Steele’s Redemption

Chapter 4

Jake

Emma disappeared into the shop floor with Raven that first morning, and I watched her go longer than I should have before Nash cleared his throat behind me.

"You gonna stare at the door all day, or you got work to do?"

"Shut up, Nash."

He grinned and left me to it.

---

She slept on the couch in my office those first few nights. I told myself it made sense—she had nowhere else, and it kept her close, kept her safe. But by the third night, watching her wince as she folded herself onto those cushions again, I knew it wasn't a real solution.

"This can't be permanent," I said, catching her before she settled in.

"I know. I'll figure something out."

"I already did." I told her about the furnished rooms a few blocks over, month-to-month, no lease trapping her into anything. "I'll cover the first month. You pay me back out of your checks. Not charity. A loan."

She studied me like she was checking for strings attached. "Okay. But I'm keeping track of every dollar."

"Wouldn't expect anything less."

By the end of the week, she had a real bed, a lock on her own door, and I could stop picturing her spine curved wrong against my office cushions every time I closed my eyes.

---

Over the next two weeks, Emma settled into the rhythm of the shop like she'd been doing it for years, not days. She reorganized the filing system Raven had been complaining about since before I hired either of them. She caught two vendor overcharges in the first week alone.

"You're wasted on invoices," Raven told her, only half joking.

"I'll take wasted. Wasted pays rent."

Her ribs were healing—still tender, but no longer the sharp wince every time she reached for something. She was eating more. Sleeping better. Filling out the edges of herself again.

I told myself I was just watching her heal.

I wasn't sure that was all it was anymore.

---

She stayed late most nights. Not because I asked her to—I'd stopped inventing reasons after Nash called me on it.

"Raven can close out the books," he'd said, arms crossed, giving me that look he saved for when he thought I was being an i***t.

"Emma's better with the filing system."

"Emma's the reason you're still here past nine."

I hadn't argued. There wasn't a good argument to make.

---

Most nights, it was just coffee gone cold and quiet conversation in the break room.

"I used to draw," she said one night, out of nowhere, tracing the rim of her mug. "Before Derek. I wanted to go to art school."

"What happened?"

"He said it was impractical. That I'd never make money at it." She shrugged, but her jaw tightened. "I stopped believing I was any good."

"You believe him?"

"I don't know what I believe anymore."

I didn't push. Just filed that away—another piece of her, offered on her own terms, in her own time. I wasn't going to be the guy who demanded her story like it was owed to me.

"You could start again," I said instead. "No rush. Just something to try."

She looked at me like the idea hadn't occurred to her in a long time. "Maybe."

---

I gave her space on purpose. Let her come to the break room or not. Let her ask questions or stay quiet. Every time I felt the urge to close the distance—physically, emotionally—I reminded myself why that would be a mistake.

I'd pulled her off a sidewalk. I signed her paycheck. I held every card in this situation, whether I wanted to or not.

Gratitude wasn't consent. Dependence wasn't desire. I knew the difference, and I wasn't going to blur it just because she was sitting three feet away, biting her lip while she read through invoices, looking more like herself every day.

So I kept my hands to myself and my mouth mostly shut about anything that wasn't bikes, paperwork, or logistics.

Mostly.

---

"Why motorcycles?" she asked one night, legs tucked under her on the break room couch.

"My old man," I said. "Taught me to ride when I was eight. Taught me to build when I was twelve. Only thing we did together that didn't end in yelling."

"Is he still around?"

"No. Ten years now."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He wasn't a great man. But he gave me this." I gestured at the shop beyond the door—the bikes, the noise, the life I'd built out of what little he'd left me. "And the club. That's mine. Built it myself."

She studied me for a second too long. "You care about this place. About your guys."

"They're not just guys. They're family."

"Even Raven?"

"Especially Raven. She'd take a bullet for anybody in this building. Has, actually. Long story."

Emma almost smiled. "I'd like to hear it sometime."

"Maybe sometime."

---

Raven wandered through around ten, tossing an empty energy drink can toward the recycling bin and missing by a foot. "You two still here? It's a filing job, not a hostage situation."

"Going over inventory," I said.

"Sure you are." She smirked at Emma. "He's better at pretending than he thinks."

Emma laughed—short, surprised, real.

That sound did something to my chest I wasn't going to examine too closely.

Nash leaned in from the doorway a minute later. "Volkov's been asking around about our shipment schedule again."

"Tell him to mind his own territory."

"Told him. He didn't seem to care."

I filed that away too—another problem for later, separate from whatever was happening in this room.

---

"Can I ask you something?" Emma said, once Raven and Nash had gone.

"Go ahead."

"Why do you do this? Not the club. This." She gestured between us. "Staying late. Talking. You don't owe me conversation just because you gave me a job."

I thought about lying. Thought about saying it was just decent management, just making sure the new hire settled in fine.

"I like talking to you," I said instead. Simple. True. Nothing more attached to it than that.

She studied me, like she was trying to decide if she believed me. "Okay."

"You don't have to stay late if you don't want to," I added. "I mean that. You can clock out at five and go home. No hard feelings."

"I know." She met my eyes. "I want to be here."

I nodded, and didn't let myself read too much into it.

---

I walked her back to her building that night, kept two steps of distance the whole way, made sure she got inside and the door locked behind her before I left.

Driving back to the shop, I turned the evening over in my head—the drawing she used to do, the old man I barely mentioned to anyone, the sound of her laugh cutting through Raven's teasing.

She hadn't needed me tonight. Not for safety, not for rescue.

She'd just wanted to talk to me.

That was the part that scared me more than anything Derek Blackwell could throw our way.

So I didn't say any of that.

I just drove home, and let the wanting sit there, unspoken, for one more night.