“Ghost,” Titan warns.
But I push forward because I have to. Because if there’s a threat to this club, I need to know. “Did you talk to anyone? Give information without realizing what it would be used for? Did someone approach you about?—”
“How dare you?” Bonnie’s hands shake. “How fucking dare you accuse me of selling out my own blood?”
“I’m not accusing?—”
“Yes, you are.” Tears shine in her eyes, but her voice stays strong. “You’re standing there with your paranoid military analysis, treating me like a suspect instead of someone who just ran for her life from a forced marriage.”
“I’m trying to protect this club?—”
“By interrogating me?” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I got tossed through a fence. Ran barefoot through the woods with Savage Legion hunting me. Got shot at on a highway. But sure, Ghost, maybe I planned the whole thing for attention.”
Ash steps between us. “Both of you, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Bonnie snaps. “He just called me a traitor?—”
“I didn’t use that word?—”
“You didn’t have to!” She turns to Ash. “Is this what I am now? A suspect? Should I lawyer up?”
“Nobody’s saying that,” Titan cuts in. “Ghost is just?—”
“Doing his job,” I finish. “Looking at patterns. Analyzing threats.”
“I’m not a threat,” Bonnie says quietly. “I’m a victim. Or I was. Now I’m just someone trying to survive while getting interrogated by people I thought were on my side.”
I open my mouth to explain better, to make her understand I don’t actually think she betrayed anyone, I’m just trained to question everything?—
But she’s already heading for the door.
“Bonnie, wait,” Ash starts.
“No.” She doesn’t look back. “I’m done. You want to have your secret strategy meeting without me? Fine. I’ll be in my room. Alone.”
The door closes behind her, and silence fills the room.
“That went well,” Titan says dryly.
I sink into a chair and run my hands through my hair. “Shit.”
“What the hell was that?” Ash asks. “You actually think Bonnie set up Iron?”
“No.” I look up at him. “But the timing is suspicious. Someone with serious intel coordinated that arrest to happen right when it would cause maximum chaos.”
“So you think someone’s using her?” Titan asks.
“I think we need to consider all possibilities.” I stand and pace to the window. “In my experience, when events line up too perfectly, there’s a puppet master. Someone is pulling strings. And right now, the only person who benefits from both Iron’s arrest and Bonnie’s escape is…”
“Marcus,” Ash finishes.
“Or Jackal,” Titan adds quietly.
We look at each other. None of us wants to say it out loud, but we’re all thinking it.
“We need to find out who actually gave the feds their information,” Ash says. “Until then, we trust Bonnie. She’s family. She’s one of us.”
“Agreed,” Titan says immediately.
