Tonight I need sleep.
Except sleep won't come easy when my mind keeps circling back to the same problem. Cole Holloway with his lethal awareness and his violence held in perfect check. The way he assessed me with the same efficiency he probably uses to assess targets. Threat level, capabilities, vulnerabilities.
Reading me like I was reading him, calculating responses before I finished speaking. The calluses on my hands that he noticed, the stance he clocked, the cover story about riding that he saw straight through within seconds.
He knows I'm not just another federal agent serving warrants. Knows I understand MC culture from the inside. Probably suspects I've gone undercover before based on how I carried myself in his clubhouse, how I didn't flinch when he stepped into my personal space testing my reaction.
He's a smart man. Observant. Lethal.
And complicating everything I'm trying to maintain professionally, attractive in ways that trigger responses I locked down years ago. Not the safe kind of attractive. The dangerous kind. The kind that comes from recognizing a predator and feeling your body respond to the threat instead of running from it.
Three years undercover with the Devils MC taught me to recognize the appeal of dangerous men. Taught me to fake attraction when necessary, suppress it when inconvenient, weaponize it when useful. UC work requires compartmentalization. You feel what you need to feel to maintain cover, then you walk away and feel nothing at all.
Cole Holloway isn't my cover. He's my subject. The investigation requires objective assessment, evidence-based conclusions.
Not whatever the hell my body decided to feel when I handed him my business card and his fingers brushed mine with deliberate precision.
Not the way my pulse kicked up when he held my gaze and told me the Iron Brotherhood had nothing to hide—knowing full well he was lying, and knowing I knew he was lying, and not giving a damn because he'd already calculated how to stay three moves ahead.
Not the awareness that settled low in my stomach when I watched him move through his clubhouse with the confidence of a man who knows exactly who he is, what he's capable of, and how much damage he can do if you push him hard enough.
The motel bathroom mirror shows someone who looks harder than twenty-nine should look. Three years UC ages you in ways that don't show in photographs. Scars from playing the role, memories I'd rather forget, reflexes that don't translate well to polite society.
I also have skills that make me very good at my job. Reading people, recognizing lies, understanding criminal organizations from the inside out.
The Devils MC taught me more about outlaw culture than any academy class could. Taught me what real criminality looks like when it wears patches and rides motorcycles.
The Iron Brotherhood doesn't match that pattern.
Devils MC ran drugs, guns, protection rackets. Used violence casually, treated women like property, maintained power through intimidation and fear. Three years watching that culture from the inside left marks I'll carry forever.
The Iron Brotherhood has prospects who defer respectfully, Brothers who wear their patches with obvious pride, a memorial wall honoring fallen members. Their clubhouse shows years of genuine brotherhood—worn furniture sat in during countless meetings, photos documenting rides and events and celebrations. Community involvement. Legitimate businesses.
Either they're very good at maintaining cover, or they're exactly what they appear to be—veterans who found family in MC culture and built something worth protecting.
The evidence suggests someone's using their business for illegal purposes. It doesn't necessarily mean the club knows. Could be one member acting alone. Could be an employee with access to shipping systems. Could be someone external who's figured out how to exploit their operations.
Or it could be the whole club working together with military efficiency to traffic weapons while maintaining the appearance of legitimacy.
I won't know until I dig deeper.
I set the alarm for six and climb into bed. The mattress is adequate, the pillows too soft, the room too quiet after years of sleeping with background noise. Silence feels wrong. Makes it too easy to think instead of rest.
My mind won't stop circling back to Cole. The way he stood between me and that back hallway. His responses that gave away nothing while appearing cooperative. The awareness that comes from years of training that doesn't fade just because you trade military service for civilian life.
The training that includes how to extract information, how to resist interrogation, how to kill efficiently and live with it after.
Special operations veterans learn interrogation resistance. They learn things darker than that—how to interrogate others, how to break people without leaving marks, how to maintain cover under pressure that would shatter most men.
They learn how to protect classified information, how to present exactly the facade they want observers to see. If Cole's hiding criminal activity, he's got the training to do it successfully and the moral flexibility to sleep soundly after.
If he's protecting legitimate operations from federal overreach, he's got the same training to maintain that protection, and I suspect he'd be willing to cross lines to keep his Brothers safe. Legal lines. Ethical lines. The kind of lines that separate operators from civilians.
Which means I need to be better. Smarter. More thorough than he expects.
Two weeks to build a case that either proves the Iron Brotherhood is trafficking weapons or eliminates them as suspects. Two weeks to find evidence that might lead to whoever killed Blake. Two weeks to determine whether Cole Holloway is a criminal I need to arrest or a veteran I need to protect from whoever's using his club.
And somewhere in the middle of all that professional responsibility, I need to figure out why a man I met for less than an hour this morning is the last thing I think about before falling asleep.
