Page 20 of Wraith’s Promise

He exhales slightly, relief clear in his expression, and moves to stand beside me at the counter.

"Phoenix is taking them for questioning," he says. "Judge will make sure they understand what happens if they come near my family again."

Chapter 8 - Wraith

Family.

I said family. Not my daughter. Not Mariah. Family. Like Quinn's already part of it, like she's been part of it longer than twenty-four hours, like the word includes her automatically without me even thinking about it.

And the hell of it is, standing here in my kitchen with her beside me at the counter while Mariah draws dragons at the table completely oblivious to the violence that just happened on our front porch, I wish it was true.

I wish Quinn was family in the way that word means in the club, in the permanent unbreakable way that means she's ours and we're hers and nobody touches what's ours without consequences.

She put herself between five armed men and my daughter without hesitation. Opened the door knowing exactly what was waiting on the other side and faced it anyway because that's what she promised to do, that's who she is, someone who keeps her word even when keeping it might cost her everything.

I'll never forget that. Never forget watching through the upstairs window as she opened that door, as one of the men reached for her and she put him down in three seconds flat. Never forget the split second of pure terror when I saw Crowbar's weapon connect with her shoulder, when I saw her trapped in that Viper's arms, when my brain calculated the math and realized she was about to be overwhelmed.

That's when I stopped thinking and just moved. Stopped being the planner, the strategist, the one who sees three steps ahead, and became something else entirely. Something I've spent years trying to keep locked down because it scares me how easily it comes, how natural violence feels when someone threatens what I love.

But I'd do it again. I'd do it a thousand times over if it meant keeping them safe, Mariah and Quinn both, apparently, because somewhere in the last day my brain reclassified Quinn from employee to protected, from temporary to essential, from stranger to family.

That should terrify me. It probably would terrify me if I had the bandwidth to examine it right now. Instead, I'm just standing here grateful she's okay, grateful Mariah never saw anything, grateful Phoenix and the boys showed up exactly when I knew they would because I planned for it, because planning is what I do even in the middle of chaos.

"You should ice that shoulder," I say, nodding toward where she's favoring her left side even though she's trying to hide it.

"It's fine."

"It's not fine. You took a crowbar to it." I move to the freezer, pull out an ice pack I keep for Mariah's occasional tumbles, wrap it in a kitchen towel. "Sit."

She looks at me for a long moment, and I can see her deciding whether to argue. She must see something in my expression that tells her arguing won't get her anywhere, because she sighs and settles into the chair beside Mariah.

"Ooh, are you hurt?" Mariah looks up from her drawing, concerned.

"Just a little bump," Quinn says easily. "Your dad's taking care of it."

"Daddy's really good at taking care of people." Mariah says it with complete certainty, like it's an established fact of the universe. "He takes care of me every single day."

"That's right, baby girl. Every single day."

I press the ice pack gently against Quinn's shoulder and she winces slightly but doesn't pull away. This close, I can see the small white scar on her chin, the way her hair's starting to come loose from the braids.

She's beautiful, and I'm staring. I need to stop staring. I step back, hand her the ice pack so she can hold it herself. "Keep that on for twenty minutes. Then off for twenty. Repeat."

"Yes, doctor," she says, but there's warmth in her voice, something almost affectionate.

Footsteps on the porch make me tense, but I quickly recognize the cadence—Ranger's walk. He appears in the doorway a second later, still in his cut.

"Hey," he says. "Came to check on my sister. Make sure she's still in one piece."

"I'm fine," Quinn says immediately. "Barely a scratch."

Ranger's eyes drop to the ice pack she's holding against her shoulder, and one eyebrow rises. "That's not a scratch, Quinnie."

"Okay, it's a bruise. Still fine."

He crosses to her, crouches down beside her chair like he surely did a hundred times growing up, checking her over. "They touch you anywhere else?"

"No. Dean got there before it could get worse."