“They shot me because someone wanted to send a message,” I reply, and I keep my voice low because this lot has ears, even if most of them are ours.
Dmitri’s jaw tightens. “To who.”
“To all of us,” Mikhail answers calmly, and he doesn’t even look surprised as he says it, like he has already been considering that possibility since he got off the plane.
Anya’s gaze flicks to Mikhail and then to her father, and I can see her mind snapping pieces into place in real time. “They wanted to see what you would do,” she says to Viktor, and she doesn’t soften the accusation. “They wanted to see if you would respond.”
Viktor studies her with that controlled stillness that feels like a wall. “Yes,” he says simply.
“And they wanted to see if he would stand alone,” she adds, and her eyes come back to me with something sharp and guilty and furious all at once.
The silence that follows is heavy enough that even Tank doesn’t make another comment about my bike.
Mason steps forward slightly. “We’re not doing this in the lot.”
Viktor agrees immediately. “No,” he says, and it lands like an order without him needing to raise his voice.
He looks at me again. “You are able to walk?”
“Yeah,” I answer, because I am, and because it matters that I can.
“Good.”
Mason gestures toward the clubhouse door. “Church.”
Ghost moves first, because he is always the one who clears the path, and he opens the side entrance that leads into the compound side of Perdition, not the bar floor. The music is still pounding on the other side of the wall, muffled but present, because the public side stays open while the private side handles business, and there is something cold about that separation that feels right. It feels like control.
We move as one group. Reapers and Dragunovs. Anya in the middle, but not shielded, and that detail matters because it tells me she is not being treated like fragile cargo. She is being treated like someone whose presence has weight.
Inside the clubhouse, the large open room is lit but quieter, and the officers’ doors are closed along the wall. Mason doesn’t hesitate. He pushes open the church room door, and the sound of it is solid, final.
Long table. No windows. Iron Reapers emblem on the wall. This is where decisions get made. We file in, and Mason takes the head of the table automatically because this is his house and his people. Blade and Ghost take positions along the wall. Tank leans near the door, and he stays there like a barrier nobody asked for but everyone appreciates anyway. My shoulder throbs in time with my pulse, and I ignore it, because it is not the worst pain I have had and it is not the most important thing in the room.
The Dragunovs enter together, and the family dynamic is obvious even if you know nothing about them. Dmitri moves to Anya’s right like a guard dog that is pretending to be polite.Mikhail moves to her left like a diplomat who will still break your neck if you force his hand. Viktor stands behind them like gravity, and the men who came with them remain near the doorway and the corners with that quiet readiness that tells me they have done this before in other rooms, in other countries, with other outcomes.
Anya doesn’t sit and neither do I. Mason’s gaze flicks over the Dragunovs and then lands on me. “Start from the top, Riot,” he says, calm as ever, but there’s steel under it. “Tell us exactly what happened, and tell us what you saw, and then we’re going to decide what the next move is.”
I draw in a careful breath because my shoulder wants to argue, and because Anya is watching me like she is daring me to lie.
“I left Perdition,” I begin, and I keep my voice steady. “I took the backroads, because I didn’t want to run main streets, and because I needed to ride. I saw headlights in my mirror, and I didn’t think much of it at first, because county roads are county roads and people drive like they own them. Then they followed me through two turns, and then they closed distance when the road straightened, and then they started shooting.”
Dmitri’s eyes narrow slightly. “How many rounds.”
“Enough,” I answer. “I heard at least five, and I felt one catch my shoulder, and the bike went sideways on gravel when I tried to angle out of the line of fire. I went down hard, and they kept moving, and they didn’t even tap brakes. It wasn’t a robbery. It wasn’t random. It was a hit that didn’t finish the job.”
Mikhail’s voice stays calm. “And you returned fire.”
“I did,” I say. “I got two shots off, and I think I tagged one, but I’m not calling it confirmed, because they were already pullingaway and I wasn’t about to chase a black SUV on a wrecked bike.”
Viktor finally speaks again, and when he does, his tone is quiet but absolute. “This was not an amateur,” he says, and it isn’t a question.
“They weren’t clean,” Blade cuts in. “But they weren’t scared either.”
Mason’s jaw tightens. “So they wanted noise.”
“No,” Mikhail replies, and he looks at Mason like he’s aligning pieces on a board. “They wanted measurement. They wanted to see who moves, and how quickly, and with what force, and they wanted to see if you treat this as local trouble or as something bigger.”
Anya’s fingers curl at her sides, and she keeps her chin lifted. “They wanted to see if my father would respond to you getting shot,” she says, and her voice is controlled, but there’s heat under it. “Because if he does, then they learn something, and if he doesn’t, then they learn something else.”
