Sin speaks, voice low enough that it lands like a weight rather than a sound.
“You came in with your head down,” he says. “Kept your mouth shut and paid attention. Held your ground when it cost you. Didn’t lose yourself when shit got ugly. Didn’t fold when taking the easy road would’ve been simpler.”
Something tightens in my throat.
Dad lifts the patch slightly. “You held steady when everything around you was chaos.” He meets my eyes fully now. “So that’s what you are.”
He presses the patch into my palm.
ANCHOR
The word sits there like something that has always been waiting for me to pick it up.
The room is dead silent.
I don’t realize I’ve stopped breathing until Nitro lets out a slow, impressed whistle.
Deek mutters, rough and low, “Yeah… that tracks.”
Dad takes my cut, turns it slightly, and sews the road name to the left chest with the same steady hands he’s used for everything that matters. Every stitch feels like a nail being driven into something permanent. When he finishes, he pats the leather once.
Finality.
Then he steps in closer. For a second, he holds it there between us, his hands firm on the shoulders like he’s measuring something only he can see. Then he slides it back over my shoulders. The leather settles across my body, heavier than it has ever felt. Not because it weighs more, but because I do.
I draw in a breath that doesn’t quite make it all the way through my chest the first time.
Two years of earning it.
Every mile, every choice, every time I stayed when it would have been easier to walk.
And Millie.
The way she looked at me when I didn’t have this.
The way she stood beside me anyway.
The way she never asked for anything I hadn’t earned.
It’s all there.
I roll my shoulders back without thinking, the cut shifting with me, fitting the way it always did… and not at all the way it did before.
Complete.
Not just for me.
For what I can give Millie now.
For what I can stand beside her as.
For what I can claim asmine.
Something in me locks into place with it.
Unshakeable.
I don’t say anything.
