“The warehouse on Winchester. You remember it?” Her eyes didn’t move off me, who shrank half an inch and nodded. “Showed up with SWAT, a feds van, and a couple TV crews, ready to crack it open. Guess what we found?”
“Bibles?” I said.
“Bupkis,” Carter spat. “Not a single fucking soul. No girls. No bodies. No drugs, no weapons. The entire back wall had been bricked over. Even the blood stains were cleaned up with bleach, for Christ’s sake. All the containers—gone.”
Vin laughed, but there was zero humor in it. “He’s got somebody inside. I told you.”
“More than one,” Carter said. She raked both hands through her hair, rainwater flicking off her fingers. “Whole raid team’s under IA review. Two of the SWAT guys—Hargis and Mendoza—already suspended. And get this, the feds who ran the warrant? All reassigned to other cases. Out of state. You should have come to us before your little stunt.”
I leaned in. “So you came all the way down here to tell us the Reverend wins again.”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you?” She picked up a photo and flicked it across the table like a playing card. It slid to a stop in front of me. A surveillance cam still. Reverend Maple’s Cadillac in the warehouse lot, clocked at 03:32 AM. Two men in hoodies and gloves loading crates into a box truck. No faces, no plates.
She tossed another photo, this one a close-up, Maple, looking directly at the camera, not a trace of surprise. Just that dead-eyed televangelist smirk. Like he wanted to be caught, but only by someone who’d never do a thing about it.
“He’s lawyered up,” Carter said, tone flat as a gun barrel. “Maxwell Thornton.”
Vin’s hands curled. “Thornton? That scumbag charges a hundred grand just to say hello.”
“He already filed a defamation suit against your club. Citing ‘ongoing harassment and religious discrimination.’ And get this—he’s got a signed statement from one of your own that you staged the whole rescue just to smear Maple’s name.”
Vin’s chair shot back, his fist slamming into the wall so hard I thought he’d snap his wrist. “Bullshit. None of my guys would—”
“Read it yourself.” Carter flipped a page and shoved it at him. “Signed by one ‘K. Robbins’. Know the name?”
Vin’s jaw set. “Only thing Robbins ever signed was his discharge papers after he rolled his bike into a ditch and tried to sue us for medical.”
Carter leaned forward, elbows digging into the sticky wood. “I’m here because I want Maple. He’s got friends in the state AG’s office. FBI brass. Probably half the local P.D. by the balls. Nobody’s safe, including his daughter.”
Vin’s breathing slowed. He sat, arms crossed, staring at the wall. “So what? We just take it in the ass and move on?”
Carter’s smile was grim. “I didn’t say that. But you need to lay low. Stay away from the warehouse, from any club business that might put you back on the radar. Maple’s got every angle covered, and he’s betting you’ll lash out. That’s when he’ll bury you.”
I felt the rage tightening behind my eyes, the old heat that made my fingers flex and teeth grind. “You’re warning us. Why?”
Carter met my stare, held it. “Because the bastard doesn’t get to win forever. Sooner or later he slips. I want you breathing when that happens.”
Silence again, but this time it was loaded with static. Carter gathered her folder, tucking the loose pages back in. She turned and shouldered past a pair of patched brothers, who gave her a wide berth like she was made of pure napalm. The front door slammed, echoing over the dead quiet she left behind.
Nobody said a word for a long time.
I guess that was the real trick of the Reverend. He didn’t have to kill you outright. He just hollowed you out, left you holding your own guts, wondering when he’d come back to finish the job.
Carter was halfway to her car when she wheeled around, the wind whipping her hair into a dirty blond flag. She came back in, voice dropping so low that only the three of us could hear. “Stay the hell away from the Reverend. He’s got layers you can’t even imagine. You think you’re chasing a preacher? Try a hydra with a church steeple for a head.”
She zipped her jacket with a snap, then flicked her keys onto the bar so hard Red ducked. “You don’t get another warning. He’s ten steps ahead, always. Stay smart, or I’ll be scraping what’s left of you off the pavement.”
Vin looked carved from bedrock, arms folded, jaw twitching with every word. He didn’t need to say a thing; you could feel the static rolling off him in waves. My own anger needed a leash, but I kept it tight, fingers digging trenches into the heel of my palm. That old voice in my head, the one that told me to burn it all down and salt the earth, was howling for a shot at the old man.
Carter paused in the doorway, silhouetted by the amber parking lot lights. “Look, I’m not saying give up. Just be smarter than this frontal assault bullshit. You’re dealing with a guy who’s been building his empire since before you were born.” She nodded at Vin and then was gone. The door groaned shut.
The club was silent, the kind of hush that followed a gun going off.
Vin turned to me. “What do you want to do, Prospect?”
I stood, couldn’t sit still if my ass was duct-taped down. “We keep moving. He’s not God, no matter how many people call him Father.”
Vin nodded, but it was the slow, lethal kind. “We don’t act yet. We wait.”
