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Chapter Text

The hum of engines never stopped. Not really. Even at night, when most of the brothers had crashed or stumbled into some backroom with a bottle or a girl, the thrum lingered like a heartbeat in the floorboards.

Tara Dawson leaned against the rust-stained railing of the upstairs loft, overlooking the Copperhead MC clubhouse. Her arms were crossed, long hair pulled back into a loose braid, dark eyes sharp beneath smudged eyeliner. She didn’t wear a patch, but everyone in the club knew she was Paddo’s — which meant she was untouchable, dangerous even. A queen in a kingdom of wolves.

Below her, Paddo was laughing with Sugar and Baylis. That rare, real laugh he only ever gave when his guard was down. It made something warm coil low in her belly. He wore his kutte like armor, but tonight, with the top few buttons of his flannel open and his tattoos catching the bar light, he looked less like a soldier and more like the man she knew behind closed doors.

He looked up.

He always knew when she was watching.

Their eyes locked. A slow, knowing smirk curved his mouth, and Tara’s heart kicked like an engine turning over. She pushed off the railing, boots echoing down the metal stairs.

As she crossed the room, heads turned — some with respect, some with envy, a few with barely masked hostility. Tara had earned her place beside Paddo, not just through loyalty, but grit. She knew when to speak, when to shut up, when to patch wounds and when to stitch lies together with a smile. She wasn’t just his girl. She was his anchor.

And right now, he needed one.

Paddo met her halfway, hand sliding to the small of her back like he’d been waiting all night for her touch. “T,” he murmured against her temple. “You good?”

She nodded, but her voice was low. “You’re the one I’m worried about.”

His smile faded, eyes scanning her face with the sharpness of a man used to seeing danger before it hit. “Knuck’s getting worse,” he said. “He’s starting to smell weakness in every corner.”

Tara pulled him aside, into the shadowed hallway near the back rooms, out of earshot. “Then you need to hit first.”

“That’s not the way this works.”

“You think he’s playing by the rules?” she snapped. “Paddo, you’re the only one keeping this place from turning into a bloodbath. He hates that the boys follow you. Hates that you make sense when he only makes threats.”

He leaned against the wall, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not just the club. It’s legacy. My old man, Knuck, me. You don’t just step out of a life like this.”

Tara reached for him, cupping his face in her hands. “You don’t have to step out. But you sure as hell don’t have to let it destroy you.”

He leaned into her touch, his voice softer now. “You knew what this life was when you got in bed with me.”

“I didn’t fall for the MC,” she said. “I fell for the man willing to fight for something better.”

His arms wrapped around her then, pulling her in close, his lips brushing her forehead. “Sometimes I forget how good you are for me.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she whispered. “To remind you.”

Their kiss was slow, deep, with the desperation of people clinging to something pure in a dirty world. Every time she kissed him, she felt how close he was to losing himself in the chaos. And every time, she vowed to pull him back.

But Tara knew the fire was coming. The kind of fire that burns down kings and queens alike.

And she would walk through it for him — or with him.

Chapter Text

The sun was burning low when the call came through.

Tara stood in the garage, helping patch up a busted carburetor, sleeves rolled up, fingers dirty. She wasn’t above the work — in fact, she liked it. Liked feeling useful. Liked being needed.

The moment she heard Sugar’s voice on the other end of the burner phone, her gut went cold.

“T, it’s bad. Knuck’s setting something up. He’s gonna throw Paddo under the bus to a rival crew — something about a shipment, a frame job. You need to get to him. Now.”

The phone nearly cracked in her grip. She was already moving.

Two Years Earlier

FLASHBACK: First Meeting

It had been a Tuesday. Cold, grey. She was working private security back then, posted on a shipping lot owned by one of the MC’s “legitimate fronts.” She knew what they were — half her paycheck came from looking the other way.

That night, she caught someone trying to slip through a side gate. She approached fast, hand on her holster.

Then he turned.

Paddo Mitchell.

Leather kutte. Tattooed knuckles. That signature dead-calm expression that could flip from charm to threat in half a breath.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Tara had said.

He raised both hands, slow, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “You always greet strangers with your hand on your gun?”

“Only the ones who look like they’re up to something.”

He stepped forward, confident, the kind of man who knew every move he made was being watched. “Or maybe I just wanted to meet the new girl on night shift.”

Tara narrowed her eyes. “You got a name?”

“Paddo. You?”

“Dawson.”

“Strong name,” he said, and winked.

She should’ve written him up. Should’ve reported it.

But she didn’t.

Three weeks later, he was waiting outside the lot at the end of her shift. Arms crossed, bike gleaming. “Dinner?” he’d asked. “Or you gonna keep pretending you don’t look for me every night?”

He was trouble. Obvious, dangerous, magnetic trouble.

But she went.

And she never stopped.

Back in the Present

Tara rode hard, wind biting her face, heart hammering like a war drum.

If Sugar was right, Paddo was walking into a setup — Knuck’s latest power play. A rival gang, the Dead Dogs, had been sniffing around for weeks, and now Knuck had fed them something: a tip-off, a name, a location. A sacrifice.

She didn’t have time to wait for permission. Not from the club. Not from Paddo. She pulled off the road into an industrial side street, where she knew the Dead Dogs made drops. There, leaning against a crate of unmarked cargo, was Colby Reece — the vice of the Dead Dogs, and a man with a taste for chaos.

He looked up as she approached. “Dawson. Didn’t expect to see you out of uniform.”

She didn’t waste time. “Call off whatever you’re planning for tonight. You got bad intel.”

He cocked his head. “Knuck said—”

“Knuck’s selling you smoke and bones. Paddo didn’t set up that shipment. You go after him, you’re starting a war. One your crew won’t finish.”

Colby grinned like a man amused by a rabid animal. “You threatening me, sweetheart?”

Tara pulled her piece and aimed low — not to kill, but to maim. She fired, grazing his thigh, enough to drop him to one knee.

He screamed. His boys surged forward, but she held the gun firm. “Next shot doesn’t miss. You want a war, fine. But don’t pretend you didn’t pick the wrong fucking side.”

Colby cursed, clutching his leg, but waved his men off. “This isn’t over,” he growled.

“Damn right it’s not,” she said, and turned on her heel.

Later That Night

Paddo found her at the old quarry where they sometimes went to breathe. His face was twisted in disbelief.

“You went to Colby Reece?” he demanded. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that you were about to get set up and killed,” she snapped. “And that no one else was gonna stop it in time.”

He stepped toward her, voice low with fury. “Do you know what you just did? You put a target on your back. On our backs.”

“I’d do it again.”

Silence.

Then something broke in him — not anger, but the wall. That last, hardened part that he never let down, even with her.

“I don’t want you mixed in this deep,” he said quietly.

“I already am.”

His hands were on her then, rough and desperate. He kissed her like a man just pulled back from the brink. Like she was the only thing tethering him to the light. She kissed him back just as hard.

They made love in the gravel and dust, skin against skin beneath the stars, both of them trying to find something real in a world built on lies, violence, and half-truths.

Afterward, he lay next to her, one hand resting over her stomach, breathing slow.

“You know you crossed a line today,” he murmured.

“I crossed it the day I fell for you,” she said.

Chapter Text

The retribution came fast.

Three nights after Tara confronted Colby Reece, the Copperhead MC’s compound was hit. Not a full-on assault — not yet — but a message. A warning. Sugar’s bike was torched in the lot, and someone left a pig’s heart nailed to the front gate.

Paddo stared at it, jaw locked tight, knuckles white as he held back his rage. Knuck, on the other hand, laughed like a wolf who smelled blood. “That’s what happens when civvies play biker,” he muttered just loud enough for Tara to hear.

Paddo’s eyes cut toward his brother. “Don’t.”

Knuck raised both hands, but the glint in his eyes said he’d found a new weapon — and it wasn’t a gun. It was Tara.

“You let your little girlfriend run off playing gunslinger with Reece,” Knuck said later that night in the war room, “and now they think we’re a joke. She embarrassed them. That’s not strength. That’s weakness.”

“She did what you should’ve done,” Paddo growled. “She saved us.”

“She made you look soft,” Knuck snapped. “And this club bleeds when its leader looks soft.”

The room fell cold.

Paddo didn’t answer.

Because deep down — in a part of him he hated — he knew Knuck was right. Not about Tara, but about perception. In this world, loyalty meant everything, but weakness got you killed. And love, real love, could look a lot like a liability.

Tara

She watched it happen from the outside in — Paddo pulling back, retreating into himself. The way he looked at her hadn’t changed, but the way he held her had. Tighter. More cautious. Like he was already bracing for loss.

She hated it.

One night, alone in their shared room above the garage, she called him out on it.

“You’re shutting me out,” she said, her voice sharp over the sound of her unzipping her boots.

“I’m trying to keep you alive,” he said, not looking at her.

“Bullshit. You’re pushing me out because you’re scared. Because they’re whispering and you’re listening.”

He turned slowly, eyes dark. “I’m not scared of them.”

“No,” she said. “You’re scared of what loving me is costing you.”

The silence between them was jagged.

“You’re not a liability,” he said finally. “But I can’t protect you from this.”

“I don’t need protecting. I need partnership. If we’re doing this, we do it all the way.”

He crossed the room and took her face in his hands. “And if it breaks you?”

Tara blinked, tears burning behind her eyes. “Then let it. But at least I’ll break standing beside you.”

The Fracture

A week later, the fracture became a fault line.

Colby Reece was dead. Shot twice in the chest in an alley in Perth. Word on the street was Knuck set it up through a third-party crew — no fingerprints, no trails. But everyone knew.

And everyone also knew Tara had started the chain reaction.

Some in the club rallied around her. Others didn’t. Some started calling her Queen of the Killshot — a mix of mockery and awe.

Baylis pulled Paddo aside. “Your girl’s making moves like an enforcer, not an old lady. You really think that ends well?”

Paddo didn’t answer. Because again, deep down, he wasn’t sure.

Tara’s Breaking Point

It came with a knock on her door.

Midnight. Rain on the roof. Tara opened it to find Gunner, a patched-in Copperhead, eyes wide and breathing fast.

“Baylis,” he said. “He met with Knuck. They’re planning something. He said your name. Paddo’s too.”

Her stomach sank.

She knew what this was.

A coup.

