I thought about all of that. The obsessive pre-run checks, the redundant communications, the way I woke up at three in the morning the night before a run with the map in my head, running the alternatives. I thought about my father on I-84, a sleepless driver in the oncoming lane, of the call that had come.
I thought about Danny. About the Reyes leak, the ambush, the moment everything I’d built to control the variables had simply failed. Not because I hadn’t planned well enough. Because someone had sold the plan to an outside crew for fourteen thousand dollars. “I couldn’t have planned Reyes,” I said.
“No,” Dutch agreed. “You couldn’t have.”
“It doesn’t matter how thorough I am. If someone inside decides to—”
“No,” he said again firmly. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t control every variable, Holden. You never could.” He turned back to the valley. “You’ve needed to learn that since you were sixteen. Danny’s how life taught you.”
The wind moved through the pines below. I sat with that for a while. “That’s a hard lesson,” I said.
“Most of the important ones are.” He put his helmet back on, visor up. Not a signal to leave — just moving, the way Dutchdid when he’d said what he meant to say and didn’t need to underline it.
“You’re a good road captain,” he said. “Best I’ve ever seen. That’s not changing.” He looked at me sideways. “But I need you here. Not just planning the routes. In the room. Not running everything from a distance so it can’t touch you when it goes wrong.”
I understood what he meant. “Yeah,” I said. “I hear you, prez.”
Dutch went quiet again. “Glitch has been running eyes on her building,” he said after a few minutes silence. “Her practice too. You texted him about the cameras on her block three times since the breakup. He took that as a request.” He turned the helmet over in his hands. “Handful drives past on Thursdays. The rest of us swing by when we can.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You can deny it all you want, brother. But I’ve seen you checking up on her when you think nobody’s watching.” He looked at the valley one more time. “Some things don’t need you to plan them. They just get handled.”
He put his helmet on and started his bike, settled his weight, and waited.
I started mine.
We rode back the way we’d come, into the low spring morning. I wasn’t planning anything. I was just riding — the road underneath me, the cold air, the engine’s sound.
Chapter 22
?
— Holden —
Dutch was getting married. The clubhouse had chairs set up in rows, an altar built by brothers who usually used their hands for less delicate work. White flowers everywhere. It was beautiful, and it made me want to throw up.
Not because I wasn’t happy for Dutch. I was. He’d waited a long time for Indira, fought through his own demons, earned this moment.
No, I wanted to throw up because three months ago, I’d been planning to ask Bea to be my old lady at the next club ceremony. Had the words rehearsed, the moment planned.
Now she was somewhere in this crowd, and we hadn’t spoken in months.
I stood near the back, dressed in my best — black button-down, clean jeans, boots polished for once. The cut felt heavy on my shoulders. Everything felt heavy these days.
Colt appeared at my side, Lilac on his arm, Luca and Knox running ahead to find their seats. Lilac was enormous — twenty weeks with twins and carrying it all out front, the kind of pregnant that drew looks from strangers. She was in a blue dress, beautiful, exhausted, faintly amused by Colt, who had his hand at the small of her back with the vigilance of a man who had personally reviewed every tripping hazard in the building.
“You good?” he asked, low enough that only I could hear. His eyes were already scanning the clubhouse — checking the exits, the crowd, the twins. Always working.
“Fine.”
He snorted. Didn’t even look at me. “Liar.”
I didn’t argue. What was the point?
Luca was trying to climb over the back of a chair two rows up. Colt tracked him without looking away from me.
“She’s here,” he said. “Bea. Indira wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
