Page 35 of Chains and Vows

Something feels different tonight. Not just the sex—though that was different too, less desperate and more... I don't know. Deliberate? Like we've crossed some invisible line together, stepped from one version of us into another.

"I found out I have a brother."

The words register slowly, then all at once. I twist around to face him, studying those blue eyes that somehow manage to look both ancient and brand new at the same time. "What?"

"Half brother, anyway," he adds, his expression unreadable in the low lantern light.

"How?" I blink, trying to make sense of it. "I mean… what?" A laugh bubbles up, surprising even me.

Legion laughs too, the sound rumbling through his chest against my palm. "I know, it's weird. But June, remember June?"

I nod, recalling the woman who'd given me a handkerchief at the club, Havoc's wife—now widow. The woman who'd told me about killing for the ones you love during a picnic.

"Turns out she comes from a biker family down in Custer, South Dakota. And after Havoc died, she went back there. It's the club my father came from. They're called Sons of Dust. And..." He laughs again, shaking his head. "You're not gonna believe this but, my half brother? His name is Lazarus. All tatted up like me. Even pres of his club like me. He fuckin' looks like me, Savannah. It's weird."

I sit up, the sheet pooling around my waist as I stare down at him. "There's two of you in this world?"

The idea feels impossible. One Legion Kane is enough to break the universe—two seems cosmically unfair.

Legion grins, that slow smile that starts at one corner of his mouth before claiming the whole thing. "Yeah, but his tattoos are way more fucked up."

I squint. "Fucked up how?"

"Like… rotting flesh and maggots. Biblical shit too, but darker. Like he's decaying right on the surface. Lazarus. The man who was dead four days, then Jesus brought him back. Didn't even ask if he wanted to come back, just… miracles, I guess. Laz is… serious about that name, I guess. Same way I am."

I make a face, not sure if I'm horrified or morbidly curious.

"And his bike—" Legion continues, his eyes lighting up the way they always do when he talks about engines and metal. "Let me tell ya, his bike is pretty fuckin' cool. He took this tiny Sportster and rebuilt it into something deadly. Hammered steel tank, wrapped headers, brass gone green with age. Not a speck of chrome. The kind of bike that looks poor but costs more than the pretty ones."

The description makes perfect sense coming from Legion—the appreciation of something raw and functional, deliberately rough around the edges. The kind of machine that doesn't announce its power but holds it close and ready.

Just like the man beside me.

I brush my fingers across his chest, feeling his heart still racing beneath my palm. Two Legion Kanes. The thought makes something shift inside me—not jealousy, exactly, but a strange possessiveness I'm not used to feeling.

There might be two of them in the world, but there's only one in my bed, in my life, in my heart.

And that's all that matters.

"There's a bunch of shit happenin' right now, Savannah. Me and the club. Cash." He eyes me, for a moment. "And Marcus."

I don't ask what he's talkin' about.

I don't know for sure. But I can guess.

All I see when he says these words is the red dirt he was wearin’ that night we looked at his book.

And anyway, I don't need to ask.

"Cash is up to somethin'," is my reply. "And I don't wanna know what it is. He asked me to find some things Eleanor had hidden in the photo vault today. And so I did. And I guess he got what he needed. Marcus's name was on these documents."

Legion is playing with my hair, listening to me. Not commenting.

"I don't know what any of it means, but he's an ugly man. And if Eleanor was keeping secrets about him, directing Cash to do things over the years—which is all he told me—she had a reason. And so… I got to thinkin' that maybe… I didn't really know her. That I might've gotten the part about me wrong, just like I got the part about you wrong."

"Well," Legion says, "since you don't wanna know, I won't tell ya. And you don't need to know, Savannah. It's gettin' taken care of." He lets out a long breath. "This world, ya know? It's a lot uglier than I thought it was. And I was picturin' a pretty ugly place."

"Yeah. I was sorta thinkin' the same thing this morning."