Page 34

L amplight cast long shadows across the living room. Oakley's book rested open in her hands, its spine creaking with each turned page. I memorized every word from my position across the room, watching, learning what kept her attention fixed on the paper instead of me.

The morning's trip to the store replayed through my mind—she had to get new supplies for her orders this week. I tagged along to carry her bags before she went to the bookstore. Part of me thought it was to get rid of me. Ten new books, and I grabbed and bought every one she touched, now sitting in a neat stack on the coffee table. She turned another page, unaware of how completely I tracked each movement.

I was halfway through the first book when she got up and went to the kitchen. When she disappeared from my sight, I glanced back at the page. Whenever the main male character messed up, he crawled his way back to redemption. Groveling. Expressed regret that bled from every pore. Did whatever it took—whatever it cost—to make someone forgive him. Was this what Oakley wanted?

I abandoned the page, my eyes drifting toward the kitchen. Only half remained visible, the other half hidden behind the wall separating us—a physical manifestation of our growing distance. I heard scraping in a metal bowl, her movements were sluggish compared to how she usually prepped.

We'd barely spoken since yesterday. She had withdrawn deeper into herself, the light in her eyes extinguished like a candle snuffed by one cruel breath. Two days ago, happiness radiated from her—genuine happiness. We were learning how to love each other, awkward and new.

I remembered giving her the oven mitts, her happiness etched like an addictive drug. That smile, a lifeline I replayed whenever darkness threatened to consume everything. She had liked that gift. The second gift was more significant—the only thing Mother ever gave me: her gold ring.

The book found its place on the armrest. I rose from the couch, my steps leading toward the kitchen. Oakley heard me approaching—she always did. "Need help?"

She shook her head, silence between us thick enough to choke on. The kitchen revealed its chaos: dirty iced cakes with perfect frosting swirls, multiple piping bags arranged like surgical tools. Marble counters overflowed with too much of everything—bowls, ingredients, spatulas. She barely had any room to work.

I turned away, hearing her soft sigh of relief as my attention shifted to the living room. Gathering her new books, setting them aside before gripping the table's edges, lifting it, and heading back toward the kitchen.

I pressed close behind her, my chest nearly touching her back as I lifted the table overhead, then dragged it across the floor toward the kitchen. Wood scraped loudly against wood, the harsh sound slicing through silence, demanding attention.

Her jade eyes were wide. "W-What are you doing?"

I didn’t answer, moving the assortment of cakes, my hands clearing space on the counter. Matching piping bags to cakes, organizing them by color and size, giving her enough room to work without the chaos pressing in from all sides.

She liked when given things—space, order, quiet. So that was what I offered, the only gifts I knew how to give.

My eyes tracked her movements as she placed the bowl down, the mixture inside now a light pink. A car horn from outside drew both our gazes to the door.

"I'll be home tonight," my words falling flat between us.

She didn't respond, her vacant stare fixed on the door. I bent at the waist, my hands resting on my knees, bringing my eyes level with hers, staring until the weight of my gaze forced her to speak.

"…Dad hates me." Her confession emerged as a low whisper, but my tactic had worked. "H-He hasn't checked up on me. He wouldn't come near me at the club yesterday."

The quiver in her voice pissed me off. I knew what I was going to do, but it might make her hate me more. Standing at full height, I grabbed my bat before looking over my shoulder at her, "Lock the door."

She thought her father hated her. And that made something unfamiliar twist in my gut, a serpent coiling tighter with each passing second. Men had died for looking at her wrong, their blood painting my knuckles,but this was different. This pain came from the anxiety inside her. No way for me to beat it away with a bat.

I waited for the sound of the lock before making my way down the path to Law, gravel crunching beneath my heavy boots. He sat in his car, window down, the interior light casting harsh shadows across his face as he started his annoying yapping. "Our bikes are too loud, we'll need to take my car." Ignoring his words, I yanked open his door fists twisting in his shirt, "What the fuck!!"

