We rounded the corner onto Fifth Street, and my steps faltered.

Something was wrong. The morning light hit the shelter parking lot at an angle that turned everything golden, but there was a dark shape where my van should have been. A shadow that didn't make sense, geometry all wrong, like someone had taken my home and twisted it into modern art.

"No." The word came out small, lost in the morning air.

My feet moved faster, then faster still, until I was running. Dex called my name but I couldn't stop, couldn't slow down, couldn't process what my eyes were trying to tell me because it wasn't possible. It wasn't fair. It wasn't—

The smell hit. Burned rubber and melted plastic, gasoline and char, the acrid stench of destruction that coated the back of my throat like paint.

My van—my lifeline, my sanctuary, my one hope for when I lost my apartment—was a blackened skeleton of twisted metal and ash.

The windows had exploded outward, leaving gaping holes ringed with melted glass.

The tires were puddles of rubber. The roof had partially caved in, revealing the twisted remains of what had been my entire world.

My knees hit the wet asphalt hard enough to hurt, but the pain felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.

Another wave of pain. Mom’s van was gone.

"No, no, no . . ." The words tumbled out, over and over, like if I said them enough times I could rewind reality. Make it yesterday. Make it last week. Make it any time before my life became ash and twisted metal.

My hands reached toward the wreckage, shaking so hard I could barely control them.

The side door had melted partially open, and through the gap I could see the remains of my life.

The scorched corner of what might have been my mother's quilt.

A puddle of melted plastic that used to be storage containers.

The metal frame of what had been my bed, now warped beyond recognition.

Thank God I had taken Mr. Friendly with me to the shelter last night.

"Cleo." Dex's voice behind me, careful and low. "Don't touch anything. It's not safe."

Not safe. Like anything in my life had been safe. Like I'd ever had a single thing that couldn't be taken away. But this—this was different. This was deliberate. This was personal.

That's when I saw it.

The graffiti sprawled across the shelter's brick wall in dripping green letters, still wet enough to glisten in the morning sun. The words hit like physical blows, each one a fist to the gut:

"Your daddy wants what's his, princess. We know where you live."

The world tilted. My vision went gray at the edges, and I would have fallen if my knees weren't already grinding into asphalt.

Daddy. Princess. The words he'd called me when I was small, when I still believed in happy endings and fathers who stayed.

Before I learned that little girls were just possessions to be discarded when they became inconvenient.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of staying off the grid, of avoiding social media, of keeping my head down and praying he'd forgotten I existed. Fifteen years of building a life in the shadows of his abandonment, careful never to draw attention that might lead back to him.

All for nothing.

The shelter door scraped open and Elena emerged into the morning light looking like she'd aged five years overnight. Her usually perfect bun hung loose and crooked, wisps of gray hair escaping to frame a face marked by exhaustion and worry.

"Cleo, honey, I'm so sorry." She dropped to her knees beside me, arms wrapping around my shoulders without hesitation.

She smelled like industrial disinfectant and the vanilla hand lotion she kept in her desk drawer—familiar scents that made my chest cave in with longing for normal mornings.

Normal problems. "The police were here all morning, asking questions about the fire, about that. .. message."

I could picture it—squad cars in the parking lot, volunteers being questioned, the shelter's routine disrupted by my mere existence.

Elena's arms tightened around me, but I could feel the tremor in them. Could sense the words building behind her teeth, the ones she didn't want to say. Her face twisted with the kind of pain that came from having to hurt someone you cared about.

"I can't have you volunteering here anymore." The words fell between us like stones into still water, ripples spreading outward until they touched everything. "Not if it puts our other volunteers at risk. Or the families we serve. I'm so sorry, Cleo. If there was any other way—"

"I understand." My voice came out steady, automatic. The same tone I'd used when the hospital administrator explained about payment plans. When the funeral director outlined the cheapest cremation options. "Of course. You have to protect everyone."

"Your background check." Elena's voice pulled me back. "When you started volunteering. There was no mention of . . . of any connection to motorcycle clubs."

Because I'd been so careful. Used my mother's maiden name on applications. Kept my head down, my social media nonexistent, my paper trail as thin as legally possible. All to avoid this exact moment.

"He left when I was seven." The words tasted like rust. "I haven't seen him since."

"What will you do?" Elena asked softly. "Where will you go?"

Nowhere. Nothing. Nobody.

The words echoed in the hollow spaces where my sense of self used to live. I opened my mouth to lie, to say I had plans, had options, had anything beyond the clothes on my back and the catastrophic realization that you could run for fifteen years and never get far enough away.

"I don't have anywhere to go." The truth leaked out like blood from a wound. "I don't have anything left."

That's when the dam broke entirely. Fifteen years of carefully controlled grief, of measured responses to crisis, of being strong because what other choice was there—all of it crumbled under the weight of losing everything twice.

"Elena." Dex's voice cut through my breakdown, low and steady. I'd almost forgotten he was there, standing guardian while my world imploded. "Can we talk? Privately?"

They moved a few feet away, voices dropping to murmurs I couldn't process through the static in my head.

