He kissed me—slow, thorough, the kind of kiss that made promises neither of us said out loud. His hand slid up my back, fingers tracing the ridge of my spine, and I let myself sink into it. Into him. Into this fragile, impossible thing we were building between gunfights and grief.
When we finally broke apart, the light through the blinds had shifted from gray to pale gold. Thecompound was waking up around us—distant voices, the clang of metal, someone's bike rumbling to life.
"Now we really need to move."
Church was packed by the time we arrived. Every seat at the long table was filled, with more brothers standing along the walls—Reno, Santos, Marco, faces I'd learned to put names to over the past weeks. The air was thick with tension, the kind you could feel pressing against your skin, making it hard to breathe. No one spoke above a murmur. Hawk stood at the head of the table, his massive frame blocking the morning light from the window behind him.
Beside him sat Maria with their twin girls on her lap.
That was wrong. Maria never came to church. The girls—dark-haired little things, maybe four years old, with their father's fierce eyes—never came to the clubhouse at all if Hawk could help it. He kept them separate from club business, protected in a way that spoke to the violence he'd seen and the violence he expected.
The fact that they were here now said everything about what was coming.
"First order of business." Hawk's voice cut through the murmur of conversation, silencing the room. "Maria and the girls are leaving this morning. They'll be at the safehouse until this is over."
Maria's face was carefully blank, but I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her arms tightened around her daughters. One of the girls—Elena, I thought, though I couldn't tell the twins apart—reached up to touch her mother's face, sensing the mood even if she didn't understand it.
"I'm not sending my men into a potential ambush while my family sits exposed." Hawk's jaw was set, his eyes hard as granite. "If Cross knows about the assault—and we have to assume he might—he could hit the compound while we're in Reno. I won't risk that."
No one argued. The weight of what he wasn't saying hung in the air: if the worst happened, if none of them came back, at least his family would be safe. At least they wouldn't be here to see it.
Blade stood near the door, arms crossed over his broad chest, his expression grim. He caught my eye and gave a slight nod—respect, acknowledgment, something that hadn't been there a week ago. Whatever reservations he'd had about me, they'd been settled in blood and gunfire. I nodded back.
"Cruz, Diesel—you're on escort duty. Get them to the safehouse and stay there until you hear from me directly. Not radio, not phone. Me, in person, or one of my officers with the code word."
"What's the code word?" Cruz asked.
"Maria will tell you when you're clear of the compound." Hawk's voice softened, just slightly, as he looked at his wife. "Go. We'll handle church without you."
Maria rose, gathering the girls—both of themawake now, wide-eyed and confused. Sophia clung to her mother's neck while Elena reached for her father, small fingers grasping at air. Hawk bent down, pressed a kiss to each daughter's forehead, then straightened to meet his wife's eyes.
Whatever passed between them was silent, private, but the weight of it filled the room. Three years together, two children, a life built in the shadow of this club—and now she was walking out the door not knowing if she'd see him again.
Maria rose on her toes and kissed him, brief but fierce. Then she was gone, the door closing behind her with a sound that felt too final.
Hawk watched the door for a long moment. When he turned back to the table, the brief vulnerability had vanished, replaced by cold command.
"Now. Let's talk about Reno."
The plan was straightforward—which worried me.
According to Vince's intel, Cross's shipment would arrive at a warehouse outside Reno in three days. Cross himself would be there to oversee the transfer, along with a security detail of maybe fifteen men. The warehouse was isolated, sitting at the end of a dirt road with nothing around it for miles.
"Perfect for an ambush," Blade observed, echoing my own thoughts. "Them ambushing us, I mean."
"Which is why we're not going in blind." Hawk'spalm flattened on the map spread across the table. "Tank, Tyler—you're running reconnaissance. I want eyes on that warehouse before we commit to anything. Entry points, patrol patterns, security measures, anything that looks wrong."
Tank nodded beside me. "When do we leave?"
"Now. Scout today, report back tomorrow. Radio silence unless absolutely necessary—we can't risk Cross picking up chatter." Hawk's gaze swept the room. "The rest of you, prep for a full assault. We hit that warehouse in seventy-two hours regardless of what recon turns up. If Cross is there, we end this. If it's a trap, we spring it on our terms."
"And if it's both?" Axel's voice was quiet, thoughtful.
"Then we make sure we're the ones who walk out." Hawk's eyes found mine across the table. "Tyler. You know Cross better than anyone. What's your gut telling you?"
Every head turned toward me. A week ago, that scrutiny would have made me want to disappear. Now I met their gazes steadily, drawing on everything I'd learned about Cross over three years of hell.
"It's a trap." The words came out certain, clinical. "The intel is too clean. Cross doesn't make mistakes like leaving a mole who knows his operational details. He wanted us to capture Vince. He wanted us to interrogate him. He fed us exactly what he needed us to know."
