Red stabbed a finger at her laptop. “They’re laundering it through two shells in the Cayman Islands. One’s an orphan charity, the other is literally called ‘Deliverance Outreach.’ I checked the board members—every single one is tied to a donor at the church.”
Vin slammed his palm on the table. The phone jumped, and one of the dogs yelped. “How the fuck do we hit back?”
There was a pause. Shivs spoke up, “We could torch the place. Make it look like an insurance job.”
Canon shook his head. “Too public. They’ll blame us and spin it as biker retaliation.”
Red, not looking up, “You want the FBI, not Channel Five.”
Vin looked at me, eyes colder than a mortuary slab. “You got a personal stake in this. What’s your play, Axel?”
I hesitated. Everyone was waiting for me to say “burn it down,” to go straight-up Sons of Anarchy and start a war. But I couldn’t shake the memory of those eyes in the shipping container, or the look on Darla’s face when she’d called me last night, scared and alone.
“I need to warn her,” I said. “She’s not just the pastor’s daughter. If Maple finds out we got this close, he’ll use her to get to us.”
Vin grunted. “You sure she’s not already playing both sides?”
I didn’t answer that. Not because I didn’t have doubts, but because saying them out loud made it worse.
Red cut in, “If you’re gonna see her, do it somewhere off grid. Burn your phone before you leave.”
Vin pushed back from the table, chair scraping the floor like a gunshot. “All right. Everyone stays sharp. Nobody rides alone, nobody talks unless they have to. This town’s about to go nuclear.”
He looked at me, and for the first time in months, there was something like concern under the menace. “You take care of business, Axel. But watch your ass. That Bible-thumping piece of shit has eyes everywhere.”
I nodded and headed for the door, feeling every eye in the room on my back.
Outside, the night was black and empty, but I could feel the pulse of something ugly moving through the dark—faster and meaner than anything we’d ever faced before.
My phone vibrated with a message from Darla: “midnight sandwich.” Our stupid code. It meant she was in trouble.
I twisted the throttle and let the engine scream.
If the whole damn town was going to hell, I’d at least make sure she had a ride out.
***
I took the river road fast, every pothole punching straight up my spine, the Harley spitting gravel into black nothing behind me. The moon was a hangnail above the clouds, just bright enough to show the path but not enough to make me feel safe. I killed the engine half a mile from the drop, then walked the rest, boots crunching through dead leaves and shards of broken beer bottles. The river stank of mud and runoff, and the old boathouse squatted by the bank, half its siding caved in, roof patched with blue tarps and prayers.
Darla waited by the porch, pacing in tight circles, her hair down and wild, wind whipping the loose dress she wore into a flag of surrender. She checked her phone every five seconds, but the light from the screen just made her eyes look more hollow. I watched her from the shadow of a busted pine, not because I didn’t trust her, but because I couldn’t stop feeling like a target. Years of instinct didn’t die easy.
She saw me and froze. For a second, she looked like she might run, then her body just slumped, and she stumbled toward me, head down. “You said midnight,” she hissed, voice breaking. “It’s almost one.”
“I had to make sure I wasn’t tailed.” I scanned the tree line, then closed the distance, letting her smell the road and sweat on my jacket. She pressed herself into me, fists balled in the leather, trembling. I could feel every bone in her, like she was built from glass.
“Tell me you’re okay,” she whispered.
“Princess, I’m fine. But we need to move fast.”
She wiped at her face with the heel of her palm, making a streak of black down her cheek. I tried to ignore how much it looked like a bruise. I reached for her hand and led her to the boathouse, the door hanging off the hinge, and we ducked inside. It was even colder in there, the smell of rot and gasoline mixing with river damp.
She was the first to break. “Is it true?” she said, voice shaking. “What my father is doing?”
I flicked on the tiny penlight I kept in my vest and pointed it at the ledger pages and the phone. “You need to see this.”
She stared at the photos. At first, her face was blank. Then her mouth twisted, and she staggered to the side, grabbing the splintered bench for balance. “That’s real?” Her voice was so small I almost missed it. “Those people—” She ran her finger over the screen, then dropped the phone as if it bit her. “Oh my God. Oh my fucking God, Axel, what is this?”
“It’s your dad’s idea of saving the city. Guns, meth, smuggling people in from god knows where. They’re keeping them in containers. Like cattle.”
