The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 97

Chapter 62-1

I’m thinking about Locke’s face just before he walked out of Dad’s office.

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The rage. The exhaustion. The bruises Knox left on my arm. The way he’d looked at me after we’d argued, as though he was trying to choose between listening to me… and protecting me.

“I think I got it wrong.” I close my eyes for a second. “I don’t think he left because he was angry.”

Mayhem frowns. “Then why?”

“Because that’s who he is.”

He waits.

K

“When Locke can’t solve a problem….” My voice breaks. “He disappears into it.”

Not with violence or shouting. With work, and questions, and evidence. That’s how he fights. Unless…

The thoughts arrive so suddenly, they steal the air from my lungs:

Unless yesterday changed something. Unless seeing Knox put his hands on me again changed him.

My stomach twists.

“What?” Mayhem asks again. “Fuck, Zara – say something!”

I look at him, unable to hide the fear in my voice. “What if he went looking for Knox?”

The words seem to echo around the tiny office.

Mayhem doesn’t answer. He doesn’t tell me that I’m overreacting, or that Locke would never do something so reckless. And that tells me that neither of us is completely sure what Locke Tanner might do.

I stare at the floor, my heart beating too hard against my ribs. For the first time since moving in with him, I realize that I have absolutely no idea where the man I’m sleeping with is. Or when he’s coming back.

Or even if he is.

***

By late afternoon, I’ve rebuilt half a carburetor, corrected Diesel twice, been corrected by Tucker once, and glanced toward the garage entrance often enough that even Mayhem has stopped pretending not to

notice.

Locke still hasn’t come back. Nobody says his name, which is somehow worse than being asked about him every five minutes.

The garage carries on around me with its usual noise and movement, music playing too loudly through the ancient speakers above Tucker’s office, tools clattering against metal, engines coughing reluctantly into life.

But everything feels slightly off, as though the whole building is waiting for a familiar sound that refuses to

come.

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Chapter 62-

Clam

A motorcycle at the gate. Heavy boots crossing the clubhouse floor. Locke’s voice somewhere next door.

Anything.

Instead, there’s only work, so keep my hands busy because busy hands leave less room for imagination, and imagination has become a dangerous place today. Every time I let myself drift, I return to the same things: his empty parking space, his phone switched off, the expression on his face before he left Dad’s office.

I tell myself I’m still angry.

That part is actually true.

i

He walked away after the first serious argument we’ve ever had, then just disappeared. If Locke thinks returning with an explanation will simply erase that, he’s wrong.

But beneath the anger is fear, and beneath the fear is something worse: the terrible suspicion that maybe I pushed too hard. Maybe I took the man who stayed through everything and finally found the one thing that made him leave.

I tighten the bolt in front of me harder than necessary.

“Easy,” Tucker says.

“I am being easy.”

“You’re about to strip the thread.”

I stop and look down. He’s right.

“Sorry.”

Tucker’s expression softens, although he hides it quickly beneath his customary scowl. “Get a coffee.”

“I don’t need coffee.”

“You need something that isn’t this.”

He gestures toward the carburetor, then toward my face.

I narrow my eyes. “Are you diagnosing me emotionally now?”

“God, no. I’m not qualified for that kind of fucking nightmare.”

Diesel snorts from the next bay, and Tucker glares at him. “Neither are you.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought loudly.”

Despite myself, I smile. It doesn’t last long, but it’s real, and Tucker apparently considers that enough, because he grunts and turns back to the bike.

The side door bursts open a few minutes later so hard that it bangs against the wall. Every head in the garage turns.

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<Chapter 62+

Jade stands there, slightly breathless, her eyes already searching until they find me.

“He’s back.”

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The wrench slips from my fingers and hits the concrete with a sharp metallic crack. I don’t have to ask who she means. My heart knows before the rest of me catches up, beating so hard that it almost hurts as I wipe my palms on a rag that does nothing to remove the grease.

“Where?” I demand.

“The bar.”

I take two steps, then stop because suddenly I have no idea what I’m going to say when I see him.

Jade comes closer, lowering her voice. “He looks okay.”

“Okay?”

“Tired. Angry. Like he hasn’t slept. But he isn’t hurt.”

Relief moves through me so quickly that it nearly takes my knees out from under me, and I hate that too.

I hate how much power this man has over the basic functioning of my body, how fear and anger and caring can all exist in exactly the same place until I can’t tell one from another.

Mayhem appears beside us. “Want me to come?”

I shake my head. “I can do this.”

He nods once, no argument and no warning, and that tiny act of trust steadies me enough to walk into the clubhouse.

Jade stays beside me until we reach the bar, then slows, allowing me to enter first.

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