Page 13 of Damron (Bloody Scythes MC #1)

I catalogued the detail. “Security camera footage?”

She shook her head. “The feds took everything. Won’t even let my campaign manager see the footage.”

I laughed, sharp and humorless. “Maybe you should have married a cop.”

She smiled back, thin and crooked. “Didn’t want someone who’d shoot me when I wasn’t looking.”

The silence was a weight on the bed between us. I could see the old Carly in there, the one who didn’t take shit and didn’t apologize for it. But there was something new, a kind of calculation I’d never noticed before.

“They said you wanted to see me,” I said. I assumed that was why no one stopped me from entering the room, though most men, when confronted by an outlaw biker, just steps aside.

She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek. “You’re the only one I trust to find out who did this. You know this world, Damron. I need your help.”

The last word was almost a dare. I let it hang.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “But I’m not here to play bodyguard or do PR for your campaign. If I get a name, I’ll handle it my way.”

She met my eyes, no flinch. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

I stayed standing. She didn’t ask me to sit, and I wouldn’t have if she had.

I looked around the room again, at the way it tried so hard to look like anywhere but a place where people came to bleed out or die.

I caught my own reflection in the window—a scarecrow in black leather, hair graying at the edges, eyes cold enough to freeze water.

For a moment, I saw us both: the woman she’d become, the man I’d always been, and the canyon that had opened between us.

How the fuck could I still be in love with a woman who walked?

I turned to go, pausing at the door.

“You get any more memories, or they let you out of here, you call me. Not your campaign. Me.”

She smiled again, softer this time. “Still giving orders, huh?”

“Some things don’t change,” I said, and closed the door behind me.

I lasted all of twelve minutes on the curb before the needling voice in my head forced me back inside.

Hospitals made me itch. The whole place was an open wound: that click of cart wheels, the distant echo of crying, the constant shuffle of people running from the things they couldn’t fix.

I should have hit the road, let the pros handle their investigation, but instead I stalked the perimeter of Carly’s wing, replaying every second of our last five years in the space between heartbeats.

The second time I went in, I didn’t bother knocking. She was sitting up, punching letters into her phone with her good hand, eyes glassy but focused. The machine by her head beeped at steady intervals, like a countdown I wasn’t privy to. She looked up and set her jaw.

“You back to gloat?” she said.

I closed the door behind me, more gently than I meant to. “Don’t flatter yourself. Still no leads?”

She tapped the screen. “FBI’s pretending I don’t exist unless I’m on a podium. No suspect, no statement, nothing. I’m supposed to go into hiding, but you know how I feel about running away from a fight.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s what made you interesting.”

She shot me a look. I let it pass. There was a mountain of things we weren’t going to say, and we both knew it.

I leaned against the wall, arms folded. The room felt smaller this time, the ceiling lower, the smell of antiseptic worse. Maybe it was just that the air between us was getting thicker.

“You know they’re saying it’s the club, right?” I said, voice low. “That it’s retaliation for the bill you’re pushing.”

She didn’t blink. “You mean the bill that would keep fifteen-year-olds from stripping for your drunk friends? Yeah, I know.”

“Don’t get sanctimonious, Carly. You know that’s not what it is.”

She glared. “Isn’t it? How many girls in your payroll got a real choice? How many are out there because they want to be, not because someone like you made it seem like the only way to eat?”

I felt my jaw tense. “You think you’re some savior now? Like you didn’t know exactly what this life was when you married me?”

She actually laughed. “You’re right. I did. I just thought I could bend it toward something better. But you—you never wanted better. Just wanted it yours.”

I stepped closer to the bed, the floor shifting under me with every word. “You talk like you’re better than us, but your donors throw more private strip parties in a year than my girls see in a lifetime. At least we pay ours above minimum wage. They take home more than your campaign manager.”

She looked at me, really looked, and for a second her face softened. “You still care what I think, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

She shifted, pain evident, but refused to show it in her voice. “You want to know why I called? It’s not just about the shooter. It’s about you, Damron. The bill—yeah, it hurts the club. But it also hurts you. And I guess, deep down, I didn’t want to see you lose the only thing you ever loved.”

I bristled. “Maybe I did love something else, once.”

She didn’t flinch. “That’s what scares me.”

I felt the rage building, that old familiar warmth in my chest, but underneath was something colder and harder.

I put my hands on either side of her bed, looming, and locked her in place with my shadow.

“Here’s the deal,” I said, each word heavy.

“I’ll keep you alive until this election is over.

You get my protection, full stop. But you kill that bill. ”

She met my eyes, drugged but clear. “I can’t.”

“You can. You’re the best goddamn liar I ever met.”

She smiled, lips thin and bloodless. “I’m not lying this time. And you know it.”

I slammed my palm on the metal rail. It rang through the room, and I saw the wince she tried to hide.

“You left the club, you left me, and now you want to torch everything on your way out the door. For what? So you can feel clean?”

She leaned forward, inches from my face, all pretense burned away. “So I can live with myself. And so can you, if you try.”

I recoiled, not because I was scared, but because for a second she’d nailed something true and raw inside me.

“You never did know how to let go,” I said, voice almost gentle.

“Neither did you,” she replied, voice just above a whisper.

The silence roared. I straightened up, the anger draining as fast as it had come.

All that was left was a hollow, bottomless ache—like my heart.

She’d never give in, and I’d never stop wanting her to.

The world spun on, meaner than both of us.

I turned on my heel, walked to the door, and yanked it open.

She called my name, but I didn’t answer. Not this time.

In the hallway, I let my fist fly into the drywall. The crunch felt righteous. A red spray bloomed on the white, and the nurses down the hall all pretended not to see. I flexed my hand, blood pooling in the creases of my knuckles.

I’d keep her alive. That was the deal. But after that, all bets were off.