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ATOM

I grab Ember’s hand, clinging to it like a life raft to keep me above water, as I lead her out of the clubhouse.

I feel like I just got thrown from my bike. One minute, you’re riding high, and the next, you’re skimming across the asphalt while it takes your skin and consciousness.

Thoughts come thick and fast, barely staying long enough for me to process them.

“I’m sorry, Hudson,” she says quietly, and I stop abruptly, turning to face her.

“Why did you come?” I ask firmly, even as I cup her cheeks gently.

Words can’t express the pride I had in her when she burst through the door with a face like fury. And when she turned to me, I could see the question in her eyes.

Will telling them help you?

The irony is, even if I’d said no, there would be no other explanation for her arriving like one of the warrior goddesses other than to defend me.

“A gut feeling. A worry that you were on your own. That you might need my help convincing my father. That you might get hurt. I don’t know. It was death by a million worries while I waited, and suddenly, I knew I had to be here, side by side with you, together.”

Some of the raging anger in me simmers down.

“God, you’re so much more than I deserve,” I manage to say before kissing her lips like it’s the last thing I’ll ever do. Like I have to carry the memory of this with me forever. I allow my tongue to meet hers and it’s the first real, solid feeling I’ve felt since I left the house an hour ago. “I really do love you, Em.”

Her eyes go wide, shining with tears. “I’ll never get used to you saying that to me.”

I nod. “Please try. Because I do. With every fucking bone in my body. I realized when you started telling your father that you chose me that I could finally imagine a life without everything else in it. The club. Even the ranch. But I can’t imagine another moment of my life without you in it.”

Ember takes a deep breath. “We should go home.”

I nod. “You take the truck; I’ll follow on the bike.”

“Or you could let me ride your bike and you take the truck.”

In spite of everything, I find the ability to smile. “Definitely not. Now get going.”

She starts the engine as I climb aboard my bike. But as she pulls off the property, Wraith steps out and stops me.

“I’m sorry about what happened in there,” he says.

Mixed emotions appear to be the theme of the night. “Man, I’m glad you stood for me at the end, but seriously? You allowed me to walk into a minefield. You gave me no heads-up.”

“Butcher’s wound so tight about this Bratva shit. How they keep beating us at every turn. Didn’t think he was going to completely lose his mind.”

“But when you did realize? When he picked up the phone and yelled at me to get there? You didn’t think, ‘Fuck, I need to rein Butcher in…?’ To point out how insane he was? Or, shit, think to warn me?”

Wraith looks down at his feet and kicks something in the dirt. “Didn’t think he was going to go as far as he did.”

“But he fucking did, Wraith. And he believed it. He thought I was capable of that bullshit. And while we’re on the topic of people not doing their job well, why weren’t you on top of it? Why didn’t you have processes and procedures for this shit?”

Wraith’s mouth opens a little in surprise. “That’s unfair. I?—”

“Never mind. I gotta go.”

“Atom,” Catfish shouts, hurrying from the clubhouse door. But I can’t face talking to any of them right now.

I start the engine and roar after Ember on the trail.

When I get there, she’s standing on the second step of the porch, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. She looks towards the red haze of the sunrise as I park the bike.

Men say all kinds of trite things. There’s never been anyone like her. I couldn’t love her more. She’s the one.

I’m sure poets could do a much more profound job than I can. But until Ember, I’ve never looked at a woman and known with unrelenting certainty that I’d burn the whole world down for her.

“Dad wants to take it all away from you,” she says. “Your enforcer patch, your rocker, your cut.”

When I reach her, I put my hands on her hips. On the step, we’re almost eye to eye. “You wanna know something real?”

“Always.”

“I might never get over the sense of betrayal I have right now. Not just with what happened, but with whoever set me up. But one thing will always be true: If this is all I have—you, our home deep on my grandfather’s land, and a sunrise that looks like this—it’ll be a fucking spectacular life, Em.”

She throws her arms around my neck. “Then let’s go there now. Let them wonder where we are. Let them figure out how to solve this without us. Take me back to the cabin, and the river, and sex on picnic blankets.”

I close my eyes and let my head drop onto her shoulder. When I allowed myself to think of a future with Em, it had always been how I’d be able to protect and take care of her. I don’t think I ever allowed myself to consider what it would feel like if she did the same for me in her own way. But feeling the power of her comfort, letting it ease me, is an unexpected blessing.

A hand slips into my hair, stroking my scalp, and I remember something Halo said when we were in Sturgis. It was late, and he was so drunk, but all he wanted to talk about was Ari, his old lady. He said a man needs a soft place to land. A place where he doesn’t need to be hard and strong.

A place that means he never feels alone, no matter how bad the mess.

Ember’s that for me.

I lift my head and see nothing but kindness in Em’s eyes. “I need to stay. Figure out who’s trying to make me look bad to my club. Whoever it is, must have a reason. And for all that I’m pissed at your father right now, I’m fed up with this silent hacking and fracturing of the club. And I need to take some comfort from the fact my brothers trust me, even if my president doesn’t.”

“It’s not going to come to you right this minute. You’re tired. We’re gonna get some sleep, and then I’m going to cook you a full rancher’s breakfast because you’ll think more clearly rested and fed. Then, we’ll put our heads together. Take a ride if we need to because being cooped up here isn’t going to help you solve a goddamn thing.”

She’s right. Some people come up with good ideas in the shower. Mine come when I’m out in nature.

“Let me go talk to the ranch hands, first, given I won’t be out later.”

“Could you call them?”

I look up at the sky, then pull the keys out. There’s a spare set on the hook next to the door she can have. “I want to take a walk, get some air and clear my head, first.”

She kisses me softly. “I’ll wait up for you.”

