Sophie comes downstairs and sits beside her at the long table, angled toward Amelia like a shield in a silk blouse and boots. My fiancée doesn’t have to say a word to get in my way. She’s made an art out of it. One hand rests near Amelia’s, not touching, just there. Giving the woman space and support at the same time.
That kind of thing don’t come natural to me.
I protect with locked gates, loaded guns, and men posted in the dark.
Sophie protects by making a woman believe the floor will hold. Sophie’s hand stays near Amelia’s, steady as a promise I’ve already tested too hard. I don’t deserve how easily she stands beside me.
I know that.
I just don’t know how to stop needing it.
Derby stands behind Amelia’s chair with his arms folded, pretending he doesn’t give a damn. He’s doing a piss-poor job of it. His gaze keeps cutting toward the stairs where the kid is asleep, then back to the front door, then to Amelia’s pale face. He looks like a man who brought home a stray dog and is pissed to find out it’s bleeding.
Whiskey has been called from the Fire Pit. Wildcat is out in the yard going through Amelia’s truck for trackers, wires, tags, anything that don’t belong. Oaks is somewhere outside the gate with two prospects, because the second Derby said the name Vale, the night stopped being simple.
I don’t know Jeremy Vale personally.
I know the name.
That’s enough.
In our world, names travel before men do. They come on receipts, rumors, debt sheets, police whispers, church rosters, and the mouths of people who think trading information will buy them another day breathing. Vale ain’t a big name, not in the way a chapter president is a big name or a county judge is a big name. But it touches too many corners.
And now it touches the woman who says she’s my sister.
Too damn many coincidences have been crawling out of the dark lately.
Royal’s sister shows up carrying her own wreckage. Now mine does too.
The Pearly Gates keep reaching with clean hands and rotten fingers. The Depraved Sinners haven’t been quiet enough for my liking.
“Start again,” I say.
Amelia looks up at me.
She’s tired enough that anger and fear keep trading places on her face. Her eyes are swollen. Her hair is coming loose from a messy knot. She wears a shirt that’s been slept in or cried in, maybe both, and jeans dusty from the road. There’s a bruise near her wrist, half-hidden by her sleeve.
That bruise bothers me.
I don’t let it show.
“If you’re asking because you didn’t hear me,” she says, voice thin but steady, “I can repeat it. If you’re asking because you think I’m lying, I don’t know how saying it twice fixes that.”
Derby’s mouth twitches.
Sophie looks down like she’s hiding a smile.
I ain’t amused.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
Amelia hesitates.
That hesitation has teeth.
“Originally?” she asks.
“Yes.”