It was late August, when the leaves were tired of themselves but dragging on toward September, when Tourmaline got the call. She’d asked for it, worried she’d be gone at college when it happened. They told her with only thirty minutes to spare.

Her father was leaving today.

Virginia helped her load the trailer, leaving the Gaithers’ lawn only half mowed. They pulled into Tourmaline’s driveway, drenched in sweat, with bits of grass sticking to their skin, to find the Wardens all collected there. “You didn’t tell Jason?” Tourmaline asked, breaking the tense silence.

“No,” Virginia said, folding her gloves in her palms. “Did you tell Cash the police were coming to arrest your dad?”

“No. Because then he’ll have to tell Dad. I told him everything else, though.”

“Me too,” Virginia said softly.

Tourmaline had to park the truck only halfway up the drive. Why, oh, why were they all here? She’d thought it would be dinnertime. Something quiet. Dignified. Not this. Never this.

“You finished already?” her father hollered, untangling himself from the arms of the woman with the silver earrings.

Tourmaline slammed the truck door shut and walked through the mess of bikers and girls. “What are you doing?”

Everything paused for a half second and her father’s face tightened.

It was one thing for her to talk like that when they were alone in the house, a totally different sort of thing to take that tone in front of his men. Not one of them would ever talk to him like that. But Tourmaline only clenched her fists, wishing she could somehow tell him to send them all away and take a minute alone. But she couldn’t.

Tourmaline met the woman’s eyes over her father’s shoulder, silently pleading for help.

The woman shifted. “Calvin?” she asked. As if worried.

He ignored her. “Go inside,” he said to Tourmaline. “Did you finish all the yards?” he asked Virginia.

“Not quite.” Virginia kept her voice even; she was answering her boss.

“Why didn’t you finish?” he asked Tourmaline. “Never mind. Get in the house and clean up. The truck is fine where it is.” He turned, dismissing her.

Tourmaline had to get him out of here. Somewhere private. “Can I talk to you?”

“I’ll talk to you later. Go on.”

Tourmaline looked around, looking for help, for someone to understand that her father was about to be arrested, though she knew none of them could.

The woman with the silver earrings met her gaze, forehead creased. But she didn’t move.

Virginia looked to Jason.

Tourmaline’s stomach tightened further as her gaze swept past Cash, who was standing next to Jason and two women whose clothes left no doubt that they were there to party.

Lifting her chin, she turned for the house.

“I’m down to only one, but sometimes she still makes it feel like I have two women ragging in my house,” her father joked as she walked away.

It ripped her heart into shreds, but Tourmaline bit her lip and blinked, trying to ignore the shake in her hands and the burn in her eyes. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because he didn’t know he was about to go to jail.

Inside, she got a drink of water, trying to calm down.

Cash walked in, slamming the door behind him. He was in full Warden swagger, no hint of a conscript left in his walk or in the way he looked at her. “You haven’t told him yet. You’re leaving for school in a few days.”

Closing her eyes, Tourmaline took another drink. Oh dear God, why today?

“I’m going to tell him,” he said.

Putting down the glass, she pushed back her hair. “No. Don’t do that.”

“I’m not going to keep going behind your dad’s back.”

She pinched her lips tight.

He sighed and leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s the real problem?”

“I mean, you just . . .” She sighed and straightened. The problem was that part of the deal was she couldn’t say anything about the damn deal. And part of the deal was she had to stand by and let it all happen. And part of the deal should have never included this moment on this day. She tried to find a real answer for Cash and all she came up with was flat truth. “You’d be the first. He’s going to beat the hell out of you.”

A flicker of a smile crossed his face, but he gave her a hard look. “Don’t be giving me that bullshit.” He stepped closer, looking her over as if he were remembering kissing her. Wanting to kiss her again. “That’s not the real problem, is it? Between me and you.”

“There isn’t one.”

“Come on, now.”

She looked away.

“Tell me, Tour-mah-line,” he said in a deepened, joking voice.

“It’s not your problem. It’s mine.”

“I love you,” he said softly. “It is my problem.”

A shudder of pleasure shot through her stomach. It never got old to hear him say it.

“Why are you afraid?”

She pulled back. “I’m not afraid,” she huffed.

He laughed, clearly not believing her. “Okay.”

“It’s just weird.” She swallowed, wishing she had better words for him. “I just can’t go into a . . . relationship . . . thinking you’ll be different, or that you’ll change. I can’t pretend this world is something different. I can’t have expectations.” In the face of all she knew about the club and her parents.

“Expectations?”

“Of your loyalty.”

“Ahh . . .” He nodded, his body somehow softening. “That’s it.”

They were silent. She caught his eye.

“That’s a good fear. A smart one. That’s not a problem you have to work through.”

