Page 6 of Cross’s Reckoning

"That's what I'll tell Cyrus if he asks."

Before I can decide whether to question him, he walks past me and heads outside. No threat. No explanation. Nothing, and I can't work out why he's covering for me. The clubhouse suddenly feels smaller. I go to my room and grab a bag, throwing in clothes, a charger and whatever else my hands land on. I don't know whether I have five minutes or half an hour. Cyrus is my father. Perdition is my home. Being his daughter has protected me inside these gates all my life.

But I've just helped a patched brother defect, lied to the president and deliberately sent his VP in the wrong direction. I'm not willing to bet my life on blood protecting me from the consequences. My car is parked beside the fence. I make it there before I stop and look back at the clubhouse.

I've spent most of my life inside these gates. Birthdays, funerals, parties and fights. Men coming home bloody and men not coming home at all. I learned to ride a bicycle in this yard and later to drive in an old truck while a Perdition brother swore every time I ground the gears. I know every inch of this place, but what I don't know is when it stopped feeling safe. Maybe tonight, or maybe it was a long time ago.

I throw my bag into the passenger seat and get behind the wheel. There aren't many places in Missouri where my father can't reach me. There's only one close enough to get to before he knows I'm gone.

So I start the engine and drive toward Kingdom Come, the exact same place Cross has gone. I'm heading toward the man I've spent years believing hates me, and the only gates in Ransom my father can't simply walk through.

CHAPTER 2

CROSS

By the time Kingdom Come’s gates come into view, the back of my cut feels wrong. A handful of patches don’t weigh enough to matter, but ten years of leather sitting the same way across my shoulders leaves an absence I can feel every time the wind catches it.

I slow before the turn and let the bike roll the last few yards toward the closed gates. There’s a man on watch behind them. He sees the bike first, then me, then the empty back of my cut. His hand goes to the radio clipped near his shoulder. I kill the engine well outside the boundary and put both boots on the ground. The brother at the gate doesn't tell me to leave, but he doesn't open it either.

A minute later Kane comes out of the clubhouse with Judge beside him and two more men spreading wide enough to make the message clear. Nobody’s pointing a gun at me, but I’d be an idiot to assume there aren’t several aimed from places I can’t see. Kane stops on the other side of the steel. His eyes go over me once and settle on my cut.

“You lose something?”

“Left it where it belonged.”

Judge’s gaze narrows. “Yesterday it belonged on your back.”

“Yesterday was yesterday.”

One of the men behind them shifts. Kane doesn’t. “You rode with Cyrus against us.”

“I did.”

“And now you’re sitting outside my gate with no colors.”

“That about covers it.”

Kane studies me while I keep my hands where he can see them and make no move toward the gate. Coming here was my call. So is whatever happens next.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“Five minutes of your time.”

“For what?”

“A conversation.”

Judge gives a short humorless laugh. “You ride at us one day and ask for a conversation the next?”

“I didn’t come here asking for a patch.”

Kane’s expression doesn’t change, but something in his attention sharpens. “Then talk.”

I look past the steel. “Chains is feeding Cyrus everything he knows about Kingdom Come. Men, routines, old weak points, anything he thinks makes him useful. Cyrus is listening because right now he values betrayal more than judgment.”

Judge’s jaw tightens. “Yesterday should’ve been enough to tell him this is costing Perdition more than it’s worth. It didn’t. He walked back into our clubhouse talking about Kane, not Kingdom Come. Every problem is personal now.”

Kane rests one hand on the gate. “And that bothered you so much you cut off your patches?" He glances at my bare leather again. “Why today?”