We stopped sharing the almost empty bottle of Jack as the roar of a Harley cut through the uneasy silence that was too full for something as trivial as words.

“You go meet them,” the man said, slamming the bottle down with more force than necessary. “Gotta make a call.”

I bet he did. I was surprised he hadn’t already been on the phone to his chapter. Nothing like this had happened—to any chapter—in the time I’d been with the club. This was going to cause waves throughout the country.

Cause a fucking tsunami.

But I guessed he needed a second. Something inside that almost empty bottle to make the call.

I nodded once and pushed off the stool.

“Cade.” I heard his low voice greet the Amber president before I left his earshot.

The empty coldness returned around the same time I stopped hearing his voice. I didn’t inspect that.

By the time I got outside, two figures had gotten off the bike, illuminated in the harsh security lights I’d switched on.

Though the need for security had come and gone.

“I told you not to bring Macy,” I said, frowning as Hansen strode forward, his wife’s hand clasped in his, the other holding his piece, safety off.

It had taken him ten minutes to get here.

His and Macy’s place was a twenty-minute drive away.

Hansen raised a brow, the movement in direct contrast with his expression, that looked like granite. He was a man that was used to control, yet he got a vague but dire call from a club whore on Christmas Eve and knew nothing more than things were mad. I wasn’t surprised he was uneasy. “You met Macy?” he growled. “You think she’s gonna listen to me? She goes where she wants, which is usually exactly where I don’t want her to be.”

I wanted to grin. Because he was right. Another thing I liked about Macy, the strength of her spirit. I didn’t show her I liked those things, of course. That wasn’t me.

I didn’t do friendships with women.

Or anyone.

“You don’t need that.” I nodded to the gun in his hand.

Hansen stopped in front of me, positioning Macy slightly behind him. He glanced into the clubhouse with a wary eye, a practiced eye. He was feeling the death in the air too.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

I glanced to Macy for a split second, my eyes flickering down to the small but noticeable bump protruding from her stomach, almost hesitating in saying anything with her present.

Almost.

I didn’t spare people’s feelings.

“They’re all dead,” I replied, meeting Hansen’s eyes once more.

He froze, didn’t blink, didn’t seem to breathe.

Macy’s gasp was a howl in the ensuing silence.

“All of them?” Hansen whispered.

I nodded, not looking at Macy because I was a coward. “All the girls too.”

She let out a little cry and I pretended it didn’t affect me.

Hansen jerked, like he’d been shot, his arms around his wife visibly tightened but his expression didn’t change. He was a military man, he was used to death. Having to go on in the face of it.

“Grim?” he asked.

The man from inside strode out and Hansen met his eyes, gripping his piece tighter for a second before recognition sparked in his eyes.

“You’re lookin’ to be the only surviving member of this chapter, brother,” he said, stopping beside me.

Hansen didn’t make a move to greet the man physically, still holding tight onto his wife. I was guessing it was the only thing keeping that even and controlled look on his face, holding onto the living, breathing Macy.

I got it.

Not that I’d ever had anyone to hold onto like that in my life. But there was something about the way they were together, the rightness of it all, that sent twinges into my hollow heart.

Heat rippled through that hollow heart as the man—whose name I still hadn’t got—settled in beside me, closer than two strangers should stand. Not that I was used to bikers respecting my personal space. My role in the club meant I forfeited the right to personal space, but this was different, intimate.

My body yearned to touch his, to tuck myself into his large form the way Macy was tucked in Hansen’s.

I shook that poisonous thought off before it could take root.

Luckily the man beside me spoke. Not that it helped, his voice was gravelly, a fucking caress on my spine.

“My brothers are comin’ up at first light,” he said. “All of them.”

Hansen frowned, resting his hand on the swell of Macy’s stomach. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. “’Preciate it, but your club, mostly all the members have wives. Families. It’s Christmas.”

The crystal cold eyes that I was inspecting narrowed. “And this is family. These are our brothers. It might be Christmas, but it’s also time for revenge. For blood.”

There was a loaded pause as the words settled into the air.

Hansen nodded. “I don’t disagree.” He paused, glancing into the direction of the clubhouse. “Fuck,” he hissed, turning to Macy, wiping at her tears with the back of his thumb and kissing her head. He murmured in her ear.

Me and the man beside me were forced to uncomfortably witness their grief, the way they sought comfort in each other, showing an intimacy that shouldn’t be witnessed by two people who would never have it. I may have only just met the man beside me, but it wasn’t hard to see the coldness in his eyes, the way it cut to the bone. People like us didn’t get that.

Or maybe I was just pretending to armchair analyze him so I didn’t feel so fucking alone.

Hansen looked up. “We need to clear out shit that could get us in hot water whenever we eventually get the cops in here.”

