Page 4 of Finn's Future

I watched Reaper carefully. He was thinking, weighing the risk against Caleb’s name.

“She doesn’t stay here,” he said finally.

Lucy stepped forward immediately. “Jay?—”

“She also doesn’t get thrown back onto the street,” Reaper cut in calmly. “Motel. Paid for and watched until we know exactly what’s coming at my door.”

“I don’t have anywhere else.”

“You do now,” Reaper replied flatly. “It just isn’t here.”

Lucy looked torn between arguing and accepting the compromise, but she stayed quiet.

Reaper’s gaze shifted towards me. “You were first on scene,” he said. “Now, you own it.”

Perfect, because apparently, I didn’t already have enough shit hanging over my head.

Phone calls from my past had been getting harder to ignore. Every day, another missed call. Another voicemail I hadn’t listened to. Another reminder that eventually the life I’d buried was going to catch up to me whether I wanted it to or not. Now, I was being handed a woman, a kid, and whatever trouble was chasing them.

“Yes, Pres,” I said.

“You stay on her. Every second. She moves, you know about it.”

“I will.”

Reaper held my gaze a second longer. “You get distracted,” he said evenly, “you don’t just screw yourself. You screw this whole club.”

Like I didn’t already know that. “Yeah,” I replied. “I understand.”

He nodded once. “Good.”

Kate finally looked at me with exhausted eyes, a bruised face, and the baby clutched tightly against her chest.

I didn’t like the way something twisted low in my gut when I looked at her. Didn’t like the protectiveness creeping in even less.

“One night,” I muttered, jerking my head towards the door. “Just not here.”

Chapter 3

Kate

Finn. That was his name.

The man who stayed in the chair by the motel door the entire night instead of leaving me and Noah alone even once.

He barely spoke. Just sat there with his arms folded, eyes sharp, watching the door and windows. Every sound outside was like he expected danger to come crashing through at any second.

Still, somehow his presence steadied me.

The motel room was small, with thin walls and a single door—nowhere to run if someone came through it. But Finn hadn't moved all night. Every time I woke up, he was there.

Caleb should have come by now.

I kept telling myself that over and over, trying not to let panic settle too deep. Any second, I expected he’d walk through the door with that crooked grin and tell me everything was going to be okay.

Only he hadn’t.

The next morning, there was a knock at the door that sent my heart straight into my throat.