THE ALPHA BIKER'S SECRET TWINS

CHAPTER SEVEN

RILEY

I made the list at two in the morning.

Not because I couldn't sleep — I could've slept, probably, if I'd tried — but because making lists is what I do when the world stops making sense and I need to put things somewhere outside of my own head. I've been doing it since I was twelve. Grocery lists, to-do lists, lists of things I was grateful for during that first terrible year in Seattle when gratitude felt like the most violent act I could manage.

This one was titled: GROUND RULES. FINAL. NON-NEGOTIABLE.

I numbered them. All nine of them. I used the good pen.

No uninvited entry. No touching. No discussing the bond in front of the twins. No buying things for me without asking. No telling the kids pack secrets. No undermining my parenting decisions. No going through my things. No making me feel like I owe you anything. No pretending this is something it isn't.

I read it back twice, decided it was thorough and fair and legally airtight for a document with no legal standing whatsoever, and slid it under his penthouse door at two forty-five in the morning. Then I went back to bed and told myself I felt better.

His response came at three-oh-two.

One word. In caps.

*NO.*

I stared at my phone for a solid minute. Then I called him.

He picked up on the second ring. "Morning."

"It is three in the morning, Knox."

"Technically." I could hear him moving around up there. "Also, no."

"You can't just say no to a list of reasonable—"

"Rule four says no buying things for you without asking." His voice was calm and slightly amused, which was infuriating. "I bought the building. Are you going to un-own the building?"

"That's not — that's a different—"

"Rule seven says no going through your things. I found the shoebox before we had any rules. Does that count retroactively?"

I hung up.

He knocked on my door four minutes later.

He was leaning against the doorframe in a grey t-shirt and sweatpants with a red pen in his hand and my list — my list — held between two fingers like it was a mildly interesting piece of evidence. He had the audacity to look rested. He probably slept four hours and woke up functioning like a normal person, which was just one more thing to add to the list of things that were unfair about Knox Blackthorn.

"You have a red pen," I said.

"I found it in your junk drawer."

"That's rule seven."

"The rule didn't exist yet." He clicked the pen. "Can I come in?"

"No."

He came in.

I turned around and walked to the kitchen because the alternative was standing in my own doorway arguing about whether he was allowed through it, and I was not going to do that in my pajamas at three in the morning. I heard him close the door behind him. Heard the pen click again.

"Rule one," he said. "No unnecessary touching. I'll keep it. But I'm rewriting the condition."

I turned around. He had my list on the counter and was actually crossing things out. With the red pen. In my kitchen.

"You don't get to rewrite my—"

"New rule one." He held it up. "'No unnecessary touching — unless you initiate.'" He looked at me with those silver eyes like he'd said something perfectly reasonable. "That works for both of us."

I wanted to throw something. The mug was right there.

I didn't throw the mug.

"Rule five," he continued, uncapping the pen again. "No buying things for you. I'm amending this to 'no buying things Riley hasn't specifically needed or asked for someone to provide,' which I think covers the shop deed and the security system and the building and means I was still in compliance—"

"That is the most—"

My phone rang.

I looked at the screen. Damien. At three in the morning, which meant he'd been up doing whatever Damien did at three in the morning — probably spreadsheets, probably involving my name somewhere he hadn't mentioned.

I stepped into the hallway and answered it.

"Hey," I said. "It's late."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry." He sounded warm and careful, the voice he used when he wanted something. "I just — I've been thinking about us. About the timeline. I want to move the wedding up, Riley. I know it's fast but I think it would be good for us, good for stability, you know? I can put down a deposit on the venue this week, I have some funds I've been moving around—"

"We can talk about this tomorrow, Damien."

"I just think with everything that's going on, with Blackthorn being in the building—"

"Tomorrow." I hung up.

When I came back to the kitchen Knox was sitting at the counter with his arms folded and my list in front of him. He'd drawn a circle around Damien's name — not that Damien's name was on my list, but Knox had apparently written it there, in the margin — and put one clean line through it. He didn't say anything. Didn't look up at me with any particular expression. Just capped the red pen and set it down.

"What did you write?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Knox."

"Nothing that matters right now." He slid the list back across to me. "I'll keep six of your nine rules. The other three need work."

"You don't get to vote on—"

"Luna." His voice shifted slightly.

I turned around.

Luna was standing in the hallway in her dinosaur pajamas with her blanket dragging behind her and her hair doing approximately seven things at once, looking between us with the calm, measuring expression she'd had since she was about fourteen months old. Like she was the adult in every room she walked into and the rest of us were merely catching up.

"You're loud," she informed us.

"Sorry, baby," I said.

She walked past me, climbed onto the couch, wedged herself directly in the center of it with her blanket and her stuffed wolf — the one Grayson had brought, which she'd named Gerald — and pointed at the television.

"Cartoon," she said.

Knox and I looked at each other.

There wasn't really a way to keep arguing with each other over a four-year-old sitting between us on the couch at three in the morning pointing at a cartoon about animated vehicles with names. Knox sat at one end. I sat at the other. Luna was in the middle, completely satisfied, watching a small animated truck solve a problem about sharing.

Knox's arms were folded.

My arms were folded.

Neither of us said a word.

Luna fell asleep about twenty minutes in, slumped sideways against my arm, and I sat there in the blue light of the television with my four-year-old leaning on me and Knox at the far end of the couch and Gerald the stuffed wolf between them, and I thought: this is not how I planned the next sixty days to go.

By morning, the security system on my door was biometric. Fingerprint and retinal scan. Top of the line. There was no note.

I stared at it for a full thirty seconds.

Then I went upstairs and knocked on his door so hard my knuckle hurt.

He opened it before the third knock. Already dressed, already holding coffee, looking at me with that infuriating calm.

"The door," I said.

"Yes."

"You installed a biometric lock on my apartment door."

"I did."

"Without asking me."

"Yes."

I opened my mouth. He cut in before I could start.

"Someone has been making inquiries about where you live, Riley. Through third parties. I'm not telling you who yet because I don't have the full picture and I won't give you half of one. But until I do—" He stopped. Something moved through his expression, something that wasn't anger and wasn't apology but was very much neither comfortable nor performative. "I'm not sorry about the lock. I'll be sorry about a lot of things before this is over, but not that."

I stood in his doorway.

He looked back at me.

"You should've told me," I said finally. "About whoever's asking."

"Yeah." He said it simply. "I should have. I'll do better."

I didn't have an answer for that. So I went back downstairs, pressed my thumb to the scanner on my door, and decided that the fact that it worked on the first try was not a metaphor for anything.