Chapter 1

Emma’s P.O.V.

I woke up with my hand pressed over the scar on my ribs.

For three seconds, I didn’t know where I was.

Not the clubhouse.

Not my mother’s old house.

Not the bedroom where my ex-husband used to lock the door from the outside and tell me I was too dramatic to be afraid.

My tiny apartment was dark except for the weak gray light slipping through the blinds. Butter, my fat black cat, sat at the foot of the bed staring at me like I had personally offended him by screaming in my sleep.

Again.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

He blinked once.

Judgmental little demon.

The alarm on my phone screamed beside me.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I slapped it off and lay there, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling that had a water stain shaped like Texas.

Twenty-five years old.

Free.

Alive.

Still waking up like someone was about to hurt me.

I hated that part most.

Not the cheap apartment. Not the double shifts at the diner. Not the way I counted tips like prayers at the end of every night.

I hated that he had left marks on me that no divorce paper could erase.

I turned onto my side and caught sight of the old photo on my nightstand.

Six kids on the steps of the Inferno’s Demon Riders clubhouse.

Me at thirteen, grinning so wide my cheeks looked round. Lucas beside me, arm slung over my shoulders like he had been born there. Mason behind us, scowling at the camera. Kai throwing up bunny ears. Nathan pretending he was too mature to smile. Ozais laughing like the world had never once been cruel.

Back then, I thought those five boys were forever.

Back then, I thought forever meant something.

The memory hit before I could stop it.

I was thirteen again, standing outside the school computer lab while Lucas tried to drag me inside.

“Come on, Sweets,” he complained, tugging at my backpack. “You promised you’d sit with me while Kai finished our project.”

“I know, but Nathan asked me to meet him in the library for one minute.”

Lucas pouted like I had stabbed him. “Nathan never takes one minute. He talks like an old man trapped in a kid’s body.”

I laughed. “You’re just mad because Kai will hack my socials if I don’t pay attention to him later.”

“He only does that because you’re his favorite victim.”

“He posted the worst pictures of me last time,” I reminded him. “Double chin, bad lighting, everything.”

Lucas stopped smiling.

He reached up and brushed his thumb lightly beneath my chin, his eyes softer than I knew how to handle back then.

“You were never ugly,” he said.

The words stole the air right out of my lungs.

Lucas was always bold. Always teasing. Always the first to stand between me and anyone who looked at me wrong.

The first day I met him, I had been crying on the playground because three boys wouldn’t stop shoving me into the fence. I was the new girl. The awkward girl. The girl nobody wanted in their already-formed little groups.

Then Lucas appeared.

He was nine years old and furious.

He shoved one boy so hard he fell into the mulch, told the other two that if they touched me again, he’d make them eat dirt, then took my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Come on,” he said. “You’re with us now.”

Us.

That word saved me.

Lucas. Mason. Kai. Nathan. Ozais.

Five boys raised around bikes, leather cuts, bar fights, engine smoke, and men who looked dangerous but treated me like something precious.

The Inferno’s Demon Riders MC was loud, rough, and nothing like the quiet suburban life my mother pretended we had.

But to me, the clubhouse felt safer than anywhere else.

No one touched me there.

No one shoved me.

No one made me feel unwanted.

Until everything changed.

In the memory, Mason appeared behind me and hooked one long arm around my shoulders.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“Emma thinks she’s meeting Nathan alone,” Lucas said.

Mason snorted. “Not happening.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can walk to the library by myself.”

“You can,” Mason said. “But why would you, when you have us?”

That was the problem.

I believed him.

That night, Lucas invited me to the clubhouse.

I didn’t know it was his going-away party.

He didn’t know either.

By morning, everything was different.

Lucas moved away with his father when the Demon Riders opened a new chapter in another state. We promised to call. To text. To never become strangers.

Kids make promises like they can fight the whole world with them.

We couldn’t.

Lucas disappeared.

Then my mother married Victor, the club’s enforcer.

At first, I thought moving into the MC family would bring me closer to the boys I had left.

Instead, it took everything.