Not loud, not dramatic. Just a quiet bullet in the back and a new king crowned.

She had no proof. No allies. Just a whisper and a choice.

Do nothing — let Paddo handle it. Risk his life on loyalty.

Or cross another line.

That night, she made a call to an old contact — someone from her private security days, now working black-market surveillance. She paid in cash, favors, and bloodied knuckles when he got mouthy.

By morning, she had the recording.

Baylis. Knuck. Talking about how they’d frame Paddo for Reece’s death. Hand him to the cops. Let him rot, and then take back the club in Knuck’s name.

Tara sat with it in her hand, heart pounding.

If she played this, she’d be a snitch in their eyes. Even with the truth, even with proof, she’d be the woman who turned on the brotherhood.

But if she didn’t…

She looked at Paddo sleeping, tattoos curled across his back, a scar under his ribs she knew by heart. The way his breath evened out when she touched him in his sleep.

She made her choice.

Chapter Text

The clubhouse was dead quiet.

Baylis was on the floor, blood pooling around his shoulder, groaning curses through broken teeth. Knuck had already disappeared the second the recording played. Paddo stood over the crumpled body like a statue, the burner phone still playing back his brother’s voice, crackling through static:

“Let the pigs have him. We clean house, and I take back what’s mine.”

Silence.

Then Sugar spoke. “How long you been sitting on that, T?”

Tara looked him dead in the eye. “Since the night Colby died.”

No one moved. The weight of what she’d done was heavy, thick in the air.

Gunner broke it. “She just saved Paddo’s life. And the club.”

But not everyone nodded. Some looked at her like she’d burned the patch clean off their backs.

Even Paddo wasn’t speaking. Not yet.

Later, after the room had cleared and Baylis was hauled off to the back room, Tara stood by her bike, wrapping her knuckles — still raw from the fight.

“You should’ve told me,” Paddo said behind her.

“I needed proof,” she replied without turning.

“You shouldn’t have had to fight this alone.”

She faced him then. “I wasn’t alone. I just didn’t know if you’d back me, or the code.”

He didn’t deny it. “You made enemies tonight.”

“So did you.”

They stood in silence, the kind that said everything.

He stepped closer. “You scare the shit out of me, T.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know where the lines are anymore. Because you crossed every one of ‘em—for me.”

She looked up at him, eyes softer than usual. “I’d do it again.”

Then she kissed him like a vow.

That Night: The Hit

The shot rang out just before dawn.

They’d been too slow.

Knuck hadn’t disappeared — he’d gone feral.

Tara never saw the shooter.

She was leaving the garage after checking her bike when the world went sideways — a flash of pain, the ground slamming up to meet her, blood flooding her vision.

She heard shouting. Screaming. Paddo’s voice.

Then, nothing.

Hospital

Paddo kicked through the ER doors with blood on his shirt and rage in his chest. The nurse tried to stop him, but he growled something animal and didn’t stop moving.

“Tara Dawson,” he barked. “Where the fuck is she?”

A doctor intercepted him, calm but firm. “She’s in surgery. A gunshot wound to the abdomen. She lost a lot of blood.”

Paddo staggered back, like the ground had been yanked from beneath him.

“Is she—?”

“We’re doing everything we can,” the doctor said. Then hesitated. “There’s something else. She was pregnant.”

The words didn’t land right away.

Paddo blinked. “What?”

“Roughly ten weeks. She didn’t mention it?”

He didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

The doctor’s voice turned grim. “We won’t know the baby’s condition until we stabilize her. I’m sorry.”

He sat in the waiting room, numb, fists clenched, eyes unseeing. The hospital lights buzzed. The blood on his hands had dried, but his chest was still soaked in panic.

Pregnant.

She was pregnant. With his child. And now—

He buried his face in his hands and breathed like a man drowning.

Flashback: One Week Earlier

They’d been in the shower. Her head against his chest. His arms around her. Quiet.

“I keep dreaming of the same thing,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“You, me. Somewhere far. I’m barefoot, holding something small.”

“A dog?”

She smiled. “A baby.”

He stilled.

“I don’t even know if I’d be a good mother,” she whispered. “But when I wake up, I want it. Like it already happened. Like it’s real.”

Paddo had kissed her then, slow, deliberate. He hadn’t said anything.

Now, in that waiting room, he wished he had.

Chapter Text

The hospital smelled like bleach, plastic, and too much waiting. Paddo sat in the hard chair outside the ICU, hunched forward, elbows on his knees. His kutte was draped over the chair beside him. His knuckles were raw again — not from violence this time, but from hours of silent rage, clenched fists, and unanswered prayers.

Then the door cracked open.

The doctor emerged, gloves off, voice calm but serious. “She’s stable. The bullet missed most major organs, but she lost a lot of blood. We were able to save the baby too.”

Paddo didn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

“She’s going to need time,” the doctor continued. “But she’s a fighter.”

The words didn’t make sense at first. Then they did.

She’s alive.

He stood slowly, muscles trembling like they’d forgotten how to hold him. “The baby?”

The doctor gave a faint smile. “A boy. Strong little heartbeat. Looks like he inherited that from his mother.”

Later That Night

Tara was pale and still, but breathing. Machines beeped steadily. Tubes curled from her hand, and her face was drawn, but her spirit was there — buried beneath morphine and pain, but intact.

Paddo sat beside her, hand cradling hers. He brought her fingers to his lips.

“You didn’t tell me,” he whispered. “That we made a life.”

His voice cracked.

“You gave me something more than this club, more than this war. You gave me a son.”

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against her hand.

“I’m gonna end it. For you. For him.”

Paddo vs. Knuck: The Reckoning

Knuck was holed up at one of the satellite clubhouses, flanked by the few loyalists he still had. Word had spread fast — that Tara survived, that the baby lived, that the truth had cracked the Copperheads wide open.

When Paddo rode in alone, engine snarling like thunder, the guards didn’t stop him.

They knew what was coming.

Knuck stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, as if he’d been waiting.

“You here to kill me, brother?” he asked, a crooked smile on his face.

Paddo stepped forward. “You tried to kill the mother of my child.”

“She was a rat,” Knuck spat. “You just didn’t want to admit it.”

“She was loyal to me. To the club. More than you ever were.”

Knuck snorted. “You forget your place, little brother.”

Paddo pulled his pistol. Aimed it between Knuck’s eyes.

“I didn’t forget anything,” he said quietly. “You’re the one who forgot what it meant to lead. What it meant to protect family.”

The room was silent. Guns stayed holstered. No one backed Knuck.

They were done.

“I should put you down right now,” Paddo said. “But I’m not giving my son a world where blood is the only answer.”

He lowered the gun.

“You’re out, Knuck. Stripped. No patch. No crew. You walk, or you crawl.”

Knuck’s smirk faltered. “You don’t have the balls.”

“Try me.”

In the end, Knuck didn’t fight. He walked.

And Paddo didn’t look back.

Recovery

Tara stirred days later, her first word a whisper: “Paddo…”

He was already at her side. “Right here, baby.”

Her voice cracked, raw. “The baby…?”

He kissed her hand. “He’s alive. Strong. Just like you.”

She broke then — tears leaking from her eyes, lips trembling.

“I thought I lost him.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “You saved him. You saved all of us.”

He pressed his forehead against hers, the space between them full of unspoken pain and overwhelming love.

A Week Later

Tara sat propped up in the hospital bed, thin and bruised, but glowing in a way Paddo had never seen before. She held their son in her arms, wrapped in a pale blue blanket, his tiny fists curled against her chest.

“He has your jaw,” she said, smiling softly.

“Poor kid,” Paddo muttered, eyes glistening as he reached to touch his son’s hand. The baby curled his fingers around Paddo’s pinky.

“What do we call him?” Tara asked.

Paddo was quiet. Then: “Callum. It means ‘dove.’”

She looked up, surprised. “You want to name your son after peace?”

He nodded. “Because that’s what I want for him. For us.”

Tara rested her head against his shoulder, their child between them.

For the first time in a long time, the war felt far away.

But they both knew peace would come at a price.

And they were ready to pay it — together.

Chapter Text

One Year Later

The Copperheads were not what they used to be.

The original compound was gone — burned down by Knuck’s last loyalist before disappearing into the wind. The club fractured. Some left, others stayed, but under new rules. Paddo’s rules.

The rebuilt clubhouse sat inland now, nestled in the hills behind a run-down scrapyard. Smaller, tighter, cleaner. The bikes still roared. The booze still flowed. But there was structure. Discipline. No more backroom deals. No more betrayals.

And at the heart of it all — Paddo, and Tara.

They ruled side by side.

She wasn’t just his old lady anymore.

She was his equal.

And everyone knew it.

Tara Dawson, Reforged

Tara bore scars now — a thin, angry line low on her abdomen, a reminder of the bullet that nearly ended her. She wore it like armor. She trained every week, hand-to-hand, range time, strategy. No one mistook her for an outsider anymore.

They called her the Dove’s Talon — soft when she needed to be, deadly when she had to be.

She ran logistics. Dealt with suppliers. Kept order. Paddo trusted her judgment even when it went against his instincts. And she had a reputation now — not for being cruel, but for being exact.

You crossed Paddo, you got a warning.

You crossed Tara, you disappeared.

Callum

Their son, Callum, turned one under the roar of a birthday party the club threw at the compound. Sugar brought a trike with sidewheels. Gunner carved a wooden rattle shaped like a revolver.

Tara sat on a blanket, Callum on her lap, clapping his chubby hands while Paddo grilled with one hand and held a beer in the other.

“You’re soft now,” Sugar teased.

Paddo raised an eyebrow. “You wanna find out how soft?”

Laughter rang. But beneath it all, they knew the quiet wouldn’t last.

The Dead Dogs Return

Three months after Callum’s birthday, a Copperhead on a solo run was found in a ditch. Shot in the back. His kutte cut off and nailed to a tree.

It was a message.

Colby Reece’s younger brother — Asher — had resurrected the Dead Dogs with new blood, new guns, and a hunger for revenge.

The outlaw world didn’t forget.

And Asher wanted Tara’s head.

Tara’s Stand

Paddo wanted to move her and Callum out of the city. Go dark. Hide.

“No,” Tara said, strapping a Glock to her thigh. “I’m not running. I’m not that woman anymore.”

