Page 8 of Wings (Heavy Kings MC #5)

The girl I'd known had been all warmth and light, even when dealing with Alex's bullshit.

She'd had this way of tilting her head when she listened, really listened, like whatever you were saying was the most important thing in the world.

Now she kept her head down, hair falling forward like a curtain.

An antibiotic vial had rolled under a pipe. I reached for it, the movement bringing me closer to her orbit. She tensed but didn't pull away.

"You still think about the butterfly garden?" The question came out without planning, soft as moth wings.

Her hands stilled on a package of surgical tape. For a moment, I thought she wouldn't answer. Then, so quiet I almost missed it: "Sometimes."

She tucked that strand of hair behind her ear—the nervous gesture that meant she was fighting something internal. In the old days, it had been about choosing between speaking her mind or keeping peace. Now it seemed like the fight was just to speak at all.

"When I can't sleep," she added, still not looking at me.

The butterfly garden at the botanical center had been Alex's idea for his nineteenth birthday, but he'd gotten bored after twenty minutes.

Left Ki and me sitting on a bench while he went to flirt with some girl by the koi pond.

We'd spent two hours watching monarchs dance through the air, Ki sketching in her notebook while I pretended to read the plaques.

Really, I'd been watching her—the way she bit her lip when concentrating, how her eyes lit up when she captured movement just right.

"I dream about them sometimes," she continued, surprising me. "The monarchs. How they migrate thousands of miles on wings that look like they'd tear in a strong breeze. Fragile things doing impossible journeys."

For a moment, I considered asking what impossible journey she was on, what had driven her to change her name and work nights and flinch when men moved too fast. But I held my tongue.

"I'm sorry," I said instead. "About . . . this. When Doc said I was meeting K. Mitchell I didn’t think—"

"That's what I go by now." Her voice had that careful neutrality that took effort to maintain. "Santos was . . . complicated."

Complicated. Such a small word for what I suspected was an epic fucking disaster.

In my family, in our culture, you didn't just change your name without reason.

Marriage, witness protection, or running from something that had teeth.

Given the way she moved, the wariness that clung to her like perfume, I had a pretty good idea which one.

The memory hit me sideways—my going-away party.

Alex's arm around her waist, possessive and proud.

The way she'd smiled when she wished me well, bright and false as costume jewelry.

How Alex had gotten drunk and started talking about their future, kids and a house and all the things I'd wanted to give her but couldn't.

I'd left the party early, claiming an early flight.

Really, I'd sat in my truck in the parking lot, watching through the window as she helped Alex to a booth, patient with his sloppy affection.

Even then, I'd known something was off. The way she'd held herself apart even while being held. Like she was already halfway gone.

"The Corps teach you that?" She gestured at how I was sorting supplies with military precision. "Or were you always this organized?"

"Both, I guess." I aligned the salvaged vials by size, labels facing out. "You know me. Always liked things in their place."

"I remember." Something shifted in her voice, a crack in the armor. "You used to organize Alex's garage when he was too high to—" She cut herself off, but the damage was done.

Too high to function.

"I tried," she said suddenly, urgently, like she needed me to understand. "I tried to help him. For two years, I tried everything. Rehab, NA meetings, tough love, soft love, no love. I tried until—"

She pressed her lips together, physically holding back words. Whatever had happened, whatever had finally made her run, it lived in that silence.

"You don't owe me explanations," I said. "We all do what we have to do to survive."

She looked at me then, really looked at me for the first time. Her eyes traced the changes—the beard, the tattoos, the way I sat to accommodate the prosthetic. When her gaze reached the unit insignia on my jacket, something flickered across her face.

"Night Stalkers," she read. "That's helicopters, right? Alex mentioned—" Another abrupt stop. "Sorry. I'm not used to talking about . . . before."

Before. Such a simple word for the dividing line in a life. Before the thing that changed everything. I had my own before—before the RPG, before the crash, before I'd woken up in hospital missing parts of myself I'd thought were permanent.

