The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 222

Chapter 114-2

I freeze, staring at him, my mouth half-open.

Clam

Locke looks at me, his eyes searching my face with a quiet, unbending authority that feels like a wall rising between us.

“You’re asking questions you know you aren’t supposed to ask,” Locke says, every word measured and deliberate. “You were born into this club, Zara, and your Dad raised you in the clubhouse. Your brother wears the patch. You’ve grown up around this iron your entire life. You know how this works for women in the MC. You’ve always known.”

The words hit me right in the chest, sharp and cold, like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head.

“I’m not just any woman in the club, Locke,” I protest. “I’m the President’s daughter, the VP’s sister. And I’m with you.”

“Which is exactly why you need to get your head straight right now,” Locke replies. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t shout, but the absolute certainty in his tone is terrifying. “You know better than anyone where the line is drawn. You know that when a hit goes down, when blood hits the dirt, the patch takes over. Period.”

He shifts his weight, leaning closer to me, his hand tightening around my wrist, anchoring me in place.

“You’ve been given special access lately,” Locke continues. “Because you’re smart, and because you know Knox’s business. But that access has boundaries, Zara. It doesn’t mean you’re an officer, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean you sit at the table when we clear a crime scene.”

“So I’m just supposed to shut up and sit in the corner when people are getting shot?”

I say bitterly. “I’m supposed to pretend I don’t hear the bodies hitting the ground? I’m supposed to pretend that Bishop isn’t lying down the hall with a hole in his leg?”

“Yes,” Locke says, deadpan. “You are.”

I stare at him, stunned by the sheer, unfeeling efficiency of the answer. “Locke -”

“Yes, Zara,” he repeats, firmer this time, his dark gaze unblinking. “You shut your mouth, you stand back, and you let us handle the violence. That’s the deal, that’s always been the deal. If Cobra tells you the scene is managed, you accept that it’s managed. You don’t push Mayhem, and you sure as fuck don’t cross-examine the President.”

“I was terrified for you!” I shout, the tears finally breaking past my lashes, hot and angry as they spill down my cheeks. “I was scared to death that you weren’t coming home!”

Locke’s expression flickers for a fraction of a second – a fleeting spark of pain passing through his cold eyes – but he pulls it back immediately, burying it beneath layers of fierce, tactical discipline.

“I know you were scared,” Locke says softly. “And I’m sorry for it. Truly, baby, I am. But being scared doesn’t give you a pass to breach protocol. It doesn’t give you the right to demand details that could put a federal warrant on your head if a grand jury ever gets called.”

“I don’t care about a warrant!” I snap. “I care about you! I care about keeping you and my family alive!”

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Chapter 114

Clam

“And I keep us alive by keeping the walls up!” Locke says. “Knox is out there right now tearing the fucking state apart looking for a clue. If he finds one, if he finds a weak link, he will burn everything we love to the ground.”

I gulp.

“The only way we survive is if everyone stays in their lane,” he says. “Cobra leads. Mayhem executes. I do the logistics. Stitch heals. And you stay safe behind the line.”

He lets go of my hand, leaning back slightly, resting his heavy forearms on his knees as he looks down at the floor between his boots. The heavy silence falls over the bedroom once again, suffocating and thick.

“You wanted to know how it works?” Locke asks quietly, looking back up at me, his face carved out of shadow and stone. “This is how it works. You helped us find the target, Zara, and I’m grateful for it.”

I huff through my nose, but he ignores me and carries on:

“But the blood, the cleanup, and the fallout – all of that belongs to the patch. You’d better figure out real quick how to deal with that, because this whole fucking thing with Knox is just getting started, and I can’t fight him with you trying to steer my hand from the sidelines.”

I sit there, frozen, my chest aching with a deep, miserable mix of anger, fear, and profound disappointment.

He isn’t going to budge. He isn’t going to apologize for Dad. He isn’t going to offer me comfort or reassure me that I’m an equal partner in this room. In the dark, in the bed, we’re Zara and Locke, and we say I love

you.

But the moment the sun comes up and the guns are drawn, he’s the brains and money guy of the Grinning Skulls MC, and I’m just the President’s daughter, standing on the wrong side of the line.

“Is that everything?” I ask, my voice flat and hollow.

Locke looks at me for a long, quiet moment. He reaches out, his hand resting on my knee, but he doesn’t try to pull me close. He knows better. He knows the wall is up on my side now, too.

“That’s everything,” Locke says softly.

He stands up slowly, walks over to his dresser, pulls off his shirt, tosses it into the hamper. He pulls off his boots, his heavy belt, and his jeans, moving with a slow, mechanical exhaustion that shows just how close to the edge he really is.

He doesn’t say another word. He walks over to his side of the bed, pulling back the heavy comforter, and slides into the sheets.

I stay sitting on my side of the mattress for a long time, staring at the closed window, watching the moonlight slowly creep across the glass. My body is exhausted, my mind is spinning with nightmares of Knox’s retaliation, and my heart feels bruised, raw, and heavy.

Eventually, the silence in the room becomes too heavy to bear sitting up.

I pull off my jeans, leaving my oversized sweater on, and crawl under the heavy duvet on my side of the bed. I turn my back to him, curling into a tight ball near the edge of the mattress, pulling the blanket up to my chin.

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Chapter 114

Clam

-ecke doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t reach for me either. He lies on his back, staring up at the dark seiling, his chest rising and falling in a slow, heavy rhythm. The space between us on the wide mattress eels vast, cold, and completely unbridgeable. It’s a silent, physical reminder of the boundary line Dad drew in the kitchen.

close my eyes, letting the heavy, uncomfortable silence wrap around us as night settles over the city, eaving the anger and the fear unresolved in the dark.

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