Paddo looked at her like he did the first time they met — like she was made of steel and danger.

“I’ll back your play,” he said. “But if it goes sideways—”

“It won’t,” she said. “Not this time.”

Final Confrontation

The ambush came at the abandoned freight yard.

Tara led the first wave — a convoy of bikes and SUVs. Paddo circled from the back, flanking. Gunner and Sugar handled snipers.

The Dead Dogs were waiting. A full-blown firefight erupted under a thunderstorm, lightning cracking as bullets cut the air.

Tara moved through the chaos like she’d been born in it. Precise. Vicious. Alive.

When she found Asher, he was crouched behind a truck, bleeding, snarling.

“You killed my brother,” he hissed.

“No,” Tara said, eyes calm, voice cold. “Your brother got himself killed. I just lit the match.”

She didn’t shoot him.

She handed him to the cops — alive, barely.

Because this time, the message wasn’t about revenge.

It was about power.

One Month Later

Tara stood on the balcony of their home — a small place just outside the city, built with clean money and a new foundation. Callum crawled through the grass below, chasing a wind-blown toy.

Paddo stepped beside her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“You did it,” he said.

“No,” she whispered. “We did.”

She turned toward him. Kissed him slow. Soft. Deep.

For once, no sirens. No gunfire. Just wind in the trees, the scent of oil and eucalyptus, and the sound of their son’s laughter rising through the air.

“We gonna keep doing this?” he asked.

She nodded. “Every day. For him. For us.”

And they would.

Because what they had wasn’t perfect.

But it was theirs.

Built from fire.

Forged in blood.

And bound, forever, by crimson loyalty.

Chapter Text

Callum’s First Year

The club never slept.

Even after the war ended, even after Knuck was ghosted and the Dead Dogs fractured, the Copperheads kept their engines warm. Deals had to be made. Streets watched. Borders respected.

But in the heart of it all — behind a steel-reinforced door above the clubhouse, where the air smelled like leather, breast milk, gun oil, and eucalyptus — lived Callum Dawson Mitchell, born screaming and red-faced with his mother’s temper and his father’s stormy eyes.

He was raised under patch colors and baby blankets.

He fell asleep to the sound of revving engines.

And his first word?

It wasn’t “mama.”

It wasn’t “dada.”

It was “bike.”

Tara swore she’d get it stitched on a onesie. Paddo framed the club photo taken the day Callum first gripped the handlebars of Sugar’s idling chopper like a king taking the throne.

Tara as a Mother

Tara was every inch the fire-forged mother. She didn’t coddle — not even herself. She breastfed between club meetings. Wore her pistol while pushing a stroller. Balanced Callum on her hip while reading shipment manifests.

The club never questioned her again. Not after the shootout. Not after Knuck. Not after they saw her at her most feral and most loving — bleeding, furious, cradling her newborn with one hand and steadying a Glock with the other.

Some called her Mama Vice.

Others just called her Boss.

Even Sugar, who had never taken orders from anyone without a grumble, quieted when Tara raised her brow.

Paddo as a Father

Fatherhood didn’t soften Paddo. It just redirected the heat. He held Callum like he held his bike — protective, reverent, calm unless provoked. When the baby cried at 3 a.m., he got up without a word. When Callum cut his first tooth, Paddo wrapped his own hand in a rag and let the kid gnaw on his thumb.

He stopped drinking hard. Started staying in more nights than not. But he never lost the edge — not even when rocking his son to sleep.

The club watched him differently now. Not just as president, but as a father. As a man with something to lose.

And that made him even more dangerous.

Family in the Fire

Callum spent his first birthday at the clubhouse, surrounded by patched men and women who would die for him — even the ones who didn’t know how to change a diaper.

They gifted him baby boots, a miniature helmet, a carved wooden pistol, and a leather jacket with no patches — not yet. But one day.

Paddo lifted his son onto the table like a lion presenting the next heir.

The room cheered.

Later, after the noise and the smoke cleared, Tara and Paddo curled up on the couch in the upstairs loft. Callum slept between them, arms flung wide, mouth open.

“I didn’t think we’d make it this far,” Tara whispered.

“We didn’t,” Paddo said. “You did.”

She looked at him.

He wasn’t talking about the club.

He meant all of it.

The bleeding. The bullets. The buried rage she’d carried and turned into something powerful. Protective.

She smiled. “I wasn’t alone.”

“No,” he agreed, brushing a hand over Callum’s head. “You weren’t.”

Outside, a bike roared down the street. Another run. Another call. The outlaw world never stopped.

But in this room — for just a little while — there was peace.

Not the kind written in treaties.

The kind written in scars.

And love.

And blood.

And the slow rise of a new generation.

Born in war.

Raised in loyalty.

Destined to ride.

Chapter Text

Callum’s Second Year

The trouble didn’t wait.

By the time Callum could run, he was already ducking under bar stools, chasing club dogs, and mimicking the low growl of V-twin engines with unsettling accuracy. He’d tug at the sleeves of jackets he recognized, crawl toward boots caked in road dust and blood. He didn’t cry much. He watched.

They said the kid had his father’s eyes — not just in color, but in weight. Always measuring. Always calculating. The kind of look that made old enforcers sit up straighter and prospects stammer when they spilled beer too close to him.

Tara taught him sign language before he could string words together. Not baby signs — real ones. “Danger.” “Safe.” “Gun.” “Run.”

Paddo taught him how to spot a lie by the twitch of a jaw.

By twenty-three months, Callum could pick out a tailing car and had his own safe word.

Not because they were paranoid.

Because they remembered.

Because dead men still had friends. And the ghosts of Knuck’s war hadn’t all gone quiet.

The Dead Dogs’ Echo

It started with a patch.

Not one of theirs.

A new crew — calling themselves the “Hollow Kings.” Young. Tattooed. Desperate to prove something. They weren’t from the Dogs’ old blood, but they’d taken up the name in whispers, claiming lineage no one granted.

They tagged a Copperhead bike parked outside a diner two towns over. Spray paint. Crude insults. A cracked gas tank.

Paddo read the report in silence. Then handed it to Tara.

She looked at the photo and said only, “Start mapping routes.”

The peace was over. If it had ever existed at all.

Callum’s First Fall

He took the spill hard — one foot caught in a coil of hose behind the garage, his head smacking pavement with a sharp crack. Blood, panic, the world screaming in red.

Paddo reached him first. Dropped to his knees like a soldier catching a fallen comrade.

Tara followed, sprinting, eyes already scanning for more damage than the visible.

Callum blinked up at them — dazed, confused, then furious. He slapped at the gravel, tried to stand. Wobbled. Collapsed.

He didn’t cry.

Not until Tara whispered, “It’s okay to hurt, baby.”

Then the tears came, hot and angry.

She held him. Paddo held them.

Later, at the hospital, the nurse tried to usher them to the waiting room. “One parent only.”

Tara laughed once, low and dangerous. Paddo didn’t say a word — just looked at the man. They both stayed.

Prospects and Protectors

The Copperheads changed after Callum.

More careful. More disciplined. Fewer bar fights. Fewer late-night raids unless they had to. A different kind of loyalty formed — not just to the club, but to the boy at the center of it. The next chapter. The reason they all kept riding.

Sugar built him a wooden rocking bike shaped like a chopper. Fangs carved into the handles. Tara made him wear a helmet even on that.

Ace — grizzled, missing two fingers — taught him how to wipe down tools with respect. “You treat the machine right, it treats you right back.”

Mouse taught him how to play dead, “just in case.”

No one said the words out loud.

But they all knew.

They were raising a legacy.

Three Words

The second word was “mama.” The third, “gun.”

The fourth came later, spoken soft and slow during a storm that rattled the windows and shook the clubhouse like a beast clawing to get in.

Callum had climbed into his parents’ bed without a sound.

He curled into Tara’s chest. One hand gripped Paddo’s shirt.

The thunder cracked again.

And from the dark, barely audible, he whispered: “Home.”

Tara didn’t cry.

But her throat tightened.

Paddo’s arms folded over them both.

Outside, a Warning

The Hollow Kings weren’t done.

A scout was spotted at the edge of their territory. Ditch road. Binoculars. Rifle.

He didn’t live to report back.

But it wasn’t about the kill.

It was about the fact that they dared.

That they were coming closer.

And inside the clubhouse, under the roar of the returning bikes and the low thrum of war drums beating again, Callum clutched his wooden pistol and watched it all.

Still not two.

Already learning the language of fire.

Chapter Text

The note wasn’t left on the table like trash. It was tucked beneath the tire of Tara’s car—subtle, precise, placed with intent. Someone had been close. Too close.

Rook spotted it first at dawn. He kicked it out from under the wheel with his boot and didn’t unfold it. Just picked it up between two fingers and brought it to Paddo like it was already soaked in poison.

Paddo didn’t speak when he read it. He didn’t curse, didn’t throw it. He just folded the note once, then again, and slipped it into the pocket inside his cut, where he kept only two things: a photo of Tara cradling Callum on the day they left the hospital, and the burnished Zippo his old man had handed him the night he patched in.

“Every king falls. So do their sons.”

The message was clear.

He called Church an hour later. No drinks. No chatter. Just men and women with blood under their nails, gathering around a war table.

Tara stood at the head of the map she’d spread out—local streets, safe houses, known enemy affiliates—and pointed to every hole in their routine. Every soft spot they hadn’t filled since the war ended. Every quiet moment they’d mistaken for safety.

“They waited,” she said, calm and flint-eyed. “Waited for us to take a breath.”

Paddo stood beside her, arms crossed, silent.

“They think a baby softens a man,” she added, locking eyes with Sugar at the far end of the table.

Sugar’s mouth twitched into something that wasn’t a smile. “They think wrong.”

He hadn’t said much since the note. Not when Rook brought it. Not when Tara read it. But now his voice was low and hard, the kind of tone that usually came with consequences.

“You all know me. I don’t ask for blood unless I mean to drink it.”

He let the silence hang like smoke.

“But if they even look at that kid sideways again, I’ll put nails through their knees and watch ‘em crawl back to their patch with what’s left of their spine.”

Nobody laughed. Nobody doubted him.

Because Sugar didn’t bluff. He bled.

They fortified everything after that. Doubled the watch on every gate, rotated shifts through the night, and ran dry drills with Tara calling out breach patterns like a general. Callum never left her sight, not even to nap.