“I’m not a jealous person,” she said quietly. “I won’t tell you what to do or how to do it, because you’re a grown-ass man and that’s not my job. I’m not your mother and I’m not God. I’m a coldhearted daughter of the devil; and if you betray me, I’ll get my revenge and walk as light by you as you can by me. And if that scares you, you should leave now.”

Cash shoved off the wall and walked toward her. “Oh, it scares me.” But he just dipped his head, pulling her tight to his chest and kissing her deeply. Breaking away, he met her eyes. “My dad never once messed around on my mom. He raised me with that sense of loyalty and respect for the person I’m with. And that doesn’t mean those women won’t be around. And that doesn’t mean every other guy out there thinks the same way. But I’ll never betray you. Ever.” He kissed her forehead. “And I’m telling him.”

Shit. He wouldn’t. He’d wait. Not here, with everyone. Not today of all days.

But he was out the door already.

She scrambled after him.

His back stayed straight, steps at ease as he approached her father.

“Cash,” she said, trying not to yell, but trying to get his attention. Deal be damned, she’d tell him. What could it hurt now?

A few of the men who heard her call him by name stopped and turned. There was a split second of absolute silence, with nothing but the breeze stirring the trees and the long, dull song of the cicadas.

Cash had his back to her, but in that split second of stillness, Dad’s face turned murderous, and his eyes locked with Tourmaline’s.

Shit. No. No. No.

Slowly, he stood.

They all looked at her now. Not Cash. The silence stretching. The world changing.

“This shit true?” Tourmaline’s father roared.

Tourmaline lifted her chin and nodded.

Cash didn’t budge. He’d known the whole time, how this was going to go. Probably from the first day they’d met. Suddenly, she wished she had trusted him before he had to ask her to.

Her father’s fist cracked into Cash’s jaw, the sound exploding in the quiet. Cash staggered.

Tourmaline ran.

Cash came right back, shaking it off and meeting her dad with his fists at his side.

Back to finish paying the price.

Someone grabbed her arms and held her. Tourmaline yelled, trying to get her father’s attention, but he didn’t even blink in her direction.

Virginia stood across the way, watching from behind Jason—her hands on his sides. His hand was wrapped back around her thighs, shielding her. They both watched with silent intensity. Tourmaline blinked at them, stunned for a moment, even though she knew they were together and she’d known Virginia would rule. Things were changing.

Her father’s girlfriend pulled her back. “Let them work it out,” she whispered in Tourmaline’s ear, dragging her out of the way.

Tourmaline didn’t fight the woman. The woman . . . What was her name? Dad had never said it—or maybe he had and she’d never bothered to listen for it—and yet, she was still here.

The cicadas still sung. The breeze still blew, hot and damp in the late August evening. Their boots scuffed in the gravel, and her father’s fist landed into Cash’s stomach, pushing his breath out in a tight huff. The women faded behind and the men pressed in tight, gossiping about what was happening like middle-school girls. Their gazes all flickered to Tourmaline, pinned by the woman’s arms around her waist.

No one understood. They didn’t realize anything bigger was going on.

She tried to kick out, but the woman hugged her tight. “It’s okay, honey. He’s just getting him down. It’ll be over soon.”

But Cash wasn’t going down. He was taller than her father. Bigger. Younger. Calvin hit hard, and Cash staggered after each blow, shaking it off and coming back, but he wasn’t even falling to his knees. He pinched off his bleeding nose and slung blood to the ground, spattering the gravel.

Tourmaline’s father landed another solid hit on Cash’s jaw.

This time, Cash stumbled back to his ass in the dirt. Slow. His eyes looked spun and lost to his body.

Tourmaline’s dad was breathing hard. He bent his knees, catching his breath.

“Don’t have a heart attack,” the woman muttered. As if she, too, were waiting for this to end.

Cash hauled himself up.

Her father straightened.

It was taking forever. Why couldn’t they see what was happening? She was caught in a dream, running in slow motion from impending doom. “You are all fucking stupid!” Tourmaline screamed, twisting out of the woman’s grasp.

But they were all interrupted by the sudden rush of leaves and branches that moved to reveal boots and fully armored men appearing from all directions.

POLICE. WARRANT.

There was a split second before they touched him. Before they dragged him away from Cash.

Before Virginia caught Jason around the neck and stayed his motion, whispering in his ear as Queen and the ruler of fate.

A moment before the woman with the silver earrings released her hold on Tourmaline’s arms and lunged after Tourmaline’s dad, brought up short right away by a helmeted and armored man.

A second before Tourmaline scrambled under Cash’s arm and held him up as his president was dragged away, while she stared at the dirt so she wouldn’t have to watch.

And in the split-second silence and utter stillness among the men, the cicadas kept up their song and the breeze washed eternal, lifting Tourmaline’s hair off her neck.