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9

ATOM

I turn and tug Ember to me, wrapping my arms tight around her.

I’m not even sure why I do it, beyond needing to feel her near me. To feel the warmth of her skin and the beat of her heart against my own chest. To confirm in the most physical of ways that she truly is alive and standing here with me.

Because there was a minute when I saw those men approach her, that a different outcome flashed before my eyes, and I couldn’t take it.

“Fucking hate that they got anywhere near you,” I say without thinking.

Feelings of vengeance and fear roll through me, ebbing and gaining in strength, one overtaking the other until I don’t know which way is up.

I could have lost her, before she was even mine.

She smells soft and sweet, and I fight hard to bury the feeling that right here is where we are both meant to be, always. Ember presses her forehead against my pec, and I feel her shoulders sag.

“I’m fine,” she says, but her voice wavers.

“You don’t have to be strong all the time, Em,” I mutter, kissing the top of her head like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The scent of her hair is fruity in contrast to my nasty hungover self.

She sighs. I feel the warmth of it through my T-shirt. I feel her relax in the safety of my arms. Then, she gently pushes away from me. “I do. And don’t act like you care.”

I stand and loom above her. Fucking love it when she looks up at me with those big eyes the color of storm clouds. But today, I see red. “You’ve never been more wrong, Em. So, reel your fucking neck in, because I’m really struggling with how close those assholes got to you.”

“The only reasons you’re here are because of Dad, those men, and what they mean for the club.” She jabs a finger at her laptop as she speaks.

I tear a hand through my hair. “Butcher didn’t send me. I told you, Wraith got a call from Margie, and all I could think about was how to get back here to check you’re okay. Butcher was passed out in his tent with the two girls he hooked up with last night. He only found out long after I’d left.”

Ember swallows deeply, then purses her lips for a moment as she looks out the window. “I don’t believe you. You’ve never put me first.”

But I want to. Jesus, do I want to.

Instead, I remain silent.

It’s tough to watch her regain her composure.

I want to reach for her again.

Comfort her.

Something.

“We need to stop this,” she says finally.

“Stop what?” I ask, although there is a sinking feeling in my gut that I know what she’s talking about.

She means us. This dance. And I’m not ready for there to be a permanent end. I thought I’d severed us five years ago, but the reality slaps me hard that I hadn’t. It was a pretense. A facade.

This time, she’s ending us, and the pain of it is immeasurable.

When she looks back at me, she’s as devastated as she was that day in the meadow when she first offered me her heart. I guess we’re both thieves, because even though our words and actions said one thing, we took each other’s hearts anyway.

“This. You and me. We’ve been on the precipice for over five years. I didn’t believe you that day, when you said you don’t think of me that way. And I know I’ve tried everything to pretend I’ve gotten over you. But this… You kissing me in the stable, you showing up here. You holding me like you care, kissing the top of my head. Holding me like I’m yours to care about. Like I’m yours to defend, when you and I both know, you don’t intend to make it anything more… I need you to stop.”

I think about the video I just watched. It’s not the souped-up truck and the men and the fact there are shaved-headed assholes in my town, trying to take money from those I want to protect, that makes me so unmoored.

Men who would threaten my town, I can take care of. Men like that, I can stop.

But the man who took Ember’s hand when she got out of his car, the man who stroked a knuckle down her cheek, the man Ember tried to protect in the end, the man she climbed onto her knees for after getting knocked down so she could care for him…

Him , I can’t stop.

“I don’t know if I can watch you in a relationship with another man, Ember.” The words come out more gruffly than I intend. I have to swallow deeply once they are out.

A tear spills over her lashes, and that single trail breaks my heart. “Then pick me, Hudson. It’s not hard.”

I reach out to brush the tear away, the heavy drop rolling down my thumb. The veil between right and wrong has never been so transparent. I don’t know where the lines are and, right now, I’m not sure I care.

“Em, I?—"

The sound of hammering on the glass door that leads to the exterior stairs makes us both jump apart.