And still, the van came back.

No plates. Dented panel. Same engine growl they’d heard three nights earlier. It parked half a block down from the clubhouse and idled just long enough for Sugar to spot it from the roof. By the time he hit the pavement, it was gone.

No move. Just presence. A slow pressure building behind the eyes.

“They’re watching,” Sugar muttered, voice like gravel. “Just waiting for us to slip.”

Tara didn’t sleep that night. Neither did Paddo.

Callum did, curled between them on the bed, one hand tucked under his chin, the other clinging to the carved leather rattle Sugar had made him last month.

“I should take him to your sister’s place,” Tara said. “Just for a few days.”

“No.”

“He’d be safer.”

“No,” Paddo repeated, voice flat. “They’d know. They’d follow. And they’d see it as weakness.”

She exhaled slowly, fingers ghosting over the pistol on the nightstand.

“This isn’t over,” she whispered.

Paddo looked down at Callum, his storm-gray eyes so much like his father’s. “It never is.”

The hit came at the market.

They’d gone out early—Tara, Callum, and two prospects on quiet detail. A no-name farmstand outside city limits, where no one asked questions and the tomatoes still tasted like dirt and sun. Sugar had followed, unannounced. Paddo hadn’t told him to. He didn’t have to.

Tara was browsing produce when the man moved. Late twenties. Civilian clothes. No patch. But the way he moved—efficient, confident—marked him as trained. He came from behind, reaching for the stroller.

Callum giggled. He thought it was a game.

Tara didn’t.

She pivoted, gun drawn and centered on the man’s chest in a heartbeat.

But Sugar got there first.

He hit the guy like a truck, lifted him off his feet and slammed him into a wooden stall hard enough to splinter the supports. Apples spilled like coins from a broken till.

The man gasped, tried to squirm. Sugar pinned him with a forearm to the throat and reached for something in his belt.

“You wanted a message?” Sugar growled, breath hot against the man’s ear. “Here’s one.”

He drove a screwdriver straight through the man’s hand, pinning it to the stall wall like a bug in a display case.

The man screamed.

No one stopped him.

Tara holstered her weapon and scooped Callum into her arms. He looked up at her, wide-eyed, curious.

“Mommy’s fine,” she whispered. “You’re fine.”

Sugar turned to her. “You want the rest of him?”

She shook her head. “He’s not worth the bullet.”

The man didn’t scream after that. Not when they cut him loose. Not when they shoved him in the back of a truck.

He was gone by sunset. Nobody ever found the body.

But the story spread.

And that was the point.

That night, the clubhouse was silent.

Callum slept in the loft, one fist curled around the edge of his baby blanket. The leather rattle sat beside him, untouched.

Paddo watched him from the doorway, cigarette burning low between his fingers. He didn’t smoke it. Just held it. Like the ritual mattered more than the smoke.

Tara joined him, barefoot, shoulders tense.

“He’s going to grow up in this,” she said, voice low.

Paddo nodded.

“You regret it?”

“No,” he said. “I regret not gutting every one of them when we had the chance.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Next time.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist. Held her there.

“Yeah,” he said. “Next time.”

Outside, the engines still roared.

Inside, the heir of the Copperheads slept like a prince.

Guarded by wolves.

Chapter Text

The clubhouse didn’t breathe for three days.

Every door stayed locked. Every light stayed low. Every Copperhead was armed, wired, coiled tight like a spring loaded for revenge. The laughter had gone. The music, too. Even the old jukebox in the corner had been silenced. No one touched it. Not while the memory of blood still clung to the market like smoke.

Tara hadn’t left Callum’s side. She slept in shifts—an hour here, thirty minutes there—with her hand always within reach of steel. He was too young to understand, but even Callum seemed quieter now. His laughter had softened. His eyes lingered longer on the corners of rooms.

“You think he knows?” Rook asked Sugar, both men watching from the hallway as Tara fed the baby by the window.

“No,” Sugar said. “But he will.”

The club met again. No ceremony. Just necessity.

Paddo stood at the head of the table this time, not beside it. A different weight on his shoulders now, heavier than the cut stitched with the President patch. This wasn’t about vengeance anymore.

It was about precedent.

“They came for my son,” he said, voice even.

“They came for our blood,” Tara corrected, standing beside him. “And they’ll come again. Unless we end it.”

She rolled out a map—different from the one before. This one had three red Xs scrawled in thick marker: known outposts of the Razor Vultures. A bottom-feeder MC with a habit of cutting deals with bigger gangs and breaking whatever codes they still pretended to follow.

“They made a move,” Sugar said. “Let’s return the favor.”

That night, three bikes left the compound under cover of dark.

No headlights. No noise.

Sugar led the pack.

No one asked where they were going.

No one had to.

By dawn, the first outpost was gone.

Not burned. Not bombed. Just empty—tools scattered, walls tagged, bikes vanished. One door left swinging open in the breeze with a Copperhead cut nailed to it like a warning.

They didn’t find bodies.

But they didn’t need to.

The message was clear.

Back at the clubhouse, Tara finally let Callum out into the sunlight again.

He toddled across the concrete in his little boots, arms out, chasing shadows like they were butterflies. He fell once, scraped a knee, and cried—not from pain, but surprise.

Tara scooped him up, kissed his forehead, and whispered something only he could hear.

Paddo watched them from the steps. Quiet. Still.

“War’s not over,” Sugar said, stepping up beside him.

“No,” Paddo said. “But it’s our turn now.”

They stood there a long time, two men shaped by fire, guarding a boy who didn’t yet know what it meant to be born into a world of blood and brotherhood.

But he would.

And when that day came, he’d be ready.

Far away, smoke curled into the sky.

Ashes in the wind.

The first answer in a war that would not be fought with treaties—

—but with memory.

And fire.

Chapter Text

Peace didn’t return.

It circled, maybe. Lingered at the edges like smoke on the wind. But it didn’t land. Not after what they’d done. Not after the outpost went dark and the Razor Vultures stopped answering their phones.

The Copperheads didn’t celebrate. They braced.

Because silence, in this life, never meant safety.

It meant something was coming.

—

Tara sat with Callum in the courtyard, sunlight catching the edge of her sunglasses. He was laughing again, louder now, chasing a rubber ball across cracked concrete with the determination of a kid who hadn’t seen fear—only watched others carry it.

He didn’t remember the man at the market. Didn’t remember the van. But Tara did.

So did Paddo.

He leaned against the wall nearby, arms folded, watching both of them. He was more present these days. No club runs without notice. No drinks unless it was earned. Fatherhood hadn’t changed him.

It had clarified him.

—

The call came just after sundown.

Sugar answered it on the second ring, lips pulled tight.

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“You sure?”

Another pause.

“Get me names.”

He hung up without a word and walked straight to Paddo, who already knew from the look on Sugar’s face that something had cracked.

“They’re moving again,” Sugar said. “Different crew this time. Outsourced muscle. Not Razors. Bigger. Meaner.”

“Who hired them?”

“We’ll know soon.”

—

The meeting that night was smaller. Tighter. Only those Paddo trusted completely.

“They’re changing tactics,” Tara said, voice cold. “They want to scare us into splitting. Force us to scatter so we’re easier to bleed.”

“We’re not scattering,” Rook snapped. “They want a war, they get a war.”

“No,” Paddo said. “They don’t want a war. They want an excuse.”

He circled the table slowly, eyes locked on the map.

“If they hit us again, it won’t be with notes. It’ll be with fire.”

Sugar nodded. “Then we bring water.”

—

Tara checked the safehouse the next morning.

She didn’t take Callum.

It was the first time she’d left him since the market.

The space was clean, well-stocked. Weapons locked, exits secure. But something about it made her skin itch—like a box built to contain ghosts.

She stood in the empty nursery they’d set up—just in case—and stared at the untouched crib.

“I’m not hiding him,” she said aloud.

To herself. To the walls. To the memory of everything they’d survived.

Then she walked out and locked the door behind her.

—

That night, the wind shifted.

An old enemy returned.

And this time, they weren’t sending messages.

They were coming in person.

Chapter Text

The knock came just before midnight.

Three short raps. A pause. Then two more.

Not a stranger’s knock. Not a threat. A code.

Still, Sugar answered it with a shotgun in hand.

The man standing on the other side wore a road-worn cut, faded ink on his knuckles, and a face that hadn’t been seen in three years—not since the desert run that nearly split the club in two.

“Rex,” Sugar said, voice flat.

The man gave a half-smile, all teeth, no warmth. “Long time.”

“Not long enough.”

Rex had once worn the Copperhead patch. Had bled with them. Buried with them. Fought with them.

Until he walked away.

He wasn’t a traitor. Not officially. But he wasn’t trusted, either.

He’d been chasing ghosts across state lines—following whispers of splinter gangs, merc contracts, and outlaw mercenaries willing to do the kind of dirty work even the worst MCs wouldn’t put their names on.

Now he was back.

And he had news.

“I saw the crew that hit the market,” Rex said, seated at the war table, half a cigarette burning between his fingers. “Didn’t recognize colors, but they weren’t Razors. This was pro work. Ex-military, maybe ex-fed. Hired hands.”

“By who?” Paddo asked.

Rex shrugged. “I’ve got a name. Don’t have proof yet.”

“What’s the name?” Tara asked.

Rex looked at her for a long second.

“Cyrus.”

The room stilled.

Cyrus hadn’t been seen since before Knuck fell. He was a power broker, not a biker. A man who moved money and bullets from behind mirrored glass and wiretap lines. He didn’t ride. He didn’t shoot. He just bought men who did.

And now, he wanted Callum.

“Why now?” Sugar asked.

“Because you’ve got something no one else does,” Rex said. “Legacy. Blood. A name people still fear. And Cyrus wants to bury it.”

Later that night, Paddo stood alone on the roof, cigarette lit but untouched between his lips.

Tara joined him, arms crossed, eyes on the city.

“He’s not going to stop,” she said.

“No.”

“He’s not going to come at us direct.”

“No.”

She leaned against him.

“So we go to him?”

Paddo nodded.

“When the time’s right,” he said.

Below them, the engines stirred.

The Copperheads didn’t hide.

They rode.

And somewhere out there, Cyrus was watching.

Waiting.

But so were they.

The knock came just before midnight.

Three short raps. A pause. Then two more.

