Gil nods once and backs off, gravel crunching under his boots as he disappears into the dark. No argument. No attitude. He knows better.
The warehouse door groans when I push it open, metalprotesting metal. Inside, the air is damp and stale, thick with rust and mildew. Halogen lights blaze overhead, too bright for a place this empty, flattening everything beneath them. It feels like a stripped-down stage waiting for a scene no one wants to watch.
My boots echo across the concrete.
Tripp sits in the center of the room, slumped forward in a metal chair, seated and secured to prevent him from leaving. He looks smaller than I remember. Not physically, but in every other way that counts.
Blood streaks his face in uneven lines, dried and tacky. One eye is swollen nearly shut. His shirt hangs torn and damp, and the dark stain down the front tells me he lost control somewhere along the way.
The smell confirms it. Blood and urine, sharp and sour, cling to the air.
I drag a chair toward him. The scrape of metal against concrete tears through the mostly empty space, echoing. Tripp jerks awake, his head snapping up. His good eye widens when he sees me, panic flashing fast and unfiltered.
“Ridge,” he croaks. “Boss, I swear, I didn’t?—”
I sit down across from him, forearms resting on my knees. I keep my voice low and even. Measured.
“Don’t call me that,” I cut him off. “You don’t get to use my name like it still means protection.”
His throat works as he swallows. “I didn’t betray you. I didn’t-”
The photos stay where they are for now. I want his story before I give him anything to react to.
“Then I want you to start from the beginning and tell me every detail of how this went down,” I say. I lean forward more, just enough to let the pressure settle. “Why were you establishing rapport with Duvall-adjacent operators? I want every meeting, every location.”
His head drops, shoulders shaking. He tells me about three inconsequential meet-ups, all with names I recognize, but he swears it was only to be present. According to him, there was no agenda other than to be there, be seen, and leave.
“How did you know where to go and when?”
Rhodes already told me this detail, but I want to hear it from Tripp.
“Each time, I would get a Snapchat message telling me where to be and when. I was never asked to confirm or bring anything back. It just said to be there.” His voice trembles now, cracking under the weight of his own story.
“You never spoke to anyone after the meetings?” I ask. “Not once. No voice. No confirmation. Just instructions that erased themselves.”
Anyone could invent this once the damage is done.
“Never. The original note said I would meet with Robert once I completed the test,” he says quickly. “The snaps came from an unknown account. It said not to ask questions, so I didn’t. I thought that’s how it works at that level. No questions, just execution.”
I sit back a fraction, letting him keep going. Talking people tell you more when they think you’re listening.
“We’ve been pushing against the Duvalls over that shipping lane,” he continues. “I thought maybe this was a way to get ahead of them. I thought I was supposed to earn their trust, maybe become a plant, and then bring it back to you.”
“Bring it back to who?” I interject. “Specifically.”
He shakes his head, panic bleeding into desperation. “Robert. Or Vin. Someone up top.”
There it is. The truth underneath the excuse. Ambition mixed with fear. He wanted to be seen, to be doing something more important.
“You made us vulnerable,” I say. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to. “You put our name in someone else’s mouth without knowing who was listening.”
“I didn’t tell them anything,” he insists. Tears spill over now, cutting clean tracks through the grime on his face. “They didn’t even seem to know why I was there. I swear, Ridge, I didn’t give them a damn thing.”
I study him. The shaking hands, the way he can’t hold my gaze for more than a second. Tripp has always been a screwup, but he has also always been loyal.
I remember him as a kid, running errands for my father, desperate to belong to something solid. He grew up inside this family, whether we meant him to or not.
That’s what makes this rot.
