Axel appeared at Hawk's shoulder. He moved with the same coiled readiness as Hawk—shoulders squared, jaw set, the stance of a soldier preparing for an unpleasant duty.
"I can help with the interrogation." His voice waslow, pitched for Hawk's ears only, but I was close enough to hear. "We did this kind of thing in the teams. I know the techniques."
Hawk's jaw tightened. For a moment, something passed between them—old memories, maybe, from whatever unit they'd served in together. Whatever Hawk saw in Axel's face made him shake his head slowly.
"No. This one's mine." He turned toward the clubhouse, then paused. "Keep everyone out of the basement. No matter what you hear."
He walked inside without looking back.
The compound went quiet.
The hours crawled past. Tyler and I retreated to my room, but sleep was impossible. The compound was on edge—members clustered in small groups, speaking in low voices, everyone waiting for Hawk to emerge with news. Nobody knew what was happening in the basement, and the not-knowing was almost worse than knowing would have been.
From somewhere deep in the clubhouse, sounds rose that I tried not to hear. Tried not to think about. Hawk did what needed to be done. He always had, since our military days. Some questions only had ugly answers.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, my body wired with adrenaline that had nowhere to go. Tyler was beside me, close enough that I could feel theheat of him, but not quite touching. We'd showered—separately this time, out of necessity rather than preference—and changed into clean clothes. Now we were just... waiting.
"You did good out there." My voice sounded rough, unused. "The shortcut. The positioning. All of it."
Tyler shifted, turning onto his side to face me. The afternoon light caught the fading bruise on his cheekbone—a souvenir from the extraction that I'd barely noticed until now. "I remembered what you taught me."
"I taught you how to ride. The tactical stuff—that was all you."
"FBI training." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Some of it actually stuck."
"More than some." I turned my head, meeting his eyes. "When you took that gap between the boulders—the one barely wide enough for your handlebars—I've been riding for twenty years, and I'm not sure I would have tried that."
"Desperation makes you stupid."
"That wasn't desperation. That was instinct. Good instinct." I reached over, traced my thumb along the edge of his jaw. "You're not the same person who got on the back of my bike two weeks ago. That guy was scared. Careful. Holding himself back because he'd been taught that taking risks meant getting hurt."
Tyler's expression shifted—something vulnerable flickering beneath the exhaustion. "Cross spent three years teaching me that my instincts werewrong. That I couldn't trust my own judgment. That every independent thought I had was dangerous."
"He was wrong."
"I know that now." Tyler's hand came up to cover mine, pressing my palm against his cheek. "I know it because of you. Because you never tried to make me smaller. You just... gave me space to figure out who I am when I'm not afraid."
The words hit me somewhere deep, in a place I'd walled off years ago after Danny died. I'd failed my brother. Failed to see what he needed, failed to be there when it mattered. But maybe—maybe I could do better this time. Maybe I could be the person Tyler needed, the partner he deserved.
"After this is over." Tyler's voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. "When Cross is dealt with and Sarah is safe and we're not running from crisis to crisis—I want to take you somewhere. Somewhere that isn't about survival or club business or anything except us."
"Like where?"
"I don't know. Somewhere with a beach, maybe. Or mountains. Anywhere I can wake up next to you without wondering if today's the day everything falls apart."
I rolled onto my side, facing him fully. Reached up to trace the line of his jaw, feeling the slight rasp of stubble beneath my fingers. In the afternoon light filtering through the blinds, his brown eyes flecked with gold I'd never noticed before. Or maybe I just hadn't let myself look closely enough.
"That sounds good." My voice came out rougherthan I intended. "A beach. You in swim trunks. Nothing trying to kill us."
"Romantic."
"I'm working on it."
He laughed—a real laugh, tired and strained but genuine. The sound loosened something in my chest that had been wound tight since Vince ran.
"I mean it," I continued. "When this is done. The coast, maybe—there's a stretch of beach up near Big Sur that I've always wanted to see. Rent a cabin for a week. Do nothing but swim and sleep and..."
"And?"