I raised my brow at the man in somewhat of a silent triumph. His returning stare was something more than that. Something much more.

“Mace, I want you to go home,” Hansen said gently, turning to his wife.

She stiffened, tears drying on her cheeks. “No way in hell am I leaving you to deal with this alone.” I was proud of the iron in her words, despite the fact she was crumbling with grief.

He stroked her jaw. “Our son is at home, he needs his mom on Christmas.”

She narrowed her eyes, leaning slightly out of his grasp to make her point, but obviously not willing to leave it completely. “Our son is at home, diligently sleeping and waiting for a strange man to intrude into his bedroom and leave him presents,” she bit back. “He needs to stay in that happy delusion for as long as he can. And he’s being taken care of by Arianne. She would take down a pack of wolves. She’s good.”

I agreed with that fact. Arianne was Macy’s best friend. A semi-regular club girl. She was hard in all the ways I was, yet soft in all the ways I wasn’t. She wasn’t looking for anything serious because something dark had happened to her. Something I recognized but didn’t ask about. Talking about one’s demons brought them back to life.

Hansen sighed in defeat, as was regular in any argument with his tiny wife.

“We need someone to watch the house,” he said, half to himself.

“Jagger was on a run,” I offered, inwardly thankful another member of the club had been saved.

Hansen’s eyes jerked to me, then his body visibly sagged in relief as my words sunk in. “Call him,” he ordered.

I nodded once.

I realized I was now in front of the new club president.

And it was now well after midnight.

Officially Christmas.

Christmas with the corpses of most of the Sons of Templar MC.

* * *

Hansen had commanded Macy to stay outside, though it was cold and he was usually all chivalrous about such things.

“I got a choice between leavin’ my pregnant wife outside in the middle of Christmas night or takin’ her inside to see everyone she loves dead,” he muttered, sounding as close to distraught as an alpha male like him could sound.

“I got her,” I said, surprising him and myself.

His eyes were hard on me.

“I got her,” I repeated, walking over to them to gently squeeze Macy’s hand in mine.

I didn’t have much affection in me, but whatever I had, I was going to give to her.

She squeezed my hand back, gave her husband a kiss and stepped out of his arms. She stood straight, of her own accord, despite the sorrow I knew was weighing on her shoulders.

I was impressed with her.

Proud of her.

Hansen gave her another conflicted look before striding toward the clubhouse.

The man with no name did the same to me, though it didn’t make sense. I didn’t break his stare either.

Macy and I watched the men stride into the clubhouse, silent.

We stayed that way for a long time, holding hands, staring at the place that had meant a lot of different things for the both of us.

But it had saved us, in different ways. As much as we could be saved.

And it was burning, if not literally, in spirit at least.

I didn’t know how long we’d spent standing there, staring at the clubhouse, not moving, despite the chill in the air.

My hands were numb, but so was everything else, on the outside and inside. I hadn’t dressed appropriately. I was wearing a leather mini skirt, thigh high boots, a crop top, and a thin coat.

I hadn’t planned on wearing these clothes for long.

Definitely not long enough to lose feeling in my extremities. I had planned on them lying on the floor of some biker’s room, where I could pretend I had feelings on the inside.

Macy fared better, as she had been prepared to be on the bike, which meant she was wrapped up warm. Though she still shivered every now and then.

I didn’t think that had anything to do with the temperature.

“Do you believe in God?” she whispered, coating the silent and frigid air with her fractured and grief-stricken voice.

She was still staring at the clubhouse.

“No,” I answered.

Her head turned to me. “Really? Nothing?”

I shook my own head. “There’s nothing to believe in. No reason to believe in it.”

She inspected me, her eyes shimmering with tears she wasn’t letting fall. “Hope,” she said. “That’s a reason to believe in something. Hope that there’s a plan. A reason...” She trailed off, her voice breaking. She sucked in a ragged breath. “That there’s a reason for the pain, for the horror. Hope that something will come to take some of it away. Give you something more.”

I should’ve lied to her. Agreed with her. Said that there was hope. That this night was the part of a bigger and greater plan. But I wasn’t a liar.

“No, Mace,” I said quietly. “Hope is not something created by some mystical man in the sky who may or may not exist.” I glanced to the building again. “Hope was created by the being much more likely to exist. The one who specializes in pain and torture. Hope is the most effective and special kind of torture. It works from the inside out. It won’t save a person. It’ll ruin them.”

She frowned at me. “You believe in the Devil, therefore you’ve gotta believe in something resembling God.”

I smiled. I knew Macy wasn’t religious, she was spiritual. She had faith, something the world hadn’t drummed out of her, despite her ugly past. “No, the Devil’s greatest trick wasn’t convincing the world he didn’t exist, it was convincing the world that God does.”

She blinked at me rapidly but didn’t answer because the creak of the door signaled the men’s return.