Whispers started. Secrets. Jealousy. Lies planted where trust used to be.

Mason changed.

Kai stopped looking me in the eye.

Nathan became cold.

Ozais smiled less.

And I learned that sometimes the people who once protected you could become the ones who watched you bleed.

I sat up in bed and forced the memory away.

“No,” I whispered to the empty room. “Not today.”

Butter jumped onto my lap, heavy and warm. I scratched behind his ears until my breathing steadied.

He was the only friend I had now.

I found him behind the diner a year ago, a half-starved black kitten licking a stick of butter that had fallen near the dumpster. He was wounded, filthy, and mean as hell.

I understood him immediately.

So I took him home.

Now he slept on my pillow, stole my food, and glared at anyone who came too close to the door.

A better protector than most men I’d known.

I dragged myself to the bathroom and turned on the light.

The woman in the mirror looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

Puffy eyes. Pale skin. Hair tangled around my shoulders.

My oversized T-shirt slipped slightly, revealing the faded bruise near my collarbone.

Old.

Almost gone.

But not forgotten.

My ex-husband’s voice crawled through my memory.

No one else will want you, Emma.

I gripped the sink until my knuckles turned white.

Wrong.

I didn’t need anyone to want me.

I just needed to stay free.

Free from him.

Free from my mother’s delusions.

Free from the MC that broke my heart.

Free from the five boys who once promised they would never leave.

I splashed cold water on my face, then pulled my diner uniform from the hook on the door.

Another day. Another shift. Another smile for customers who called me sweetheart like it didn’t make my skin crawl.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

Unknown number.

I froze.

For one second, every scar on my body remembered fear.

Then I picked it up.

The message was short.

Sweets, I’m back in town. We need to talk. —Lucas

The bathroom went silent.

My heart slammed once.

Then again.

Lucas.

Ten years of silence.

One nickname.

And suddenly, the past I had buried was standing at my door with engine smoke on its clothes and blood on its hands.

Butter meowed from the bedroom.

I stared at the screen until the letters blurred.

“No,” I whispered.

But my fingers were already trembling.

Because some ghosts didn’t stay buried.

And Lucas Kane had always been the one ghost I was afraid I’d answer.

Chapter 2

Emma’s P.O.V.

I showed up to the diner at seven in the morning after closing it at one.

That was what freedom looked like now.

Four hours of sleep. Puffy eyes. A uniform that smelled faintly like fryer oil. A pocket full of tips I counted every night in case I had to run before sunrise.

Sophie looked up from behind the counter the second I walked in.

“Bly, you’re early.”

“Ryan asked me to come in before I left last night.” I tied my apron around my waist and clocked in before she could start.

Too late.

Her eyes narrowed. “You closed last night.”

“I know.”

“You worked a double yesterday.”

“I know.”

“And Ryan made you close alone because he was back there talking to the cook all night.”

I gave her a look.

Sophie crossed her arms. “Emma.”

I hated when she used my real name at work. It always sounded too intimate, like she was trying to reach a person I kept locked behind three deadbolts.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I need the hours.”

“You need sleep.”

“I need money more.”

That shut her up.

Not because she agreed.

Because she knew I meant it.

What Sophie didn’t know was that money wasn’t just rent and groceries. It wasn’t just Butter’s cat food or my prepaid phone bill or the old car I kept two towns away under a name that wasn’t mine.

Money was escape.

Cash meant I could disappear without a bank alert. Cash meant no paper trail. Cash meant if my ex-husband found me again, I could be gone before he reached the city limits.

Ryan paid under the table and didn’t ask questions.

That made him a terrible boss.

It also made him useful.

So I smiled at customers until my cheeks hurt, refilled coffee, carried plates, and pretended my body wasn’t begging to shut down. The morning rush came hard and fast, the kind that left syrup on tables, ketchup on sleeves, and old men complaining because their eggs were “too yellow.”

By the time the diner finally emptied, my hands were shaking from exhaustion.

Sophie leaned beside me while I rolled silverware.

“I can’t believe it’s almost eight,” she said.