Not a stranger’s knock. Not a threat. A code.

Still, Sugar answered it with a shotgun in hand.

The man standing on the other side wore a road-worn cut, faded ink on his knuckles, and a face that hadn’t been seen in three years—not since the desert run that nearly split the club in two.

“Rex,” Sugar said, voice flat.

The man gave a half-smile, all teeth, no warmth. “Long time.”

“Not long enough.”

Rex had once worn the Copperhead patch. He’d fought in the mud beside Knuck. Shared blood with Paddo. Driven through a hurricane to deliver ammo to the Arizona crew when everyone else had called it suicide.

And then he’d left.

Not because of a fight. Not because of betrayal. Because something in him broke when Knuck did. And instead of drowning with the rest of them, Rex walked out into the wild with a bike, a knife, and a habit of disappearing into places no one else dared go.

He hunted information the way others hunted vengeance.

And now, he was back.

“You’re not patched anymore,” Tara said, arms crossed.

Rex nodded. “Didn’t come for a patch.”

“Then what?” Paddo asked.

Rex looked him dead in the eye.

“To keep your kid breathing.”

They brought him into the war room. No hugs. No welcome. Just a chair, a pack of smokes, and a table full of weapons and tension.

“I’ve been tracking a name for the last year,” Rex said, lighting up. “A name that doesn’t show up on police reports or club intel. No arrest records. No confirmed kills. Just whispers. Money. And fear.”

“Cyrus,” Sugar said.

Rex nodded. “He bankrolls merc squads. Ex-military mostly. Disavowed. He pays them well, keeps them quiet, and lets them pick their targets from a list.”

“A list?” Paddo asked.

“Of heirs,” Rex said. “Legacy threats. Bloodlines that mean something.”

He looked straight at Tara.

“At first I thought it was business. Now I think it’s something else.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like he’s afraid of you.”

Cyrus.

The name came down like frost in the room. He’d been the man in the mirror for years. Always behind someone else’s curtain. Never confirmed, never caught, but his fingerprints were on every splintered deal, every ghost war, every MC that vanished overnight without a trace.

He didn’t wear cuts. He didn’t speak at rallies. He wrote checks and erased legacies.

“He’s targeting Callum,” Paddo said, the words tasting like rust.

“He’s targeting what Callum represents,” Rex corrected. “A future where you’re still standing.”

—

Later that night, Paddo stood on the roof, staring at the city. Smoke rose in the distance, small and far away, but he watched it like it was a signal.

Tara joined him, wrapped in an old hoodie, her hair wind-whipped and wild. Her arms were crossed, but not for warmth.

“He’s not going to stop,” she said.

“No.”

“He’s not going to come at us direct.”

“No.”

“You remember that night in the warehouse?” she asked, voice low. “When I had to drag you out before the place burned?”

“I remember the smell,” he said. “Fuel and blood.”

“You said you’d rather die than run again.”

“I meant it.”

“So what now?”

Paddo took a long breath. “Now we bleed if we have to. But not here. Not with Callum under this roof.”

She turned toward him, jaw tight. “I’m not hiding.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m saying we take the fight to him.”

They stood in silence for a long time.

“I used to dream about peace,” Tara whispered. “After Knuck, after the Dogs, I used to think maybe it could end.”

“And now?”

She looked down, watched the light from Callum’s room flicker under the curtain.

“Now I know peace was a lull in the gunfire. That’s all.”

Inside, Rex sat alone in the garage, running a whetstone along the edge of a combat knife. He hadn’t asked for a bed. Hadn’t unpacked. He wasn’t here to stay.

Just to finish what he ran from.

Sugar leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

“You back for good?” he asked.

Rex didn’t look up. “Back for war.”

“Why now?”

Rex finally looked at him, eyes bloodshot and empty.

“Because this time, it’s personal.”

And somewhere in a glass high-rise with bulletproof windows and rooms that smelled like sterile money, Cyrus smiled.

He didn’t need to send another team.

Not yet.

He just needed the Copperheads angry.

Predictable.

Willing to die for the idea of themselves.

The boy didn’t matter. Not yet.

But one day, he would.

And when he did, Cyrus would be waiting.

Chapter Text

The knock wasn’t hard or rushed. Just two soft taps and a pause.

Tara looked up from the table where she was sorting ammo and loose receipts, already reaching for the grip of the pistol tucked beside the fruit bowl. Paddo, seated on the couch with Callum half-asleep against his chest, didn’t move. Didn’t need to.

He already knew.

The door opened with a creak, and there stood Skink.

Skinny, long-limbed, eyes too big for his face but clearer than they’d been in years. The kind of clear that came from real detox, not the jailhouse kind. He wore clean jeans, a faded hoodie, and nerves like a man who knew he didn’t quite belong but wanted to try anyway.

Tara’s hand dropped from the pistol.

Paddo shifted Callum higher on his arm. The boy clung to the soft cotton of his father’s tank top, eyes blinking open at the sound of new footsteps on the hardwood.

Skink stepped in slow, his gaze never leaving the kid.

“Is that him, Marky?” he asked, voice low, unsure. “They told me in treatment… you’d had a son.”

Paddo nodded, adjusting the boy in his arms.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “This is Callum.”

Skink didn’t move closer. He just looked—really looked—at the child in his brother’s arms, eyes soft, like something sacred had just been laid out in front of him.

“Damn,” he said, almost to himself. “He’s got your stare.”

“Got his mom’s temper, though,” Tara added, stepping beside them.

Her tone wasn’t cold. Not warm, exactly, but fair. Measuring. Watching.

Skink smiled. It was crooked and a little shy. “Yeah, well. If he’s yours, he’s probably already throwing punches in his sleep.”

Paddo chuckled, low in his throat. Callum blinked up at Skink, tiny brows knit in concentration, as if trying to place the man.

“He remembers voices,” Tara said. “But not yours.”

“Wouldn’t expect him to,” Skink replied. “Wasn’t exactly fit for visitors back then.”

They sat in the back courtyard later, sun sliding behind the garage, warm air laced with motor oil and eucalyptus. Paddo lit a cigarette but didn’t smoke it. Callum was in Tara’s lap now, chewing on a plastic wrench.

“You look better,” Paddo said.

“I feel better,” Skink answered. “It’s weird. Being clear. Like waking up and realizing you’ve been underwater a long time.”

Tara nodded slowly. “And you’re staying that way?”

Skink didn’t flinch. “One day at a time.”

There was a silence then—not uncomfortable, just full. Full of history, of lost years, of nights when Paddo didn’t know if his brother was alive or bleeding out in some stranger’s bathroom.

“You ever want to hold him,” Paddo said, voice quiet, “you let me know. When you’re ready. And when he is.”

Skink looked like someone had just been handed a weapon he didn’t know how to use.

“I’d like that,” he said. “When it’s right.”

That night, after Skink left, Tara stood by the loft window, arms crossed as she watched the street.

“You think he’s gonna stay clean?”

Paddo joined her, brushing her arm with his.

“I think he wants to,” he said. “And sometimes, that’s enough to get started.”

Below, the engines rumbled once.

Callum stirred in his crib, sighed, and went still again.

And the house held—for now—just enough peace to believe in second chances.

Chapter Text

Tara didn’t cry.

She sat on the closed toilet lid, the pregnancy test resting on the sink like a loaded weapon, and she breathed. In through her nose, out through her mouth. One hand pressed flat over her stomach, steady, warm, cautious.

Two lines. No doubt. No delay. Just truth.

A new life. Again.

She didn’t flinch from it. Didn’t break. But something inside her shifted—like armor realigning itself.

She told Paddo that night after Callum fell asleep on his chest.

He was sitting on the couch, shirt off, eyes half-closed, heartbeat slow and strong beneath their son’s weight. Tara came down the loft stairs barefoot, sat beside them, and laid the test in his open hand.

He looked at it.

Then at her.

She didn’t say anything.

He didn’t need her to.

He looked down at Callum, sleeping with his face pressed to Paddo’s chest, then let out a breath that came from somewhere deeper than his lungs.

“She’s coming,” Tara said, voice low, firm.

Paddo nodded. “What makes you think it’s a girl?”

“I just know.”

He smiled, something quiet and slow unfolding across his face. “Mira?”

“Mira.”

Skink had started coming by more often, usually unannounced. Never empty-handed.

Sometimes with groceries. Sometimes with a toy for Callum. Once with a battered paperback of war poetry he thought Paddo might like. He never overstayed. Never pressed.

He was thinner than most men and quieter than he used to be, but more there. More real.

And every time he looked at his nephew, his hands would clench slightly, like holding something sacred just by witnessing it.

“I used to think I was just wired wrong,” he said one evening as he and Tara sat on the porch, watching Callum chase dust motes in the golden light. “Some people drink. Some shoot. I ran my whole goddamn life.”

“You still clean?” she asked.

He nodded. “Ninety-three days today.”

Tara didn’t smile, but her voice softened. “Don’t count the days. Count the chances.”

Skink looked at her. “This here? Being with you all? This is the first time I haven’t wanted to run.”

Inside, Paddo cooked something that smelled like garlic and heat. Callum shouted at a bee like it owed him money. The world, for once, was quiet.

And Tara laid a hand on her stomach, just for a moment.

Two heartbeats. One promise.

More than one fire, now.

And she would carry them all.

Paddo woke just before dawn.

The house was quiet but not asleep — not really. The kind of hush that held breath behind the walls. He sat up slowly, careful not to disturb Tara, her back curved around the shape of her body like instinct. His eyes caught on the test she’d left on the nightstand. Still there. Still saying everything.

He walked barefoot to the loft rail and looked down.

Skink was sitting on the couch, one leg tucked under the other, flipping through that beat-up war poetry book by lamplight. A half-drunk mug of coffee sat steaming next to him, untouched long enough to mean it wasn’t about the caffeine.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Paddo asked, voice low.

Skink glanced up. “Didn’t want to. Not yet.”

Paddo came down the steps and leaned against the wall. He didn’t speak for a while. Just watched his little brother — not little anymore — thumbing through lines like they were weapons or confessions.

“You remember when we were kids,” Skink said, not looking up, “and Ma used to make us swear we’d never end up like him?”

“Yeah.”

“She used to say, ‘You boys have fire. Fire burns or it lights. Don’t let it burn you.’”

