LEIGH
By lunchtime, I understood something about Iron Hollow.
The brothers didn't gossip — not the way ordinary people did. Rumors moved quietly here, passed from one conversation to another without anyone admitting they were listening.
A sentence overheard in the garage became a question at the bar. A question became a theory in the kitchen. By dinner, everyone knew half the story and had invented the rest.
I had become the story.
Not because I wanted to. Because Varek had planted the seed. The moment he questioned me in front of everyone, the clubhouse had divided itself without meaning to. Some of the brothers still smiled when they passed me. Others had begun looking twice. The second look was always worse than the first.
I kept my head down and focused on the soup simmering on
