## Chapter 5: His House
The first thing Sadie noticed, waking in Jace’s bed, was the quiet.
Not the absence of sound—there were crows outside the window, the low thrum of a Harley somewhere down the road, the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen—but the absence of threat. No creak of the front door that made her stomach knot, no footsteps that turned her mouth dry, no sudden hush that meant Christian had come home in one of his moods and she should pretend to be asleep, pretend to be invisible.
She rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling. The fan turned slow, lazy circles, pulling cool morning air across her bare arms. The sheets carried the cedar-and-gasoline scent that belonged to the president of the Iron Claws, a scent that had once meant danger and now—impossibly—meant safety.
Her cell on the nightstand read 6:58 a.m. Two minutes earlier than yesterday. She’d woken at the same time every morning for a week, her body learning the rhythms of Jace’s house the way skin learns sunlight when winter finally breaks.
Footsteps in the hallway; the soft scrape of boot leather on hardwood. The tap, pause, tap of a dog’s paws—Buster, Jace’s brindle mutt, rescued from the county shelter after they’d busted up a dog-fighting ring last year. Sadie had read the report, heard the whispers, but she hadn’t asked Jace about it. Not yet. She was learning to let silence sit between them the way she was learning to let his scent settle in her hair.
Jace paused outside the bedroom. She could see his shadow under the door—wide shoulders, tilted head—then Buster whined and Jace murmured something low she couldn’t catch. The shadow moved on. The shower pipes groaned a minute later.
Sadie sat up, pushing hair off her face, running her tongue across dry lips. The nightgown she wore was hers—washed-out cotton, faded roses—but Jace had folded it and left it on the pillow two nights ago, after she’d fallen asleep in his T-shirt. She hadn’t asked him to do that. She hadn’t thanked him, either, because the words tangled every time she tried to speak. Thank you meant indebtedness. Meant she owed him something she wasn’t ready to owe any man again.
She brushed her teeth in the hall bathroom while the shower ran on the other side of the wall. Steam curled under the door; his bar of soap—Ivory, cheap and plain—perfumed the air. She didn’t let herself picture him in there, water sluicing over ink and old scars, but the image came anyway, bright as a camera flash. The first night she’d stayed, he’d offered to shower at the clubhouse instead. “Give you space,” he’d said, voice low, eyes steady, “but my bed’s yours if you want it. Door locks from the inside.”
She’d taken the bed because it smelled like him and that somehow felt safer than being alone in the guest room, but she hadn’t locked the door. Locking would mean she believed he might come in without knocking, and she didn’t—not entirely—but locking would also say she trusted herself to distinguish between possibility and reality, and that part she wasn’t sure of yet.
The shower stopped. Sadie finished braiding her hair, quick and practical, the way her mom had taught her when she was six and late for school, and padded to the kitchen.
Buster greeted her with a thumping tail and a low “woof” that managed to sound apologetic for existing. She scratched behind his ear, earning a lean against her thigh that left a swath of brindle fur on her leggings.
“Nice to see you too, old man,” she whispered.
She heard Jace before she saw him—the rasp of a towel on damp skin, the clink of his belt buckle being threaded. He emerged in a cloud of steam, hair dark as fresh asphalt, drops clinging to his lashes and the beard he trimmed but never shaved off. The cut—the Iron Claws leather vest that marked him president—was nowhere in sight. Instead, he wore a gray T-shirt that stuck to the planes of his chest, and faded jeans that hung low on his hips, undone at the top. He’d nicked himself shaving; a bead of blood glinted under the hinge of his jaw.
His eyes found her across the kitchen. The look was quick, cataloguing—Are you okay? Did you sleep?—then softened when she didn’t flinch.
“Morning.” His voice always sounded like gravel had gotten lodged in his chest overnight.
“Morning.” She stepped around Buster, opened the fridge, knew what was in there before he answered. Eggs, half a gallon of milk, strawberries that were starting to soften, a six-pack of cheap lager, tortillas, cheese. No coffee—he drank it at the clubhouse because the pot at home “tasted like wet ash,” he’d explained. “I make the boys drink it so they stay humble.”
