I kiss her once. Hard. Claiming. "Let's go."
I leave the flowers exactly where they are.
The clubhouse is locked down when we arrive. Bar closed. Lights low. The room stripped to essentials.
Malachi's call went out before we came through the gates. The shift is immediate.
James locks the front door and checks it twice. Maggie finishes a careful circuit, cataloging faces, signals Malachi. People arrive in pairs. East and Darla together, his body angled over the curveof her belly. Ruby with a tablet, pulling data. Frankie with a mug and shadows under her eyes deeper than yesterday. Kyle and Rider, coiled and taut. Nash takes the wall nearest to the door, arms crossed.
Phoenix enters unhurried, McKenzie at his side. Felix peels off to the far wall, choosing sightlines over a chair.
The door opens again. A man I don't know walks in first. Broad, solid, scanning the room the way I scan rooms.
Phoenix gestures toward him. "Tobias. My head of security."
Sloane's hand crushes mine. I look at her. She's white-faced, staring at Tobias, one hand gripping the edge of the table.
"Sloane?"
"I know him," she breathes. "I went to him. Years ago. When I tried to get Anna out." Her throat works. "He tried to help me. We were too late."
Tobias finds Sloane across the room. He inclines his head. The kind of nod that carries years.
The door opens again. A woman steps through behind Tobias, smaller than I expected from Sloane's stories. Reserved. Eyes moving the way Sloane's used to in those first weeks. Cataloging exits. Measuring distance. But she walks in on her own legs, and when she finds Sloane, her chin lifts.
Sloane's whole body goes rigid beside me. "That's Anna," she whispers. "Knox, she's here."
"Yeah." I hold her hand. "She's here."
McKenzie catches my eye from across the room and tips her chin. Phoenix flew them in. That's all I need to know. Amelia enters last, attention sweeping the room.
The war room door closes with a clean, final sound.
Sloane and I take seats near the center. Her hand finds my thigh under the table before she's finished settling.
Malachi takes the head. He stands, both hands braced on the table. Looks around once, making sure every chair that should be filled is.
His attention lands on Phoenix. He nods. "You've got the floor."
"Chicago." Every spine in the room straightens. "It's where her father operates openly. Where the old Society still thinks it can function without scrutiny." Phoenix scans the table. "Which makes it the right place to end both. We finish the restructuring publicly. Cleanly. And we remove a man who's been hiding behind that structure for too long."
Sloane speaks, level and clear. "He showed up at the hospital. At the café. Now at our house. He's been watching us for at least a week. He grabbed me." Her voice stays even. Her hands lie flat on the table. "He's building toward something and waiting lets him choose when it happens."
Candace's fingers flatten against the table. "That means we choose first."
"This auction gets exposed," Phoenix continues. "Reframed. Used as the last act of a system that's dead."
"The venue?" Sloane asks.
"The Blackwell."
The air shifts beside me. Just a fraction. I feel it through the flannel she's wearing.
"I know it." Her voice sharpens. "My father used me as medical staff at three of his events. I came in through the east service entrance every time. They prep the girls two floors down. No windows. No clocks. I saw the service corridors, the staging areas, the flow they keep hidden from the main floors."
Anna stiffens across the table. Tobias's hand moves to the back of her chair.
"Exits?" I ask.
