Page 18 of Gonzo’s Grudge (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Dreadnought, NC #1)

Gonzo

O ne month.

One month of waking up with her body tangled in mine, her warmth soft against the cold edges of who I was.

One month of watching her fall asleep with her cheek on my chest, like she believed in me enough to make me her shelter.

One month of telling myself I was only taking what I could before the reality of who I was ripped it away.

That morning, I woke the way every man wants to—her straddling me, hair tumbling over her shoulders, lips curved in that wicked little smile she didn’t even know she had. The blanket had slipped down to her waist, and sunlight caught the curve of her collarbone, painting her like something holy.

“Morning,” she whispered, leaning down to brush her mouth against mine.

My hands slid over her thighs, rough palms against smooth skin. “Best damn alarm clock I ever had.”

She laughed, low and soft, and started to roll her hips, teasing. My body answered instantly, heat shooting through me, need winding tight.

And then I heard it.

The click.

My blood froze.

The front door.

Unlocked. Opening.

In less than a breath, I shifted, rolling her off me and onto the mattress with a startled gasp.

My hand shot to the nightstand, fingers wrapping around cold steel.

I leveled the gun toward the doorway, heart hammering, every instinct on fire.

Pressing IvaLeigh’s naked body behind my own on the bed.

The door swung wide.

And there she was.

Catalina.

Her striking, black hair wild around her face, eyes sharp as knives. But the years had carved deeper lines around her mouth, more bitterness than age. I did that to her. I marked her in the worst of ways.

“Really, Gonzo?” she spat, her voice sharp enough to cut the room in half. “This is what you’re doing while our son rots in a cage? Playing house?”

My grip tightened on the gun, but I didn’t lower it right away. Old habits. Old scars. Finally, I set it on the dresser, slow, keeping my body between her and IvaLeigh.

“Cat,” I warned, “You don’t just walk into my house.”

“Your house?” She barked a laugh, wild and humorless.

“You mean our son’s house. His bedroom down the hall sits empty while your bed is full.

The house you should be tearing down walls in, looking for ways to get him out, not—” Her eyes flicked past me.

Landed on IvaLeigh, tangled in the sheets, wide-eyed.

“Not screwing some little college girl like you’re twenty again. ”

IvaLeigh’s face went pale, but she didn’t shrink back. She sat up straighter, clutching the sheet to her chest, meeting Catalina’s glare with quiet fire.

Catalina saw it and went sharper, meaner. “I have never asked you for anything, Gonzo. Never. But I am asking now. Stop thinking with your dick and start using your head. GJ is in prison. He is all that matters. Not this—this game you’re playing.”

Her words hit like fists. Not because she was wrong about our son. Because she was right. Because every night I spent with IvaLeigh, I wondered if I was stealing from the fight I owed GJ.

But before I could answer, she turned fully to the girl in my bed.

“And you,” she said, her voice dripping venom. “You think you’re special? You’re not. He will never be faithful. He doesn’t know how. He will break your heart again and again, until there’s nothing left of you. He will ruin you for life.”

IvaLeigh flinched. Just barely, but I felt it. Only she didn’t look away instead she numbed behind me.

Catalina smiled like she’d won. “Run now, sweetheart. Before he chews you up like he did me.”

“Enough!” My roar shook the walls.

Both women froze.

I climbed from the bed stepped forward, crowding Catalina back toward the door, my chest heaving, every muscle tight. “You don’t come into my house and spit poison at her. You don’t get to tear her down because you’re pissed at me.”

Her eyes flashed. “She’s a distraction! That girl will never survive this world. And you—” She jabbed a finger at me. “You’ll let her bleed for it, because that’s what you do. You drag people down with you.”

My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. “Say what you want about me. But you don’t get to touch her.”

She laughed, bitter and sharp. “Touch her? Gonzo, she has no idea what you are. She thinks you’re some broken knight with a leather jacket. Wait until she sees the real you. Wait until she realizes every promise you make is just smoke.”

My hands shook. Rage and shame, both burning. Because I’d given Catalina those promises once. And I’d broken every damn one.

She saw it. Smirked. “Exactly.”

Behind me, the bed creaked.

“I’m not leaving.” IvaLeigh’s voice rang out, steadier than I’d ever heard it.

Catalina’s eyes snapped to her. “Stupid girl.”

“No,” IvaLeigh said, her chin lifting. “Not stupid. I know who he is. And I know he’s the man who will keep me safe. You obviously have history and it must not be good. But you don’t know me and you don’t know what I can and can’t handle.”

