Page 62 of Property of the Bikers

She looks at me and then at Reeve.

“Already told you my position,” Reeve says. “Yesterday. It hasn’t changed overnight.”

She looks at Cade.

He puts his coffee down. “You’re not temporary,” he says. “Never were. Baby’s Ruthless, you’re mine, you’re ours, before the birth and after it, and that doesn’t change based on what Viktor does or doesn’t do or how the next two weeks resolve.” He holds her eyes. “Permanent.”

The word lands in the room and sits there.

She looks at all three of us in sequence. “All three of you,” she says. “How does that work in MC culture?”

“Nontraditionally,” I say. “Cade’s word is law in this club. He’s claiming you as old lady, shared between the three of us. The men who matter voted on it. The ones who didn’t like it voted anyway and lost.” I hold her eyes. “The club adapts, or it doesn’t. That’s not your problem to manage.”

She looks at the table for a moment. “No secrets about post-delivery plans,” she says. “That’s a boundary. My history is of powerful men building frameworks around me without telling me what they’re for. I can’t operate inside ambiguity anymore. I need explicit communication about plans that involve me before they’re executed, not after.” She looks at Cade specifically. “No more handled situations I find out about from a comms log.”

Cade meets her eyes. “Fair. You hear the plans. We hear your concerns. No surprises in either direction.”

She nods once. “Public behavior,” she says. “How do I navigate being with three men in front of the club without creating the faction problem Jax is already managing?”

I lean forward slightly. “Respectful in public, private stays private. No possessive displays that force the men who are still calculating to pick a side. United front, which means if there’s a problem between any of us, it gets handled away from the club floor.”

I pause. “You don’t manage the optics. That’s my job. Your job is to exist in this club—competently and without asking for permission you’ve already been granted.”

She looks at Reeve. “Jealousy management. Between the three of you.”

“Addressed,” Reeve says. “We’re not competing. We’re coordinating. The distinction matters operationally, and it matters personally. If it becomes a problem, we communicate about it before it becomes visible.”

She looks at Cade.

“Brotherhood first,” Cade says. “We don’t let you divide us because you’re not trying to divide us, and we’re not built to be divided by a woman, even one we’re all claiming. We coordinate.” He picks up his coffee. “Same as everything else.”

The table is quiet for a moment.

She looks at her hands. “I want this,” she says. The words come out carefully, like she’s weighed each one before releasing it. “It scares me. The permanence scares me, and the structure scares me, and the fact that I can’t fully tell the difference between choosing this and having no other choice scares me most of all.” She looks up. “But I want it.”

I look at her across the table.

She’s eight months pregnant, and she’s been on this compound for over a month, and she’s been mapping the blind spots in the fence line as insurance while simultaneously sitting across breakfast tables from the men she’s been mapping them against, and she just said I want this in a voice that didn’t perform anything around the words.

I’ve been reading people for a long time.

That landed true.

“Good,” I say. “Because we’re not letting you go.”

Cade picks up his coffee and drinks it, and the conversation is over.

Reeve opens his notebook.

I look at Mira.

She’s looking at the table with an expression I’ve seen before and am only now connecting to its source. A month ago, in the bar after she first arrived, I read her accurately enough that it registered as oddly precise.

The hospital administrator details the exact methodology. The operational read was more than a guess, and she filed it and didn’t pursue it.

She’s connecting those dots right now.

I watch it happen across her face without her knowing I’m watching it, the slight tension at the corner of her jaw, the way her eyes go to the middle distance for a half second before she pulls them back to the table.