"They want everything." Hawk met my eyes. "But they're not coming at us direct. They're being smart about it—legal pressure, business competition, the kind of slow squeeze that's hard to fight without looking like the aggressors."
"Legal pressure." Axel's voice had gone hard. "They've got backing."
It wasn't a question. We all heard what Hawk wasn't saying—no MC moved this confidently into established territory without serious protection. Money, connections, the kind of institutional support that made local law enforcement look the other way.
"Federal backing," Hawk confirmed. "Same network that was protecting Chen. They've got friends in high places, and those friends want us gone."
The silence returned, heavier this time. We'd thought we'd won. We'd thought burning down Devil's Dust meant something. But the rot went deeper than one trafficking operation, deeper than one corrupt agent. We'd cut off a head, and the body had grown another.
"There's something else." Hawk's voice dropped lower, and something cold settled in my stomach. "Their VP. Man named Marcus Cross."
The sound came before I registered its source—a sharp intake of breath, almost a gasp, from the far end of the table. Tyler had gone rigid in his seat, every line of his body suddenly taut, his face draining of color so fast it looked like he'd been struck.
His hands had started trembling where they rested on the table. I could see it from here—the fine vibration in his fingers, the white of his knuckles as he gripped the edge of the wood.
Hawk noticed. Of course he did—nothing happened in this room that Hawk didn't see.
"You know him." It wasn't a question.
Tyler didn't answer immediately. His throatworked, a swallow that looked painful. The room had gone completely still, every eye fixed on him, waiting.
"Yeah." His voice came out rough, scraped raw. "I know him."
"Care to share with the class?"
The look Tyler gave Hawk was something I'd never seen from him before—not the careful neutrality, not the calculated cooperation. This was naked, desperate, a man watching a wound he'd thought healed tear itself back open.
"Cross was my partner." The words seemed to cost him. "FBI. We worked undercover together for four years before I got assigned to Chen." He stopped, breathed, and the next words seemed to cost him something vital. "He's the reason I took the assignment. The reason I stayed in as long as I did."
Kai leaned forward. "Tyler?—"
"We were together." The admission fell into the silence like a stone into still water. "Not just partners. Together. For three years."
The room processed that. I watched it happen—the slight shifts in posture, the exchanged glances, the recalibration of understanding.
"What happened?" Axel asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"He changed." Tyler's laugh was hollow, brittle. "Or maybe he'd always been that way and I was too blind to see it. He started taking money. Looking the other way on things that should have ended careers. By the time I realized how deep it went, he'd already sold his soul." His hands had steadied, but his eyeswere distant, lost in memories he clearly wished he could forget. "The Chen assignment was my out. A chance to disappear into something bigger, something that mattered. Cross didn't take it well."
"He let you go?" Irish sounded skeptical.
"He didn't have a choice. Orders came from above him. But he made it clear we weren't done." Tyler's gaze finally focused, finding Hawk's. "That was eight months ago. If he's here now, with the Wolves, it's not coincidence. He's here for me."
The room erupted—questions, concerns, strategic calculations flying faster than I could track. Irish wanted to know about Cross's capabilities. Blade was already calculating security vulnerabilities. Ghost was asking about the FBI angle, whether Cross still had access to federal resources.
But I wasn't listening to the words. I was watching Tyler.
The way his shoulders had curled inward, defensive. The fine tremor in his jaw that suggested he was holding himself together through sheer force of will. The way his eyes had gone somewhere far away, somewhere painful, somewhere he'd probably spent months trying to escape.
I'd seen men break before. Watched them shatter under pressure, fold under fear. Tyler wasn't breaking—not yet. But he was close. Closer than I'd ever seen him, even during the war with Chen.
The meeting broke three hours later, and I escaped to the only place that made sense: the garage.
The sun had begun its descent toward the western hills, painting the sky in shades of amber and vermillion, turning the mountains to silhouettes against the dying light. I didn't bother with the overhead fluorescents—just flicked on the work lamp and walked to the far bay where my personal project waited.
The 1972 Shovelhead sat in pieces, patient as always. I'd been rebuilding her for the better part of a year, slowly undoing the damage inflicted by a previous owner who'd had more enthusiasm than skill. New pistons, rebuilt transmission, the frame stripped and repowdered in flat black that absorbed light like a hungry void.
I ran my hands over the tank—still bare metal, waiting for paint I hadn't decided on—and let the familiar geometry of the machine settle into my bones. Cylinder heads. Rocker boxes. Pushrod tubes. Components that made sense, that followed rules.