I looked at the clock and frowned. “You were supposed to leave at four.”

“Chloe never showed.”

Of course she hadn’t.

“Ryan said she had car trouble,” Sophie added.

I snorted before I could stop myself.

Sophie’s mouth curved. “Exactly.”

Ryan was married.

Chloe was not his wife.

That did not stop either of them from disappearing into his office often enough that half the kitchen pretended to go deaf whenever the door locked.

Ryan’s actual wife, Victoria, came in once a week like a storm in designer heels. She insulted the food, insulted the waitresses, insulted the cracked vinyl booths, then locked herself in Ryan’s office and screamed at him for two hours.

A normal person might have quit.

I wasn’t normal anymore.

Normal people didn’t keep a packed emergency bag under their bed.

Normal people didn’t memorize exits in grocery stores.

Normal people didn’t flinch when a man laughed too close behind them.

Sophie bumped my shoulder gently. “Do you think Chloe’s boyfriend knows she’s sleeping with Ryan?”

“I didn’t know Chloe had one boyfriend,” I said. “I thought she had several and they took turns pretending not to know.”

Sophie burst out laughing.

The only customer left, Silent Jon, glared at us from his corner booth over his endless cup of coffee.

I smiled despite myself.

Sophie was easy to like. Too easy. She was funny and bright and stubbornly kind in a way that made me want to step closer and run at the same time.

I didn’t do friends anymore.

Friends became weapons when the wrong people found them.

“Anyway,” Sophie said, lowering her voice, “the boyfriend I mean is from that motorcycle club in the next town.”

The fork slipped from my hand.

It hit the counter with a sharp clatter.

Sophie blinked. “You okay?”

I forced my fingers to move and picked it up. “Yeah. Just tired.”

A motorcycle club.

Near here.

My lungs tightened before I could stop them.

I had built my entire new life around being invisible. A cheap apartment. A diner that paid cash. No social media. No real friends. No questions. No names from the past.

And now there was an MC close enough that one of their men was dating Chloe.

“Which club?” I asked, too casually.

Sophie tilted her head. “Not sure. Something Wolves? Or Devils? I don’t know. He came in the other night, though, and girl—he was fine.”

My stomach turned cold.

Wolves. Devils. Demons.

Names blurred when fear got its hands around your throat.

“Was he wearing a cut?” I asked.

“A what?”

“A leather vest. Club patches.”

“Oh.” She thought about it. “Yeah. Black vest. Some kind of fire-looking patch on the back, I think.”

The floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet.

Fire.

Inferno.

No.

It couldn’t be.

The Inferno’s Demon Riders were states away. That was what I had told myself for years. They were my childhood. My mother’s bad choices. Victor’s clubhouse. The boys who once protected me, then turned their backs like I had become something dirty overnight.

Lucas.

Mason.

Kai.

Nathan.

Ozais.

The names hit me one by one.

I heard their old voices like they were standing behind me.

Stay away from me for a while.

You’re always in the way, Shorty.

We told you not to come back to the clubhouse.

Take the hint, Dimples. No one wants you here.

My eyes burned.

I turned away quickly and grabbed a stack of napkins that didn’t need fixing.

“Bly?” Sophie’s voice softened. “You listening?”

I blinked hard and pasted on a smile.

“Sorry. Zoned out.”

“You’re exhausted,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Of life, maybe.

Of running, definitely.

But tired didn’t mean safe.

And safe was the only thing I cared about.

Sophie watched me for a second, then brightened like she had decided to drag me out of whatever hole I kept disappearing into.

“We should go out tomorrow night after work.”

“No.”

“Wow. Immediate rejection. Rude.”

“I don’t go out.”

“You go to work and the grocery store,” she said. “That’s not a life. That’s a hostage situation.”

I almost laughed.

She had no idea how close that landed.

“Just one drink,” she begged. “We close together tomorrow. One drink, then I’ll stop asking for at least a week.”

“Sophie…”

“Please? You can pick the place. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere with exits.” She paused, then frowned. “Why did I say that like you’re a spy?”

Because I looked for exits everywhere.

