Page 79 of Reckless

Then I see it.

Not regret, or guilt, but a promise. One so fierce it settles somewhere deep inside me before a single word is spoken.

Nothing is ever going to touch me again while Ethan Garrity is still breathing.

Nobody moves for a long moment. Not a single brother who’s ever sat through Church with Ghost or watched him disappear behind three computer screens for twelve hours chasing a thread nobody else could see says a word.

Ghost is the one who builds the picture.

Ghost is the one who finds the angle everyone else misses.

Ghost is the one who quietly dismantles problems until there’s nothing left standing except the truth.

Ghost is not the one who settles things with bullets.

Except, he just did.

Silence follows as every set of eyes settles on Ghost.

Sin watches him for several long seconds before Ghost reaches into the inside pocket of his cut and carefully pulls out the folded photograph. His fingers pause against it for the briefest moment, almost as if he’s giving himself one last chance to believe it says something different.

It doesn’t.

He hands it to Sin.

Sin unfolds it slowly, his eyes moving over whatever’s printed there before lifting back to Ghost. Nothing changes in his expression. No surprise or anger, just understanding. The kind that only comes from knowing the man standing in front of you well enough to recognize exactly why he made the choice he did. After another long moment, Sin folds the photograph again and hands it back. “Clubhouse,” he says quietly.

Nobody moves.

Ghost turns instead. His eyes find mine immediately, and something inside me shifts before he’s even taken a step. He starts walking toward me, the brothers instinctively making room as he crosses the space between us, and when he finally stops in front of me, I can still smell burned gunpowder clinging to the leather of his cut.

He doesn’t say a word. He just unfolds the photograph and places it gently into my hands. For a second, I stare at the paper without really seeing it, my pulse still somewhere in my throat from everything that’s happened over the last ten minutes. Then my eyes finally focus.

It’s me… in the photograph.

Walking toward my car outside Unsilenced.

Coffee in hand.

Smiling.

Not because anything remarkable had happened that day, but because it had been an ordinary Tuesday. I’d left work thinking about absolutely nothing, completely unaware that somewhere nearby someone had lifted a camera and decided I was worth following home.

A chill works its way slowly down my spine despite the desert heat pressing against my back. I keep looking at the photograph, searching it for something I missed.

A reflection.

A shadow.

Anything.

There isn’t one.

Just me, living my life while someone else quietly turned it into surveillance.

“That…” My voice catches, and I have to swallow before I can make the words come out. “That’s me… f-five d-days ago.”

Ghost never looks away from me. “Yeah.”