After that, I tried to ask more probing questions, but Tripp would always subvert or distract with ease so I didn’t even realize he hadn’t answered until hours later.
Tripp was no prospect—he had to be undercover law enforcement. But the realization raised more questions than answers. Why would a federal agent protecting an investigation help the club evade suspicion instead of allowing surveillance to continue? Why discourage reckless behavior rather than quietly encourage it?
Nothing added up. Tripp’s actions contradicted his presumed purpose as an undercover operative. Everything I’d known and trusted suddenly blurred, leaving me conflicted, angry, and deeply unsettled.
I’d wanted answers, and I’d intended to get them. One way or another.
The thing that kept eating at me now was that my suspicions had started before the raid, but I’d made too many excuses, not wanting to be right. Then this morning all the connected pieces finally fell into place. And the longer I stood there in the hallway outside Jax’s office, the clearer every fucking detail became.
Tripp and I had left the compound shortly after sunrise to check one of the secondary routes Kane planned to use during an upcoming race weekend. A couple of reports had come in about unfamiliar vehicles hanging around the area, and while none of it had been enough to send the club into a full response, it was enough for Kane to want eyes on the corridor before expensive equipment, security crews, and race transport started moving through it.
We’d ridden the route, stopped at access points, checked sightlines, and talked through weak spots the way we’d doneplenty of times before, with Tripp cracking jokes and giving me shit about taking notes when I had a photographic memory. I told him maybe if he paid attention, he’d learn something.
That was the part that scraped raw now. There were so many times when nothing about him had felt fake. Especially not this morning while we were out there. He’d been relaxed and irritating in the comfortable way a brother could be irritating when he knew exactly how far to push before getting punched. And despite being a prospect, he’d gotten away with pushing further than most because we’d built a deep friendship. Or so I’d thought.
When we were heading back toward Crossbend, we stopped near an abandoned service station to check a side road, and a group of riders rolled in like they’d been waiting for an excuse to start something. They weren’t locals I recognized, racers, or sure as fuck anyone with enough sense to understand whose territory they were sniffing around.
The argument had started with a couple of smart-ass comments, bruised egos, and men too stupid to realize being loud wasn’t the same thing as being dangerous. Tripp and I had remained calm and would have left them well enough alone if they hadn’t come at us with their bullshit bravado. They’d been itching for a fight. So eventually, we gave it to them.
A shove turned into a swing, the swing turned into bodies moving, and within seconds, the whole lot was nothing but boots grinding over gravel, fists cracking against bone, and curses ripping through the humid air. I drove one bastard backward into the rusted side of an old fuel pump hard enough to make the metal groan, then turned into another man coming at me from the left. Tripp fought beside me with his prospect cut shifting over his shoulders, and blood already smeared across one cheek from a split lip.
I never saw the knife before it went in. One second, I was throwing a punch, and the next, a heavy pressure punched deep into my side, followed by a hot, spreading burn that stole the air from my lungs.
At first, my body didn’t understand what had happened. Adrenaline kept everything sharp and distant at the same time, turning the noise around me into something muffled while my hand dropped instinctively to my ribs. When my fingers came away slick and red, reality settled fast. The wound wasn’t fatal yet, but it was deep enough that every beat of my heart pushed more blood through my shirt and into the palm I clamped against my side.
The fight ended not long after that. Whether the other group realized they were losing or decided a dead Redline King would bring more heat than they could survive, I didn’t know or care. My focus had narrowed to the burn under my ribs, the wet heat spreading beneath my shirt, and the effort it took to stay on my feet while the sun beat down on the back of my neck.
I’d taken injuries before. I knew the difference between something that hurt and something that needed attention before it became a real problem, and this was already sliding into the second category.
Tripp knew it too. He crouched in front of me, his face tight in a way I understood better now than I had then, his gaze dropping to the blood covering my hand before flicking back to my face. He’d taken a shallow cut along one forearm, nothing that couldn’t have waited until we rode back to the compound, but his eyes were locked on my side with the kind of focus a man got when he was making fast decisions and didn’t like any of them.
Both our phones had been damaged in the scuffle. Mine had been crushed under somebody’s boot, the screen spiderwebbed and dead, and Tripp’s had hit the pavement hard enough thatit wouldn’t turn on when he checked it. That should’ve been the end of our options until we got back to the bikes and rode like hell, except Tripp reached inside his cut and hesitated for one fraction of a second before pulling out a phone I’d never seen before.
The movement was small enough that most men would’ve missed it, especially while bleeding and leaning against a bike in the middle of a sunbaked lot, but I’d spent too many years watching people for tells not to catch it. The phone wasn’t a burner, a cheap backup, or anything a prospect should’ve had hidden on him during routine club work. It was the kind of high-end model I’d seen favored by government types who liked their toys expensive, secure, and nearly impossible to trace without the right access.
Even half-lightheaded from blood loss, I felt something cold settle beneath the pain. Tripp unlocked it with smooth efficiency, his thumb moving over the screen while his jaw hardened. And there was a flicker around his eyes that looked too much like guilt for me to ignore.
He covered it fast, burying whatever had slipped through behind the same calm competence he always wore when shit got bad. Then he called Cage, the club’s doctor, who we relied on instead of emergency services because it saved us a lot of questions, scrutiny, and paperwork bullshit.
Tripp relayed our location, my condition, and the fastest route back in a clipped voice that left no room for panic. At the time, I was too busy keeping pressure on my side and breathing through the burn to ask the questions forming in my head, but I didn’t stop watching him.
Luckily, we weren’t far out of town, and a couple of brothers showed up ten minutes later with an SUV and medical supplies. By the time we made it back to the compound, Cage awaited usin the clinic with his sleeves rolled up and a tray already set out under the bright overhead lights.
I sat on the edge of the exam table while Cage cut away enough of my shirt to get to the wound, his hands skilled as he cleaned the blood from my skin, checked the depth, and started stitching me back together with the calm focus that reminded everyone why he was one of the best trauma surgeons alive.
I barely heard half of what he said. The needle pulled through my skin, the antiseptic burned like a son of a bitch, and every breath tugged at the wound beneath Cage’s hands, but my attention kept drifting to Tripp. He stood near the counter, his posture easy enough to fool anyone not looking too closely. His dark shirt was streaked with dust, his lower lip split, his forearm bandaged, and his face unreadable in the harsh clinic light. What I didn’t see was the phone. Somewhere between the roadside and the clinic, the device had disappeared.
When Cage finished with me, I eased off the table with a muttered curse, pulling my ruined shirt down over the fresh bandage as carefully as I could. The stitches tugged beneath the dressing, sending a sharp pull through my side that made my jaw clench, but I kept my face clear and turned to Tripp like nothing about the morning had changed how I viewed him.
“Go handle whatever you’ve got left today. I need to talk to Cage for a minute.”
Tripp’s eyes held mine for a second longer than they should’ve. He nodded, gave Cage a quick thanks, and walked out of the clinic with his usual controlled stride, as though he hadn’t just pulled a secret fucking phone out of nowhere while I bled on the side of the road.
The moment the door shut behind him, Cage glanced up from cleaning instruments, his dark brows drawing together as he studied me. “What do you need?”
I shook my head, already moving carefully across the room as a hunch dug deep under my skin. “Something I need to discuss with Kane first.”
Cage watched me for a beat, then nodded and went back to his work. He didn’t push. We all knew when to ask questions and when implicit trust was needed. Especially if it involved talking to the prez first.
