
Lose his temper. Give them something they could use.
Instead of answering, Reeze let his gaze move across the room until it settled on Molly.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, drawing on a piece of cardboard with a marker that should probably have dried out months ago. Boris lay beside her with his heavy head resting across one of her thighs while Molly talked to him as though the bulldog understood every word.
She looked safe. That was almost the worst part. An eight-year-old sitting on the floor of a garage surrounded by men, club cuts, weapons and problems she should never have to know existed, and yet she looked as though there was nowhere in the world she could possibly be safer.
“She’s too young for this.” Ingrid’s voice had softened.
Reeze swallowed. “I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked back at her.
“Or are you saying it because you know I’m right?”
The question landed closer than he wanted to admit, and judging by Ingrid’s expression, she knew that too.
“I’m doing what I have to do.”
“No.”
For the first time, she shook her head. “You’re doing what you were taught to do.”
There was an answer somewhere, but Reeze didn’t find it before Mark’s voice interrupted from the side. “Reeze.”
He barely looked at him. “What?”
“We need to move the stuff from the back storeroom before tonight. There are several pallets. I need you.”
“Later.”
Mark frowned. “It’s heavy. We’re not talking about a few cardboard boxes.”
“I said later.” Something in Reeze’s voice made him reconsider. Mark opened his mouth as though he intended to argue, thought better of it and walked away.
Hale almost replaced him immediately. “We need more ammo if Sunkholes decide to show themselves this weekend.”
“I’ll sort it.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Hale studied him for several seconds. There was no irritation in the look, only assessment, as though he were trying to judge how much more Reeze could carry before something finally gave way. Eventually, he nodded. “Fine.”
Billy waited until Hale had moved away before coming over and leaning against the pillar beside Reeze. “You look like you’re about to fucking explode.”
“I’m calm.”
Billy snorted. “No. You look like what happens immediately before calm stops being an option.”
Normally Reeze would have told him to fuck off. Right now he couldn’t even be bothered.
Instead, his gaze continued across the room until it found Charlie.
She stood beside Mia, laughing at something that had been said.
Her shoulders had dropped and, for the first time since all this started, she looked genuinely relaxed.
That should have made him feel better. For some reason, it didn’t.
“I want to break something.”
Billy followed his gaze. “I know.”
“And I want to take her out of here.”
Billy didn’t need to ask who he meant. “Then you need to decide which one matters first.”
Reeze kept watching Charlie. “I want both.”
Billy’s sigh was quiet. “You’re not getting both.” He waited a second before adding, “Not at the same time.”
Charlie noticed Reeze before he even started walking towards her.
She couldn’t have said exactly what gave him away, only that something about the way he stood made her straighten slightly.
His shoulders were rigid and his gaze kept moving, as though he were trying to keep track of ten different things at once and refused to let any one of them out of his sight.
She murmured something to Mia and met him halfway. “What is it?”
Reeze didn’t answer immediately. When he reached her, his hand settled against the small of her back, not hard and not possessively, simply enough to feel that she was actually there. His thumb moved slowly over the fabric of her shirt while he drew in a long breath. “Too much.”
Charlie frowned. “What is?”
He ran a hand through his hair again. “Everything.”
There was no anger in the answer and no drama either, just a kind of exhaustion that went deeper than being tired.
“Tell me.”
Reeze looked past her for a moment before beginning to count. “Ammo. Sunkholes. Dennis. Molly. Mum.”
Then his eyes returned to hers. “You.” Charlie barely had time to react before he continued. “No. You’re the only thing that isn’t a problem.”
Something tightened in her chest and she put her hand against his cut. His heart was beating hard beneath her palm, too fast for a man who was supposedly calm.
He looked tired, but not from lack of sleep and not from the beating he had already taken. More like someone who had been carrying too much for too long and no longer knew which weight he was supposed to put down first.
“I want to lock us in the room.”
That made her smile faintly. “Just like that?”
“I want five fucking minutes of peace.”
“Mm.”
Charlie lifted one eyebrow.
“And?”
One corner of his mouth moved. “And possibly something else.”
“That sounded much more believable.”
For the first time since he came over, she saw a little of the tension leave his shoulders. Not much, but enough to make a difference.
Then Molly’s laughter carried across the room and Reeze’s attention shifted immediately.
Charlie followed his gaze. Molly was still on the floor beside Boris, but Ingrid had gone over to her and now stood with one hand resting lightly on her granddaughter’s shoulder while she listened to something Molly apparently considered extremely important. The girl laughed again.
Charlie saw the change in Reeze’s face almost at once. His jaw began working and the brief relief she had managed to coax out of him disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Ingrid wasn’t looking at him. Not directly. Still, Charlie had the distinct feeling she knew exactly what was happening.
Billy apparently thought the same thing. He stopped beside Ingrid and followed Reeze’s gaze.
“He’s going to tear himself apart.”
“He’s done it before,” Ingrid replied without turning.
Billy glanced towards Charlie. “And her?”
Now Ingrid followed his gaze too.
Charlie pretended she hadn’t heard them.
“She isn’t weak.”
Billy nodded slowly. “You think she can handle it?”
An almost invisible smile touched Ingrid’s mouth. “The real question is whether he can let her stand when things go to hell instead of deciding he needs to push her away for her own good.”
Charlie had barely had time to think about the words when a car rolled slowly past the gates.
It wasn’t the same vehicle they had seen before, but it was moving slowly enough for several heads in the room to turn towards it. Nobody said anything and the conversations continued, yet something in the atmosphere shifted all the same. Reeze reacted immediately.
All the scattered tension in him disappeared. His gaze sharpened and his body seemed to rearrange itself within seconds, as though the stress, anger and frustration had suddenly been pulled into one clear point of focus. “I need to sort the ammo now.”
Charlie nodded. “Go.”
He looked at her. “And you?”
“I’m here.”
Something in his expression softened.
Reeze leaned forwards until his forehead rested against hers. No kiss and no show for the people around them, just one brief moment where he seemed to need to feel for himself that she was still standing there.
“Don’t go anywhere alone.”
“I know.”
“If anything feels wrong—”
Charlie smiled slightly.
“I know.”
He remained there for another second before finally releasing her and heading towards Hale.
Charlie watched him cross the room with the same purposeful certainty that made it almost impossible for anyone on the outside to guess how close to the edge he actually was.
But she could see it now.
Everything was still there beneath the surface: the worry about Molly, the pressure from the club, Dennis outside the gates and the almost impossible need to protect everything at once.
Perhaps that was why Reeze never seemed to stop moving.
As long as there was another job in front of him, another problem to solve or another person who needed him, he never had to stand still long enough to feel just how much he was already carrying.