Chapter Eight

Compass

I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee and breathed in the rich smell of the coffee. It was ten o’clock, and the day was already in full swing. Fallon and Adalee were in the kitchen working on another cake—this time, lemon poppy seed.

I fucking loved lemon.

The common room buzzed with the usual morning noise. Yarder, Poppy, Dove, and Sloane were sprawled on the couches, their attention half on the TV and half on their lazy conversations. At the table, Stretch, Aero, and Throttle were finishing their breakfast with plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in front of them.

Adalee had cooked enough for an army, as always. I grabbed a plate, scooped up the rest of the food, and joined the guys at the table.

As I sat down, Pirate strolled into the room with his nose in the air like he was some kind of bloodhound. “What’s that smell?” he asked, his voice carrying over the low hum of the TV.

“Cake!” Adalee called from the kitchen.

Pirate rubbed his belly dramatically. “Hell yeah! I’m starting to like the idea of you girls running a bakery.”

“Cakery!” Fallon and Adalee corrected in unison, not missing a beat.

Pirate threw up his hands and grinned. “Cakery. My bad.”

“You’re late for breakfast,” I said and jabbed my fork into a hunk of fluffy eggs.

Pirate shrugged, unbothered. “Just means I’ll have more room for cake later.”

Adalee’s voice floated over from the kitchen. “I can make you some eggs if you want, Pirate. The cake’s in the oven, so we’ve got a few minutes.”

Pirate bowed dramatically in her direction, playing up his gratitude. “Thank you, darlin’. That sounds good.”

“Keep that ‘darlin’ shit to yourself,” Fade called out from across the room, his tone sharp but teasing.

Pirate grinned and was unfazed. “Afraid I’m going to steal your girl?”

Fade flipped him the bird. “Sit and spin, asshole. You don’t have a chance in hell with Adalee.”

The room broke into low laughter, but the humor drained away in an instant when a knock sounded at the door.

Everyone went still.

“Anyone else not like when there’s a knock at the door?” Poppy asked and shifted uneasily on the couch.

“Yeah, same,” I muttered and set my fork down.

Yarder growled, his expression darkening as he rose from his seat and stalked toward the door. The tension in the room thickened, and every pair of eyes locked on Yarder as he swung the door open.

Clay stood on the other side.

Fucking hell.

“Yarder!” Clay said brightly, as if he didn’t feel the heavy, unwelcoming air radiating from the room. “Just the man I was wanting to talk to.”

In the kitchen, Fallon had gone quiet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her move behind Adalee and peek around her to watch the exchange.

“Oh yeah?” Yarder said, his tone flat.

Clay, oblivious or just plain stupid, took a step forward like he was going to walk right in. Yarder didn’t move.

“You ever hear of calling before you come over?” Yarder asked. His voice was like a low rumble of thunder.

Clay gave him a once-over, clearly unimpressed. That was when I knew the guy was a damn idiot. “Last I checked, I’m the one who’s in charge here,” Clay said, his tone smug. “We need to get our footage, and you guys need to be ready whenever I am.”

“Good lord,” Aero whispered from beside me. “Yarder’s going to fucking murder this guy, and I’m not even done with my breakfast.”

I snorted and picked up my fork. “Nothing like breakfast and a little bit of entertainment.”

Clay either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the storm brewing in Yarder’s eyes. “We just need to go over a few things today, and then we’ll start filming. Do you have a place we can talk?”

Yarder didn’t say anything for a long moment, and the silence was louder than any words. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel the raw anger radiating off him. Finally, he broke the silence with a bellow. “Church!”

I groaned and glared down at my plate. “I didn’t even get to start my breakfast,” I complained.

Aero clapped me on the back as he stood. “You can always eat your cold eggs when we’re done.”

I reluctantly pushed my plate away and stood up. Clay was still standing in the doorway and looked slightly less cocky but still clueless.

Yarder stepped back, and his voice was sharp as a blade. “You’re coming too,” he told Clay.

Clay looked like he wanted to argue, but one glance at Yarder’s face must’ve convinced him otherwise. He nodded and stepped inside, his eyes flicking uneasily to the rest of us as we moved.

As I followed the others to the meeting room, I cast a quick glance back at the kitchen. Fallon’s eyes met mine, wide and uncertain, and I gave her a small nod. She had been tasked to help handle Clay, but it seemed like, first, Yarder wanted to lay down some ground rules.

We filed into Church with a mixture of tension and irritation hanging in the air. Yarder walked in last, towering behind Clay, who seemed awkwardly out of place as he stood just inside the door. He glanced around the room like a new recruit in boot camp, unsure if he was about to get a welcome or a verbal beatdown. Spoiler alert: it was going to be the latter.

