“Luke,” she whispers, like his name tastes poisonous now.
I nod once. “Luke.”
Her mouth trembles. “I thought he liked me.”
I can’t stop the low sound that leaves my throat. “He liked what he could sell.”
Ruby flinches, and I regret the bluntness immediately.
I lower my voice. “That’s on him. It isn’t on you.”
She swallows hard. “How did you even… how did you know?”
I take a slow breath.
Here it is. The part where I either sound crazy or say too much.
“I follow money,” I tell her. “That’s my job.”
She frowns slightly. “Your job?”
I glance toward the window, then back at her.
“I’m the treasurer for the Damned Saints. We’re based in Lovestone Ridge.”
Her eyes widen a little. The Damned Saints aren’t exactly a secret around here. People talk. People whisper.
Sometimes they smile when they say our name.
Sometimes they cross the street.
“You’re… a biker,” she says, her voice catching on the word.
“Yeah.”
Her gaze drifts over me like she’s seeing the full picture now. The ink on my arms. The scars. The kind of body that comes from years of doing hard things instead of talking about them.
“And you were there because of… money?”
“Money trail,” I say. “Velvet Reign looked clean from the outside. The numbers said different. Something was off. Illegal.”
She stares down into her tea. “So you were going to stop it.”
“We were going to plan it.”
Her head snaps up. “Plan it?”
My jaw tightens.
“We save girls,” I say. The words come out rougher than I mean. “But we do it right. So nobody gets caught in the crossfire. So we get more than one out.”
Her fingers curl around the mug. “And tonight?”
Tonight I saw you.
Tonight my body moved before the plan could catch up.
I hold her gaze.
