The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 454

Chapter 223-1

Zara

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+25 Part

It’s just before midnight, thirty-six hours since Byte fired the hazardous materials injunction into the

city court filing system, and the apartment feels entirely too vast without Locke in it.

I sit propped up against the headboard in our bedroom, the sheets pulled low around my waist,

staring at the darkened screen of my phone resting on the glass nightstand.

For two solid days, the clubhouse has been a fortress closed off to the outside world. Two days of endless, closed-door tactical meetings, map cross-referencing, armory prep, and strategic shifts

that I haven’t been a part of.

That was the line drawn years before I ever stepped back into this world full-time. When the strategy is legal, corporate, or financial – when it’s about money trails, untangling logistics, and administrative leverage – I’m at the center of the board.

But when the long chess game narrows down to steel, body armor, and the raw, violent reality of armed action, the curtain drops. The women are pushed behind the line. It’s club business only: patch-holders, blood, and iron.

I stretch my hand across the empty mattress beside me, my fingers brushing over the cold linen where Locke should be sleeping. He hasn’t been back to the penthouse in over thirty hours.

He’s been breathing gun oil, lead, and high-level syndicate math in the sealed-off clubhouse with my father, Mayhem, and the rest of the MC, building the containment trap for when Vane and Grit finally take the bait.

Down at the foot of the bed, Xena shifts in her sleep, letting out a tiny, soft puppy sigh before curling tighter against the heavy plush throw. She’s oblivious to the tension humming through the air, completely untethered from the dark violence quietly spooling out across the city far below us.

I reach out, grabbing my tea mug off the nightstand, but the chamomile has long since gone stone-cold. I set it back down with a sharp, hollow click.

The waiting is the worst part. When you’re in the room – when you’re looking at the maps, looking at the numbers, and hearing the tactical points laid out – your mind stays busy. You feel like you

have a grip on the wheel.

But sitting alone in a quiet penthouse in the middle of the night, left only with your imagination, the mind constructs every single worst-case scenario imaginable.

You picture the rain slicking the pavement, the flash of muzzle fire in the dark, the heavy crunch of

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Chapter 223 1

metal, and the terrifying, unchangeable phone call that changes everything in a second.

+25 Points

Suddenly, the phone on the nightstand lights up, illuminating the dim bedroom in a sharp blue

glow.

My heart leaps into my throat, slamming wildly against my ribs before I even read the caller ID. snatch the phone off the glass before the first ring even finishes.

“Locke,” I say, my voice tight, slightly breathless. “You okay?”

There’s a heavy beat of silence on the other end, just the low, steady sound of his breathing, rough and exhausted, cutting through the static.

“Hey, baby,” Locke’s voice sounds like gravel being turned under a heavy boot. Just hearing his voice sends a wave of intense relief crashing over me, making my shoulders drop an inch, even as my stomach knots tighter at the tone of it. “I wake you?”

“No, I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Yeah. I figured.”

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