Thundering toward church, King burst into the room, barking orders. “What the fuck do you know?”
Nav didn’t say a word as he turned his computer toward us, allowing us to see. There on the screen was the inside of Trudy’s place, and I could clearly see Grace and Karlyn sitting by the window talking. Indigo and Johnny were inside with them, Indigo at the next table while Johnny sat at the bar, watching indiscriminately. I watched as Karlyn reached over and put her hand on Grace’s. Yet, when I saw my woman frown, then sit back, pulling her hand away, I frowned, too. She looked upset about whatever Grace had said. A cold knot tightened in my gut. Was Grace planting seeds of doubt? Was Karlyn already wavering? The thought sickened me—a betrayal I hadn’t even begun to process.
“Is there any fucking sound?” I snarled next to King, wanting to know what the fuck Grace had said to upset Karlyn. My mind raced, conjuring every possible venomous word Grace might spew, every insecurity she might exploit. I wanted to be there, to rip Grace’s tongue out if it came to that, but I was here, and my woman was gone.
“No, Trudy wouldn’t let us do sound. She said people came in there to talk things out with her, or others, and it would be an invasion of privacy.”
“Fuck that. I want sound on every fucking camera we have in town,” King blatantly demanded.
My stomach churned. Privacy. It was a foreign concept to me, a boundary I never truly understood. There were no boundaries I would scale to protect Karlyn. But the thought of Karlyn being hurt, manipulated, by Grace... it gnawed at me. If privacy meant Karlyn’s emotional devastation, then privacy could go to hell.
“King—”
“Did I fucking stutter?” he snapped.
“No, Prez.” Nav sighed, and I never took my eyes off the screen, watching as Johnny answered his phone, then walked over to speak to Grace. Grace got up to pay the bill, leaving Karlyn sitting alone. She turned to look at Indigo right before my brother stiffened, moving fast to shield Karlyn seconds before all hell broke loose.
Everything happened fast, and when Indigo went down, I saw him look at Karlyn, telling her to run, and my girl did. A instinct to surge forward, to protect Karlyn, warred with the stark reality of my position. I was an observer, a prisoner of the screen. My helplessness was a bitter pill, more potent than any poison. And as I watched Indigo fall, the image of him looking at Karlyn, his silent plea for her escape, branded itself into my mind. He was sacrificing himself for her, a selfless act I could only admire from a distance, a painful reminder of the chasm between the men we were and the men we aspired to be.
I had failed to be there, to anticipate this, and the weight of that failure settled heavily upon me.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ravage
As the video ended, a chilling finality settling in the air, I stared at Sypher, who still hadn’t looked at me once since I arrived. King was pacing church like a caged animal, his club brothers parting like the Red Sea, utter silence their only defense against the raging beast, lest they become his next victim. Standing there, I scanned the faces of men who had chosen this life, men who supposedly knew the dangers and the rot that dwelled deep within our enemies, and yet they stood stoically, frozen by the unspoken fear emanating from one man, their eyes glued to him as if hypnotized. But it wasn’t just fear I saw; it was something more complex, a shared burden, a carefully guarded secret.
My attention snapped back to Sypher, a cold dread prickling my skin. My hand, almost of its own accord, moved to my side, fingers brushing the cool, familiar grip of my machete. This weapon, a symbol of my strength, my resolve, now felt like a ticking bomb, an extension of the rage that was beginning to consume me.
Sypher flinched. The tiny movement was enough.
Cash took a tentative step forward, a flicker of desperation in his eyes, as if trying to mediate a conflict he himself was afraid to acknowledge.
All eyes were now on me. The silence that followed was heavier than any spoken word. They were hiding something.
Something they didn’t want me, or King, to know.
The instinct to protect, to uncover the truth, warred with a nascent unease, a whisper of suspicion that perhaps ignorance was the kinder path. But that was a path I had never walked.
Before anyone could blink, before my own wavering resolve could fully solidify, I had Sypher out of his chair, his back slamming against the rough church wall. Seething, I leaned close, my breath hot against his fear-widened eyes. My voice, a low growl, vibrated with suppressed fury. “Tell me.”
He gulped, a pathetic, choked sound, and shook his head, his eyes pleading. His silence was an answer in itself—a poisonous confirmation that twisted in my gut, a stark reminder of my own perceived inadequacies. This wasn’t just about them hiding something; it was about my failure. I was supposed to protect her, to be the shield, and this knowledge they were hoarding was proof that I hadn’t been enough. The shame was a bitter bile rising in my throat.
I closed my eyes, the weight of their silence crushing me, and I released him. The effort to let go, to resist the urge to force the truth out of him, was agonizing. Taking several steps back, I shook my head. The knowledge of what Sypher and the others knew, and refused to articulate, seared a brand into my mind. I didn’t blame them. If I were in their place, with the same chilling understanding, I would have done the same. The instinct to preserve the fragile peace, even a peace built on lies, was a powerful one. But it went against everything I stood for. I believed in truth, in confronting darkness head-on, not in cowering from it.
Taking a seat, I leaned forward, my elbows digging into my knees, and grabbed my head, a guttural roar escaping my lips. Pain lanced through my soul, not just from the current revelations, but from the echoes of past failures. My failure to protect her, my failure to be the man I was supposed to be, engulfed me. I was trapped in a cycle of my own making, forcedto choose between the brutal truth and the agonizing silence, and in that moment, both felt like betrayals. My own morality, my belief in action and honesty, was being chipped away, replaced by a suffocating sense of helplessness. I had failed, and the weight of that failure, coupled with the knowledge I had to now carry, was a burden I wasn’t sure I could bear. I had made a bad choice, a choice to embrace the darkness that festered in their silence, and I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that I would regret this moment for a very long time.
Time no longer existed. It was irrelevant. Hours had passed and no one knew anything. We had no direction, no clue to where they could be. Waiting was the hardest. I wanted so much to hunt for her, but without a single lead, even I didn’t know where to start.
King moved to step toward me, but his brothers surrounded him, halting him. “What do you know?” he asked.
“She’s alive, King,” Cash resolutely said. “That’s all you need to know.” Cash’s words hung in the air, stark and unsatisfying, a lifeline frayed at the edges. King’s face twisted, equal parts rage and desperation. I saw the hope flicker behind his eyes, desperate to believe, yet terrified of what lay beneath those simple words.
No one else moved.
No one else spoke.
I realized then that the truth, whatever it was, had carved a chasm between us all—a gulf that only honesty could cross, but none were willing to make that leap. The silence wasn’t just a shield for Grace and for Karlyn; it was a prison for all of us.
