EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2026 Winter Sloane

  ISBN: 978-0-3695-1391-5

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: CA Clauson

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. No AI Training permitted.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  DEDICATION

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  DEDICATION

  To my readers, I hope you enjoy reading Havoc and Ivy’s story as much as I loved writing it.

  HEALING HAVOC

  Devil’s Crown MC, 4

  Winter Sloane

  Copyright © 2026

  Chapter One

  The engine screamed beneath him, a living thing straining against restraint, and Havoc welcomed it. Night tore past in streaks of light and shadow. The highway curved sharp and unforgiving, but he leaned into it without hesitation. He was probably going too fast as always, but he didn’t care.

  The wind clawed at his vest and ripped breath from his lungs, but Jax “Havoc” Mercer only twisted the throttle harder. Havoc bared his teeth in something that might’ve been a grin if anyone had been close enough to see it.

  The curve ahead was blind. He spotted wet asphalt and loose gravel hugged the shoulder. Any sane man would’ve slowed, but Havoc didn’t.

  The bike shuddered under him, tires skidding just enough to flirt with disaster, and adrenaline slammed through his veins like a drug he’d never kicked.

  He felt alive in these moments, balanced on the knife-edge between control and annihilation. The roar of the engine drowned out everything else. The club, the rules, and the weight that sat heavy in his chest every waking hour.

  If this was the night it all went wrong, he figured that’d be fine too.

  The curve straightened out at the last possible second. Havoc shot down the stretch of highway like a bullet. He kept his chest low and eyes sharp. His reflexes were honed by years of riding on the wrong side of survival.

  He slowed only when the familiar glow of the Devil’s Crown MC clubhouse appeared ahead, squat and solid against the dark like it had always been there and always would be.

  He rolled in hot, skidded sideways into the lot, and killed the engine in a burst of snarling metal. The sudden silence rang loud in his ears.

  A few heads turned. A couple of brothers shook theirs.

  “Jesus Christ, Havoc,” someone muttered. “You trying to die?”

  Havoc swung off his bike and peeled his helmet free, dragging a hand through sweat-damp hair. “Not tonight,” he said. “Disappointed?”

  That earned a few low chuckles, but no one pushed it. They rarely did. He was Road Captain for a reason.

  Inside the clubhouse, the air was thick with oil, smoke, and the low hum of men who’d seen too much and lived anyway. Havoc moved through it like he belonged there, because he did. He instinctively fingered his cut, worn and earned. Devil’s Crown MC Road Captain stitched clean across the back.

  The cut represented routes, runs, and security. Life and death measured in miles and minutes.

  King glanced up from the bar when Havoc walked in. Their eyes met, and King’s narrowed just a fraction.

  “You’re riding like you got a death wish,” King said.

  Havoc shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. “You got somewhere to be?”

  King snorted. “You always ride like that?”

  “Only when I’m awake,” he muttered.

  King studied him for a long beat, then shook his head. “You’re gonna get yourself killed one of these days.”

  Havoc didn’t answer. He didn’t bother explaining that he’d stopped caring about that a long time ago. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped it open, and leaned back against the counter.

  The cold bite did nothing to ease the familiar ache lodged beneath his ribs. It was always there. A dull, persistent reminder of everything he’d lost and everything he refused to talk about.

  Widower. The word tasted bitter, even now. It’d been three years, six months, and some change since the accident.

  Long enough that people stopped lowering their voices when they said her name. Long enough that well-meaning strangers thought it was safe to tell him he should move on.

  They didn’t understand. Moving on implied there was somewhere else to go.

  Libby had been his old lady since before either of them knew what the hell they were doing with their lives. High school. Lockers and chipped linoleum floors, football games under flickering lights.

  Libby sitting on the hood of his beat-up car with her arms crossed and that look on her face that said she saw right through him.

  She’d laughed at his smart mouth, not the polished kind of laugh either, but the loud, unfiltered one that turned heads. He’d been done for from that moment.

  They grew up together in all the ways that mattered. First apartment that smelled like burnt coffee and motor oil. Late nights when he came home bruised and tired and she patched him up without asking questions.

  She believed in him when believing wasn’t easy. Believed in the club, in the road, in the man he was trying to be. Havoc had never doubted they were endgame.

  Death was supposed to come for them together, gray haired and stubborn, still bickering over stupid shit. Instead it came early. Cruel and sudden and unfair.

  It stole her in a blink and left him standing there with blood on his hands and a future that felt hollowed out. Took the only person who ever made the noise in his head quiet.

  The only one who could pull him back from the edge without trying.

  Havoc finished the beer and crushed the can in his fist. The metal groaned, sharp edges biting into his palm. His knuckles ached, skin splitting just enough to sting.

  It grounded him. Pain always did.

  “Run’s clean,” he said finally to King. “Route’s clear. No tails. No surprises.”