Face inches from his, close enough to count the lines around his eyes I debated bashing my head into his to give him some fucking common sense. "Go inside."

He shook his head, defiant even now. "We have a time frame. We need to?—"

Shaking him like a rag doll, voice rising with each word. "Oakley's sad."

"Probably because she's married to you." I sneer, shoving him back in his seat with enough force to make the car rock.

"She told me you hate her."

His eyes shut, jaws clenched tight enough to crack teeth. "I don't hate my daughter." Releasing him then, stepping back, pointing up to her apartment where soft light spilled from the windows.

The temptation rose to smash his head through the windshield. "Tell her that."

Running hands down his face, fingers catching on the stubble that lined his jaw. "I know my girl." Law shook his head, deflating slightly. "She needs space to sort out her feelings. You do know she has anxiety and depression, yeah?" Of course, I did. I know everything about her. "She's hyper-independent, just needs constant reassurance."

My eyes narrowed to slits. If she needed reassurance, why wasn't he talking to her? "Talk to her."

"After we get back," he promised. His face softened, the hard lines of anger melting into something that might have been regret. He looked at the front door of our apartment, his gaze lingering. "Let's just get this shit over with." The longer we stalled, the longer it would take to get back to Oakley. Pick and choose my battles even when every cell in my body screamed to drag him inside by his throat, pin him to the floor, and carve the apology into his skin until he meant it. Until he understood what happened to people who upset her.

I yanked open the passenger door of Law's fancy car, the hinges protesting with a metallic groan. My bat went in first, then I folded my frame into the cramped space, knees nearly touching the glove compartment. The leather seat creaked under my weight as I settled in, pulling the door shut with more force than necessary.

He backed out of the driveway and onto the road. I tapped my bat on the dash, filling the quiet as I stared out the window, mind never straying far from Oakley.

"Would you stop that?"

I tapped faster. "No."

"Should've just let you use your bike and get shot. Annoying shit."

He didn't know how annoying I could be, but we had other matters to discuss. "You're avoiding her."

"My daughter got married without me. Since she was a little girl, she always said 'Daddy, I can't wait for you to walk me down the aisle' and I got fucking blindsided." His grip on the wheel turned iron-hard, veins mapping across his skin. "Was busy with a case for a few days, then came back to my fucking world being married to you."

He paused before "Oakley wasn't supposed to know about the MC. Keeping her safe was my only job, and now she's married to the exact thing she fears most." Law blamed me as if I hadn't done everything to keep her safe—as if I wasn't still protecting her, even from herself. "And you expect me to be okay with it?"

"Yes."

"You're a fucking psycho." The words escaped through clenched teeth, venom in each syllable. "She doesn't look happy with you."

My tapping stopped, itching to tap it right into his fucking face. "She is."

Law's eyes cut sharply toward me, his mouth flattening into a hard line. "I've defended killers who looked at their victims' photos the way you look at Oakley."

He would never understand what Oakley and I had. "That fucking ring. Where'd you get it?"

Looking out the window, watching as street lights blurred past, creating streaks of gold against the dimming sky. "Mother."

Law snorted, disbelief evident in every line of his face. "Your Mother gave you that ring?"

It was a day she was delusional with her heart eyes, floating on whatever high she'd chased that week. Whoever she had been seeing at the time had just upgraded the rose gold band with a sparkling diamond to a gold band with a three-set diamond, each stone catching light like trapped stars.

All it cost her was a black eye and a busted lip, purple bruises blooming across her skin like deadly flowers. She put it on the table, and the temptation to take it was irresistible.

I'd always liked pretty things.

Law stared ahead, jaw working like he was chewing on words he didn't want to say. The quiet stretched until he finally broke.

"You know why it's hard to look at her right now?" Law asked, voice suddenly rough. "She reminds me too much of how she looked when Anne died."

Anne.

Summer Anne. The name of our bakery–the name of our future child.

