“Before you go,” I said, “I’ve been working on something. Let me show you something.”
He looked at the folder, then at me, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “What is it?”
“Please don’t be mad at me. With all my free time, I like to be a sleuth.” I took a breath, popped the clasp, and laid the contents on the table. “I know you said you wanted to handle things your own way. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the timeline. About what happened to your father. And your mother. The Sultans, the other crews—they’re just fronts for something bigger. And I think I found it.”
He frowned, skepticism carved deep, but he sat down and spread the papers between us.
I pointed at the first page: a printout from a Turkish business registry, a shell company registered to an alias thathad come up in both the Syria bombing and in the LA Sultans chapter’s taxes. “The club your father tangled with overseas? It’s the same group running the Sultans out of Albuquerque now. Same people, same funding. They’re just using different names.”
Dean’s hand shook as he flipped the page. He saw the photo I’d found—a grainy surveillance still of two men outside a battered warehouse. One wore a patch he’d know anywhere. The other wore a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“They killed your father. And now they’re here.”
He exhaled, so quiet it might’ve been a prayer. “You sure?”
I met his eyes. “I’m sure.”
He read every word twice. I watched as the information sank in, the anger slow and methodical instead of explosive. He didn’t slam the table or curse. He just sat, silent, pressing his thumb so hard into his palm I thought he’d break the skin.
“They’re not just after turf,” I said, voice low. “They want to prove they can take anything from anyone.”
He nodded, not looking up. “They already did.”
We sat together in the heat and the dark, the storm’s aftertaste hanging in the air.
He closed the folder, slid it back toward me. “Why’d you do this?” he asked.
I shrugged, feeling a strange heat rise to my face. “You needed to know. And maybe I needed to do something for you that mattered.”
Dean leaned forward, elbows on his knees, face close to mine. “You ever think maybe you’re too good for this shit?”
I almost laughed. “I’m not. I just hide it better than you do.”
He smiled, a raw, ruined thing, then sobered. “If I don’t come back tonight—”
“You will,” I said, not sure if it was a lie or a dare. “But if you don’t, you want me to feed the dog?”
He laughed, but it was all edge. “Yeah. And don’t let her on the couch.”
“I won’t.”
He started to get up, then hesitated. “Thanks, Em. For this. For not running when you could’ve.”
“I don’t run,” I said.
He looked at me like he wanted to say more, but didn’t. He stood, tucked the helmet under his arm, and hitched the jacket tight around his chest. The dog tags glinted in the kitchen light.
At the door, he paused. I thought maybe he’d reach for my hand, or for a kiss, or some other gesture you saw in the movies. Instead, he just let his fingers brush my wrist, quick as a heartbeat. “Don’t open for anyone but me,” he said.
I nodded. “Just try not to die.”
He gave me that smile again, then disappeared down the hall.
I watched from the window as he mounted his bike, rainwater still pooling on the seat. He started the engine and let it idle for a long moment, the sound vibrating up through the concrete. Then he took off, taillight red as a wound, vanishing into the clean, wet dark.
Inside, I sat on the floor with the folder open in front of me, the fan clicking overhead.
I thought about what it meant to be family, about who you trusted to watch your back, about the things you saved and the things you buried. I thought about Dean, and the men he’d be facing, and the odds of him coming home in one piece.