  King nodded. “Good. We’ve had eyes on the east side. Rival club’s sniffing around again.”

  Havoc’s jaw tightened. “Which one?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  “Then I’ll be sure,” Havoc said. “I’ll ride it myself.”

  King lifted a brow. “That’s my Road Captain.”

  That earned him a glance. Not pride or satisfaction, just obligation.

  Havoc pushed off the counter and headed for the stairs, boots heavy on concrete. His room was dark when he stepped inside. It was quiet, perhaps too quiet. There was no soft breathing. No life waiting for him at the end of a long ride.

  He didn’t turn on the light. Havoc didn’t need to see it to know what was there.

  The bed, untouched except by him. The empty side that stayed empty. The ghost of a life that had ended twisted and broken on a stretch of road not unlike the one he’d just ridden.

  Havoc sat on the edge of the mattress and scrubbed a hand over his face. His chest tightened, breath going shallow for a heartbeat before he forced it back under control.

  Weakness was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

  Downstairs, the clubhouse was alive. He could hear it through the walls. Laughter, low and reckless. Music bleeding through worn speakers. The easy company of bodies that knew how to keep loneliness at bay for a night.

  He could go down there.

  There were women who wouldn’t ask questions, who knew the rules and the rhythm of the club. Women who’d slide into his lap, press close, offer warmth without expectation. He’d taken them up on it before, on the nights when the silence got too loud and the bed felt like a damn accusation.

  It never helped, because the moment skin touched skin, his mind betrayed him. Libby’s laugh. The way she fit against him like she’d been made there. The way she used to curl into his side, stealing his heat and his breath in the same motion. Every time, the loneliness sharpened instead of dulled, carving deeper, leaving him more hollow than before. So he stayed where he was.

  He lay back and stared at the ceiling, the faint hum of the clubhouse bleeding through the walls. Somewhere downstairs, someone laughed again. Somewhere outside, engines revved, hungry and impatient. Life went on. It always did, with or without him.

  He closed his eyes and pictured the curve on the highway. The skid. The split second where everything could have ended. Metal screaming. Time stretching thin as a wire.

  A small, dark part of him wished it had. Not because he wanted to die, but because he was tired of surviving without ever really feeling alive.

  Tomorrow he’d ride again. Take another risk. Push it a little harder. Lean deeper into the turn. Ride faster, longer, closer to the edge. Until something gave or until something changed.
  Havoc rolled onto his side and stared into the dark, his expression carved from stone.

  If death came for him on two wheels, so be it. He’d meet it head on. And maybe, just maybe, on the other side of the road and the pain and the noise, he’d finally get to see Libby again.

  Chapter Two

  Ivy had always liked walls. Not the blank, sterile kind that begged to stay empty, but the ones already scarred by time. Cracks, old paint flaking like sunburnt skin, and brick that had seen more weather than most people. Walls that remembered things.

  The one in front of her was perfect.

  It stretched along the side of a closed down auto shop at the edge of town, the kind of place that smelled faintly of oil even years after the doors were chained shut. Rust crawled along the metal frames of the windows. Someone had tagged the far corner with a lazy swirl of spray paint, but the rest of it was bare. Waiting.

  Ivy stood a few feet back, head tilted, paint flecking the knees of her jeans and the cuffs of her hoodie. Her hair was shoved into a messy knot that had given up trying to stay neat an hour ago. A canvas bag sat open at her feet, brushes and chalk and rolled sketches spilling out like secrets.

  She lifted her sketchbook again, eyes flicking between the wall and the page.

  Motorcycles.

  Not pristine showroom bikes, but real ones. Heavy frames and low seats. Thick tires. The kind of machines that looked like they belonged to people who rode them hard and didn’t apologize for it. She’d been sketching them since she arrived in town, filling pages with chrome and shadow and movement, even though she hadn’t meant to at first.

  She told herself it was coincidence. The truth was simpler. Bikes had character and they told stories just by existing.

  She dragged a piece of charcoal across the page, rough lines taking shape beneath her fingers. A low-slung chopper leaned into the curve of the wall in her mind, flames licking along the tank, skulls worked into the negative space. Not aggressive, or threatening, just unapologetic.

  Like the town itself.

  She was new here. Three weeks in, if she counted the day her battered sedan rolled past the faded welcome sign and into Devil’s Crown territory. Long enough to know where the diner served decent coffee. Long enough to recognize the sound of engines gathering at night. Not long enough for anyone to know her name beyond a few polite exchanges.

  She liked it that way.

  No one asked why she’d left her last town. No one pressed when she said she was “just passing through,” and then stayed. This town didn’t feel like a place that pried. It felt like a place that watched, measured, and then decided whether you belonged.

  Ivy had never minded being evaluated.

