ROGUE

The back lot was quiet, the kind of quiet that only settled in after the noise died down and the music inside the clubhouse bled into memory.

I lit a cigarette and leaned against the cinder block wall, letting the smoke burn slow in my lungs. The sky was thick with stars, but they didn’t mean shit to me. Nothing romantic about constellations when your heart’s been dragged through the mud and lit on fire.

Inside, the usual scene played out—girls in barely-there shorts laughing too loud, brothers tossing back beer and throwing darts. Trigger was probably trying to get laid again. Maddox had some new flavor on his lap. It was all background noise now. It used to mean something. Now it just felt... tired.

A door opened behind me. Boots on concrete. Heels, too. I didn’t look.

“Rogue,” came a voice like sugar and smoke. “You coming back in?”

“No.”

“You sure? We were thinking a little three-way action. Could take your mind off things.”

I turned just enough to shoot her a look. One that made her blink and step back, eyes dropping to the gravel.

“Not interested.”

She muttered something under her breath and vanished, heels clicking back inside.

I exhaled again and let the silence creep back in.

Truth was, I hadn’t touched anyone in weeks. Hell, maybe months. I could’ve had any of ‘em — the hangers-on, the club girls, the new ones always trying to catch my eye. But they didn’t get it. They didn’t know what it meant to carry weight. To have your trust shattered and still keep the mask on.

Brielle had taught me that.

She was the first woman I let past the walls. The only one who saw the man behind the leather cut. I was gonna propose. I’d picked out a ring. I even had Maddox help me set it up — candles, a rooftop, the whole damn thing.

Then she went and spread her legs for someone wearing a different patch.

I found out when Diesel saw them coming out of a cheap motel and damn near wrecked his bike trying to call me.

She didn’t even try to deny it.

Said I was “too closed off.” That she needed to feel “alive.”

I felt plenty alive when I put my fist through a wall and almost broke my hand.

Now I felt... nothing.

Just smoke, sweat, and the hollow ache of what could’ve been.

I ground the cigarette out with my boot and looked up at the stars again.

Maybe something was coming.

Maybe not.

But I was tired of the emptiness.

I just didn’t know what the hell I needed to fill it.

She walkedin like she wasn’t afraid of the devil himself.

I saw her before she even opened the door. Tight jeans, boots, hair up like she didn’t have time to bother making herself pretty—and didn’t need to. She had that look, like she’d survived something. Maybe a few somethings. I’d seen that look in the mirror more than once.

I didn’t trust her. But damn, I noticed her.