Page 84 of Rocky Top

“You think I don’t remember?” I barked. “You think I forgot how you dragged the Smokey Rollers name through the mud? How you cost us half their chapter before Knox rebuilt what we got?”

Villain turned away, pacing like a caged wolf. “It ain’t that simple.”

“No,” I growled. “It’s that selfish.”

He stopped, head hangin’ low for a second. Then he turned back, voice quiet but sharp. “I didn’t come here to fight you.”

“Then stop makin’it so damn easy.”

We stood there in the bar, the hum of voices fading behind us. Tension coiled like barbed wire between us. Same blood. Same bones. But damn if we weren’t always inches from tearin’ each other apart.

Finally, he looked up. “You really love her, huh?”

The question knocked the wind outta me.

I didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

He nodded like he already knew. “Then don’t fuck it up.”

“I ain’t the one sniffin’ around where I don’t belong.”

He chuckled, low and rough. “I ain’t here to steal nothin’. Just wanted to see the man my big brother’s become.”

That jab felt like a knife slid under the ribs.

But I let it go.

Barely.

He swirled the whiskey in his glass. “What’s Knox gonna do?”

I leaned on the bar, watchin’ the door to the chapel room. “No tellin’. Whatever he saw in that file... it shook him. Worse than I’ve seen since the day Mark came back from the dead.”

Villain’s expression darkened. “You think he’ll flip?”

“I think he’ll burn the world down if it means protectin’ Eliza and that baby.”

He nodded, serious now. “Kingpin ain’t askin’ for a mutiny, Rocky. Just a new chapter. Clean, quiet, away from all the shit the mother charter’s been rollin’ in.”

“You believe that?”

He met my eyes. “I do. For once.”

I took that in, chewed it over like old jerky. There was always a lie buried somewhere in Villain’s truths. But tonight, somethin’ in his voice told me he meant every word.

Still didn’t mean I trusted him.

Just meant I’d have to keep a closer eye on the shadows.

Later that night, church was called again, just us three: Knox, Villain, and me.

The doors were locked. The room stank of smoke. Knox sat at the head of the table, that envelope still spread out before him. His fingers were steepled, brows drawn low, like he’d aged ten years in the last two hours.

He didn’t look up when he spoke. “This shit’s deep.”

Villain nodded. “Told you.” He took a breath. “Kingpin got wind of it months back. Started diggin’.”

---