Page 43 of Thunder's Reckoning

Somebody’d been out here. Watchin’.

And they weren’t here for poker chips.

I went back inside, jaw tight, blood still burnin’. One thing was certain, I wasn’t leavin’ this house tonight. Not for the club, not for the floor downstairs, not for shit. If trouble came knockin’, it’d find me here, on the porch with a gun in my hand.

And somewhere in the back of my mind—quiet, buried, but stubborn as a weed—came a memory I didn’t ask for.

A door.

Not this one. Different wood, different walls, but the same weight of silence pressin’ in from the other side.

I was a boy then. Couldn’t have been older than Malik. My hands were too small to hold the rifle she shoved at me, but she made me stand guard anyway, said it was important.

I remember the way the light flickered against the walls, makin’ shadows stretch long and strange. Remember my knuckles white around the stock, my heart poundin’ so hard I thought it’d shake the door open.

I don’t remember what was on the other side. Don’t remember if anyone came. My mind never let me keep that part.

All I remember is the door. And the fear. And the sick certainty that monsters weren’t out in the dark. They were already inside.

The memory snapped like a rubber band, leavin’ only the echo behind. My jaw flexed, hand tight on the .45 as I scanned the treeline again.

Not tonight.

Not for her.

Not for those kids.

I’d been forced to guard doors as a child, powerless. Tonight, I guarded one by choice. And God help the son of a bitch who tried to get past me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE HOUSE WAStoo still.

Even with the kids asleep in the room behind me, even with the faint hum of pipes in the walls, the quiet pressed in heavy. I couldn’t rest. Couldn’t close my eyes without seeing fire behind my lids.

So I rose carefully, making sure not to wake them, and padded barefoot down the hall.

That’s when I saw him.

Zeke.

He was sitting with his back braced against the front door, knees bent, gun resting loose in his hand. His head tipped forward, shadows carving sharp lines across his face. He lookedcarved from stone, but his eyes… his eyes weren’t here. They were somewhere else. Somewhere far away, and whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t good. His jaw was clenched tight, breath rough in a way that didn’t fit the silence.

I knew that look. I knew what it meant to live with ghosts you couldn’t shake.

“Zeke,” I whispered, afraid to startle him.

His gaze snapped up, sharp at first, then softened when he saw me. He gave a quick shake of his head. “Just makin’ sure,” he muttered.

He said everything was fine after coming back inside, but I knew better. I should’ve gone back to bed. Should’ve let him sit there and fight whatever demons kept him guarding the dark. But I couldn’t.

I crossed the room, each step creaking on the old wood until I was right in front of him. Then, without thinking, I sank down beside him, curling my knees up, my shoulder brushing his arm.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Just studied me like he was waiting for me to flinch. Then, slowly, he shifted, slid an arm around me, and pulled me closer.

The weight of it—his arm, his body, his heat—steadied me in a way nothing else ever had. His chest was solid at my side, his heartbeat even and unbothered, like he was anchoring me without even trying. And for the first time since I ran safety wasn’t the first thing on my mind.

It was the hard muscle under my cheek when I leaned against him. The warmth of his thigh brushing mine. The scent of leather and cologne clinging to his cut, threaded with something that was just him—male, clean, steady.