The rest of us took our seats at the long table. Yarder sprawled into his chair at the head of the room, and his hands rested heavily on the table as he gestured toward Clay. “Let us know what things you want to go over,” he said, his voice even but loaded with enough authority to fill the room. “You know, since you’re the one who is in charge.”

I leaned back in my chair and smirked at the fact that Yarder didn’t offer the guy a seat. That was intentional, no doubt. Clay had to know he wasn’t on equal footing here—not even close.

Clay cleared his throat and plastered on a thin smile as he launched into his spiel. “Uh, well, we just need to go over what you guys have planned. A schedule. We need about forty more hours of film, which, of course, will be cut down, but we need all the footage we can get. What we have so far is fine, but we need something more… exciting.”

Exciting? I almost laughed. The thought of letting his precious camera crew witness some of the shit we’d been through lately—like the US attorney general trying to kill us—might qualify as exciting, but it wasn’t the kind of excitement we’d be broadcasting to the world.

“We don’t have a schedule,” Yarder said flatly and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well,” Clay drawled, dragging the word out like it might buy him time to think, “we need to come up with one. I need to know what kind of filming we’ll be doing. And if you guys can’t come up with a schedule, I can. I’ve got some ideas of things I think the audience would like to see. I’m working on a script for a couple of them.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Script?” I asked and sat forward. “I thought this was supposed to be a reality show.”

“Yeah,” Aero added. “You want to script out reality? That makes zero fucking sense.”

Clay waved a dismissive hand like we were the idiots for not understanding his vision. “This sort of thing happens all the time. It’s not like you’ll be reading lines word for word. It’s more about crafting a general direction for the show, you know? Like an idea of where it’s going and what you’ll be doing.”

Yarder let out a low chuckle and shook his head. “Let me get this straight. You think you can script what we do?” His voice had a dangerous edge to it, the kind that made even us sit up and pay attention.

Clay opened his mouth to respond, but Yarder cut him off, pointing a finger at him. “We’re not doing any of the bullshit you’ve got up your sleeve. You and that TV show have zero fucking idea what it’s really like to be in an MC. And that,” he said and gestured to the room, “circles back to the reason why you’re here in the first place. You want to see what we do, right? Well, this is what we do. Right here. Right now. It’s not pretty. It’s not scripted. It’s real. If that’s not good enough for your show, you can pack your shit and get out.”

The room was silent for a beat, with the weight of Yarder’s words settling over all of us. Yarder wasn’t fucking around anymore.

“Look,” Clay said after a moment, “I get that you want to keep things authentic. But the network has expectations. They want action. Drama. Something that’ll keep the audience hooked.”

Throttle snorted, leaning back in his chair. “Let me guess. You want us to stage a bar fight or some bullshit like that?”

Clay didn’t respond right away, and that was the answer enough.

“You’ve got no clue what you’re talking about,” Aero said, shaking his head. “You think you can just roll in here and turn our lives into some kind of soap opera? That’s not how this works.”

Clay’s face reddened slightly, but he stood his ground. “I’m not trying to turn it into a soap opera. I’m just saying we need to make it engaging. Look, the network thinks we’re missing an opportunity to show more of the—uh, interpersonal dynamics within the club.”

I laughed out loud at that. “Interpersonal dynamics? What the fuck does that even mean? You want us to sit around talking about our feelings?”

Stretch chuckled beside me and shook his head. “Good luck with that.”

Yarder’s voice cut through the laughter like a blade. “Enough.” He leaned forward and pinned Clay with a look that would’ve made most men shrink back. “You think we care about what the network wants? About what you want?”

Clay swallowed hard, but before he could answer, Yarder pressed on. “This is our club. Our lives. We let you in because we thought maybe, just maybe, it’d be a good way to tell our story and line our pockets with some cash. But if you think for one second you’re going to come in here and turn us into something we’re not, you’re dead wrong. You want action? Drama? Stick around long enough, and you’ll get all the excitement you can handle. But it’s going to be on our terms. Got it?”

Clay nodded quickly. “That’s what I want. We both want the same thing here, Yarder. I want to keep my job, and you guys want to keep the money. You give me something to shoot, and we both win.”

“Deal,” Yarder said and leaned back in his chair. “Now, unless you’ve got anything else to say, I think we’re done here.”

Clay hesitated like he wanted to argue but didn’t dare. Finally, he gave a tight-lipped nod. “Understood. The camera crew will be here this afternoon, and the cameras around the clubhouse will be back on within the hour.”

Yarder motioned toward the door. “Fine. Now, get out. We’ve got things to discuss before that happens. Compass will walk you out.”

