Page 172 of Reckless

Brothers have already spread back into position, each exit covered, every weapon in the room sitting in Defiance’s hands.

Silence settles over the warehouse, broken only by the ragged breathing of the two guards still trying to work out where it all went wrong.

Sin brushes a fleck of concrete dust from the front of his cut before lifting his eyes to Calloway. “You done?” The question hangs there for a beat.

Calloway slowly straightens what’s left of his jacket, tugging the torn sleeve back into place as though dignity can be stitched together with a quick pull of the cuff. He rolls his shoulders once, lifts his chin, and makes his way back to the table under the weight of every set of eyes in the warehouse.

I almost admire the control it takes. Almost.

Sin waits until he’s seated before turning to me. “Ghost.”

I slide the tablet across the table, the screen waking beneath my fingertips.

Calloway’s attention drops to it immediately, his eyes moving over the first page, then the next, following the trail of shell companies, committee records, and financial transfers we’ve been piecing together.

I’d expected to see a crack by now.

Instead, he keeps reading.

Politicians survive by learning exactly when to show fear, and Calloway has spent twenty years learning how not to.

By the time he sets the tablet back on the table, the surprise is gone.

What’s left looks a whole lot like defiance.

“This is fabricated,” he says. “Every piece of it. You think a digital file from a motorcycle club is going to hold up against the word of a sitting senator?” Sin doesn’t answer him. “You’re threatening a public official in a warehouse with no witnesses,” Calloway presses. “This ends careers. I don’t know which ones yet, but I promise you, it won’t be mine.”

I open a second screen and turn it just enough for him to see without needing to hand it over. The traffic camera footage of the SUV that ran us off the road. The photograph delivered to Sage’s office. The LLC filing with his chief of staff’s home address attached to it.

“You can’t prove—” he starts.

“The security firm believes their communications are untraceable because they run through a private encrypted server,” I say, keeping my voice level, keeping it factual. After all, that’s the only tone this deserves. “They’re mistaken about that.” I let it sit a beat before I continue, “Your chief of staff sent twenty-three messages to their operations director between January and March. Fourteen of those messages mention Sage Matthews by name. Six of them including her home address. One of them uses the phrase ‘target photograph.’ ”

I turn the tablet and slide it across the table. Calloway looks down at his own name buried in the metadata, his chief of staff’s number sitting in the header, and something in his face finally moves.

He tries one more angle aimed directly at Sin. “Defiance MC. Nevada Chapter. Three federal investigations in the last eight years. You want to open that conversation? Because I can make one phone call and every brother in this room is under active surveillance by the end of the week.”

The threat lands the way he intends it to. I feel the room register it, feel the weight of what he’s suggesting settle over the table, and for a moment, it looks like he might actually believe he’s found his way back into the fight.

Sin leans back and says nothing at all.

Calloway doesn’t touch the tablet again. His fingertips rest against the edge of the table instead, the only movement the slow tap of his thumb against the timber as he studies everything laid out in front of him. Years of shell companies, buried financial transfers, committee records, names never meant to sit side by side on the same page.

The tablet wakes beneath my fingertips with a soft click, the screen filling with the distribution list I’d built long before tonight ever arrived—journalists, federal investigators, state regulators, campaign offices that would tear each other apart for the chance to be first with a story like this.

Every attachment is loaded.

Every email is addressed.

Every recipient is waiting.

I rest one finger lightly on the ‘Enter’ key and meet his eyes. “One keystroke.” The words aren’t a threat but a timeline.

“You push this meeting one inch off course…” I shrug a shoulder. “It leaves before you’ve made it back to your car.”

For the first time since he walked into the warehouse, his attention drops from my face to my hand, just for a second.

Slate shifts in his chair beside Static, the old timber creaking beneath him as he drags a hand slowly through his beard. “You keep lookin’ at Nevada,” he says, his Montana drawl rolling lazily across the room. “Reckon that’s because you’ve spent too many years thinkin’ the world stops at the state line.” Calloway turns toward him, but Slate doesn’t hurry.