Chapter Four
1105 Words
The main building was two stories of mismatched history—older, crumbling brick bleeding into weather-beaten clapboard, fronted by a wide porch holding two unmatching chairs. It looked exactly like what it was: a structure built and expanded by men who took what they needed and bolted it together over decades.
Nadia shoved the heavy front door open.
The interior was strictly functional. It was a long, cavernous room scattered with scuffed tables and chairs, flanked by a scarred wooden bar running along the right wall. The air hung thick with a suffocating mix of greasy food from an unseen kitchen, bitter coffee, stale cigarettes, and beneath it all, the damp, deep-seated smell of wood that had trapped a lot of winter cold.
The man standing behind the bottles at the bar looked up the second she entered.
He wore the club's heavy leather cut, but the energy he carried fundamentally clashed with the oppressive dread of the compound. He was broad-shouldered, with a face that was simply and entirely open. He offered a genuine smile—not a performance, just the natural resting state of his features.
"You're Nadia," he said.
"Yes," she answered.
"Priest," he introduced himself, tapping the road name stitched over his heart. "You want coffee? You look like you've been working since noon."
"I'm here for River," she stated flatly.
"He's in the back." Priest was already pouring steaming, dark liquid into a ceramic mug. "He can wait two minutes. There's no good reason to walk into a conversation with that man without something in your hand."
She stared at the offered cup for a second, then sat down and took it.
The coffee was violently strong but brewed perfectly—far better than the late hour or the grimy setting deserved. She analyzed its quality the way she diagnosed a well-tuned engine: a specific, involuntary assessment she couldn't switch off.
"First day," Priest noted.
"Yes."
"Kayne give you anything impossible?"
"Sportster clutch. Road King front end," she replied.
Priest nodded slowly. "That's not impossible. That's Kayne being careful." He leaned his heavy forearms against the bar. "He gives you impossible on day three. If he decides you're worth it."
"And if he decides I'm not?"
"Then day three is the last day," he said, stripping the words of any threat. It was just a casual exchange of facts. "You'll be fine."
She drained the coffee, set the mug down with a clack, and stood up without waiting for permission. Lingering in a room where she hadn't been formally invited was a mistake she refused to make.
"Back room," Priest directed, tilting his chin toward the dark hallway at the far end of the floor. "All the way through."
She found River sitting in the shadows at a heavy table strewn with paperwork, illuminated by a harsh desk lamp that did all the heavy lifting for the dead overhead light. He glanced up as she crossed the threshold. He didn't offer her a chair.
She didn't sit.
"How was the floor?" he asked, his voice low.
"Fine," she replied tightly.
He looked back at his papers, made a deliberate note in the margin, and set the pen down.
"Why did you come here?" he demanded.
"You know why. The debt."
"The debt gave you an out," River countered, his dark eyes locking onto hers. "Shop goes to us, you walk away with nothing owed. Legal terms. You drove four hours to offer labor instead. I'm asking why."
Nadia stood rigid, keeping her hands dead at her sides.
"Marcus Cole took care of me for eight years while my parents decided whether they wanted to," she said, the words practiced, defensive, and hollow. "The debt came to me and I came to deal with it."
River didn't blink. "He said you'd say that."
The single desk lamp cast a sickly yellow wash over the scarred wood between them. Somewhere deep in the hallway, a heavy door opened and slammed shut, the old building absorbing the violent sound before releasing it back into silence.
"He came here six months ago knowing he wasn't going to make the payment," River said smoothly. "He didn't come to negotiate. He came to ask us to watch for you." River picked the pen back up—not to write with, just to hold the metal. "He said you'd come when it fell due. He said you wouldn't let it go."
He let the words hang in the dim light.
"He knew you well enough to tell us what you'd do before you'd done it," River finished softly. "He read you forward and he was right."
The realization hit her chest like a sledgehammer and anchored there. Sharp. Devastating.
She forced oxygen through her teeth, willing herself to breathe through the sudden lack of air.
Her hands remained perfectly still at her sides. It was pure, unadulterated fury. She recognized it entirely by its geography: a burning tension locked in her sternum, her clenched jaw, and her empty hands that suddenly needed something to break.
Marcus Cole had sat across from her in that miserable diner fourteen months ago. He had looked old, exhausted, talking around the edges of the truth while she politely avoided pushing him. And she had driven home, leaving him to it. Six months later, he had walked into this exact room and handed her over to River, orchestrating her movements from the grave.
"What exactly did he ask you to do?" her voice was lethal.
River held her unblinking gaze.
"He asked us to make sure you had a reason to stay," he said.
She stared at the scattered papers. The buzzing lamp. The idle pen in his scarred hand.
The six months was never a labor arrangement. She had known that since Kayne walked into bay three that morning, but she had filed the instinct away to keep working. Now the file was wide open. Her uncle had designed a cage. He had stood in this room and begged a violent motorcycle club to build a wall she couldn't walk away from.
He had known her well enough to exploit her loyalty, but he hadn't respected her enough to tell her the truth.
She spun on her heel to leave.
"Nadia."
She froze.
"He didn't tell us everything," River said to her back. "He told us your name. He told us you'd come. He told us what you could do with a bike." He let the silence stretch until it was deafening. "He didn't tell us about Colt."
Nadia didn't turn around.
"Goodnight," she said to the doorframe.
She walked out.
- Writer