"Yeah," I said. "Helicopters. Until I couldn't anymore."

The last morphine vial lay between us, intact despite the chaos, like it was waiting for something.

We reached for it at the same time, hands converging on that small glass cylinder that might ease someone's pain.

Should have been simple—one of us pulling back, deferring to the other. Should have been.

Our fingers brushed in the space between heartbeats.

The contact hit like touching a live wire. Her skin was soft and warm despite the morning chill. Such a small point of connection—just fingertips against fingertips—but it might as well have been full body contact for how it lit up every nerve ending I had.

She inhaled sharply, a sound that went straight through me. Her pupils dilated, turning those jade eyes dark as forest shadows. Neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed. The garage, the scattered supplies, the mission—everything faded except for this impossible moment of contact.

Time crystallized around us. I could count her heartbeats in the pulse visible at her throat.

Could see each individual freckle across her nose, the ones she used to cover with makeup after Alex told her they were weird.

Could feel the tremor running through her hand into mine, vibrating at a frequency that matched my own shaking.

This was why I'd left. This right here. The chemistry that had always existed between us, that made every interaction feel like standing too close to a fire.

It hadn't diminished with time or distance or even the war that had taken pieces of me.

If anything, it burned hotter now, fed by everything we'd survived separately.

I should have pulled away. Should have grabbed the vial and broken the spell.

Instead, I stayed frozen, memorizing the feeling of her skin against mine.

Three years of wondering if I'd imagined it, if teenage hormones had amplified something that wasn't really there.

But no—it was real and immediate and absolutely fucking terrifying.

Her breathing had gone shallow, quick little sips of air like she was drowning in the moment too. Her free hand clenched and unclenched against her thigh, fighting something internal.

"I can't." The words came out raw, torn from somewhere deep. She jerked her hand back like she'd been burned, cradling it against her chest. "Gabe, I can't do this. Not with you. Not with anyone connected to . . ."

She didn't finish, but she didn't need to.

"Ki—" I started, not sure what I was going to say. That I understood? That touching her for those few seconds had been worth three years of wondering?

"Don't." She was already moving, shoving the last supplies into her bag with shaking hands. The morphine vial disappeared into her messenger bag, and with it went any pretense that this was just a professional interaction. "This was a mistake. Tell Doc to send someone else next time."

She stood in one fluid motion, all that nervous energy coiled and ready to flee. I stayed on the ground, knowing that if I stood, if I moved toward her, she'd bolt like a spooked deer.

"Okay," I said softly. "I'll tell Doc."

Relief and something that might have been disappointment flashed across her face. She took a step backward, then another, maintaining eye contact like I was a predator she couldn't turn her back on.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and I wasn't sure what she was apologizing for. For dropping the supplies? For touching me? For running? For all the things we'd never get to say?

Then she was gone, sneakers silent on concrete as she fled toward the stairwell.

I sat in the saddle for ten minutes, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Ki's face when she recognized me. The way she'd moved like prey. That moment of contact that had reignited every fucking thing I'd tried to bury.

My phone was burning a hole in my pants. I could leave it. Tell Doc the pickup went fine, supplies delivered, no complications. Keep Ki's secret and pretend those five seconds of contact hadn't rewired my entire nervous system.

But the Heavy Kings didn't run on lies, and Doc had a way of knowing shit before you told him.

I picked up the phone, thumbs hovering over the screen. How did you explain that the routine pickup was actually a goddamn emotional ambush? That the contact was your brother's ex, the girl you'd enlisted to avoid wanting, now going by a different name and jumping at shadows?

Finally, I typed: "Doc, we have a complication. The contact is someone from my past. Might need alternate arrangement."

The response came so fast he must have been waiting: "Duke wants you. Now."

Three words that landed like a punch to the solar plexus. Duke didn't summon prospects at dawn unless shit had gone sideways. My mind ran through possibilities—had someone seen us? Had Ki been under surveillance? Had I already fucked up my chance at patching in?