Page 140 of Reckless

Nobody says anything as eyes drift back to the screen while the pieces start falling into a different order.

Nitro is the one who breaks it. “Montana?”

“Yeah.”

Something passes between Sin and Nitro, and it’s enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

They don’t look confused.

They look like two men watching pieces they’d been carrying separately finally lock together.

Montana’s Defiance chapter has been talking about strange activity on remote land holdings for years. It always came with more questions than answers, never enough for anyone to move on. Just enough to keep the conversation alive every time the chapters got together for Church.

“What?” I ask, because I’ve noticed the look, and I want it explained out loud.

Sin leans back in his chair, slow, working through something in his head before he says it, “We need to call Slate.”

Every head in the room turns toward him.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because if those properties are where I think they are,” Sin says, and his expression hardens in a way I don’t see often. “Montana’s been dealing with this a hell of a lot longer than we have.”

The men on the road belonged to Calloway. That part was never in question. What’s changing right now, in real time, in front of seven men who don’t rattle easily, is how far this actually goes.

I move to Sage’s break-in next because it belongs beside the road, not after it.

The motion sensor footage from the building across from Sage’s apartment fills the screen. It isn’t much. There are a few seconds of a figure crossing onto the external staircase, stopping at the rear door, trying the handle before disappearing back into the dark.

No face.

No plates.

No mistakes.

I let the footage run a second time. “Watch how he moves.” Every set of eyes stays on the screen. “No hesitation. He doesn’t rush it or waste a second looking around.” I pause the footage on the figure standing at Sage’s door. “He already knows where he’s going.”

Koa folds his arms. “You think it’s the same crew from the highway?”

“I’d bet money on it.”

Nobody says anything for a few seconds, and the silence stretches until Bear cuts through it. His voice is quiet, but his words aren’t. “He sent men to kill her. Then he sent someone to her home to finish what the men on the road couldn’t do.”

The words cut deeper than I expect, but I lock it down before it reaches my face. Church isn’t the place for reaction. It’s where problems get pulled apart, and decisions get made.

That doesn’t stop something ugly from twisting low in my gut.

One look around the room tells me I’m not carrying it alone. Sin’s jaw is tight, Bear has gone even quieter than usual, and Deek is sitting back with his arms folded so hard they look welded across his chest.

Every man in this room is thinking the same thing.

Calloway sees Sage as a threat to his bottom line. If he can take her out, Unsilenced becomes another organization he can add to his list of money pits to siphon from. But as long as she is there managing everything, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, he will never be able to take advantage of it.

Calloway crossed a line.

And now he’s going to see what it means when you cross Defiance for financial gain.

Sin sets his poker chip flat on the table, and I begin chewing on my toothpick. I know what that means before he says a word. Every man in the Chapel knows what it means. Sin has decided something has finally gone far enough that patience is no longer the strategy.