  She stepped closer to the wall and snapped a photo with her phone, more for reference than permission. She’d already cleared it with the building owner, an older man who’d shrugged and said, “Paint it if you want. Better than looking at it rot.” He hadn’t even asked what she planned to paint.

  She liked that too.

  Chalk hit brick with a soft scrape as she began marking out the first guidelines. Ivy started with big, loose shapes. Nothing precious. Her movements were confident, unhurried. She worked the way she lived, trusting her instincts and adjusting as she went.

  The low rumble of engines reached her ears before she saw them. She paused, chalk hovering midair, and glanced down the street. Three bikes rolled past the intersection at the end of the block, sunlight flashing off chrome.

  They weren’t speeding. They didn’t need to. The sound alone announced them. Devil’s Crown colors were stitched into leather and denim, bold and unmistakable. The club.

  She watched them go, calm curiosity flickering through her chest. There was a reputation, of course. Every town had rumors about its motorcycle club. Violence, crime, and trouble. She’d heard it all before, in other places with other names.

  None of it stuck to her now.

  Fear was loud and demanding, and what she felt wasn’t that. It was more like interest. Recognition, maybe. The same feeling she got when she saw a bike parked just right, or a person who wore their scars without flinching.

  She went back to her wall.

  The mural started to breathe under her hands. Shapes sharpened. Lines curved with intention. She sketched a rider first, helmet tucked under one arm, stance loose and grounded. Not a caricature, or a hero. She drew someone who belonged to the machine beside him.

  Sweat gathered at her temples as the sun climbed higher. She shrugged out of her hoodie and tied it around her waist, paint smudges already decorating the fabric. Music played softly from her phone, an old playlist she’d been carrying from town to town for years.

  Time slipped. She was halfway through blocking in the bike when a shadow fell across the lower edge of the wall. Ivy glanced over her shoulder.

  A man stood a few feet behind her, hands relaxed at his sides. He was in his mid-thirties, or maybe he was older. He wore a leather cut with the Devil’s Crown patch stitched across his back. His presence was solid without being imposing, like he’d learned long ago how to take up space without forcing it.

  He wasn’t scowling or smiling either, simply watching her.

  “Hey,” she said easily, straightening and wiping her hands on a rag. “Hope I’m not in the way.”

  He blinked, clearly not expecting that.

  “No,” he said after a beat. His voice was rough, worn down by miles and smoke. “You got permission?”

  “From the owner,” she replied. “I checked.”

  Another pause. Then a small nod. “What are you painting?”

  She stepped aside so he could see the sketched outline. “Bikes. Riders. Still figuring out the rest,” she said.

  He studied the wall, gaze sharp but not unkind. “You ride?”

  “Nope.” She smiled. “Just appreciate the art.”

  That earned her a faint huff of amusement. “Fair enough.”

  They stood there for a moment, the silence comfortable. He didn’t crowd her, and he didn’t question her being there. He simply observed, like the town itself.

  “You’re new,” he said finally.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Kinda.” His mouth tipped slightly. “Name’s Roach.”

  “Ivy.”

  “Welcome to the town, Ivy.”

  There was no warning in his tone, no threat, merely fact.

  “Thanks,” she said, meaning it. “It’s got character.”

  Roach glanced down the street, then back at the mural. “That it does.”

  He lingered another second, then stepped back. “Carry on.”

  When he walked away, Ivy felt the exchange settle into her bones, not rattling or heavy. Just another thread woven into the place. She turned back to the wall, a small smile tugging at her lips.

  Independence had always been her anchor. She moved when it felt right, stayed when it felt right. Ivy painted what called to her, even if she didn’t yet know why. The Devil’s Crown MC didn’t scare her because she trusted herself. Ivy trusted her instincts and her ability to walk away if she ever needed to.

  She’d done it before. Ivy had packed up at dawn and left half-finished walls behind. She had learned not to get tangled in places that wanted more than she was willing to give. Her life fit in her car for a reason.

  Still, this unique place tugged at her in a quieter way. The people here had weight to them. History, the kind that lingered in the cracks of pavement and the rumble of engines long after they passed.

  For the first time in a long while, Ivy caught herself wondering what it might feel like not to leave as soon as the paint dried. The thought surprised her.

  Not forever. She wasn’t built for roots that deep, but longer than usual. Long enough to finish the mural without rushing. Long enough to learn names instead of faces and to sit at the same counter twice and have the waitress remember how she took her coffee.

  For now, she didn’t walk away. The bike on the wall took shape under her hands, bold and grounded and alive. A piece of the town, filtered through her eyes. Not claiming it or changing it, Ivy listened and responded, letting the place speak through brick and color.

  As the afternoon wore on, engines passed again, their growl rolling through her chest like distant thunder. Laughter drifted from somewhere nearby, rough and real and unguarded. The town breathed around her, and Ivy breathed with it, warm and steady and entirely her own. Maybe, she thought as she dipped her brush again, she’d stay a little while longer.

 

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