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When Havoc loses his temper and roars “silence” into the room, I pinch Lil’s clit. She comes with a gasp, her eyes rolling into the back of her head, her breathing rough and jagged as if she had just run a marathon.

I slip my fingers from her pussy and slide them into my mouth. “Hmmm, fucking delicious.”

“I don’t have all the answers, and for that I’m sorry. I will do my best to protect each of you, but we are blinded by our inability to find this guy, making it impossible to predict his next target. Now, I understand that some of you may be more comfortable packing up and leaving for a while, especially those with kids. I think it’s a good idea. I know I’d feel the same way. If you need help, all you need to do is ask. We have people who can take care of packing, transportation, and can find you a temporary place to stay with one of our allied clubs if you need it. There is no shame in hiding. Smart people are the ones who know when to retreat.”

More voices, but it’s less chaotic now. A lot of people with young families voice their interest in leaving, some feeling guilty for doing so. But Havoc absolves them of that guilt, making it sound like they’re doing him a favor by leaving.

“He’s a good president,” I say to Lil, who rests her head on my shoulder.

“He is. I think Tink is his anchor and Lola the mirror. No leader is infallible. He fucked up in a way that I’m not sure I could forgive if it were me he wronged, but Lola is a better woman than I.”

“No one is a better woman than you.”

She rolls her eyes at me as Marie from the ice cream parlor stands up. “This is my home, my family. I will not run and hide. That is not to shame those who are leaving. Your children need protecting, and that is always the most important thing. But my children have grown. My nieces, too. I will not stand here and show them that we bow to bullies. No sir. Not in Raven Falls. You tell me about this man, tell us all, and we’ll be ready. We might not be as smart or as rich or have the connections he does, but he knows nothing about this community if he thinks he can come in here and terrorize our children. We are not cowards.” She finishes on a yell that sounds like a war cry, making “here, here” ring out around the room.

“Fuck.”

I whip my head around to look at Lil. She’s getting to her feet, her jeans fastened, her jacket over her arm.

“What’s wrong?”

She looks down at me before dipping her head and kissing me. “I’m going to arm them with the only weapon I have. Information.”

And then she steps around me and moves down the aisle.

Chapter Twenty

LIL

Now is the time to be brave. If we want this town to stand with us, I have to prepare to get on my knees for them. I brought him here. There is no way to reframe that, but Powers is right. I can’t take the blame for everything, or it will push me over the ledge I’m barely clinging to. I can’t shake the guilt—lord knows I’ve tried—so maybe it’s time for a different approach. Instead of running, it’s time to start fighting back.

As I walk toward where Havoc stands, I tell my story. Not the part about Lil. As far as they know, she died in a boating accident. It’s too complicated for me to explain that she was the one who came here, and I followed. They might then have feelings of betrayal and mistrust, and right now we don’t have time for that.

Havoc gives my shoulder a squeeze when I reach the front, but instead of stepping away, he stands beside me, lending me his support. Then Powers walks toward me as my voice grows hoarse. He stands on the other side of me and weaves his fingers through mine, fingers that only minutes ago were inside me.

I feel my face flush again—damn this fair skin of mine—and dip my head as I get to the part about running away and ending up here, where I built a life for myself and found a family I love and a town I adore.

By the time I’m done, I have tears in my eyes, and all the club brothers and the old ladies in attendance stand behind me in solidarity, further healing the wound I inflicted when I abandoned them.

“This man needs to be smacked in the face with a very big skillet, no?” Marie announces, making the whole room crack up.

Her husband, John, gets up, shaking his head, amused. “I mean, she’s not wrong, but I’m more of a shotgun man than a skillet-wielding one. What I do know is that my beautiful wife is correct. This is our town. These are our people. And you, Lil, might not have been born here, but you’re one of us. Don’t think we haven’t noticed all the things you do quietly behind the scenes to make our lives easier. We see you, and we appreciate you, and like fuck are we letting this filthy fuckhead get his hands on you.”

I gasp, shocked and warmed by his words, especially when the crowd agrees with him.

“We need a plan,” Mike from the feed store says.

“I’m all ears,” Havoc says cordially. Again, I’m struck by how he’s so different than most presidents, who keep their shit to the clubhouse and actively keep the town’s residents in the dark. And I guess that works for some. But here, looking at these people who owe us nothing, people who have been pulled into a fight that’s not theirs, who are standing up and saying they won’t go quietly, makes me want to hug each and every one of them.

I look up at Havoc, who must feel my eyes on him because he looks down at me. “What?”

“Don’t tell Blade this, but you’re the best president this town ever had.”

His smile starts small before growing wider. He kisses the crown of my head before turning back to the crowd, who are firing out ideas.

“We have the right to refuse service so that we can lock the town down temporarily to strangers. Tourist season is pretty much over anyway, and the last thing we want is them getting caught up in this anyway,” Karl from the diner states. A few people agree, but I can see others are worried about the loss in revenue.

“What about if you show us what this asshole looks like so we can be on the lookout for him?”