Out back, a concealed bay built to swallow a bike whole and hide it from anyone who comes looking.
I paid for the place in cash through a name that isn’t mine, because that’s part of my job.
Treasurer.
Numbers.
Paper trails.
Making sure the club stays alive without letting the wrong people find the bones.
Havoc says I’ve got the kind of brain that makes boring look dangerous.
He’s the president.
He sees everything.
He speaks when it matters.
Tonight mattered.
The money trail started three weeks ago.
Velvet Reign.
New name. Old money behind it.
Salazar Huntington.
Blade crossed paths with him last month and dropped him hard enough that the message traveled. Salazar’s family runs clubs all over Blissmont County. VIP rooms. Product. Everything clean on paper until you look close enough to see the rot underneath.
So we started watching him.
A bartender who owed us stashed guns in a storage box the day before. Security wouldn’t allow weapons inside, and if things went bad, we wanted to be the only ones who could reach one.
We went in tonight to observe.
Map the exits.
Clock the security.
Figure out who was really in charge.
We went in to build a plan.
Then I saw her.
Her face under those lights, trying to hold herself together while men turned her into a number.
And the plan burned.
I pull up to the safe house and kill the engine in the trees’ shadow.
Silence hits hard.
Ruby doesn’t move right away.
She stays pressed to my back, arms still around me, like if she lets go she’ll end up back under those lights.