Law wasn't looking at me. His eyes stayed fixed on the road, seeing something else entirely—ghosts of the past dancing just out of reach. "Anne was her best friend since they were born. They did everything together." His voice caught, struggling with each word. "Used to bake those little cupcakes with the sprinkles. Anne called them happy bombs."

I didn't say anything. I just watched his face crumble as the words tumbled out, each one heavier than the last.

"Oakley wasn't always shy," he began, voice distant in memory. "She was a prankster, believe it or not. Putting her stuffed animals everywhere, food coloring in milk, cute shit like that. Then one day four years ago…" His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. "She came home with this... look."

I looked at him from the corner of my eye, willing him to continue but making a mental promise that his words might not make me kill us both.

"Then two weeks later Anne was just... gone." Law's voice dropped low "Oakley was the one who found her. It was the first time I couldn't fix something," Law admitted. "She used to call me for everything. Skinned knee, broken toy. And suddenly she didn't need me anymore. Wouldn't let me in. Wouldn't let anyone in."

I remembered how Oakley had folded into herself after our fight. How the light had left her eyes, replaced by a dullness. I'd seen it before—the way she vanished while standing right in front of me, present but not there.

"She stopped baking," Law continued, almost to himself, lost in memories I couldn't share. "Almost a year. Kitchen just... empty." He swallowed hard. "Then one day, the house smelled like vanilla. She didn't say why. Just made these cupcakes—Anne's recipe. Wouldn't eat a single one. Just left them on Anne's parents' porch."

My mind flickered to the way Oakley measured ingredients, so precise it bordered on obsession. How she lost herself in her craft, finding peace.

"I don't know what really happened." Law's voice was barely audible, raw with guilt. "Before. Or that day. She never told us. She just... broke. There's something—" He cut himself off, jaw working against words he couldn't bring himself to say. "I don't know if I can get her back this time. Seeing her like this again,it feels like I'm watching my daughter disappear right in front of me. So when I saw her yesterday, with that same look—" Law's voice hardened again, steel replacing his vulnerability. "I knew someone had broken her again. I nearly lost her once, and I couldn't... I can't..." His words trailed off, heavy with fear I'd never heard in him before. "And this time, it's you—with your murderous hands and black fucking soul."

“I’ll take care of my wife,” I looked out the window at the setting sun. “She’s not leaving.” Not without me.

Law fell silent, swallowing hard against emotions he tried to hide. His jaw tightened as he blinked rapidly, knuckles white on the steering wheel. He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders back, composing himself piece by piece, armor sliding back into place. When he spoke again, his voice was flat, professional, all vulnerability carefully tucked away. Like our conversation never happened.

"Haven’t seen Prez's house since he moved." He changed the subject, all traces of the broken father gone. He had moved to be closer to Nyla, their twisted history binding them together even now. The house did look nice, if that was what you were into. Large pillars at the front door, with a large front yard stretching out like a green carpet. Red brick paved the driveway, each brick laid. Trees surrounding the property, sentinels standing guard. Oakley would like this , I thought. She'd find beauty where I saw only utility.

I made my way down the side of the house where the heavy trees lined the property, using the thick trunks as cover to get to the back of the house. Everything looked normal, just a regular house on the outskirts of town, secrets hidden behind mundane walls.

A snapping branch from behind us.

"V." Law hissed at me, urgency in every syllable as the rustling of the ground grew closer, leaving crunching beneath unseen feet. "Hide."

I blinked at him, "I don't hide."

There was a crunch behind the tree to my right, a sound that didn't belong to an animal. My body moved on instinct, muscle memory taking over as my hands clutched my bat, fingers tightening around familiar wood. I swung full force, the bat whistling through the air.

The man dodged last-second, wood splintering violently as I struck the tree instead. A man in all black sank into the night, his silhouette barely visible, the only exposure being the moon, giving me enough light to see the outline of his body. Law came from behind, putting his forearm on the man's neck, making him struggle to get out of his hold, gasping for air.

"Who the fuck are you?"