“We can’t hit them blind,” I said. “He’s got numbers, home turf, and enough loose cannons to stack the street with bodies. I’m not giving him an excuse to paint us as the ones who escalated.”
“So we don’t escalate,” Wraith said. “We take something he cares about. Make him talk.”
I looked at him. He didn’t flinch.
“Rowan doesn’t admit weakness,” I said. “He protects his own even when they’re trash. No one in that clubhouse is going to hand us a name.”
“Everyone breaks, Lock.”
“Not his men. Not first.”
Wraith’s eyes narrowed. “Then we don’t start with them.”
I let that sit there, between us.
Rowan Roe cared about three things: his position, his club’s reputation, and his family. I couldn’t touch his patch or his pride without lighting a match we weren’t ready for.
That left the third.
Wraith watched my face and saw the shift. “Don’t say it,” he muttered.
“He made it obvious,” I said. “You saw him at last year’s run. The way he kept his kid behind a wall of bodies?”
“Kellan,” Wraith said quietly. “The omega.”
I ignored the way that word hooked in my chest. “Only thing Rowan ever looked soft over. Only thing he left early for. Only time he turned on his own men—when they got too close to the kid.”
“That’s a line, Lock.”
“So was cracking Saint’s skull and leaving him in the dirt.”
The room went still.
Wraith dragged a hand over his mouth, thinking. “You’re talking leverage. Not… permanent damage.”
“I’m talking about making Rowan feel even a fraction of what Saint’s family felt when they got that call from the hospital.”
He met my gaze, steady. “You really think taking his kid is the only way?”
For a second, I almost said no. Kidnapping an omega, even his, went against everything we stood for. We built this club on the promise that we protected omegas, didn’t use them. Not as currency. Not as shields. Not as weapons. But Saint’s face in that dirt wouldn’t leave me alone. If Rowan wouldn’t listen to reason, he’d listen to fear. And I was running out of options.
“Yes,” I said finally. The word felt heavy. “I do.” The answer came out before I could soften it, because I’d already chewed it over on the ride back. Every angle that didn’t touch Kellan Roe ended in a wall. “He’s shut every door. This is the only one he left open.”
Wraith closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. Whatever argument he’d been building faded. That was the thing with him—he’d call me on my shit, but once I made a decision, he was all in.
“Then we do it clean,” he said. “No mess, no loose ends, no extra bodies. We get in, take him, get out before they know what hit them.”
“That’s the plan.”
“And if he fights you?”
Kellan’s face flashed in my memory… wide eyes, his fingers squeezing that tray like he wasn’t sure what to do with it, nerves all over his scent.
“If he’s anything like his father,” I said, “he will.”
Wraith tipped his head. “Then we go in ready.”
I exhaled slowly, the decision settling in my bones like lead.
