Chase’s POV
The old pack neutral bar sat on the edge of no-man’s-land, half a mile past the last city lights—gray clapboard, neon sign half-dead, gravel lot full of trucks that had seen better decades. No pack colors on the walls. No territory marks on the door. Just a single rule: no blood inside. Everything else was fair game.
I arrived alone.
Crutches stayed in the truck. I walked in on one good leg and one braced one—slow, deliberate, every step a reminder of what I’d already survived. The brace clicked faintly against the wood floor. Heads turned. Conversations dipped. I felt the weight of fifty pairs of eyes—some curious, some hostile, most just waiting to see if tonight would break the rule.
Dmitri was already there.
He sat at the far end of the scarred oak bar, back to the wal
