Page 23 of Wilder's Promise
"Maybe," Wilder says, joining our conversation as he checks the locks on the windows. "Or maybe it's knowing exactly what you stand for and being willing to die for it."
"Very poetic," I mutter. "But dead is still dead."
"Your father isn't easy to kill." There's absolute certainty in his voice. "I've seen him walk through situations that should have put him in the ground. He always comes back."
"Until the time he doesn't." I can't help voicing the fear that's gnawing at me. "That's how it works, right? You're invincible until suddenly you're not."
Neither of them has an answer for that. Evelyn looks down at her clasped hands. Wilder continues his security check, moving to the front door to verify the heavy deadbolt is engaged.
"I thought I didn't care anymore," I admit quietly after several minutes. "About him. About what happens to him. I've spent years telling myself that he made his choice when he let me go, and I made mine when I stopped trying to be part of his life."
Evelyn looks up, her dark eyes meeting mine. "But now you're afraid you might lose him before you have a chance to know him again."
"Yes."
"He talks a lot about you," she says softly. "Did you know that? Your accomplishments, how smart you are, how proud he is of your strength."
I blink in surprise. "He does?"
"All the time." She smiles slightly. "He keeps a newspaper clipping about the academic award you won last year in his wallet. It's worn around the edges from how often he takes it out. He showed it to me yesterday."
I remember that award. Third place in a forensic essay competition. Nothing major, just a small write-up in the local paper. I never imagined he'd even seen it, let alone carried it with him.
"Reaper isn't good at showing what he feels," Wilder adds, returning to stand near us. "But that doesn't mean he doesn't feel it."
"Wilder says he's different now," I say to Evelyn. "Since you. That you've changed him."
She considers this. "I don't know if I've changed him so much as given him permission to be the man he always was beneath the armor. Your father carries so much weight… The club, the territory, the responsibilities. With me, he can set some of that down."
I try to picture it—my father without the hardness, without the mask of the MC president. It's difficult to imagine, like trying to envision a mountain without its stone face.
"If he's really different," I say slowly, "if there's more to him than the cold, distant man I remember... I want to know that person. Before it's too late."
The admission costs me something: a piece of the wall I've built around my heart where my father is concerned. But once the words are out, I feel lighter somehow, as if I've set down a burden I didn't realize I was carrying.
"It's not too late," Evelyn assures me. "He wants that too, Emma. More than you know."
"If he survives tonight," I can't help adding.
"He will." Wilder's confidence doesn't waver. "And when he gets back, you'll have your chance."
The radio at his hip finally crackles. Ghost's voice comes through, terse and businesslike, confirming they've reached the staging area outside Charles's compound. Wilder acknowledges with a brief response, his expression revealing nothing.
"How long?" I ask him.
"From now? Maybe an hour until it's over, one way or another." He checks his watch. "They'll move in at midnight, exactly."
Another hour of this waiting, this helpless anxiety. I stand again, unable to contain my nervous energy. "I need to do something. Anything."
"Kitchen's stocked," Wilder suggests. "Could make coffee. It's going to be a long night."
The mundane task is exactly what I need. Something to occupy my hands, to focus my mind on something other than imagining my father in a gunfight. I nod and head toward the kitchen area at the back of the clubhouse.
The kitchen surprises me. It's clean and well-equipped, not at all what I expected from an outlaw clubhouse. I find coffee beans and a grinder, allowing myself to be absorbed in the simple ritual of measuring, grinding, brewing. The process soothes my jangled nerves, giving me something concrete to control when everything else feels so desperately out of my hands.
As the coffee begins to brew, filling the kitchen with its rich aroma, I hear footsteps behind me. Wilder leans against the doorframe, watching me with those intense eyes.
"You're good at that," he observes. "Making yourself useful when you're worried."