“Em, honey. It’s me,” Butcher shouts from outside.

Ember swipes the remaining wetness from her cheek, blows out a breath, sucks in another one, and straightens her hair before heading to let him in.

I reach for her wrist, and she turns. “We aren’t done.”

She looks down at the ground for a moment, then back to me before she snatches her hand away from me. “I think we are, Atom.”

My road name sounds jarring as it passes her lips.

For years I’ve been reminding her to call me Atom to put some distance between us.

Now…

“Dad,” she says as she opens the door.

“Would it kill either one of you to answer your fucking phones?” Butcher shouts before scooping Em into his arms and giving her a hug that likely cracks her ribs.

“I’m fine, Dad,” she says. But the waver in her voice says she isn’t.

When he releases her, he takes a moment to kick off his boots, and I’m glad, because it gives me a few more seconds to compose myself. I’m sure the conversation Ember and I just had is written all over my face.

Then pick me, Hudson. It’s not hard.

I need an excuse to look away from her, so I check my phone, and sure enough, the battery is dead. I glance around the apartment and see Ember’s charger on the breakfast bar, so I plug my phone in.

Butcher strides through the apartment in his socks, slipping out of his cut as he walks, before opening the door and hanging it on the hook outside in the hallway.

You can tell he’s done that a million times before. And for a fleeting second, I see the man who truly cares about his daughter and her rules.

“How did you get here so fast, Butcher?” I ask.

He rubs a hand over his face. “Woke up about an hour after you left. Wraith told me what happened. Knew if I called Em, she’d feed me some bullshit about being fine and not needing anything, but I wanted to see for myself.”

“Surprised you can see anything through those bloodshot eyes. You’re still drunk,” I say, smelling the booze pouring from him.

“Maybe. But there was no way I wasn’t coming back here once I knew what happened.” He looks to Ember. “Can see the distress on your face. Glad I made the call to come see you.”

“You didn’t have to,” Ember says.

“How are you doing, kid?” he asks.

“I was lucky Rocco was here and that I wasn’t alone. Could have been worse. Rocco made sure I was safe, until the men took him down.”

“Who’s Rocco?” Butcher asks.

She glances briefly my way. “He’s the guy I just met. We went on a date. He was dropping me home when they arrived. He?—”

“There’s security footage,” I say, pointing to the laptop as I cut her off. I don’t want to hear Ember talking about some guy, not when I feel like she just threw a cleaver through my heart. “You should take a look at it.”

“Did you eat already?” Ember asks Butcher. “I can make sandwiches.”

“Would love some food. It was a steady five-hour drive, and I didn’t eat before I left,” Butcher says.

“Atom?” she asks.

“Please. And some coffee if you could get a pot going.”

“I’ll see if the kitchen already brewed some.” She looks around the room. “I put my phone down somewhere earlier, and I can’t find it. I’ll have to go down and ask them.”

“Show me,” Butcher says, tipping his chin in the direction of the laptop when Ember takes the internal stairs to the bar.

I let the video play, and the second watch through is no easier than the first. If anything, it’s worse. I pay more attention to Rocco.

I hate the fucker.

The jeans he wears look too crisp, not an ounce of wear on them. Bet they’re stiff as fuck when he pulls them out of the laundry.

And I hate his perfectly styled hair and shaved jaw. I glance down at my holey sock and dust-stained denim.

Then pick me, Hudson. It’s not hard.

The words hit me again.

Over and over, so forcefully that I’m not even looking at the video.

“Motherfuckers!” Butcher shouts.

The loud bark snaps me back into the moment.

I’m the enforcer for the club. I have a job to do right here.

“I’m gonna fucking kill ’em,” Butcher continues. “Let’s find the vehicle reg and get it to Vex, images too. Let’s see what the New Jersey tech guy can come up with. Tell him they came for my daughter—otherwise, we wouldn’t be calling in favors we haven’t earned.”