Because I had learned the hard way that doors mattered.

Because the last time I trusted a room full of familiar faces, I barely made it out with my life.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Sophie squealed like I had agreed to marry her.

“I’ll take it.”

I shook my head and went back to rolling silverware, but my hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

A motorcycle club in the next town.

A fire patch.

Chloe’s boyfriend.

Maybe it was nothing.

Maybe I was tired and paranoid.

Maybe no one from the Demon Riders would ever find me here.

Maybe my ex-husband had stopped looking.

Maybe ghosts stayed buried if you changed your name, cut your hair, and worked yourself half to death in a diner that smelled like burnt coffee.

Sophie hummed beside me, happy with her tiny victory.

Silent Jon coughed from his booth.

The bell above the front door jingled.

I looked up automatically.

A man stepped inside wearing a black leather cut.

Fire curled across the patch on his chest.

My heart stopped.

He looked around the diner once.

Then his eyes landed on me.

And he smiled like he knew exactly who I was.

Chapter 3

Emma’s P.O.V.

Friday night at the diner was hell, and my boss was too busy cheating in his office to notice his business was falling apart.

Again.

“Are they seriously going to stay locked in there all night?” Sophie snapped, balancing three plates on her arm while glaring toward Ryan’s office. “We have a full house.”

Steven, our only cook on shift, leaned through the hot window with a grin. “You know he loves gettin’ his dick wet, girl. Let a playa play.”

I closed my eyes.

Wrong thing to say.

Sophie turned slowly, eyes sharp enough to slice bread. “Let a playa play? That playa can play when his diner isn’t one waitress away from burning to the ground.”

Then she stormed off, ponytail whipping behind her like a battle flag.

Steven laughed.

I grabbed two plates from the window and shook my head. “Why do you do that? She was already about to snap.”

“Because she’s fun when she snaps.”

He wasn’t wrong.

But tonight, none of this was funny.

The diner was packed wall to wall. Families in booths. Truckers at the counter. Teenagers taking up tables for milkshakes and fries. A group from out of town had pushed three tables together and still kept ordering refills like we had an army in the back.

We didn’t.

We had me, Sophie, Steven, and Ryan’s locked office door.

Chloe had been in and out of that office all night, giggling like she wasn’t supposed to be working. Every time the door opened, she came out with messy hair and a smug little smile, then disappeared again ten minutes later.

Ryan was married.

Chloe knew it.

Everyone knew it.

His wife Victoria came in every week, insulted the diner, insulted us, screamed in his office for two hours, and still stayed married to him.

Not my circus.

Not my disaster.

I had enough of my own.

By seven, my feet hurt, my back ached, and the smell of coffee had soaked into my soul. I stood behind the counter wrapping silverware and muttering every curse word I knew under my breath.

Four more hours until close.

Four more hours until I could go home to Butter, lock my door, count my cash, and remind myself I still had enough saved to run if I needed to.

That was the rule.

Always have enough cash to run.

Always know the exits.

Always stay invisible.

“Excuse me.”

The voice was deep, polite, and too smooth for a place like this.

I looked up.

And forgot how to speak.

The man leaning against the counter looked like trouble dressed as a biker fantasy. Golden blond hair to his shoulders. Bright blue eyes. A smile that probably got women into bad decisions before they realized they were making them.

Then I saw the black leather cut.

The Devils MC.

Treasurer.

My stomach tightened.

Motorcycle clubs were not automatically dangerous to me.

They had once been home.

That was the problem.

The man smiled wider when he caught me staring at the patch. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”

I looked back down at the silverware. “Didn’t think you were.”

Lie.

I thought every man in a cut could become trouble if the wrong name came out of his mouth.

He hummed softly. “I came in and sat in my girl’s section, but I haven’t seen her. Chloe’s working tonight, right?”

My eyebrows lifted.

Chloe.

Of course.

The universe had a sick sense of humor.

Before I could answer, Sophie stomped up beside me, still vibrating with rage.

“You trying to pay?” she asked sweetly. “Most customers let us do the walking.”

