We were damn lucky these fuckers hadn’t brought in any new prisoners recently, giving us the breathing room we needed to carefully map the place out. We’d been watching closely, knowing that when we made our move, it had to be precise and lethal. No mistakes. But the clock was ticking in the back of my head, a nagging feeling warning me that we were approaching our deadline.
My phone buzzed on the desk beside me, shattering the quiet concentration that had settled around me. I grabbed it, answering immediately when I saw Echo’s name flash across the screen.
“Rebel,” he barked without preamble, his voice tight with tension. “They brought someone new in last night. Surveillance caught him speaking, and there’s something familiar about his voice. But I can’t place the fucker. Wizard’s tied up right now. Skye’s sick, so he’s out. I’ll get Cruze to try to pull a visual from one of the feeds, but for now, all we’ve got is audio.”
I cursed softly under my breath, shoving the schematics aside as I grabbed my laptop. “Send it over. I’ll run voice recognition.”
I fired up the secure software, my fingers flying rapidly over the keys as the audio file Echo sent pinged in my inbox. I opened it and hit play, the static-filled sound filtering through the laptop speakers. At first, it was barely audible—just distant voices muffled by the walls. But then a man’s voice rose clearer, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Ice-cold recognition shot down my spine, making every muscle in my body coil tight. I knew that fucking voice, had heard it before in the shadows of a previous club operation, one that had nearly gone sideways and risked exposing some of the people we protected—whose new lives depended entirely on the secrecy we provided. The bastard they’d captured knew things we’d fought hard to keep buried. The threat had just gone from pressing to deadly fucking urgent in a single heartbeat.
“Fuck,” I growled, my voice rough with barely contained fury.
Echo caught the shift in my tone instantly. “You know him?”
“I’m positive it’s Pietro Sullivan,” I bit out, my fingers tightening on the phone until my knuckles ached.
"Wasn't he a client?” Echo asked, and I could practically hear his scowl in his voice.
“Yup. We dealt with that motherfucker three years ago. If it’s him, and he’s surfaced, he could out other cases and fuck with everything we’ve built.”
“King is gonna be on a warpath for that one,” Echo muttered.
I grunted in agreement. “We need to do this now. This isn’t a wait-and-see situation anymore.”
Understood,” Echo responded swiftly. “We’ll keep combing the audio to try and figure out where they are holding him in the facility. How are the schematics coming?”
“Got enough to make the breach. Coulda been more detailed, but this is bad enough that we need to end it fast.” My jaw clenched as I stood, already grabbing my jacket and keys. “Tell King I’m headed over. We have to shut this shit down ASAP.”
“Copy that,” Echo replied.
I disconnected, shoving the phone roughly into my pocket, my mind racing at a furious pace. The black site had just become an immediate threat to everything we stood for—our protection, secrecy, and fucking reputation. No way we’d let these motherfuckers keep operating on our territory, especially now that we knew they’d taken Sullivan. And whoever the fuck else they’d snatched.
As I stalked toward the door, I couldn’t help but think of Clara. Her soft, trusting expression and vulnerability. A surge of protectiveness tightened in my chest, hard and uncompromising. I needed to make sure she was safe and completely untouched by the storm that was about to hit.
The ride to the orchard was a blur, my mind laser-focused on the information Echo had delivered, every muscle in my body coiled tight with tension. The late afternoon sun was beginning to dip lower as my bike roared beneath me, eating up the miles back to Clara as my thoughts churned over the next moves the club would have to make.
I barely killed the engine before my phone vibrated in my pocket.
The screen flashed with Wizard’s name, and I immediately answered the call. The quiet background noise of his keyboard clicking rapid-fire behind his words. “Got the confirmation from Cruze. We’ve got a visual from the surveillance feed. I’m running facial recognition now.”
I clenched the phone tighter, my jaw tight as I paced a short distance away from Clara. “And?”
There was a short pause, the sound of Wizard’s fingers flying across the keys growing louder. I could almost picture him hunched over his desk, his eyes narrowed intently on the screens, tracking data faster than anyone I’d ever known.
When he finally spoke, the quiet fury simmering beneath his voice was unmistakable. “It’s who we thought. Confirmed it two ways through our databases.”
Ice shot down my spine, my grip on the phone tightening until my knuckles turned white. Sullivan was supposed to be locked down tight—buried in a secure location so deep and dark he’d never fucking resurface. And now here he was, captured and dragged into the middle of this shitstorm we’d uncovered right at our doorstep. If the assholes running this facility got even a hint of what he knew, lives we’d sworn to protect could be at risk, including our own.
“We need to move our asses,” I ground out roughly. “We gotta take this down tonight.”
“Agreed,” he replied gruffly. “Prez is already pulling everyone together. We’re meeting in thirty to finalize a plan. Echo, Kevlar, Cross, and Fallon are headed in now.”
“I’ll be there soon as I grab Clara. Want her secure in the clubhouse before we ride.”
Wizard grunted in agreement, then he hesitated before saying, “It’s the safest place for her. Trust that, or you’ll bedistracted, and all our asses will be vulnerable. Keep your head on straight, man. This is gonna get ugly.”
“It’s already ugly,” I growled. “Now we clean it the fuck up.”