The silence that followed was heavier than gunfire.

Catalina blinked, stunned, then scoffed. “You’ll learn.” She shoved past me, storming for the door. “And when you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The door slammed so hard the walls rattled.

I stood there, breathing hard, fists clenched at my sides. The gun sat cold and silent on the dresser.

IvaLeigh slipped from the bed, the sheet wrapped around her, and came to me. Her hand found mine, steady.

“She’s wrong,” she said softly.

My throat was raw. “Baby…”

“She’s wrong,” she repeated, stronger this time, eyes locked to mine. “Because I believe in you. And nothing she says will change that.”

And just like that—despite the ghosts, despite the guilt, despite the storm clawing at the door—I felt that dangerous thing again.

Hope.

The house seemed to hold its breath after the slam.

I stared at the door like it might open again and spit another ghost into my kitchen or let another skeleton out of my closet.

My pulse still hit a combat cadence. The gun on the dresser looked wrong there—too loud for the quiet that followed, not loud enough for the noise in my head.

IvaLeigh didn’t flinch. She slipped her hand into mine, sheet tucked around her like some kind of armor she made out of thin cotton and nerve. “She’s wrong,” she said again, firmer. “About you. About me.”

I dragged a hand down my face and blew out a breath that tasted like metal. “She’s not wrong about GJ. I am playing house when I should be?—”

“You’re doing both,” she cut in, calm in a way that put weight under my feet. “You’re fighting for him. And you’re allowed to sleep sometimes. Even soldiers sleep.”

“Outlaws don’t,” I said, but it came out tired, not tough.

She tipped her head. “Then I’ll keep watch when you do.”

Something in my chest went soft and dangerous. “Get dressed,” I told her, voice low. “I’m changing locks.”

We moved without bumping into each other. She knotted the sheet into a makeshift dress and slipped into my T-shirt when I tossed it over. I pulled on jeans and the first clean shirt in reach, cleared the gun and re-holstered. Motion settled me.

I put a chair under the front knob anyway. Habit. I texted Shanks three words: Change. The. Locks.

He sent back a thumbs-up and a skull. Subtle as a brick, that one.

IvaLeigh hovered in the doorway to the kitchen. “She had a key?”

“Old one,” I answered. “From a lifetime ago.”

“How many lifetimes ago?” No accusation in it. Just math.

“Enough that I should’ve made sure none of it could walk through my door,” I replied. “That’s on me.”

She nodded once. “Okay.”

I leaned both palms on the counter and looked at the wood because it couldn’t be disappointed in me. It couldn’t swallow me up in the guilt I was feeling.

“I wasn’t good to Cat,” I shared. “Not the way men in houses like your parents’ define it.

I was gone a lot. I was angry more. I told myself the Marines came first and made an altar out of that sentence so I didn’t have to look at what I broke when I put everything on it.

I strayed. More than once. Then I put the club first. Everything and everyone came before her. ”

Silence. Then the soft slide of her bare feet across the floor. Fingers on my forearm, light and warm. “I figured that much just in the way she was broken,” she explained.

I huffed a humorless sound. “That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” she continued. “It’s supposed to make this part simpler. You’re not lying to me. That’s the only way this works.” She squeezed once. “Are you lying to me now?”

“No,” I said, and let it weigh the air. “I’m not proud of any of it. But I’m not going to pretty it up so you stay.”

“I’m not staying because it’s pretty.” She smiled softly. “I’m staying because it’s you.”

That word did something corroded to me. I turned and caught her jaw in my palm, scaled calluses against soft skin. “She wasn’t wrong about one other thing.”

I felt her shoulders tense under the T-shirt. She made herself meet my eyes. “Say it.”

“I ruin things I touch,” I shared honestly. “Not because I want to. Because trouble follows me. I bring heat. I draw fire. And anyone standing near catches the pain from whatever I start.”

“Okay,” she muttered. Not a flinch in it. “Then teach me to duck.”

I stared, and for the first time since the door opened, I almost smiled. “You don’t scare at all do you?”

“I’m scared,” she said. “But I’m not running because she told me to.”

“She told you I’ll never be faithful.”

“I heard her,” she stated firmly. “I also hear you. Right now. This moment. I also know what I feel and I trust my instincts.”

Moments are easy to promise in and hard to live through; I know that better than most. I leaned my weight back, the counter creaking under my hand. “I can’t rewrite who I was.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” she said. “I asked who you are with me.”