The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 220

Chapter 113-2

Clam

A cold, prickly wave of irritation washes over me. I step out from beside Locke, crossing my arms over my chest, looking straight into his eyes.

“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t sweep it under the rug like we’re kids who can’t handle the truth. We stood in this room for two hours thinking everyone was dead, and we watched Stitch dig a bullet out of Bishop’s leg right on that sofa. You brought the blood into this house, Locke.”

Jade nods emphatically beside me, her green eyes wide with a mix of fear and anger.

“Exactly! You brought us into the situation. You can’t give us front-row seats to the nightmare and then tell us to close our eyes the second you decide that’s enough.”

“Jade, drop it.” Mayhem stands up off the barstool, his massive frame towering over his wife, his hands resting on his hips. “It’s club business. You know how this works.”

“I know, Mayhem, but I don’t care right now!” Jade snaps back, stepping right into his space. “Me and Zara have asked nothing all day, but we have questions. Did Knox’s guys see you? Is he coming here?”

“I said drop it!” Mayhem’s voice booms through the penthouse. “I mean now!”

Before Jade can yell back, the door to the second guest room opens with a sharp click.

Dad steps out into the hallway.

He shuts the guest room door firmly behind him, blocking out the sound of Bishop’s shallow breathing, and walks slowly down the corridor toward the kitchen.

The room goes dead quiet. Even Mayhem steps back an inch, his jaw tight, giving his President the floor.

Dad stops ten feet away, leaning his hip against the edge of the pillar, his cold black eyes cutting back and forth between Jade and me.

“That’s enough,” he says. His voice isn’t loud, but it’s sharp as a razor, dropping into the room with absolute, heavy finality. “No more.”

Jade opens her mouth to speak, but he raises his hand, cutting her off before a single word can spill out.

“Not another word, Jade,” Dad warns softly. “You too, Zara.”

I hold my ground, my jaw locked, refusing to look down, but the air in the room suddenly feels ten degrees colder.

“Let’s get something straight right now.” Dad folds his arms across his chest, staring at us with a flat, unforgiving stare. “Both of you.”

He glances at Locke, then at Mayhem, before locking his gaze back on me.

“You two have been brought into club business in a way that no woman in the history of the MC has ever been permitted,” Dad says, every word measured, hard, and absolute. “We let you stand over Byte’s shoulder. We let you watch the feeds. We brought our wounded brother straight to this penthouse. But do not mistake access for authority.”

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Chapter 113

Jade’s breath hitches In her throat, a sharp, hurt took flashing across her face, but she stays quiet.

Claim

‘You want to know what happened on Old County Road?” Dad continues, his tone biting. “You want to <now how we cleaned the blood in that ditch? The answer is no. You don’t get to know… because the moment you know the details of what happened, you become accessories to federal crimes, you become targets for state indictments. And more importantly, it isn’t your place to ask.”

‘Cobra…” Locke starts, taking a half-step forward, his voice low, protective.

Dad doesn’t even look at him. He keeps his eyes dead-locked on mine. “I’m talking, Locke.”

Locke stops. He doesn’t back down, but he respects the patch. He stays silent, his eyes burning into the side of Cobra’s head.

‘This is the line,” Dad says, pointing a finger toward the floor between us. “Right here. You get safety, and you get protection. You get to know that your men are breathing when they walk through that elevator door.”

He narrows his eyes at us.

‘But you don’t get full access to the inner workings of the Grinning Skulls MC. You don’t get the cleanup logistics, and you don’t get to cross-examine my officers in their own command post.”

He steps closer, looking between Jade and me with a cold, uncompromising stare.

‘That is the deal,” Dad finishes. “You accept the boundary, or I will fucking ban you from the room when the work starts. You can take it, or you can leave it…. but you will not push my men while one of their brothers is lying in that room with a goddamn hole in his leg. Am I being clear?”

The silence that follows is suffocating.

Jade’s lower lip trembles for a split second before her face hardens into a mask of pure, bitter fury. She doesn’t look at Mayhem. She doesn’t say a word.

Instead, she turns on her heel, her bare feet slapping hard against the hardwood as she walks straight down the hallway toward the guest room, slamming the door, shut behind her with a sound that echoes off the high ceilings.

Mayhem flinches at the slam, dragging a rough hand over his face, looking utterly exhausted for a second before his expression hardens back into stone.

I stand my ground, my pulse hammering in my throat. I look at Dad, taking in the unyielding, cold steel in his posture. Then I turn my head slowly to look at Locke.

Locke is staring at me. His eyes are filled with a heavy, troubled shadow, but he doesn’t contradict his President.

The realization hits me like a slap in the face:

No matter how close Locke and I are in the dark, no matter how tightly he held me when he walked off that elevator, when the club steps in, I’m on the outside looking in.

I look back at Locke, giving him a slow, cold nod.

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Chapter 112

“Clear” I say, my voice clipped and stripped of all warmth. “Crystal clear.”

Claim

1turn around without waiting for an answer, walking away from the kitchen, away from the monitors, and

straight toward the master bedroom. I step inside, pulling the heavy door shut until the latch clicks firmly into place.

Leaving the men alone, behind the wall Dad just built in the middle of the roorn.

I don’t turn on the light. I just sit on the edge of the bed, listening to the faint, muffled sounds of voices. coming through the heavy door.

My pulse is still fast, my throat dry, but I don’t cry. There’s no point in crying over something that I should have seen coming all along.

I look at the empty space on the mattress where Locke slept next to me last night.

He promised me he’d always come home to me, and he did. But as the quiet dark of the room wraps around me, I realize coming home doesn’t mean letting me in. Locke drew his boundary, Dad locked the gate, and I’m right where the Skulls have always kept their women:

On the wrong side of the business.

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