Page 149 of The Fates We Tame

And third, it’s fucking quiet most of the time. But when it’s not, I hear the wildest shit. People forget I’m in here.

I know Ari and Halo have secretly started treatment at a fancy clinic in New York to see if they can’t find a way to have kids together, but it looks like their chances are slim from the early findings and I heard Halo hold and reassure Ari he was going to love her whether they had biological kids together or not.

I heard Rae ask King what it would feel like if he wasn’t president of the Iron Outlaws. And for a sweet ten minutes, they pretended he wasn’t before the reality sunk in that he was. He said he’d go into the carpentry and construction business with Niro because his dad would have liked the idea of the two of them looking out for each other. And Rae told him she’d lovehim no matter what he did, because any life would be better with him in it.

Clutch was devastated one night because Gwen safe-worded on him, and I heard Switch pick him up and put him back together, reminding me all over again why Clutch is a good man and why Switch is my best friend.

Still puzzling over why the fuck Gwen’s safe word is flounder, though.

And I know Niro sees Avery as a do-over for his little sister who was murdered. One very drunken night, I overheard him telling Bates that he wonders why hanging out with his sister when she was young was such a chore, because having Avery in his life is such a blessing. And he’s angry that Bates has, in Niro’s words, one point seven babies and Niro has none. The man is so fucking in love with his wife, that he’s putting what he wants on hold so she can have what she wants. Freedom. A crack at becoming a brother. Something more than being an old lady. But that man needs babies of his own like a biker needs the road. Through the crack in the door, I saw Bates hug the shit out of his best friend.

Observing is what I do.

Through the security feeds to everyone’s home and the trackers on their phones and vehicles, I keep watch.

It’s how I keep everyone safe.

I flip my screen to the cameras around my folks’ place. The lights of a flickering TV tell me they stayed up to watch the ball drop. No sign of a party though.

But there is a strange car lingering outside Mrs. Moray’s drive.

I zoom in on the plate, my heart skipping a beat as I think through the possibilities.

Mrs. Moray only has one child.

A daughter.

Callie.

And once upon a time, she was my very best friend.

Our parents were friends. Mom knew her mom through church. We used to hang out on the front porch at night. As we grew older, we’d hack shit together. Once, we hacked our high school and changed our grades. Then we started doing petty shit. Stealing small amounts from big companies. Nobody paid attention. Two hundred bucks here. Five hundred bucks there. Suddenly we had some cash in our pockets. Until she went too far.

The pentagon.

The police.

Then she stole shit from me. Hackedmyaccount to teach me a fucking lesson.

And while I was trying to figure out where we went wrong, she started to fuck with the kind of people youreallydon’t fuck with.

She planned to hack the Outlaws.

She’d heard they made good money and was intent on taking a piece.

I might not have been able to protect her from the rest of the world, or even from herself, but I knew I could protect her from the MC. So, I made a deal with Camelot.

I’d protect the club, to protect her. If she never stole from them, they wouldn’t kill her for fucking them over.

Becoming an Outlaw wasn’t something I thought I wanted. But I didn’t know I’d find a home here.

The last time I saw her, well over a decade ago, she told me she’d kill me if she ever saw me again.

I run the plate. It’s registered as a fleet vehicle for a company that does private rides from the airport. But just as I’m about to follow the trail to see where it leads, a tall woman dressed in black with a long ponytail steps out of the car.

And even in the shadows of night, Calista Moray has never looked better.

She checks something on her phone, then gets back into the car without stepping foot on her mom’s driveway.

As I see the taillights moving away, I think back to what Sophia just told me.

About the Italians and how they’re being hacked.

“Fuck, Callie,” I mutter. “If that’s you, I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna save you this time.”