She took the strawberries to the sink. Behind her, drawers opened and closed, metal scraped as he fed the dog. He moved like someone who’d spent years in kitchens where space came at a premium—hips shifting, shoulders angling, turning sideways to pass her rather than stepping back. Close, but never brushing. He’d been careful that way all week, giving her air like she was a candle flame he didn’t want to snuff.
Sadie rinsed berries, pulled stems, listening to the routine clatter—bowl on the floor, kibble poured, Buster’s ecstatic gulps. When she turned around drying her hands, Jace leaned against the counter, ankles crossed, watching her with that cat-still calm that made her pulse stumble.
“Sleep okay?” he asked.
She nodded, then added because he deserved words, “No nightmares.”
A flicker crossed his face—relief or satisfaction, she couldn’t tell. He wiped the cut on his jaw with his thumb, examined the blood, shrugged. “You want eggs? I make decent breakfast tacos.”
“Strawberries are fine.”
“You need protein.”
She almost laughed—he said it with the authority of a man who’d sewn his own bullet graze with dental floss—but she bit it back, worried he’d hear the edge of hysteria Christian had always accused her of. “I’ll drink some milk.”
“Sadie.”
Her name in his mouth stopped her. He didn’t move, but his eyes held her the way hands might, careful but firm.
“You don’t have to take the bare minimum here. Not from me. Food, space, rides, whatever you need—I’ve got it. No ledger.”
Ledger. Like she was an account he refused to balance. Emotion threatened to clog her throat. She looked at the strawberries so she wouldn’t cry. “I’m used to small.”
His exhale sounded almost like pain. “I hear you. And I’m not telling you how to be. Just… this kitchen’s yours if you’re hungry. You want me to back off while you figure shit, I back off.”
She swallowed. “You’re doing fine.”
His mouth shifted—half-smile. “Big relief, tiny.”
The nickname—tiny—had started two nights ago when she couldn’t reach the top shelf in his pantry; he’d come up behind her, lifted the box of pasta down without touching her, and muttered, “Here ya go, tiny,” voice gentle, like he was speaking to a spooked filly. The endearment should have grated—Christian had called her “little bit” with fists tight—but somehow Jace’s version sounded like praise.
She poured milk, drank it leaning against the fridge, while he made coffee using a French press she didn’t know he owned. When it had steeped, he poured two mugs, slid one her direction. Steam curled between them.
“I thought you hated home coffee.”
“Tastes better if I’m not drinking it alone.”
She wrapped her fingers around the warmth, inhaled. Bitter chocolate, cedar smoke. The first sip singed her tongue, but heat felt real, grounding.
“Plan today,” he said, cradling his own mug, “is I ride up to the cabin mid-morning, check on the parts we stored there. You want to come, we take the truck. You don’t, I can leave Buster. Your call.”
His cabin lay twenty miles north in the hills, the place the club stashed bikes, guns, cash—whatever needed hiding from the feds or the Devils. A week ago, he’d have left without giving notice. Now he asked. Every kindness cracked something open in her chest she wasn’t sure how to hold.
“I’ll stay here.” She tried to sound definite, not apologetic. “I want to keep reading through those ledgers you gave me.”
The club’s books were a mess—bartenders skimming, laundering costs buried under vague vendors. She’d minored in accounting before Christian convinced her to drop out; numbers gave her order he couldn’t corrupt.
Jace nodded. “I’ll leave the .38 on the entry table. Safety’s on, hammer down. Keep your phone on you—cell tower up there’s shit, but I’ll check in.”
“I can come if you need muscle,” she joked before she could weigh the impulse.
He lifted a brow. “Sweetheart, you’re mean with numbers—that’s all the muscle I need.” He drained his coffee, set the mug down. “Back before dinner. Anything you want from town?”
She almost said nothing, then reconsidered. “Sketchbook. Pencils. Cheap ones.” Drawing had been her refuge in high school, abandoned when Christian mocked it as self-indulgent. Jace wouldn’t mock.
