Cross wanted to drive a wedge between us. Wanted to make me afraid, make me pull away, make me protect myself by pushing Tyler out.
He'd miscalculated.
I pocketed the phone and headed for theshowers, a plan already forming in the back of my mind. Cross thought he could threaten the people I cared about and walk away clean. He thought his FBI training and his network connections made him untouchable.
We'd burn it all down. Together. And Cross would be the first thing to catch fire.
13
BREAKING POINT
TYLER
Sarah looked like hell warmed over, but her eyes were sharp. She was propped up in the medical bay bed, IV still attached, Rosa's handiwork visible in the clean bandages wrapped around her left arm. The hollow cheeks and prison pallor would take weeks to fade, but the woman underneath—the handler who'd believed me when no one else would—was still in there. Still fighting.
"Close the door." Her voice was rough from disuse. "What I'm about to tell you doesn't leave this room until you decide who needs to hear it."
I pulled the door shut behind me and crossed to the chair beside her bed. The medical bay was quiet now—Irish sedated in the next room, Declan discharged with instructions to keep his burns clean, the others treated and released. Kai had finally goneto find Axel, the exhaustion of the day written in every line of his body. Rosa was doing rounds somewhere, giving us privacy.
"How bad is it?"
"Worse than you think." Sarah shifted against her pillows, wincing at the movement. "The network isn't just about drug recycling. That's the revenue stream, but it's not the goal. Cross is building something bigger—a shadow infrastructure inside federal law enforcement. Agents, marshals, prosecutors, all on the payroll. People who can make evidence disappear, witnesses vanish, investigations stall."
"We knew some of that. The kill list?—"
"The kill list is cleanup. Loose ends." Sarah's expression darkened. "But the pharmaceutical operation—that's where the real damage is being done. They're not just recycling seized drugs back into circulation. They're cutting them. Mixing prescription medications with fentanyl and other synthetics to increase potency, increase addiction."
A cold weight settled in my chest. "That sounds like a recipe for?—"
"Overdoses. Deaths." Sarah's voice was flat, clinical, but I could see the fury burning beneath the surface. "The dosages are wildly inconsistent. One pill might be exactly what the label says. The next one in the same bottle might be ten times stronger. People who think they're taking their normal prescription—painkillers, anxiety meds, even ADHD medication—are dropping dead because they had the bad luck to swallow a pill that was cut wrong."
I thought about Danny Morrison. Tank's brother,found dead with a needle in his arm. A staged overdose, the kill list had said. But how many others hadn't been staged? How many had been accidents—collateral damage from a supply chain poisoned by greed?
"How many?" My voice came out rough.
"Hundreds. Maybe thousands by now—it's hard to track because the deaths look like accidents. Coroners write 'accidental overdose' on the death certificates. Families blame themselves for not seeing the signs. And the whole time, Cross and his people are counting their money while emergency rooms across six states deal with a surge in overdoses that nobody can explain."
Sarah's hand found my wrist, her grip weak but fierce.
"This is like Chen, Tyler. Different poison, same result. Every day that network operates, more people die. Families destroyed. Communities ravaged. And the men responsible sit in their federal offices, cashing their bribes, protected by the very badges that are supposed to keep people safe." Her eyes met mine. "When we took down Chen's trafficking ring, we saved lives. This is the same fight. Stopping Cross, dismantling this network—it's not just about justice or revenge. It's about all the people who will die tomorrow if we don't."
I nodded slowly, the weight of it settling into my bones. This wasn't just about Phoenix anymore. Wasn't just about Tyler versus Cross, or avenging Danny, or protecting the club. There were innocent people out there—people who trusted theirprescriptions, trusted the system—dying because of what Cross had built.
"There's more." Sarah's voice pulled me back. "Tyler, Cross knew you'd come for me. Not suspected—knew. He had the exact timing of your intercept planned down to the minute. He knew which route you'd take, how many men you'd bring, where you'd set up the ambush."
The words landed like stones in still water, ripples spreading outward.
"That's not possible. We planned the extraction overnight. There wasn't time for intel to leak."
"Unless the leak was already inside." Sarah's voice was gentle, but the implication was a knife. "Someone in your club is feeding Cross information. Has been for a while, probably. The bomb on your motorcycle—someone had to know which bike you were using, when you'd be riding it. The ambush at the transport—someone told Cross exactly when and where to position his counter-attack."
I thought about the bomb. The Sportster I'd been learning on, rigged with enough explosive to turn me into a memory. Tank had spotted the fuel leak, saved my life. But someone had known which bike to target. Someone who'd watched me ride it, day after day, during my lessons.
"How sure are you?"
"As sure as I can be without names." Sarah reached out, her hand finding my wrist. Her grip was weak but steady. "I spent three years building cases against networks like this. The pattern is unmistakable—Crossalways has someone on the inside. Always. It's how he operates."
The medical bay felt smaller suddenly, the walls pressing in. A mole. Someone inside Phoenix, breaking bread with us, watching us plan, and reporting everything back to Cross.