He shut the book. “I let it.”

Paddo shook his head. “You’re still here.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t torch half the world getting here.”

Paddo looked at the cup. The trembling hands that no longer trembled. The lines under Skink’s eyes that hadn’t come from age.

“It’s not the fire that defines you,” he said. “It’s what you build when the smoke clears.”

Skink looked up. “You think she’d have liked Callum?”

“She’d have loved him,” Paddo said. “But she would’ve scared the shit out of him.”

They both laughed — short, real.

And then silence again, but the good kind. The kind that held.

Upstairs, Tara shifted in her sleep. And beneath her hand, Mira kicked once, sharp and certain.

The world hadn’t gotten quieter.

But for a minute, it felt whole.

Chapter Text

The rain came in hard.

Not a warning drizzle. Not a gentle mist. It came down in sheets, thick and angry, drumming against the tin roof of the clubhouse like a war march. Thunder rolled low across the valley, and lightning cracked just enough to light up the old graffiti on the back fence.

Inside, the Copperheads were quiet.

Tara stood by the window, arms folded beneath the soft stretch of her sweatshirt, eyes locked on the blacktop beyond the gates. She wasn’t counting the lightning strikes—she was timing them. Measuring distance. Listening for patterns.

Pregnancy hadn’t slowed her. If anything, it had sharpened her. Her hands still cleaned guns. Her voice still called the morning perimeter checks. Only difference was the way Paddo watched her now—closer, deeper, like every heartbeat mattered twice.

Skink was in the garage with Paddo, sleeves rolled up, helping replace a clutch cable on Sugar’s backup ride.

“I ever tell you how I almost wrecked my first bike?” Skink asked, grease on his jawline.

Paddo grunted. “You were fourteen. You stole Knuck’s backup chopper and tried to jump it off a ditch. You limped for a month.”

Skink laughed, a real one. “That was the last time he called me ‘kid.’ Next time I saw him, he just called me a dumbass.”

Paddo tightened the bolt, jaw flexing. “He was right.”

“But you didn’t tell on me.”

“You were my brother.”

Still are, he didn’t say—but the silence between them understood it anyway.

Callum was asleep upstairs, one foot sticking out from under his blanket like he’d fought a war in his dreams. The soft hum of the baby monitor buzzed on the table next to Tara, white noise and thunder mixing like a warning song.

Tara didn’t flinch when Sugar came in.

“Van’s back,” he said. “Three blocks over. Parked and still running.”

She didn’t ask how he knew.

“Same one?”

“No plates. Same dent in the panel.”

She nodded. “You ready?”

Sugar looked at her belly, then at her face.

“I’m not the one you need to worry about.”

By the time Paddo came in, soaked to the ribs and armed, the plan was already laid out.

Tara had the map. Sugar had the routes. Skink stood back, arms crossed, not leading, not questioning—just present. Solid. Sober.

“This isn’t a random threat anymore,” Tara said. “They’re watching patterns. School runs. Groceries. Club nights.”

“They’re casing us,” Paddo said.

“Then we flip it,” Sugar growled. “We case them.”

Skink leaned forward, eyes locked on the map. “Let me follow the van. Solo. I can be invisible. I know how they move.”

Paddo didn’t answer right away.

Then he nodded.

“One block back. You see something, you report. Nothing else.”

Skink nodded. “Nothing else.”

The storm didn’t let up that night.

But neither did the Copperheads.

Not anymore.

Because storms don’t wait.

And families don’t run.

They ride.

The rain hadn’t let up, but it softened, thick and steady like breath on a cold mirror.

Upstairs, Callum stirred. Then sat up.

Paddo was already at the door of the loft, one hand braced on the frame, watching his son wake without a sound. The boy rubbed his eyes and blinked through the shadows.

“Where’s Uncle Skink?” he asked, voice still thick with sleep.

“Out riding,” Paddo said. “Helping us watch the bad guys.”

Callum nodded, like it made sense. Then lay back, turning onto his side.

“He better come back.”

Paddo didn’t answer. Just stepped inside and pulled the blanket over his son’s shoulder. Callum had always had that Copperhead core—quiet when things mattered, loud when they didn’t. He got that from both his parents.

Downstairs, Tara was still up. One hand on a mug of tea gone cold. The other pressed lightly against her stomach.

“She’s not moving much tonight,” she said.

“She’s listening,” Paddo replied.

Tara raised a brow.

“She’s yours. And mine. She knows something’s coming.”

Tara looked down at her belly, thumb brushing a slow circle over the fabric. “Mira,” she said aloud. “You don’t know it yet, but the world’s already watching.”

Skink stayed two blocks behind the van.

No lights. No noise. Just his bike and the breath in his lungs, steady now. Clean. Present.

The van didn’t drive like a stakeout rig. It wasn’t twitchy. It was confident. And that made it worse.

They weren’t watching anymore.

They were waiting.

The van turned off on a narrow road near the train yard. Skink killed the engine two intersections back and coasted into an alley beside an old meatpacking warehouse. Windows broken. Lights flickering.

And then he saw it.

Another van. Same dents. Same plate missing.

This wasn’t surveillance.

It was staging.

He reached for his phone to take a photo—then froze.

A man stepped out from the shadows. No cut. No tattoos. Suit jacket over a T-shirt. Earpiece visible. Military posture.

Skink backed up a half-step, barely breathing.

The man looked around, then stepped into the warehouse. A second figure followed. And then the door shut behind them.

Skink took the shot. Two, just in case. Slipped back onto his bike. No adrenaline shakes. No nerves. Just motion. Just mission.

“Stay clean. Stay useful,” he muttered. “Don’t screw this up.”

He disappeared back into the dark.

At the edge of the city, high above street level, Cyrus watched a screen flicker to life.

One of his men entered the warehouse.

Another followed.

He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin.

“No more probes,” he said. “We shift to stage two.”

The assistant beside him hesitated. “Are you sure, sir? They’ll retaliate.”

Cyrus smiled faintly. “They’re predictable. It’s time the Copperheads learn what it means to have their bloodline marked.”

He looked at a photograph clipped under the screen.

Callum. On a tricycle. Helmet too big for his head. Sugar in the background, just out of focus.

Cyrus tapped the image once.

“Start with the uncle,” he said. “The addict. He’s soft. He breaks, the rest tremble.”

And just like that, the next move was made.

Quiet.

Precise.

Cruel.

Chapter Text

It happened fast.

No roar of bikes. No warning knock. Just a crack of wood at the back entrance and the unmistakable sound of a boot crossing the tile.

Paddo froze mid-step in the hallway.

Tara, from the kitchen, had already drawn her weapon before he spoke.

“Bedroom. Now,” he said, voice a rasp of steel. “Take Callum. Lock the door. Don’t make a sound.”

”Mark…” Tara began. 

”Go, protect our son,” Paddo said calmly. 

She didn’t argue. Just scooped Callum up from the floor, the boy blinking wide-eyed, halfway through building something out of toy wrenches and socket bits. Tara held him close, her voice low and even in his ear.

“We’re gonna play a quiet game, baby. Shhh now. Just like hide-and-seek.”

The boy nodded, small fingers curling into her shoulder as she carried him up the stairs.

Below, the hallway held its breath.

Two figures came through the back—lean, masked, practiced. Not local muscle. These were trained. One held a sidearm with a silencer. The other had a blade.

Paddo stepped out from the corner, firing once. Then twice.

The man with the gun dropped, leg shredded. The second lunged.

They hit the floor hard. Paddo’s shoulder lit up with white fire—shot from the side, another man in the doorway he hadn’t seen.

Blood soaked his shirt. But his knife was already in his hand. He buried it in the man’s thigh and shoved off, back into cover.

That’s when the roar came—Skink, Sugar, and Rook from the front gate.

Too late for stealth.

Right on time for the fight.

Upstairs, Tara held Callum close in the corner of the bedroom closet, one arm across his head. She could hear the shots. One. Then two more. Boots. A crash. The scream of a wounded man, it sounded it could be Paddo, but Tara didn’t want to believe it. 

Callum whispered, “Is Daddy okay?”

“He’s winning,” she said.

He didn’t answer. But he didn’t cry either.

Copperhead blood.

When it was over, the house smelled like gunpowder and sweat.

One intruder dead. Two captured. The third bled out in the alley before anyone could cuff him.

Paddo sat on the tile, breathing hard, clutching a shirt to his shoulder.

“Let me,” Skink said, crouching next to him with a med bag and a pair of kitchen shears.

“You patching me up with steak knives now?” Paddo asked, wincing.

“Better than vodka and duct tape. Stay still. Bite on this.”

Skink handed Paddo a piece of wood wrapped in leather, worked fast—gloves, gauze, pressure. No shakes in his hands.

“You did good,” Paddo muttered.

“I’m not the one who took a bullet,” Skink replied. “Next time, duck.”

Paddo almost smiled.

Tara came down with Callum once the house was cleared. The boy ran straight to his father, wide-eyed but steady.

“You okay?” Callum asked, fingers brushing the bandage.

“I’m good, little man, uncle Skink made sure of that.”

“Did we win?”

Paddo looked up at Tara, then at Skink.

“Yeah,” he said. “We did.”

And outside, the Copperheads rode perimeter—silent, close, fast.

The club wasn’t sleeping tonight.

Chapter Text

They kept the two survivors in the shipping container behind the garage.

No lights. No air-conditioning. Just heat, rust, and silence thick enough to choke on. Sugar stood outside the door with his arms folded, leaning back on a crowbar like it was a cane. He hadn’t spoken in ten minutes.

Rook paced.

“Either they talk, or they bleed,” he muttered.

“They will,” Sugar said. “Eventually.”

Inside, the first man had started whimpering. Shot in the leg, zip-tied at the wrists and ankles, blood dried at the collar. The other—silent. Jaw clenched, head back, like he still thought he had cards left to play.

Skink sat nearby on a crate, arms on his knees. He didn’t look at them. Just listened. Watching for breaks. Paddo had asked him to stay. Not to interrogate—just to observe.

He was good at seeing the cracks.

Tara didn’t go near the container. Not at first.

She stayed inside, checked the doors again. Tucked Callum into the loft and posted a club girl outside the room. The boy hadn’t said much since the shooting.

Didn’t cry. Didn’t whine.

Just kept asking where the blood had gone. Like it was something he could clean up himself.

