Page 121 of Grim

Grim stood behind Sophia, tall, tattooed, wearing his cut, a walking warning sign. He kept his expression neutral, but tension radiated off him like heat.

Her oldest brother, Mateo, crossed his arms. “So this is him.”

Sophia stepped forward. “Yes. This is Maddox.”

Her middle brother, Diego, eyed Grim’s tattoos. “He’s… older.”

Sophia’s jaw tightened. “He’s not old.”

Her youngest brother, Miguel, muttered, “He looks like he eats people.”

Grim blinked. “I don’t.”

Sophia elbowed Miguel. “Stop.”

Her mother approached slowly, wiping her hands on a towel. “Sophia… he’s in a motorcycle club?”

“Yes,” Sophia said, chin lifting.

Her father frowned. “Those men are dangerous.”

Grim felt the words like a punch. He stiffened, jaw clenching, breath catching.

A familiar old instinct rose up — the one he’d learned in a dozen foster homes, standing in doorways while adults decided if he was worth keeping. That quiet, sinking feeling in his gut. The bracing. The waiting. The certainty that one wrong move would get him sent away.

He hated that it still lived in him. Hated how fast it came back now, here, in a kitchen that smelled like home. But his body didn’t know the difference. It only knew the look on a man’s face when he was weighing whether you belonged.

Sophia stepped closer to him, voice steady. “He saved my life.”

Her father hesitated. “We heard what happened. But—”

“No.” Sophia’s voice cracked like a whip. “You don’t understand. He didn’t just save me. He tore the world apart to find me.”

Grim’s breath hitched. He looked down, throat tight, chest aching.

Then Abuela swept into the room like a tiny hurricane.

“¡Basta!” she snapped, smacking Mateo’s arm with a wooden spoon. “You judge him by his jacket? By his tattoos? You think that makes a man?”

She turned to Grim, eyes sharp but kind. “Mijo, come here.”

Grim froze. “Uh—yes, ma’am.”

She cupped his face in both hands, turning his head left, then right, inspecting him like produce at the market. Her hands were warm, steady, familiar in a way that made something inside him crack.

“You love my granddaughter?”

Grim swallowed hard. “More than anything.”

Sophia sucked in a breath.

Abuela nodded once. “Then sit. Eat. You’re family.”

Grim didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know how to breathe around it. He didn’t know how to hold something that gentle.

Dinner was loud and chaotic, overlapping conversations, clattering dishes, music humming in the background. Grim sat beside Sophia, tense, answering questions in short, careful sentences.

But slowly… he relaxed.