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“You couldn’t have—”

“Don’t.” Colt gripped the back of his chair. “I could’ve followed her. Handful could’ve. Instead, I got Lilac and the boys out of there. Dutch had Maya. We were worried about what the kids might’ve seen. The old ladies were upset, and everybody just wanted to get away from here.” He looked at me then. “We had people to take care of. Wren was one of them, and not one of us went after her. We didn’t know she was pregnant. We didn’t have to know.”

Handful said, quietly, “She was on the road three hours before anybody called her.”

“Four,” Holden said. “It was four.”

That was the road captain speaking. Once he’d known where Wren ended up, he’d have pulled out a map and worked out her route, where she might have been each hour before anyone realized she was missing.

Dutch waited until everyone was finished.

“We were her family,” he said. “Not her boyfriend’s club. Hers. She’d been ours nearly three years, and when it came down to it we treated her like she was your business.”

They were right about letting her leave alone. But I couldn’t let them take the blame for what happened in that room. Dutch had told them to turn away from the screen, and they had. I was the one who’d played the video.

“It was decent,” I said. “You gave her the only privacy anybody in that room could after I put her body on that screen.”

Colt sat down and put the heels of his hands in his eyes.

“She was in no state to drive,” Holden said. “I should have done something. Stopped her.”

Handful looked at the door. “I was closest. I could’ve been after her before the car started.”

I’d apologized to Wren at the boathouse. I’d meant every word. But I’d spent more time explaining how I’d discovered the fake than telling her what I understood about humiliating her in front of the people she loved. She’d heard me say I was sorry. She hadn’t heard all of it yet, because I was afraid that once I said it, she could still tell me it changed nothing.

Church finished before ten. String and I spent the afternoon in the ops room going through what he’d handled while I was away. I stayed for dinner with my brothers and left at seven. At twenty past eleven, I passed Robin’s house on the way into Kettlewell. A light was still on. I slowed, wanting to see Wren even for a minute.

I kept riding. I’d told her when I’d be back, but I hadn’t been invited to turn up at her door.

I texted her from the cottage. Home.

Four letters, no code, nothing hidden in it, which I only thought about after I’d sent it.

She came back in about three seconds.

Good.

I read her reply again. I’d spent the day with my brothers in the clubhouse I’d called home for years. I’d missed them. But on the ride back, all I’d wanted was to get home to Wren and Sparrow.

Chapter 18

❧

— Glitch —

Istood in the kitchen with my mouth open. Wren had her back to me, Sparrow balanced on her hip. Had she just invited me to The Hot House?

“Come tonight,” she repeated.

When I didn’t answer, she turned around.

“To the club,” she said. “I’m asking you to come.”

“Wren—”

“You came that second Wednesday. Simon spotted you before you’d even got your money out, and I saw you from the stage. You haven’t come back since.” She shifted Sparrow higher. “I know why. You’ve spent two months doing everything carefully, Seb. I don’t want careful tonight. I want you to come and watch me work.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.