Paddo sat on the couch, bandaged and stiff. The bullet had passed through clean, but it still burned like hell. Tara brought him a glass of water, then took her place beside him.

“You sleep?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Neither did I,” she said. “Neither did Mira.”

She took his hand and placed it on her stomach.

He waited.

Then he felt it. The kick.

Paddo blinked once.

“She’s ready too,” Tara said.

Later, when the first man finally cracked and started giving names, it wasn’t fear that got him talking. It was pain. And heat. And the steady rhythm of Sugar tapping the crowbar against the wall.

But what he said wasn’t what they expected.

“This wasn’t gang,” he stammered. “This wasn’t MC. We’re contract. Outsourced. No patch, no creed. Just names.”

“Whose names?” Rook snapped.

The man looked at Skink, then back at Sugar.

He didn’t say Cyrus.

But he said: “Big money. Corporate ties. Government friends. This ain’t about territory anymore.”

Sugar slammed the crowbar into the wall just inches from his head.

“Next time,” Sugar growled, “say the name.”

That night, Tara walked alone to the container.

She didn’t speak.

Just looked at the man who’d stayed silent.

And when their eyes met, he finally flinched.

She smiled once. Cold.

Then turned and left.

Upstairs, Callum asked if he could sleep between them.

Tara didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

The boy curled up against her. Paddo reached for her hand in the dark.

Outside, the guards rotated every hour.

And in the stillness, no one forgot—

Two had come through their walls.

But only two had left breathing.

Chapter Text

The patched circle met at midnight.

No prospects. No hangarounds. Just full blood.

The table was scratched and stained. The room hot with engine sweat and tension. At the head, Paddo sat with his arm still bound in a tight sling. He hadn’t spoken since they all arrived.

Tara stood behind him.

Not silent. Not shadowed.

Present.

Watching every man who dared glance too long.

Sugar leaned on the far wall. Rook sat forward, elbows on his knees, jaw locked tight. Daisy lit a smoke, hands steady.

“They came into our home,” Rook finally said. “Into your house, Prez.”

“They bled for it,” Paddo answered.

“Not enough.”

“Agreed,” Tara said flatly. “But bleeding’s not the same as breaking. And we’re here to break someone.”

A beat of silence.

Then Sugar spoke. “You sure it’s Cyrus?”

Skink stepped forward from the edge of the room.

“We don’t have a name,” he said. “But we have a pattern. Van was registered through three shell companies. All tied back to the same energy firm with a board seat held by a man named—”

“Cyrus Devine,” Paddo finished.

The room shifted.

“That’s as close to a declaration as we’re gonna get,” Skink said. “They’re outsourcing. Trying to keep distance. But they’re not being subtle anymore.”

“They never thought they had to be,” Tara added. “They don’t think we’ll take this to their doorstep.”

“They’re wrong,” Paddo said.

After the meeting, tension lingered.

Some of the older riders—Crane, Gator, Redhouse—voiced doubt.

“We’re not built for this kind of war,” Redhouse said under his breath. “Cops get involved at this level, we lose everything. Families. Kids.”

Tara stepped between them like she’d been summoned.

“Good,” she said. “Then you have something to fight for.”

They didn’t argue after that.

Callum sat in the loft, flipping through a picture book. The same one Paddo had read to him the night before the shooting. But this time, he didn’t read aloud.

He looked up when Skink sat down beside him.

“You okay, bud?”

Callum nodded. Then said, “I think my mom’s getting scarier.”

Skink blinked.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “She is.”

Callum shrugged. “I like it.”

Skink ruffled his hair, smiling.

The kid would be fine.

He had blood and fire both.

That night, Cyrus held a fundraiser.

Public, polished. Suits and cameras. Smiles that didn’t touch his eyes.

Halfway through the event, he received a text. No number. No name.

Just a photo.

The man who hadn’t spoken. The last intruder.

Tied to a chair.

Mouth taped.

One eye swollen shut.

And beneath the photo:

We don’t do proxies. We come in person.

Cyrus stared at the screen, then set it down beside his untouched glass of scotch.

His smile returned.

But his jaw tightened.

The fuse was lit.

And burning short.

Chapter Text

The air shifted in the yard.

Engines were quieter now. Conversations, shorter. Every patched member knew what time it was—not on the clock, but in the blood. Something had been broken. And now something had to be returned.

Paddo stood at the edge of the map table, a long scar of road traced out in marker. Supply routes. Safe houses. Known contacts.

Skink leaned over the opposite side, jaw tight.

“Front entrance is bait,” he said. “They expect us loud.”

Paddo nodded. “Then we go silent.”

Skink traced an alternate approach. “Here. Through the canal lot. Run it at night, two bikes, one van. If they’re staging again, we’ll see it before they hear us.”

“And if we don’t?” Rook asked.

“Then we don’t come back.”

No one flinched.

Tara watched from the upper floor. Not out of distance—but position. She wasn’t asking for votes. She was watching loyalty move across the floor.

Sugar came up beside her, arms crossed.

“They’re ready,” he said.

She didn’t take her eyes off the men below. “Ready doesn’t mean safe.”

“They never were.”

She nodded once.

“Mira kicked again last night,” she said after a moment.

Sugar raised a brow.

“She kicking for war?”

Tara smiled, cold and sharp. “She’s kicking to remind me what I’m fighting for.”

Later, Skink found Callum in the garage, sitting on a bucket with a rag and a toy wrench.

“Mom says I can’t ride until I’m five,” the boy said without looking up.

“She’s probably right.”

“I’m four and a half.”

Skink crouched. “You’ll ride when it’s time. But until then, you can learn. You wanna help me clean the tools?”

Callum looked up.

Then nodded.

That night, Paddo stood at the back gate with a rifle strapped to his good shoulder. He stared into the dark, past the perimeter lights, as if expecting a ghost to walk out of it.

Tara came up behind him. Put a hand on his back.

“You sure you want to lead this run?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then why?”

He looked at her.

“Because I won’t let them teach my son that fear gets to win.”

She nodded.

Then kissed his cheek.

“When you come back,” she said, “we take the next step.”

“What step?”

“We burn their gates down.”

They rode out at 2:07 a.m.

Two bikes.

One van.

No colors showing.

Just vengeance tucked into leather and steel.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a wedding so much as a claiming.

No altar. No pews. No lace or vows read from cards. Just oil-slick concrete underfoot, patched leather in every seat, and the scent of sage and exhaust in the air.

Tara wore black.

A dress she’d had in her closet for years—never worn, never sold, always waiting for the right day to fit her fire. Her hair was tied back, neck bare, pistol holstered.

Paddo didn’t wear a tie.

Just his best shirt, half-buttoned, sleeves rolled. A sling still over his shoulder, bandage beneath. He stood straighter than he had in weeks.

Callum sat on Sugar’s shoulders, kicking his little boots against the man’s chest, waving a tiny Copperhead flag someone had stitched out of scrap cloth and red thread.

The whole club came. Even the ones who doubted. Even the ones who’d fought Tara in the early days. They came because they knew—this wasn’t for show. This was war-bonded love. Hardened. Earned.

Rook officiated, which surprised no one.

“You stand here not because you’re peaceful,” he said, gravel-voiced and blunt. “You stand here because peace is what you bleed for.”

Paddo looked at Tara.

She looked back.

No fear.

No second guessing.

Only the kind of calm you get in the eye of a storm.

They didn’t say “I do.”

They just said each other’s names.

And that was enough.

Later, the party roared like any Copperhead celebration—loud, fast, full of flame and laughter. Meat on the fire. Beers passed around. Skink played DJ off a half-dead speaker rig.

But Paddo and Tara didn’t stay long.

They danced once. Slow. Close. Her head on his unbandaged shoulder. His hand over the place where Mira kicked.

Then they slipped upstairs to the loft, where Callum was already curled up in the blankets with a chocolate smear across his cheek.

Paddo pulled off his boots.

Tara climbed in behind her son.

And for one rare night—between bullets and betrayals, maps and plans—they slept.

All three of them.

Together.

Married not just in word, but in war.

Chapter Text

Cyrus didn’t know why he was awake.

There was no meeting. No alert. No siren in the dark.

Just a quiet in his chest that didn’t feel right.

He rose from the armchair in his office, looked out over the edge of the skyline, and lit a cigarette with hands that had never once held a trigger. He didn’t need to.

Men like him didn’t fire. They pointed. And things exploded on their behalf.

But tonight, the city felt still. Like it was waiting for something smaller than war.

He tapped ash into a clean glass.

And for the first time in a long time, he felt… watched.

Sugar hadn’t cried since his brother died.

But he stood in the hall outside the loft, fists clenched, listening to Tara scream through the walls.

“She said not to come in,” Skink muttered, pacing near the stairs.

“She’s got grit,” Sugar said. “But this ain’t grit. This is fire.”

“Still told us to stay the hell out.”

Another scream cut through the door. Then silence.

Both men froze.

Then: the sound of breath. Wet, fast, tiny.

A baby’s first cry.

Skink turned and bolted down the stairs.

Paddo found Callum out in the garage, lining up sockets by size.

“Come on,” he said gently. “Time to meet someone.”

“Mom done yelling?”

Paddo smiled. “Yeah. She’s done yelling.”

Callum stood up and brushed off his hands. “Do I get to hold her?”

“We’ll see.”

They brought Tara and Mira to the hospital in the backseat of Sugar’s car. Sheets and towels and a space heater pointed at the baby the whole ride. Mira barely weighed more than a bottle of bourbon.

But she was loud.

And that was enough.

Tara didn’t speak much. Just held the tiny bundle to her chest and stared down like she could stop the world with her pulse alone.

At the hospital, the staff didn’t ask many questions. Not when the Copperhead cuts rolled in behind the mother. Not when Sugar stood by the door with arms crossed and a look that said, not now, not tonight.

Paddo stood beside Tara while the nurse took Mira’s vitals.

“Stormy eyes,” he whispered. “Just like her brother.”

Tara finally looked up. Tired. Wild. Unbroken.

“She came early.”

“She came strong,” he corrected.

She nodded.

“Good,” she said. “She’ll need to be.”

Chapter Text

The clubhouse was quiet in that way it only ever got twice a year—after a funeral, or after something so pure happened no one dared ruin it.

Tonight was the second kind.

