Page 14 of My Veteran Biker

At two his motorcycle finally pulls in. I watch from the dark kitchen as he parks, as he sits there for a moment without moving. Then he gets off the bike and walks to his door and disappears inside.

His light doesn't come on.

I stand there in the dark with my heart beating too fast and my hands wrapped around a glass of water I'm not drinking, thinking about the way he said "I'll try" before he left. Like it cost him something to admit he didn't know how.

I think about the way I told him I wouldn't wait, wouldn't accommodate, wouldn't make myself smaller.

I think about his empty house and my empty apartment and the years of building lives that work precisely because they don't require us to want anything we can't have.

Then I think about what happens if we both stop lying to ourselves at the same time.

Chapter 4 — Knox

I sit in the dark living room with my boots still on and my cut draped over the back of the couch.

The house is cold from the AC running all day but sweat still clings to my neck, my back, the fabric of my jeans where they stick to my thighs.

The club church ran three hours. Cain had intel from his source inside what's left of Marrow. They're planning something but the source doesn't know what, just that Dutch has been making calls and Victor Crane is done being strategic.

Now we're waiting for them to make the next move and I hate waiting. Hate sitting still while someone else decides when violence happens.

But Clint was clear: we hold position, we watch, we don't give them an excuse to say we started it.

I pull off my boots and drop them by the couch. My body is wired, adrenaline still running through me even though nothing happened tonight beyond talking and planning.

This is what the MC life does. Keeps you ready for something that might not come but probably will.

Instead of sleeping I think about Francis standing in my kitchen asking why I didn't come after her. Think about the way her body looks in that green shirt, the fabric clinging to her breasts, showing me exactly what I've been trying not to think about for two days.

I haven't wanted anyone since her. Told myself I didn't need it, didn't miss it. Built a life that worked without it.

Seeing her walk across a driveway makes me realize how much of that life was about not having her.

The clock on the wall reads 2:47am when I feel it.

Something's wrong.

I don't know what. Just that the quality of silence outside has changed in a way my body recognizes before my brain catches up.

Twelve years in the military taught me to read atmospheres, to know when quiet means safe and when it means someone's waiting.

This is the second kind.

I'm off the couch and moving before I've consciously decided to. Pull my boots back on, grab my cut, check the Glock in the lockbox by the door. It's loaded.

I slide it into my waistband and move to the window, staying back from the glass where I can see without being seen.

The street is empty. Francis's house is dark. Everything looks normal.

But it's not.

My phone buzzes. Tate.

"Perimeter breach," he says when I answer. "South entrance. Multiple bikes."

"I'm coming."

"Clint's calling everyone in."