He chuckled. “Haven’t ordered yet. I’m waiting for Chloe.”

Sophie’s smile froze.

I knew that look.

That was the look she got right before doing something illegal, dramatic, or both.

“So Chloe is here,” he said, relief flashing across his face. “Where is she? On break?”

Sophie glanced toward Ryan’s office.

Then at me.

I shook my head once.

No.

Absolutely not.

Sophie ignored me.

“Do you want me to take you to her?” she asked.

“Sophie,” I warned under my breath.

Her eyes flashed. “He deserves to know.”

The biker’s smile dimmed. He clearly heard her.

I should have stayed out of it.

I was very good at staying out of things. Staying out of things kept me alive.

But the man looked so genuinely confused, and Chloe had made our lives miserable for weeks while pretending she was better than everyone.

So, naturally, my mouth betrayed me.

“Why are you even with her?”

His blue eyes hardened instantly. “What’s that supposed to mean? Because she’s a waitress and I’m a biker? You think I’m dragging her down?”

My mouth opened.

He leaned closer. “Don’t be jealous, sweetheart. It’s not a good look.”

Sophie made a sound like a tea kettle exploding.

“Jealous?”

I tried to stop it.

I really did.

But laughter burst out of me so hard I had to grab the counter. I bent over, wheezing, tears gathering in my eyes for a reason that had nothing to do with sadness for once.

The biker frowned. “It wasn’t that funny.”

“It was,” Sophie snapped. “Because jealous is the last thing we are of Chloe.”

Right then, Ryan’s office door opened.

Chloe’s giggle spilled out first.

Then Ryan’s low voice.

The biker went completely still.

His jaw tightened. His eyes moved past us, locking on whatever was happening behind my back.

I didn’t turn around.

I didn’t need to.

I had seen enough office exits to know what guilty looked like.

Sophie leaned toward him, suddenly bright with purpose. “I can give you Ryan’s home address if you want. He has a wife.”

“Nah,” the biker muttered, eyes dark. “That bitch ain’t worth it.”

“Okay, but can you make a scene?” Sophie whispered eagerly. “This is the highlight of our night.”

He looked at her like she was insane.

Fair.

Then he looked back at me. “Sorry I assumed.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “You were defending your girl.”

“Thought I was,” he muttered.

Sophie crossed her arms. “For starters, I feel obligated to say you are one fine specimen of a man, and you can do way better than a skank who spends half her shift in her married boss’s office.”

The biker rubbed a hand over his face, still watching Chloe.

“I thought she was real,” he said quietly. “She told me she was working her ass off while going to school. Said she wanted to be a children’s therapist. Said she was taking care of the grandmother who raised her.”

Sophie and I blinked at him.

His brows pulled together. “What?”

Sophie turned slowly toward Chloe.

Oh no.

Oh yes.

“You psychotic bitch!” Sophie screamed.

The entire diner went silent.

Even Silent Jon looked up from his coffee.

Sophie stormed toward Chloe, pointing like an avenging angel in a diner apron.

“You stole my life story to land a hot biker? I’m the one going to school! I’m the one working doubles! I’m the one taking care of my grandmother!”

Chloe’s face went white.

Ryan froze behind her.

Sophie kept going. “You can lie to your little harem all you want, but leave me out of it! You stole my life and still got the hottest man I have ever seen while I can’t even get a text back?”

The biker leaned on the counter, eyes now fixed on Sophie.

“Her life?” he asked.

I smiled. “Yeah. Sophie is the one going to school, working, and taking care of her grandmother. Chloe barely works.”

His gaze stayed on Sophie.

Interest sharpened his face.

“So Sophie’s single?”

I laughed. “Ask her yourself.”

He glanced down at his cut, then back at me. “Think she really meant I’m the hottest man she’s ever seen?”

I looked toward Chloe, then toward Ryan’s office, then back at him.

“Better schedule that STD screening first.”

He nodded grimly.

“Fuck,” he said. “I’ll get one tomorrow.”

Then he straightened, rolled his shoulders, and walked toward Sophie like Chloe had never existed at all.