No engines. No music. Just murmurs, clinking glass, and bootsteps softened out of respect.

Paddo stepped through the door with Mira in his arms, wrapped tight in a wool blanket that had once belonged to his mother. She was barely bigger than a whiskey bottle, and quieter now, like she knew where she was.

Like she knew she was safe.

The crew straightened when they saw him. Not out of ceremony—out of instinct. You stood when the boss carried something holy.

He didn’t go to the front of the room. He stopped at the center. Right where the floorboards creaked. The heart of the Copperhead floor.

Tara stood behind him. She didn’t need to speak.

Paddo raised the child gently.

“This,” he said, voice gravel-dry, “is Mira.”

Sugar took a single step forward, eyes softer than anyone had seen in a decade.

“She got your eyes,” he said.

“And her mother’s lungs,” Rook added, earning the smallest grin from Tara.

Callum stood at his mother’s side, clutching her hand, staring up at his sister like she was a new planet just added to the sky.

“She family,” Paddo said. “She crew. She blood.”

Daisy raised her glass.

“To the smallest heir.”

“To the loudest Mitchell,” Sugar corrected.

And then, as if on cue, Mira let out a long, feral wail that echoed across the room.

A cry fit for a queen.

The clubhouse roared with laughter.

And the Copperheads knew—

This war wasn’t just for vengeance anymore.

It was for legacy.

Chapter Text

The scent of new life didn’t erase blood.

But it made the air feel different.

There were fewer loud voices at the table now. More time spent checking exits. More hands lingering near waistbands. Because something had changed, and no one wanted to admit how much.

Mira Mitchell had been born into a war.

And now, no one—not even the old guard—could pretend it wasn’t personal.

Tara didn’t sleep. Not really.

She held Mira close in the early hours, tucked under a worn denim blanket, the girl’s breath as soft as paper between her ribs. Her body still ached from the birth, but her instincts burned hotter than ever.

When Sugar came to the loft that morning, she was already up and armed.

He raised his hands. “Just checking perimeter.”

“She needs new locks,” Tara said, eyes still sharp.

“We’re on it.”

She nodded.

“Thanks.”

That was all. But Sugar didn’t miss the unspoken part.

Tara wasn’t just a mother anymore.

She was a shield.

And a blade.

Paddo sat with Callum in the back lot, polishing down an old helmet that’d been passed through three generations of riders. The boy was still too small for it.

But one day, he wouldn’t be.

“You know why we ride with colors?” Paddo asked.

“‘Cause it looks cool?”

Paddo laughed once. “Yeah. That too. But mostly—it’s to remind people who we stand for.”

Callum paused. “We stand for Mira now?”

Paddo looked at him.

And nodded.

“Yeah, son. We do.”

On the other side of town, in a penthouse with temperature-controlled silence, Cyrus sat with a new file.

Photos. Ultrasound records. The name: Mira Dawn Mitchell.

He didn’t speak.

Just closed the folder.

And poured a glass of something old enough to matter.

“Two heirs,” he muttered. “And a mother who doesn’t break.”

Behind him, one of his aides cleared their throat.

“What’s the move?”

Cyrus didn’t answer.

He just looked out over the city—watching not for threats, but for signs of legacy he hadn’t planned on.

Because now he wasn’t just dealing with rebels.

He was dealing with a dynasty.

Chapter Text

The letter didn’t come by courier.

It was slipped under the front gate—no return address, no wax seal, no markings. Just a single piece of thick paper, folded once, edges crisp. Sugar found it at sunrise and handed it to Tara without a word.

She unfolded it slow.

Read it twice.

Then handed it to Paddo.

Inside, in sharp typewritten font: “Everything breaks when you lean hard enough.”

No signature. No demand. Just a warning.

Or a promise.

Cyrus didn’t want subtlety anymore.

He wanted spectacle.

No more proxies. No more outsourced hitters with silenced pistols and burner vans.

He started calling in debts. Pulling men out of their quiet retirements. Men with scars and medals. Men who didn’t ask questions if the price was right and the target was dirty.

He picked four names from a list.

Four men with no connections to each other—except for the fact that all of them owed him their lives.

One for the garage.

One for the clubhouse perimeter.

One for Skink.

And one for Callum.

Inside the Copperhead walls, things didn’t feel solid.

Redhouse had gone quiet.

Gator was drinking more than usual.

Crane’s wife hadn’t been seen in two days, and nobody was talking.

When Sugar pressed Rook about it, the answer came hard:

“They’re scared. Not of dying. Of what happens if this thing drags on too long.”

“We’ve had war before,” Sugar said.

“Not with kids in the crossfire.”

Sugar didn’t respond.

Because he knew Rook was right.

Skink felt the heat, but didn’t flinch.

He’d started staying at the compound every night. No slip-ups. No signs of relapse. And more eyes were starting to trust him. Even the old dogs.

But something about the air bothered him. A prickle at the base of his neck that hadn’t left in three days.

He checked the locks twice. Triple-counted the perimeter cameras. Slept with his boots on.

Still, he didn’t feel safe.

Not for him.

For Callum.

That night, Paddo took his son upstairs early.

“Why’re you putting the dresser in front of the door?” Callum asked, eyes sleepy but sharp.

“Just for practice,” Paddo said.

“For what?”

“For being ready.”

Callum nodded like he understood.

And maybe he did.

Then he climbed into bed beside his baby sister, wrapped his arm protectively across her middle, and fell asleep.

Paddo watched them both for a long time.

Because the letter had been right.

Everything breaks.

But he’d be damned if it was going to be them.

Chapter Text

The morning came soft.

No calls. No engines. Just a slow sunrise and the smell of warm toast and burnt bacon.

Paddo sat shirtless on the couch, a rare stillness in his bones. Callum was in his lap, legs crossed, fingers tracing the curves and edges of his father’s tattoos like they were a map.

“Does this one hurt?” Callum asked, pointing to the coil of a serpent wrapped around Paddo’s ribs.

“Only when your mom punches me there,” Paddo said with a grin.

Callum giggled and touched another. A flame. A skull. A faded date in script near Paddo’s heart.

“When can I get a tattoo?”

Paddo laughed, leaning back, letting the boy poke and prod.

“Oh no, daddy’s little wombat. You’ll have to wait years until you get your first tattoo.”

“How many?”

“More than you can count on one hand. Maybe two.”

Callum huffed dramatically, folding his arms.

Tara walked in just then, Mira perched on her hip like royalty. She watched them from the doorway, eyes warm.

“Show him the one you got for me,” she said, “when we got engaged.”

Paddo smiled.

“Yeah, alright.”

He shifted Callum and turned slightly, showing off his side. A detailed tattoo stretched from just beneath his ribs to his hip — a woman in a black crop top, jeans, boots, and a Copperheads Australia jacket. Across the back of the inked jacket: Vice President – Paddo.

The woman looked exactly like Tara.

“She’s wearing my jacket,” Paddo said, glancing back at Tara with a grin. “Supposed to be your mom.”

Callum stared, wide-eyed.

“She looks cool.”

“She is,” Tara said, crossing the room. “Want to see mine?”

She knelt beside the couch and shifted the fabric off her shoulder, showing a tattoo of her own — a man with dark brown hair, boots, jeans, a black shirt, and the same club jacket, straddling a motorcycle mid-rev.

“That’s your daddy,” she said softly.

Callum looked between them, Mira gurgling quietly against Tara’s chest.

“Are we all gonna have tattoos?”

“Maybe someday,” Paddo said. “You’ll earn your own.”

Callum nodded solemnly, as if making a vow.

Tara leaned in, brushing a kiss across Paddo’s temple, her eyes still fixed on the tattooed version of herself on his skin.

“I liked that jacket,” she murmured.

“You still wear it better than me.”

“Damn right.”

They sat like that for a while — stitched together in quiet, in ink, in firelight and love.

And in that moment, nothing bled.

Callum leaned in closer to Paddo’s side, staring at the tattoo like it might shift if he blinked. But it was Mira who moved first.

She reached her tiny hand out from Tara’s arm, fingers still clumsy, and pressed them against the ink on Paddo’s ribs.

Her whole palm couldn’t cover the curve of the figure, but she touched it like it meant something. Like she recognized it.

Tara smiled, just barely.

“She knows,” she whispered. “Even if she doesn’t know how.”

Paddo rested a hand gently over Mira’s. “Took me three hours in the chair for that one,” he said. “Worth every second.”

“When did you get it?” Callum asked.

“Three days after I proposed. Your mom came home and I couldn’t keep my shirt on.”

Tara laughed. “He was so proud of it, he kept walking around the clubhouse like a rooster. I had to remind him there were other women who knew what I looked like.”

“And I told her none of ’em could wear the jacket like she could.”

Callum rolled his eyes, but he smiled too.

Then came the knock on the door—short, sharp, familiar.

Sugar.

Tara didn’t flinch. She stood, shifting Mira on her hip, and called out, “Come in!”

Sugar stepped inside, still in his boots, smelling faintly of gas and wind. His eyes scanned the room quick before landing on Tara.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t.” She nodded toward the living room. “Just slow morning.”

Paddo stood up, stretching, then leaned over to Callum. “Hey, wombat—grab the remote. Let’s find you and your sister a cartoon. I’ll get snacks.”

Callum jumped off the couch like he’d just been handed a mission from HQ.

Paddo turned on the TV, flicked past the news, found an old cartoon with talking cars and bad jokes—exactly what Callum liked—and grabbed a plastic tray, filling it with crackers, cut fruit, and a biscuit each.

Mira settled into a little rocker nearby, wide-eyed and content.

The kids, for now, were occupied.

Paddo joined Tara and Sugar in the kitchen, grabbing a mug from the rack, his tone shifting slightly.

“What’s the word?”

Sugar didn’t smile. “We might have a problem.”

Paddo nodded. “Then let’s handle it. But not here.”

He looked once toward the living room—where his son and daughter sat under the glow of cartoons and calm.

“Not in front of them.”

Tara touched his arm, grounding him.

Sugar looked between them. “Didn’t plan to. I just came to talk.”

And so they did.

The kettle boiled in the background. Mira squealed at the TV. Callum asked no fewer than six questions about car physics.

But at the kitchen table, three warriors sat shoulder to shoulder—parents, outlaws, protectors.

The war could wait.

Just for now.