Clay didn’t need a second invitation to leave. He turned on his heel and headed toward the door. Yarder caught my eye and gave me a quick nod. “Compass, follow him.”

Jesus.

First, I couldn’t even enjoy my breakfast because of this idiot, and now I had to play babysitter. I shoved my chair back with a grunt and trailed after Clay as he walked into the common room.

Fallon, Adalee, and Sloane looked up from whatever they were doing, and curiosity lit their faces, but none of them said a word. Clay must have sensed he had overstayed his welcome because he didn’t even bother with his usual smug commentary. He pushed open the front door and stepped outside. Just as he turned back, likely to throw some last-minute remark my way, I slammed the door in his face without so much as a goodbye.

“Oh boy,” Sloane said from the couch, clearly amused. “Church went that good?”

I held up a hand, not in the mood to relive the circus, and kept moving back toward the meeting room.

“Yeah,” Poppy giggled behind me, “definitely not good.”

When I stepped back into Church, I let the door swing shut behind me. “He gone?” Yarder asked.

I dropped into my seat with a huff. “I didn’t walk him to his car, but he’s not in the clubhouse anymore.”

“Good enough for me,” Throttle said with a chuckle.

“That guy is going to be a problem,” Dice grumbled and leaned back in his chair.

“He knows where we stand,” Yarder said with a shrug, like it was all settled.

“Yeah,” I grunted, “but you basically told him all he’s gotta do is sit back and wait for the excitement to happen.”

Cue Ball nodded in agreement. “And let’s be real, the kind of ‘excitement’ we’ve got brewing is the last thing we want on camera.”

“It’ll happen,” Yarder said and leaned back with the kind of calm that only came from having a plan. “But here’s the thing—we’re not going to sit around waiting for shit to hit the fan. We’re going to give them a show on our terms. We’ll write the script. Control the narrative. Keep them happy enough to stay out of the real shit.”

“Like what?” I asked, raising a brow.

“The Cakery,” Yarder said.

Aero jumped in. “Garage build?”

Yarder nodded.

“They’re solid ideas,” Throttle said, “but I don’t think baking cakes and fixing bikes are gonna make for riveting TV.”

Yarder smirked and pointed a finger at me.

I pointed to my chest. “Why are you pointing at me?”

“You and Fallon,” he said. “You’re going to be the other excitement.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. Sure, we’d agreed on the cover story of Fallon and me being together, but I didn’t see how that turned into entertainment. All that was meant to do was explain away to Clay why she was here so he didn’t try to mess with her.

“Poppy was watching some trash TV the other night,” Yarder said, “and she kept talking about this one on-and-off couple. Ten other people on the show, but all she could talk about was them. You and Fallon are going to be that couple.”

Aero tipped his head and considered it. “Argue on camera, makeup on camera—audiences eat that shit up.”

Smoke raised a hand like he was in class. “Did we just cross into porn territory while I wasn’t paying attention?”

Pirate smacked the back of Smoke’s head. “No, dumbass. They won’t show that . They’ll just insinuate it.”

Cue Ball grinned at Pirate. “Insinuate it, huh? That’s a big word for you.”

Pirate flipped him off. “I’ve got bigger words for you if you want to keep pushing your luck.”

“Enough!” Yarder snapped, his patience running thin. “Can we have one meeting where you idiots don’t act like five-year-olds?”

Dice shrugged with a grin. “We can try next time.”

Yarder ran his hands through his hair like he was two seconds away from snapping. “I need a vacation. When all this shit is over, Poppy and I are headed to the beach, and none of you assholes are invited.”

Stretch perked up. “Like the beach at Morris Pond, two counties over, or like a real beach beach?”

“Fucking Cancun, Stretch. Far away from all of you,” Yarder groaned. “Now, can we focus? Let’s talk about Russ. Once the cameras are rolling this afternoon, we can’t touch this topic anywhere but in here.” He turned to Throttle. “Talk to Dove. I want a list of every place they went as a family. Anywhere he might’ve talked about. We need to find him.”

Throttle nodded. “Got it. I’ll get the list.”

“What about the rest of us?” I asked.

Yarder’s smirk was back. “You can talk to Fallon. Same deal—anywhere he’s been, anywhere he might’ve gone. And you’ll have plenty of time to talk since you two will be staying in your room.”

I furrowed my brow. “Our room? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You can’t sell the story of being an on-again, off-again couple if you don’t start as on , Compass,” Yarder said. He was clearly enjoying this way too much. “Have her move her stuff into your room. You’ve got about forty minutes before the cameras come on to make it happen.”

I dropped my shoulders and let out a long sigh. “Jesus Christ.”

Yarder just grinned. “Clock’s ticking, lover boy.”