He dipped his chin. “Done.”
Her pulse fluttered—too domestic, his asking. Too possible. She busied herself washing the berry stems down the disposal so he wouldn’t see her eyes shine.
—-
After he thundered off on his Dyna, the house felt bigger, hollow. Buster followed her from room to room, claws ticking, sighing whenever she paused. She set the .38 on Jace’s desk, checked the load out of habit—Christian had taught her guns weren’t props—then settled at the kitchen island with coffee and spreadsheets open on her laptop.
Numbers lined up, told stories—rent for “JJ Enterprises” spiking the same month Iron Claws patched in two prospects; bar sales 18% higher on Tuesdays, the night a certain bartender worked solo. She highlighted, cross-referenced, made notes in green ink, the scratch of pen loud in the silent kitchen.
Around eleven the furnace kicked on though spring hovered outside. Cool air blew across her ankles. She thought of Jace’s voice at dawn—You need protein—and melted cheese onto tortillas, rolled them, ate standing, crumbs on her borrowed T-shirt.
Buster whined at the sliding door. She let him into the fenced yard, watched him sniff the perimeter like any good sergeant-at-arms, then trot to the patch of sun by the shed. Clouds drifted; trees cast moving shadows. Inside, the house ticked, refrigerator cycling, her pen moving faster as patterns surfaced. She felt… almost normal. The kind of normal stolen eight years ago when Christian first gripped her arm hard enough to bruise.
She was cleaning up lunch dishes when the landline rang—old rotary mounted by the fridge, so foreign she almost didn’t recognize the sound. Buster barked once. She wiped hands, answered hesitantly.
“Yeah?”
“Sadie, it’s Smoke.” Jace’s VP. “Prez asked me to check on you. All good?”
Her lips curved. “All good.”
“Good. You need anything, I’m ten minutes out.”
She thanked him, cradled the receiver, felt the echo of club protection settle around her like a quilt.
Back at spreadsheets, focus lasted another hour, then her eyelids drooped. Nights were still fractured, every noise a potential threat, so she napped rarely. Now, full belly and the hum of reassurance, she stretched on the couch, laptop closed, Buster’s warm bulk against her feet.
Sleep pulled her under like a riptide.
And it took her back.
Christian’s house—vaulted ceiling, black leather couches, antler chandelier he’d shot on some guided hunt while she’d pretended admiration. He paced in front of her, knuckles bleeding from the wall he’d punched when she’d asked if they could stay in tonight.
“You think I’m boring now?” Voice calm. Calm meant dangerous.
“No, baby.” The answer automatic, thin.
“You saying I’m weak?”
She tried to shrink inside her dress—pale blue, linen, he’d chosen. Stood because he hadn’t told her to sit.
He grabbed her throat, slammed her against drywall. Breath fled in a terrified whistle. He smiled, close enough that vodka and rage filled her lungs.
“Get upstairs. Change into the red set. I want you ready when my friends arrive.”
Her mind flashed to the safe tucked behind the mirror. Inside: cash, a Walther he’d never taught her to shoot, and—stupid, hopeful—her passport. She could run. She should run.
Instead she nodded because survival was sometimes surrender.
He kissed her, teeth cruel. “That’s my girl.”
Sadie jerked awake, gasping. Buster barked. Afternoon glare stabbed the room; her shirt clung soaked to her spine. She shivered, choking on phantom vodka.
The doorbell rang—that same foreign trill—and reality tilted between nightmare and now. Her pulse screamed. She scrambled upright, scanned for exits. Front door, patio, back gate—Christian knew all of them, but he couldn’t know where—
Bell again. She forced breath through shaking lungs, crept to the sidelight. Outside stood a woman in her sixties, silver braid, floral dress, cardboard box in arms. She looked like someone’s nana, but Sadie’s ribs still vibrated with fear.
She cracked the door two inches, .38 behind her thigh.
“Hi, honey,” the woman said. “I’m Dolores—Jace’s momma. You must be Sadie.”
