Chapter Forty-Eight
The warm kitchen in Stone and Tessa’s private quarters smelled of dried lavender, rich coffee, and old wood. It was a stark contrast to the grease and beer stench of the main clubhouse downstairs, offering a quiet, clean pocket of air that made my lungs ache. Tessa moved around the space with a quiet, practiced grace that only came from decades of living at the very top of a dangerous hierarchy. She poured boiling water into a delicate porcelain teapot, the steam rising to soften the sharp light of the room, and set a small plate of butter biscuits between us on the polished oak table. I sat on the very edge of the wooden chair, still wrapped in Jake's oversized gray sweatshirt, pulling my legs up slightly as if to make myself as small as possible. My hands were wrappe
