I raise a brow. “Queen shit?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. I just like making you uncomfortable.”
“Congratulations.”
I touch his shoulder once as I pass. “Guard mean, Derby. But let the door stay hers.”
His jaw tightens.
Then he nods.
I go downstairs.
The main room has changed again. It’s still the Kings’ clubhouse, still rough, still smelling of leather, bourbon, smoke,and every sin imaginable, but the energy has shifted into purpose. That’s how this place works. Chaos comes through the gate, and the men either make a joke out of it, a fight out of it, or a plan.
Tonight, they are making a plan.
Legend stands at the long table with the old photograph in front of him. Whiskey sits beside him with a notebook open, phone pressed to his ear. Wildcat is near the bar, sorting through the items from Amelia’s truck with more care than he shows most engines. Royal isn’t at the table anymore. He stands in the far corner near one of the old cell doors, half in shadow, gaze unfocused in the way it gets when his mind is somewhere ugly.
Legend doesn’t look up when I enter.
He knows it’s me.
I can tell by the way his shoulders ease before his face does.
“She settled?” he asks.
“Enough.”
“Kid?”
“Asleep.”
“Derby?”
“Trying very hard not to care.”
That gets a low sound from Whiskey that might be a laugh.
Legend finally looks up. “This ain’t funny.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not.”
He studies my face and hears the rest.
I’m worried.
Not only about Amelia.
About him.
About the photograph beneath his hand.
About a father who keeps becoming more complicated because the dead can’t defend themselves and don’t deserve full defense anyway.
I walk to the table and touch the back of Legend’s wrist. His hand is curled beside the photograph, not quite touching it. Mike Welles smiles from the paper like nothing he does will ever have consequences.