My brain comes online. “We know who we’re looking for and can circulate this image. We should also set up a core team on duty in town twenty-four seven. They said there would be communication in the next forty-eight hours on how to pay. My guess is they don’t want a digital bank transfer. That would be too traceable. Especially if Vex is willing to use his skills to figure out where it goes. I think they’ll come for cash. We need to let the local businesses know to call us after they’ve been visited, even if they can’t alert us before. And perhaps use Raven’s old apartment above the hardware store so we’re in town to respond quickly.”

Butcher folds his arms as he considers what I’m proposing. “I like that. Four-man teams. At least one senior member on each team. Might be an overreaction, but we need to crush these motherfuckers before they gain any traction.”

I nod as Ember comes back into the apartment. She looks confused. “Still can’t find my phone,” she says. “Please can you call it, Dad?”

Butcher does as she asks, and we all listen for it, but hear nothing.

“Probably dead and down between the sofa cushions or something. I’ll find it, eventually. But I got coffee.”

I make a quick edit of the parts of the video we need. If I leave the parts with Rocco in it, it’s purely accidental. Except, because I’m a nosey fucker, I’m gonna ask Vex a few questions of my own.

I send it to myself.

“Ember losing her phone explains why she didn’t answer. But why the fuck didn’t you?” Butcher asks.

I nod towards the phone charging on the breakfast bar. “Guess my battery died on the ride. Not the best timing, I know.”

He looks to Ember. “Ballsy for a civilian to stand up to those men. I should meet the guy who looked out for my daughter.”

Ember shakes her head. “It’s way too early for that. It was our first date.”

Butcher raises an eyebrow. “You’re misunderstanding me, sweetheart. It wasn’t a request. I’m one step away from instructing Atom to move into your spare room.”

“What?” Ember and I ask at the same time.

“You heard me. You need protection twenty-four seven until this has been put to bed. Especially if they are going to come back for the cash in person.”

Ember puts her hands on her hips. “No, no, and no. No, you are not meeting a guy I went on one date with. No, you are not putting me under twenty-four-seven supervision. And absolutely no, Atom is not moving into my guest room.”

Butcher steps closer to her, and for the first time, I feel the need to step between the two of them and put my hands on my president to shove him the fuck away from her. Decades of experience shows me that Ember has always been able to stand up to her father, but watching it after kissing her, after her telling me to choose her, makes me all kinds of pissed off.

“We’re putting protection around you whether you like it or not. But, if you work with Atom on it, we can make it work for you. And I don’t care if this guy has only been on one date with you—this is where a man should step up, not sit back.”

“If it were my girlfriend who had got knocked down, I wouldn’t leave her flying out in the wind until it was resolved,” I say. “I’d be right here, making sure nothing hurt one hair on her fucking head.”

If.

If she were mine, she wouldn’t need to worry or be strong because I’d have her.

“Where is he?” Butcher asks. “Is he coming back tonight?”

Ember shakes her head. “While this is something deeply private that I shouldn’t have to share with you, Dad, he wasn’t supposed to stay last night. But we were both shook up, he was too injured to move easily, and he was worried I had a concussion, which I don’t, before you worry about that too. Plus, we had to give our statement to the sheriff. One date. That’s it. Unlike the two of you, I’m not a one-night-stand, don’t-need-to-know-your-name, kind of girl.”

Her words ease the tension in my gut. They haven’t had sex.

“That doesn’t answer either of my questions,” Butcher says.

“He’s at work. With busted ribs. And no, I don’t expect him here tonight.”

I turn to face Butcher. “So, even if he were here, he wouldn’t be much use.”

“Wraith should be here soon, and we can make a plan to canvas Main Street to see who else is affected. I left immediately, but the rest of the brothers were packing up our camp and heading back.”

I understand why, because there is no way I would head back to Sturgis knowing what’s happening to our town. But I’m frustrated our vacation and trip got blown up.

“Makes sense to protect what’s ours.”

Butcher nods. “Which is why I want you to stay here and protect Ember until we know what we’re up against.” He turns to Ember, who is looking as shocked as I feel. “And you’re going to let him.”