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The room disperses. Brothers file out, some clapping Walker on the shoulder as they pass. A few glance at me—curiosity, wariness, grudging respect. I hold my head high and pretend I don’t feel the weight of their suspicion.

Walker is pulled into a huddle with Savage, Saint, and Crimson. Maps. Coordinates. The language of war. I hover at the edge, arms crossed, until Walker presses his lips to my temple and murmurs, “Give me an hour.”

I want to argue. Instead, I nod and drift toward the kitchen, drawn by the smell of coffee and the low murmur of female voices. Three women sit around the kitchen table, and every single one of them looks up when I walk in.

The silence is immediate. Heavy. The kind that presses against your eardrums and dares you to break it. I don’t break it. I walk to the coffeepot, pour myself a mug, and take a sip. It’s strong enough to strip paint. Perfect.

“Samuel Anderson’s daughter.” The voice comes from the woman directly across from me. Long dark hair, athletic build, sharp blue-grey eyes that look like they’ve cataloged seventeen ways to kill me since I walked through the door. She sits with her boots propped on the table, a knife handle visible in her boot, arms crossed. “Didn’t think we’d ever see one of those walking around without a body bag.”

“Raven.” This comes from the older woman beside her. Mama M, I’m guessing. She’s got that look, steel wrapped in warmth, the kind of woman who’ll feed you soup and then break your fingers if you cross her. Silver threads through dark hair pulled into a bun, reading glasses perched on her nose, but nothing about her is soft. “Let the girl breathe.”

“She’s breathing fine,” Raven says, not looking away from me. “Just want to make sure she’s breathing for the right reasons.”

I set my mug down and meet her stare. “And what reasons would those be?”

“Living. Not spying.” One dark eyebrow lifts. “Hard to tell the difference with your bloodline.”

The third woman snorts. She’s younger, maybe my age, with blonde-brown hair tied back in a ponytail and the kind of posture that says she lifts people for a living. Paramedic, based on the jacket hanging over her chair. She leans back, arms folded, and looks me over with the kind of clinical assessment that strips away pretense.

“She’s not spying,” the blonde says. “If she were, she’d be subtler. That t-shirt’s three sizes too big, and she’s got hickeys on her neck. That’s not covert ops. That’s just bad judgment.”

“Harper.” Mama M’s tone carries warning.

“What? I call it like I see it.” Harper shrugs, unapologetic. “She boned the Nomad, stabbed him, saved his life, and killed a man in our basement. That’s not a resume, it’s a soap opera.”

I can’t help it. I laugh. It’s short, sharp, surprised out of me before I can catch it.

Three pairs of eyes snap to my face.

“Something funny?” Raven asks.

“Your assessment of my life choices.” I take another sip of coffee. “You’re not wrong.”

“I’m rarely wrong.” Raven’s smirk is razor-thin. “Doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“Good.” I meet her gaze. “Trusting people gets you killed. Samuel taught me that.”

Something shifts in Raven’s eyes. A flicker of recognition. Of understanding. She’s been on the other side of a man like my father—I can see it in the way she holds herself, the wariness that lives in her bones like a permanent fracture. She knows what it costs to survive someone who’s supposed to protect you.

“Sit down,” Mama M says, gesturing to the empty chair. “You’re making the room nervous standing there like that.”

I sit. The chair scrapes against linoleum, and the sound is too loud in the quiet.

Mama M pushes a plate toward me. Scrambled eggs. Toast. Bacon. The kind of breakfast that says, “I fed you, so now you’re mine to protect,” even if she doesn’t mean it that way yet.

“Eat,” she orders. “You look like a strong wind could carry you off.”

“I’ve been told I’m hard to kill.”

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat.” Her eyes are sharp behind those reading glasses, missing nothing. “When’s the last time you had a real meal?”

I think about it and can’t remember. “Define real.”

“Lord have mercy.” Mama M shakes her head and piles more eggs on my plate without asking. “These men. They’ll burn the world down for a woman but forget she needs to eat.”

“Men are idiots,” Harper agrees cheerfully. “Professionally speaking. I patch them up constantly, and it’s always the same. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Then they pass out from blood loss, and I have to explain to their old lady why her man is lying in a ditch.”

“Walker’s worse than most,” I admit. “He got stabbed and tried to ride a motorcycle.”