Page 9 of Fallen Dove (Fallen Lords MC 2nd Gen #1)

Mason

The Social Club was dark and quiet.

I locked the front door, slipped the keys into my cut, and leaned back against the bar. The silence pressed in on me. Usually by this time of night my head was pounding with leftover noise - the clink of bottles, laughter too loud, jukebox buzzing, pool balls cracking. Tonight it was just the hum of the cooler in back and the faint tick of the neon sign cooling down outside.

Adley’s day off.

I thought it’d be a relief not to have her here. No blonde hair catching my eye from across the room, no smart little smiles I pretended not to see, and no testing my rules just by existing.

Instead, the place felt… hollow.

I grabbed a rag and wiped down the counter, even though it was already clean. Habit. Work kept my hands busy when my brain wanted to run too far.

She’d been back less than a week, and already I was coming undone.

Fourteen years I’d told myself I’d been right to push her away. Slayer’s daughter. Too young. Wrong time, wrong everything. It had been easier to let her believe I didn’t want her than to admit that I did. Because wanting her? That was a fire I couldn’t put out, not without burning down everything that mattered.

But now she was here, and every rule I’d written for myself was wearing thin.

No staring. No closer than five feet. Only talk about work.

And yet I stared. I caught myself leaning in, like gravity was pulling me closer. My conversations with her were short, clipped, but every word scraped like I was holding back more.

Tonight should’ve been easier. Her absence should’ve been a gift. Instead, I found myself searching the floor for her laugh, waiting for her to cut through the crowd with a tray balanced high, or roll her eyes when Thorn teased her.

I missed her.

I tossed the rag in the bucket and cursed under my breath. Missing her wasn’t part of the deal.

The rules weren’t just for me. They were survival. If Slayer ever got wind that I so much as looked at Adley the wrong way, it wouldn’t just be my head. It would tear at the club, put me at odds with a brother I’d bled beside. And for what? A feeling that never really died?

I sighed and poured myself a shot from the bottle we kept tucked under the counter. Not the top shelf stuff, just enough to burn down the edge of the thoughts.

She was trouble. She always had been. Not because she meant to be, but because I couldn’t seem to stop wanting what I couldn’t have.

I downed the shot, set the glass upside down, and turned off the last of the lights.

Tomorrow the bar would be full again. Tomorrow I’d see her again. And tomorrow I’d tell myself the same lie I’d been telling for fourteen years:

That I could keep my distance.

That I could follow the rules.

That this thing between us would never happen.

Even if every bone in my body was starting to say otherwise.