Page 24 of Diesel
“I know you are,” I say quietly, and stop myself before I offer forgiveness. I need to know firstly what I’m dealing with.
Zane sits next to me and grabs my chair. The legs scrape across the tile, loud and obnoxious in the quietness of the room as he drags me around to face him. His eyes are hollow as he places his battle-worn hands on my knees. Comfort and warmth instantly spread through me. These aren’t hands that hurt me. They protected me, made me feel things, even through my anger.
My breath stops. So does my pain. My fear. My fuckingheartbeat. He’s looking at me like the world starts and ends with me.
Like he used to.
Before—
Before the club…
“I didn’t keep you away because I was embarrassed by you. Fuck, you’re too good for me, Kenna. You always were.” He steadies his breath, and I hold mine. “I did it to… to protect you. The club’s in trouble. It’s been in trouble from the minute I took the patch.”
I’m scared to speak in case he stops talking, in case he pushes all of this back into a box I’m not allowed to access.
He ducks his head just a little, hiding his eyes from me. “The first year, when I was a prospect, I wasn’t allowed to bring you in. Wives, old ladies, they get access to places that are… sensitive. That has to be earned. There are some exceptions, but for the most part, prospects are background noise and so are their lives outside the club.”
He’s never opened up to me about anything related to the Sons. I had no idea about any of this, but I do remember when he first started at the club. Things were different back then. He was lighter, excited in his own Zane way.
“Once the patch is given, then the brother can talk to the officers and they decide if an old lady can be brought in. But I could see how good the club was going to be for us. The way it took care of its own was something I wanted. And I was fucking excited to show you the world I was building for us.”
Warmth blooms in my chest as something dangerously close to hope fills me. He wanted me with him. He was working toward that.
“So what changed?” I ask.
He taps his fingers on the table. Once. Twice. Then huffs out a breath. “I got to the end of my prospect term and I earned my colours.” His laugh is dry and humourless. “I thought that was it. I was ready to bring you in… And then… everything changed. Nic’s dad died. The club politics shifted when Crank took over as president.”
The way his voice cracks makes the air stick in my throat. Without thinking, I grab his hand and thread my fingers through his. He swallows, like he can’t get the lump down.
“What happened then?”
“I knew he was bad from the moment he stepped into that position. I kept putting off talking about you. I had this feeling I needed to keep you separate, that it wasn’t safe anymore. I could see it—the rot beneath the smiles and bullshit. It was clear to me.”
Of course he could. Zane’s always been hyperaware of danger. He had to be—we both did. We grew up in a world with shifting power dynamics, forged in trauma and fear. He learned to read subtle shifts in behaviour, in loyalty and the threat that brought.
He would have seen Crank was a problem before anyone else. The fractures, the cracks—of course he noticed.
Which is what hurts so much.
He saw all of that, but he didn’t seeme.
He didn’t see us drowning. Because emotion’s never been his language, not like danger is. Love, disappointment, resentment… they don’t follow rules. They’re abstract, they shift, they’re fluid, and Zane lives for structure. He needs patterns he can predict and threats he can fight. But love doesn’t come with warning sirens when things go wrong. It just… fades. Quietly. Until one day you’re alone in something you swore you’d survive together.
A quiet ache spreads beneath my ribs, tender and sharp all at once as his thumb skims over the back of my hand, as if he’s trying to ground himself.
“If it’s so bad, why do you stay? We can manage without them.”
“It’s an MC, Kenna. Once that patch’s on your back you don’t just walk away. You swear an oath, loyalty to the club. You break that, there’re consequences.”
Cold sweat prickles beneath my skin. “What does that mean?”
“It means I was fucked. There was no way for me to get out, and no way for me to bring you in. My choices were go nomad, risk leaving and spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder or try to move to another chapter. I considered it, but I didn’t know if that rot went through the whole damn club, and I was building profiles of the people around me. I didn’t want to do that again in a new place with new players.”
My heart thuds against my ribs. I’d been sleeping easy and safe while he’d been bleeding to fix something he thought he’d broken. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me any of this.”
“What was I supposed to say? Sorry I fucked up again?”
“You never fucked anything up, Zane.”