I stared at the van's remains, trying to comprehend that my entire life had been reduced to a crime scene.

Trying to understand how a man who'd found me too burdensome to keep could suddenly decide I was worth hunting down.

Through the fog of memory and grief, I heard Dex's voice rise slightly: "—Heavy Kings' protection. No arguments."

I pushed back against the static in my head, then I heard Dex's voice like gravel over glass: "You can stay at my place. Temporarily. Give you the club's protection."

Every muscle in my body locked up like someone had dumped ice water in my veins. Stay with him. With a biker. In his space, under his rules, dependent on his goodwill.

"I can't." The words came out cracked and desperate. My hands found the asphalt again, needing something solid while the world spun off its axis. "I can't do that."

"You can't stay on the streets." His voice stayed level, reasonable, like we were discussing weather instead of me putting my life in the hands of another man who wore leather and rode chrome. "Not with the Serpents hunting you."

"There are other shelters—" Even as I said it, I knew how stupid it sounded. Shelters with waiting lists. Shelters that required ID I no longer had. Shelters where the Serpents could find me as easily as they'd found my van.

"Cleo." My name in his mouth sounded different than when others said it. Careful but firm. "I need you to tell me something. Your father—what's his name?"

The question hit like a punch to the solar plexus. Fifteen years of not saying it out loud, of pretending Rhett Brown was just a ghost story my mother told. Of believing if I never spoke his name, he couldn't find me.

"My father . . ." My throat closed around the words. I pressed my palms harder against the asphalt. "His name is Rhett." The words tasted like battery acid. "Rhett Brown."

The change in Dex was instant and terrifying. His whole body went rigid like someone had run electricity through him. His jaw clenched hard enough that I could hear teeth grinding. When he spoke, his voice came out different—harder, edged with something that might have been fear.

"Rhett 'Rattler' Brown." Not a question. A confirmation of my worst nightmares. "Enforcer for the Iron Serpents. Christ, Cleo."

Rattler. The road name hit me like a physical blow. Of course he had a road name. Of course the club had given him a new identity to go with his new life, one that didn't include a daughter named Cleo who needed inhalers and school supplies and a father who stayed.

"You know him?" But I already knew the answer. Saw it in the way Dex's hand had moved instinctively toward his phone, in the careful distance he suddenly kept between us like I might be contaminated.

"I know of him." He was already texting someone, fingers flying over the screen with urgent precision. "Every club in the state knows of him. He's—"

He stopped, seeming to realize he was about to tell me exactly what kind of monster my father had become in our absence. What kind of violence he'd chosen over bedtime stories and birthday parties.

"You're not just some civilian caught in the crossfire." Dex shoved his phone back in his pocket, turning to face me fully. Those careful brown eyes had gone sharp as glass. "You're his daughter. That makes you valuable leverage."

“Leverage?”

"The Serpents won't give up until they have you." Dex's voice carried the weight of absolute certainty. "Whatever Rattler wants, whatever debt or deal this is about, you're the key to it. And they'll burn down half of Ironridge to get to you."

Just like they'd burned my van. My mother's pictures. Her quilt.

"I can't—" My voice broke entirely. "I can't go with another biker. I can't do that again. Watch someone choose the club over—"

"I'm not your father." The words came out fierce enough to cut. "The Heavy Kings aren't the Serpents. We don't abandon family. We don't traffic in people. We protect our own and those who need protecting."

Our own. Like I could belong to them. Like I could trust another brotherhood to value me as more than leverage or liability.

But what choice did I have? Sleep in the shelter's doorway until the Serpents found me?

Hitchhike out of town with no ID, no money, no plan except running?

Keep running forever, the way my mother and I had run from bill collectors and eviction notices and the shadow of a man who'd chosen chrome over chemotherapy?

"I'm not letting them take you, Cleo." Dex's voice dropped lower, something fierce and protective threading through the words. "Whatever it costs, however long it takes, you're under the Kings' protection now."

When I looked up at him, I saw something in those dark eyes that didn't match my father's cold dismissal. Saw determination mixed with what might have been fear—not of me, but for me. I had a sudden feeling that keeping me safe was more than just club business.

"Okay." The word came out so quiet I wasn't sure I'd said it. But Dex heard. His shoulders dropped slightly, tension bleeding out like he'd been holding his breath. "Just . . . okay. I'll come with you."

For now. Until I figured out another option. Until Dex and his Heavy Kings realized protecting Rattler Brown's daughter was more hassle than it was worth.

But for today, for this moment, I had nowhere else to go.

"We'll keep you safe." He said it like a vow, like words had weight and promises meant something. "I swear it on the patch."

I let him help me to my feet, his hand warm and steady on my elbow. Let him guide me away from the wreckage of my life, from Elena's tearful goodbye, from the shelter that had been my last anchor to normal.

History said this would end badly. That I'd be abandoned again, left with nothing but debt and ashes and the echo of an engine fading into darkness.

But when Dex put his hand on my back to guide me down the street—gentle, protective, nothing like my father's dismissive touch—I let myself believe that maybe history didn't always repeat.