That makes me smile as I walk by her to open the door and let her in. “Go get in bed. I’ll be there soon, I promise.”

As I walk closer to the stable, the mumbled sound of my father’s voice cuts through the chorus of birds sitting on the roof.

“And I told you I’d have to wait…” There’s a pause. “I didn’t say within a year…” Another pause. “You can’t just kick them off the land and—” My father sees me. “—I’ll have to call you back.”

“Who can’t you kick off the land, Dad?”

“Not me,” he says, unconvincingly. “A friend having problems with squatters.”

I eye him carefully, wishing I’d stayed hidden just a little while longer. “We have reckoning coming, you and me.”

“We do. You’ve been shirking your responsibilities to this ranch and I’m over picking up the slack because of the club and that damn Deeks bitch.”

I’ve cocked my fist and let it fly before I even think the decision through. My father’s face snaps to the side, and he stumbles into one of the stable columns.

Wraith’s former mother-in-law, Margie, is all about the planets and moon cycles, and in this moment, I’m certain she’d have something to say about why everything in my life is suddenly falling apart.

I get the whole cycle of life, where old things need to leave to make room for new ones. I see it every day on the ranch. Crops are harvested and fields plowed. Winter isn’t a time for dread; it’s a time for growth beneath the surface so the first stalks of spring come from roots that are strong.

But this feels huge, like a detonation. Who knew I was so fucking angry inside?

“You know what, old man? I’m over you. I don’t know whether you never really wanted kids and were pissed Mom died, leaving you with me and my sisters, or whether you feel threatened because nothing about ranching comes easy for you and it does for me. I don’t know whether it’s because I have a better relationship with your own father than you do, or whether you’re just a lazy fuck who wants the money from this ranch but doesn’t want the work. Or perhaps it bothers you that you are nowhere near the biker I am, and I’ve already eclipsed you. But right now, this land is my grandfather’s. And I’ll bury you six feet under it before I’ll let you sell it out from beneath us.”

“You lazy fucking punk,” my father says, finding his feet again.

He attempts to charge at me, but it’s like a colt trying to take down a bull. I stand my ground and put him in a headlock, committed to choking him out.

The only sound is that of our boots on the ground, and the breathless grunts of my father.

“You want me to bury you today, I’m fucking game,” I say.

My father manages to get a fist to my gut, and the momentary distraction is enough for him to break free. His face is red, his eyes watering. “You got no respect for?—”

“Steady, Wheeler,” my grandfather says, stepping into the stable. “Your son is right. The problem we’ve got here is the imbalance caused when Hudson’s not here. You feel the pressure because that means you have to do your own work plus half of his. And that’s three times more than you are used to.”

“I do my share of the work,” my father says.

Grandpa laughs. “You do a share, but that’s not the same as doing a fair share. And even that’s not the same as doing your share. Stop treating your son like the hired help. Stop treating this ranch like it’s your personal retirement fund. Stop treating the two of us like we’re stupid.”

My father glares at me, then spins on the heel of his cowboy boot and leaves the stable.

Grandpa runs a hand through his white beard as he watches him go. “Wraith called me. Said there’d been some trouble. Figured I’d find you here.”

“Did he tell you what the trouble was?”

“He did. Said he didn’t believe a word of it and that he was going to do what he needed to do to figure out what was happening.”

“Kind of him,” I say, the words laced heavily with sarcasm.

Grandpa puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “He also told me about you and Ember.”

“Fucking chatty mouth he’s got today. Pity he couldn’t find it when he allowed me to be ambushed by Butcher.” I pat Butterscotch, who has moseyed on over to the stall entrance to see what all the noise is about.

“You know, Marcus Aurelius said the best revenge is not to be like your enemy. Don’t lose what makes you uniquely you and end up like them, Atom. You’ve got the strength and size to be an imposing enforcer. You’re intelligent, intuitive. This, you being mad at Wraith and yelling at your father, this isn’t how you solve problems and fix things. You think. Don’t withdraw and not share what you’re thinking with Wraith, just because, in the moment, he forgets to share with you. Be their opposite.”

I finally look at my grandfather. “I need some sleep and then a ride to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

My grandpa nods, his blue eyes filled with watery sincerity. “I know. I’ve got you covered.”

I think of what Ember said about the land. “Have you ever considered giving the land the clubhouse sits on to the club?”

Grandpa rubs the end of his nose. “Thought about it, yeah? Figured there’d come a time at some point when it might be safer with the club than your father.”

“I heard Dad on the phone. He was frustrated. Telling someone that they couldn’t just throw someone off the land. Do you think he meant you? Me? The club?”

There’s a spark in my brain, joining dots that I perhaps shouldn’t. But Dad is rarely at the clubhouse these days.

“I’m keeping a close eye on your father. You have to trust me. But I’m going to assume you’re asking me about giving the land to the club because of what just happened today. That it could be a bargaining chip?”

I nod. “Butcher doesn’t fucking deserve it. But the club maybe does.”

Grandpa smiles. “The land the clubhouse sits on will be yours by lunchtime. If you need it as collateral for anything, I fully support you giving it up if you get what makes you happy in return.”

His generosity overwhelms me on a day that started like utter shit. “Thank you. Sincerely. But I can figure out a way to solve my own problems without handing over the land like this.”

“I know you can. But you don’t need to. I trust you as a man. I have confidence in you as an Outlaw. And I love you more as a grandson than you possibly know, Hudson.”

Emotion chokes me. My tongue feels thick, and I have to sniff to bite back the sting of tears. “I love you too, Grandpa.”

“And for what it’s worth, I’m gonna kick Butcher’s ass myself. I like you and Ember. A firecracker like that will make your days interesting and your nights hot.”

“Grandpa!”

He simply chuckles. “You know what I mean. Good luck.”