I don’t answer, but the ache behind my ribs answers for me. I think of Candace. The way she lights up just enough to scare me. That fire. Her grin. That life. I’ve never seen her like that. Not since she came back. Not since she walked into the ring and gutted me with a look.
She didn’t look haunted that night at Frankie’s. She looked like she remembered who she is. And maybe we don’t need to take that from them yet.
“We let them have it,” I say finally.
Knox frowns. “Seriously?”
I nod. “For now. Let them think they won. Let them laugh and feel safe.”
James chuckles. “You sayin’ we wait it out?”
My smile is slow. Dangerous. Almost fond. “We wait until they get comfortable. Until they’re sure we’ve moved on. Then we hit them when it counts.”
East smirks. “Cold-blooded.”
Nash cracks his neck. “I’m in.”
Knox sighs. “If Sloane wakes up to a cow in our backyard again, I’m blaming all of you.”
James raises a brow. “You planning to get a cow?”
“No,” Knox mutters. “That’s the point.”
East kicks his boots up on the table edge and grins. “We’re not just getting even. We’re making history.”
I stand, the air around me settling into something colder. Steady.
“They lit the fire,” I murmur. “But we’ll make sure they remember who taught them how to burn.”
Cornelius would laugh his ass off at this shit.
Chapter 41
Candace
Ifindhiminthe garage, shirt off, sweat on his neck and grease on his knuckles. Unbothered. That’s what infuriates me most. He’s calm. Working. Acting as though the world isn’t tilting under my feet because I can feel the club shifting. They’re retaliating. Not loud the way we’ve been with our pranks. No glitter or ghosts or chaos. This is quiet. Surgical. The kind of response that tells me they’ve waited until we laughed too hard and let our guard down. And I know he’s behind it.
A wrench clanks through the cavernous silence of the garage, layered with metallic oil tang and the suffocating heat of early evening. Gasoline clings to my skin as I cross the threshold, every step slow, deliberate. Behind me, the door creaks shut, final as a drumbeat. My stomach twists, not with fury, but with something wild, sharp, and giddy. I should be mad. But I’m not. Not really. I’m enjoying this. Every second of it.
“You’re not even gonna pretend you’re not plotting?” I ask, voice sharp, striding toward him.
He doesn’t look up. Just leans over the bike, forearm flexing with every turn of the wrench. The muscles in his back shift beneath sweat-slick skin, every movement fluid and strong. My eyes drag over the sharp lines of his shoulders, the curve of his spine, the trail of ink that disappears beneath his waistband. I try not to look. And fail miserably.
He’s unreal in this state. Focused. Shirtless. Half-wild from the heat and grease. The kind of man your mother warns you about and your body begs you to touch. I’m supposed to be here for intel. That’s the plan.
When he finally speaks, his voice drops low and rough, dragging along my spine carrying the weight of a promise I’m not ready for. “If I was, you think I’d tell you?”
Just like that, the plan shatters.
I stop behind him. “Coward.”
That makes him pause. He turns slowly, eyes catching mine with that cold, dark amusement that makes my thighs press together.
Then his gaze drops. Slow and deliberate. It sweeps over my legs, bare and flexed beneath the edge of my cutoffs, up to the curve of my hips and the snug fit of my tank. His eyes move with the intimacy of a touch, making heat trail up my skin, and lingering just long enough to make me feel it in my chest.
When he looks back up, it isn’t amusement I see. It’s hunger. Quiet and sure, the kind that knows it can wait me out.
A flash of need runs through me, unwanted but unstoppable. His gaze has the weight of a caress. I hate how much I want it.