Momma? Jace’s mom lived in Arizona; she remembered him saying that. She studied the woman’s eyes—cornflower blue, same slate shade as his—then the curved smile, gentle.
“He called me, said you might like a visitor,” Dolores went on, unruffled by Sadie’s pallor. “Brought books, pie, fresh clothes. May I come in?”
Sadie swallowed doubt. Jace would not expose her to harm. She opened the door, stepped back. “Sorry. I was napping—I—”
“Nightmares,” Dolores said softly. “He warned me. Don’t you fret.” She entered like breeze, set the box on the coffee table, then surveyed Sadie: sweat-damp, trembling. Without asking, she walked to the kitchen, filled a glass, pressed it into Sadie’s hand. “Water first. Sit.”
Authority came naturally. Sadie obeyed, perching on couch edge while Dolores bustled—pie uncovered, peach scent sweet; bags opened revealing silky pajamas, a stack of paperbacks—tattered romances, mysteries—then washcloth from the hall bath, dampened with cold water, draped across Sadie’s neck.
Something in the fussing loosened Sadie’s spine; her eyes welled.
“Sugar, you’re okay,” Dolores murmured, sitting close. “Let it out if you need. Lord knows Jace has cried in my lap more times than he’d admit.”
That image undid her—massive, raw Jace, curled like a child. A laugh-hiccup escaped, became a sob. Dolores didn’t flinch, stroked her hair while the storm worked through. Buster rested his chin on Sadie’s foot like a stone of solidarity.
Eventually Sadie hiccupped into silence. Cold cloth now warm. Dolores tucked hair behind Sadie’s ear exactly the way her own mother had when she’d skinned knees.
“That’s better,” Dolores said. “Now. You eat pie, tell me what you like to read, or we watch trashy talk shows, whichever heals quickest.”
Sadie managed a shaky smile. “Both?”
Dolores grinned. “Attagirl.”
They ate pie straight from tin, forks shared, watching reruns of a show where guests threw chairs. Between segments Dolores shared stories—baby Jace refusing boots, insists on rain galoshes with frogs; teenage Jace fixing neighbor’s tractor in exchange for peach saplings now crowding her yard; tired-eyed Jace handing her keys two years ago: “Need a place Sadie can breathe when she’s ready.”
Sadie’s heart thumped. “He planned this?”
“Not planned,” Dolores corrected. “Hoped. Prayed. Planned sounds like marching; Jace is stubborn, not stupid. He knew you had to choose to land here.”
Tears again, but softer. “He told you about Christian?”
“He told me enough that I packed my pistol alongside pie.” Dolores patted her oversized purse. “I may look like butter, honey, but I melt for no monster.”
Sadie laughed. Then again. The sound startled Buster, who thunked his tail at the ceiling. It felt like rebirth.
Dolores stayed two hours. She taught Sadie the trick of flaky crust—lard, not butter—left the pajamas still warm from a dryer, kissed her forehead like family. At the door she said, “My boy’s rough road wrapped in gravel, but he’s heart first. You take all the time you need.”
When she left, quiet returned, but emptiness didn’t. Sadie felt padded, buffered, set the pistol back on the entry table with steadier fingers.
—-
Sun set behind hills when Jace’s bike rumbled down the drive. Sadie stood at the stove stirring chili—canned beans, fresh peppers, his spices arranged the way Dolores told her he liked. Buster galloped to the slider, barked once. Through glass she watched Jace straddle the Dyna, visor up, eyes on the house. Searching.
She moved to open the door before he knocked. Their eyes met across dusk. He removed his helmet, placed it deliberate, the way he did everything.
“Mom came by,” he said, statement not question.
“She did.”
“Hope she wasn’t much.”
“She was perfect.”
He nodded, throat working. “You good?”
“I am.” She stepped aside. “Chili in ten.”
His brows lifted—surprise, pleasure. He toed dirt from boots at the mat, then paused, hand sliding into his back pocket. “Brought these,” he said, producing a brown paper bag, folded tight. He offered it like contraband.
Inside: sketch pad, 4B and 6B pencils, a white eraser shaped like a rock.