I look at Ryder.
He doesn’t flinch.
“When another member of our club died,” Zane continues, “Ryder decided to pull back. Clean things up. Go legitimate. Buy The Hollow.”
“And Cole?” I ask.
“Saw it as betrayal,” Ryder says flatly.
“Betrayal, how?” I press. “You left a club. Is that not allowed?”
Finn lets out a humorless laugh. “In theory.”
“In that world,” Ryder says, “leaving is a statement.”
“Which says?”
“That you think you’re better,” Finn replies. “That you’re done with the rules everyone else is still playing by.”
“And that,” Zane adds, “makes you a problem.”
I absorb that.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “So he’s mad at you. I get that. But I’m not you.”
Ryder’s eyes flick to me. “We told you… Someone must have seen you with Finn, and that puts you at risk.”
“Because I slept with Finn?” I ask bluntly.
Finn chokes on his coffee. “Wow. We’re doing this at breakfast.”
“Yes, we are,” I reply.
Ryder doesn’t blink. “And he thinks you’re connected.”
“Connected,” I repeat. “To what? A bar?”
“To us,” Finn says quietly.
“He doesn’t need you to bemine,” Ryder says. “He just needs you to be under my roof. With my people.”
The room stills.
“But the truck was outside my cabin. Not here. What if I was targeted separately?”
Zane shakes his head slightly. “Unlikely. Unless you’d noticed something like that before you met Finn. In any case, once you were seen with us, the variables changed.”
“Variables,” I echo. “I love when my life becomes math.”
Finn rubs a hand over his face. “Cole plays pressure. Fear. Isolation. He doesn’t just hit you. He squeezes.”
“He wants Ryder rattled,” Zane says.
“And hurting something close to him does that,” Finn finishes.
Silence again.
I stare at my plate.
