I was close. I was so close.
Love you, Luce.
– C
I stared at it for a long time. My ears rang, hands shook, and my eyes burned with tears.
Then I plugged the flash drive into my laptop. It took a few minutes to open. Files. Documents. Names. Something I thought may have been export logs. Surveillance photos—one of them showing Gage in the backroom of possibly a Fang bar, exchanging cash with a man I didn’t recognize. The timestamp was two weeks before Caleb died. I clicked through quickly, breath catching in my throat, causing me to cough.
There was more. Arms deals. Payoffs written in Caleb’s handwriting with the amounts below. A map with what I assumed were shipment routes drawn in black marker. I would have to take it to Jay to know for sure what all of it meant.
And there was a name, circled twice in red ink.
Gage.
I sat back, feeling sick as my stomach turned.
Gage wasn’t only the club’s enforcer—he was in Caleb’s photos at the Fang meetups.
He was the rat.
I shut the laptop and stood, blood roaring in my ears. “Why don’t I understand any of it?” I asked myself out loud as I paced.
Then I froze when I noticed the front door was open a crack. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. Jay had slammed it closed when he left.
I reached slowly for the gun under my pillow. “Who’s there?” I called out, trying to add steel to my voice that I didn’t feel.
Footsteps thundered outside, confirming my suspicion that someone had followed us back.
I backed towards the window, putting as much distance between me and the door that I could, every nerve on fire.
Outside, a motorcycle revved then drove off, but I couldn’t see it from the window, and it was too fast to catch in my car. But it was not fast enough to silence the message they were trying to deliver.
I made sure the door was locked and closed the curtains. Dragging back the rug, I pried up a floorboard and shoved the box underneath, sealing it out of sight.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and my chest was still heaving from the adrenaline. Someone knew I had Caleb’s files. Someone was watching.
And the worst part? The only person I could turn to, the only person I needed, was the one man I’d sworn I would never trust again.
I needed Jay.
I couldn’t wait until morning. I quickly took a shower and dried off then pulled on a dress. I was sick of them seeing me as Caleb's shadow in jeans and his hoodie. That night, they would see me for me.
Chapter 21
Reaper
Ididn’t think she’d come back. Not after the motel. Not after throwing Caleb’s death at my feet like I hadn’t carried that weight every damn day since we put him in the ground.
Her words still echoed, jagged and raw.“If you cared half as much as you pretend to, maybe Caleb wouldn’t be dead.”
That hurt deeper than I let her see, because part of me believed it too.
So, when the door creaked open that night, I felt it before I even turned. Lucy. Storming in like she always did, dragging the air with her.
Of course, Gabby was on my lap when it happened, one arm looped lazily around my shoulders. Her perfume was too sweet, her lips brushing my ear as she laughed at something I hadn’t heard. I hadn’t touched her, but I hadn’t pushed her off either.
The second Lucy stepped inside, this time dressed in a long white dress that clung to her tits then fanned out from the waist, her black boots thudded on the floor as she walked. Fuck if I couldn't help it, but my cock twitched as visions of her bent over, dress yanked up invaded my mind. Her eyes locked on me, andI saw it. The flicker in her jaw, the stiff set of her shoulders. She hated it, and I hated that it mattered to me.
