Page 143 of Reckless

I let the ownership chart sit on the screen for another second. “That’s what I haven’t answered.” I exhale slowly. “I can prove he’s connected.” I tap the screen once. “I can’t prove what he is.”

Slate scratches thoughtfully through his beard. “Could be runnin’ the whole damn thing.”

“Could be.”

“But could also be answerin’ to somebody else,” Slate offers.

I shrug. “Could be.”

Static lets out a low grunt. “Hell of a lotta coulds.”

“Yeah.” I nod once. “Which is why I’m not guessing.”

Slate scratches thoughtfully through his beard. “Reckon it don’t much matter.”

Koa looks over. “How do you figure?”

Slate shrugs one shoulder. “Top, middle, bottom…” His eyes stay on the ownership chart. “He’s still part of it.”

“And that’s enough,” Sin states. Every eye shifts toward him. “Ghost’s proved the connection. That’s all I need to put Calloway in the chair…” I look up. “Ghost, you put every piece of this on one tablet.” He taps the photograph of my bike sitting beside the paperwork. “Everything.”

I nod once. “It’ll be ready.”

Sin’s gaze moves around the room before settling briefly on the screen where Slate and the Montana chapter still watch. “Calloway gets one chance to explain himself.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Static asks.

The corner of Sin’s mouth almost moves. “Then he explains himself to the barrel of my gun.”

The room settles into silence again.

Not in uncertainty, in decision.

The photograph of my bike still lies on the table.

The grainy image of the figure outside Sage’s apartment still hangs on the screen.

Nobody looks away from either.

Not one of us is thinking about paperwork anymore.

Somebody hunted one of ours.

Now we’re hunting back.

Church breaks a little after six, and I find Sage exactly where I expect to, at my workstation, surrounded by the regulatory complaint documentation she’s been building since yesterday. She doesn’t look up when I walk in. She keeps reading, highlighting, making notes, attacking the paperwork with the same determination she’s brought to every problem since the day I met her.

She is scared.

She is working anyway.

I pull a chair up beside her instead of taking the one across the table.

The files spread between us until the timber disappears beneath legislation, funding reports, and handwritten notes, each new page carrying another piece of the puzzle we’d spent the better part of two days trying to pull apart.

Hours slip by without either of us noticing.

The clubhouse grows quieter around us as brothers drift off to bed one by one. Doors close, footsteps fade overhead, and somewhere outside, a bike rolls through the front gate before the engine finally falls silent.