CHAPTER 4

***ZARA***

Three men stepped into the dive bar. They were massive, broad-shouldered, and clad in heavy black leather cuts embroidered with a menacing, silver-fanged wolf emblem—the patch of the Blackthorn Motorcycle Club.

The patrons at the front tables scrambled backward, pulling their chairs away as if staying too close to the three men would kill them.

The man walking in the lead was huge. He stood well over six-foot-four, with cold, deadly eyes, a sharp jawline covered in light stubble, and tattoos running down the side of his neck. He carried himself with a terrifying, commanding presence that made every human in the room hold their breath.

Rook.

The Vice President of Blackthorn MC.

His dark, icy eyes swept across the room as though he were searching for something until they locked squarely onto me.

Rook stopped right in front of my section of the bar. He leaned his massive, leather-clad arms over the counter, stepping directly into my space. The heat radiating from his body made the hair on my arms rise, and suddenly the room felt suffocating.

“Zara Bennett?” Rook asked, his deep voice carrying a low, dangerous rumble that seemed to vibrate through the wooden bar.

Everyone in the club had their eyes on me—on us. It felt like I was about to be handed a death sentence.

I swallowed hard, clutching the damp rag tightly against my chest. “Y-yes.”

Rook tilted his head, his cold eyes tracking the trembling of my hands.

“Your brother, Jake Bennett,” Rook said flatly.

He laid down a thick brown folder containing pictures of Jake and some other guys tied up in a dark room, their faces covered in blood and their hands bound as they were chained to a pillar in the middle of the room.

My stomach dropped.

“He and his crew broke into the Blackthorn armory two nights ago. Stole two hundred thousand dollars' worth of pack-forged silver weapons and our club’s sacred sun-crest, then sold it off to the Viper MC to settle his gambling debts. Your brother was the ringleader.”

I stared at the photograph of my brother, struggling to make sense of what I was hearing.

“Jake?… No, no, that's not true. Silver weapons? A crest? He's just nineteen…” 

I knew Jake was reckless. He was stupid sometimes. But two hundred thousand dollars worth of weapons? That didn't sound like a kid desperate for gambling money. Something wasn't adding up.

“He's a thief. We caught him an hour ago,” Rook rumbled, leaning in closer until his heavy shadow completely enveloped me. “The Vice President of Blackthorn MC doesn't make house calls for small debts, sweetheart. But the President—Knox Blackwood—wants his money paid or your brother's blood by sunrise. And as the leader of that little crew, Jake’s execution order has already been signed.”

“No!” My voice cracked, tears burning my eyes as panic seized me. “Please, don't kill him! He's just an idiot. He didn't mean—”

“Save it for the boss,” Rook cut me off coldly, straightening to his full, imposing height. “Prez Knox is at The Sanctuary right now. If you want to pay your last respects to your brother before we put a bullet in his skull, you've got one hour to get down there.”

Then he turned and left.

Just like that?

Like he hadn't just landed a deadly threat I didn't think I could save myself from.

The door to Rust & Bone clicked shut behind Rook, but the suffocating silence he left in his wake remained heavy in the air.

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The patrons who had scrambled away from stool three were still frozen, staring at me as if I were a ghost. On the wooden counter in front of me lay the thick brown folder Rook had left behind.

My hands shook as I reached for it, but I couldn't bring myself to open it again.

“Zee…” Maya’s voice broke the silence, raw and trembling. She rushed around the counter and grabbed my wrists, her skin ice-cold against mine. “Zee, look at me. Breathe. Just breathe.”

I couldn't.

The air felt impossible to draw in as I stared at the folder.

Seven months.

It had been seven months since my world shattered into a million pieces.

Before seven months ago, life was normal. It was reasonable because my dad was still alive, working his steady shift at the auto mechanic shop. Mom was healthy, baking on weekends and humming in the kitchen. Jake was in his second year of college, taking business courses and talking about starting his own business one day. I was taking night classes, working a simple part-time job, and actually sleeping eight hours a night.

Then Dad got into a brutal car accident on his way back from work on a Tuesday afternoon.

And just like that, he was gone.

When the hospital called with the news, Mom collapsed on the kitchen floor. Her heart couldn't take the shock—a massive, catastrophic heart attack that landed her straight in the ICU, hooked up to ventilators and monitors that cost thousands of dollars every single day.

Everything collapsed in one day. The dominoes fell so fast I didn't even have time to scream, cry, or yell at the universe for treating me this way.

We couldn't afford Jake's college tuition anymore, so he dropped out. I thought he would help me take care of mom together. But instead of picking up shifts, the guilt and grief broke him. He started hanging out with the wrong crowd on 47th Street. He started gambling, chasing quick cash to fix problems he couldn't handle, leaving me to step up as the sole breadwinner.

For seven straight months, I juggled double shifts at the bar and coffee shop, skipped meals, ignored my own health, and drained every single penny I had just to keep Mom breathing and keep Jake out of jail.

I was so fucking tired. Bone-tired. Exhausted in a way that sleep couldn't fix.

And now… Jack had walked away, Mom had less than eight hours to live, and Jake was sitting in a dark room with a gun pointed at his head.

When will all this end?

When will the universe stop testing me?

Because right now, I didn't know how much longer I could keep up. I didn't know how long I could keep holding onto the hope that things would finally get better one day.

“I have to go,” I whispered, my voice flat, almost emotionless as the shock settled over me.

Maya blinked, her grip tightening around my wrists. “Go where?”

“To The Sanctuary,” I said, untying the apron from my waist and letting it fall to the floor. “I have to talk to Knox Blackwood.”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Maya shrieked, her eyes widening in pure horror. She yanked me backward toward the back hallway, out of earshot of the lingering customers. “Zara, you cannot go near that man! Knox Blackwood isn't some businessman you can negotiate with! He’s a dangerous man! He runs the entire South Side underworld. The police won't even set foot on his turf!”

“Jake is going to die, Maya!” Tears finally burst through the numbness, hot and furious, burning my cheeks. “If I don't go, they're going to put a bullet in his head by sunrise! I already lost Dad, and I'm probably going to lose Mom tomorrow morning. I am not letting my brother die too. He's the only family I have left!”

“How about we call the police?” Maya pleaded, her voice cracking. “We report the kidnap—”

“The police won't do shit against Blackthorn, and you know it!” I snapped, pulling my hands free from her grip. “Rook gave me one hour. One hour to get down to The Sanctuary and beg for his life. I don't have a choice.”