“Right,” Hansen said, emerging from the clubhouse, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans.

Macy was on him in an instant.

He snatched her like a life raft, pressing his head into her hair for a beat before he tucked her into his shoulder.

“We need to get some sleep,” he said. “I’ve got a son to get back to.” He rubbed Macy’s bump, glancing to the man who had walked out with him. The man whose ice-blue eyes glowed in the night and were fastened on me. “We’ll give ourselves a few hours before we call this in. Your brothers will be arriving around then?”

He nodded once.

“Okay, fuck,” he muttered. “Guess we’ll figure out places for them to stay. Food.”

“I’ve got it,” I said.

He glanced up at me in surprise.

“I’ve been here long enough to know that kind of shit. I’ve got this...” I trailed off as headlines blinded us and a car screeched into the parking lot.

Both men had their guns out in an instant, Hansen yanking Macy behind his back, and my unnamed man, interestingly doing the same with me.

I hand my own gun out only a millisecond later.

“Too slow,” he muttered, not glancing back.

“Asshole,” I murmured.

But we were tense, ready for a battle. More blood. Because this didn’t feel over. Whatever this was. There was more pain to come. There was always more pain to come.

The car in the parking lot became illuminated. Familiar, and a woman folded out of it, the sound of her heels deafening on the concrete.

Hansen immediately lowered his gun.

I did the same, as did my man.

Wait, did I just call him my man? What the fuck?

Linda—Grim’s wife and the biker queen of our chapter—stopped halfway to us, glancing at everyone’s faces, the blood covering the men. Her expression was hard, resigned. Despite the hour, her face was still flawless, smeared heavily with makeup. Silver jewelry dripped from her body. She was put together.

On the outside.

“He’s dead then,” she deduced, voice as empty as her expression.

Hansen nodded once, eyes hard.

“Right,” she breathed out. Her eyes met mine for half a second and she held my gaze. Then she focused on the man in front of me. “You’ve called your brothers in Amber, they’re on their way?” Her voice was even. Free of whatever grief should’ve been there seconds after she learned the death of her husband.

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, they’re gonna need places to stay, food. Most importantly, booze,” she muttered to herself. Her head snapped up. “You call me ma’am again, you won’t be wearing my husband’s blood, but your own too. And you’ll be able to yell at him for me for dyin’ like this.” Her voice broke, only slightly at the end. A tiny crack in an otherwise perfect façade.

“Fair enough,” he said.

I ached to give the woman I’d known and respected for years some respite, to help somehow. “I’ve got it under control, you—”

“I’m sure you do have it under control,” she interrupted me. “But you’ve also been up all night and this isn’t gonna get any easier. You’re gonna go home, have a stiff drink, and a coupla hours. This isn’t me giving you a break, this is me givin’ you a rest before laying some heavy weight on you.” She regarded me. “You can handle it. And even if you couldn’t, I’d give it to you anyway.”

She looked to the man beside me—not my man. “You’re not gonna admit it, you’re dead on your feet too. You got somewhere to catch some sleep?”

It was unspoken that no one was going to slumber in the clubhouse, surrounded by corpses.

“No, but there’s a motel—”

“He can stay with me,” I interrupted him.

All eyes went to me.

There was a small grin in Linda’s eyes, which I would’ve thought impossible in the proximity to her learning about her husband’s death. But this was a unique woman.

A fucking warrior.

I wanted to be her when I grew up.

But I wasn’t likely to grow into anything more than what I was now. The past had stunted me. The present worked to do the same.

I met his dark gaze. “I mean, I can’t promise much of an improvement to Motel Six, but I’ve got booze.”

He didn’t hesitate, something moving behind his eyes, something that sent a wave of warmth down my body. “My bike’s there.” He jerked his head to the left.

“I’ve got my car.”

“My bike’s there,” he repeated. His intention was clear. He wanted me on the back of his bike. I’d been in this world for long enough to know what that meant. It was the biker version of going steady. But considering we hadn’t even fucked, let alone kissed, I was guessing it was for different reasons. But we’d discovered the bodies of our friends together, and that was more intimate than fucking.

I didn’t argue, you didn’t argue with patched members.

I gave Linda a look. “I’ll be back in two hours to help.”

She nodded. “You’ll be betting your ass you will be.”

I turned my gaze to Hansen and Macy. Macy’s tears had started again. I wished I was the kind of person who could give her a soft look, a hug. But that wasn’t me. So I just met her eyes for a second. She met mine, her gaze soft, comforting and understanding. Something I definitely couldn’t fucking handle.

I nodded to Hansen.

He nodded back.

I started in the direction of the sleek black Harley that almost melted into the darkness behind it.

“Scarlett,” Hansen called.

I turned back. “Thank you,” he said. “For tonight. You stepped up.”

I nodded once and then got on the bike.