Alive.
For now. Relief hits so hard it almost hurts.
“Eli,” I try. His name comes out thin. He doesn’t move. “Eli.” Still nothing. My eyes burn, but I refuse to cry. Not yet. Not while they can hear me. Not while they might enjoy it. I look from him to the door, then around the room again, trying to gather something useful from nothing. Restraints. Door. Chair. Table. Concrete floor. No windows.Voices outside.
Eli alive but unconscious.
Me tied down.
No phone. No clothes. No way out. Not yet.
The words matter. Not yet. Because this isn’t random. I know that now. This isn’t some mistake or chance or wrong place, wrong time. They planned this. They waited. They watched. They knew Cobra was gone. They knew I’d moved. Maybe they knew I was with Eli. Maybe they counted on him not being enough. That thought hurts. Because Eli fought. I saw it. I heard it. He tried. And now he’s bleeding against a wall because I wanted to buy Cobra a birthday present.
My throat tightens again.
No. Not now.
Guilt can come later if I live long enough to carry it. Right now, I need to stay alive.
The door handle rattles. My entire body goes still. The voices outside quiet. A shadow crosses the thin line of light under the door.
I don’t scream. Everything in me wants to. My lungs burn with it. My throat tightens around it. But I don’t give them that.
I turn my head toward the door, force my breathing into something close to steady, and hold on to the only thing I can.
I’m still alive.
I need to stay that way.
The link comes through on Dom’s laptop. Not my phone. Not Logan’s.
Dom’s.
That matters. They’re not guessing anymore. They’re not sending shadows or half threats through buried routes and burner chatter. They’re reaching into the clubhouse, into our systems, into the center of the room where they know we’ll all be looking. The message appears on the screen in a clean black box.
For the biker.
No name. Doesn’t need one.
Every man in Logan’s office goes still.
Dom’s fingers hover over the keyboard, but he doesn’t click it yet. His jaw is locked tight enough that the muscle jumps near his temple. Logan stands behind him, arms braced on the desk, eyes fixed on the screen. Cain is near the door, Shadow beside him, Hammer at the window, Joker against the wall, Blaze halfway between me and Dom like he already knows someone is going to have to move fast.
Me.
He knows it’s me.
I stand behind Dom’s chair. Still. Empty. There is no sound in my head now. No blood rush. No thought breaking apart. Just the link. Just the words.
For the biker.
Logan looks at me. “Cobra.”
I don’t look back. “Open it.”
Dom’s throat works once. “I can try to sandbox it first. If it’s a tracker, if it’s—”
“Open it.”
