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“You okay?” I rasp, voice rough from the ride and smoke. My hands frame her face, thumbs tracing her jaw. She feels warm, alive, grounding after the chaos.

“I lit the fuse, Corbin,” she whispers, leaning into me. “Nicholas won’t stop. Thomas was the leak, but this is bigger.”

“You did what had to be done,” I murmur, pressing my forehead to hers. The scent of her—soap, sweat, that faint trace of us from earlier—fills my lungs. “No more solo missions. We do this together. The whole damn club. I would ride through hell for you, Spitfire. Don’t doubt it.”

Her fingers slip under my cut, tracing the fresh carving on my ribs. A small, tired smile touches her lips. “Yours, huh? Even after all this?”

“Especially after all this.” I kiss her—slow and deep. Teeth nipping her lower lip, tongue tasting the adrenaline still on her. Her body presses into mine, soft curves against hard muscle, the heat from our earlier quickie flaring back to life.

I could take her right here, but the club needs us. For now. We break apart as voices approach.

By the time the sky hints at gray dawn, the compound pulses with purpose. Tatum’s at the center of it, tech setup humming as she’s taken over Eric’s office, directing data flows that give us the edge. The compound hums around us as we all gear up again. Tatum stays back on tech overwatch, but her presence is everywhere—in the intel, in my head, in the mark on my skin. The road ahead is blood-soaked and uncertain, but with her fighting beside me in her own way, I feel ready.

Redline wants a war? We’ll drown them in it. The Iron Wraiths don’t break. And neither does what’s mine.

TATUM

The compound feels like a powder keg at dawn, waiting to blow. Everyone has been given orders, but nobody fully understands why yet. I’m back in Eric’s office—my office now, I guess—surrounded by the low hum of servers and the glow of four monitors. My eyes burn from lack of sleep, but the adrenaline from last night hasn’t caused me to crash yet. I know it’s coming soon, though.

Apparently, they are taking Thomas to the cage. When they found him, he acted like a feral animal and fought them the whole way here, bloody and baring his teeth. I might have started all this with Redline, but Nicholas has always been good at manipulating people. Like some fucked-up version of a puppet master, pulling strings to get what he wants done. A sharp knock pulls me out of thoughts before I can spiral. Lennox steps in with Corbin right behind him. Lennox hovers in the doorway, worry etched deep even if he’s trying to play it cool. Dad used to look at me the same way when I was teetering on the edge of something dangerous.

“Tate,” Lennox starts. “You’ve already given us gold on Thomas. But—now we need more. Tighten every digital inch of this place. Make it ironclad, nothing in or out without you seeing it. Down to the members' fucking texts. We might have found our rat, but everyone is antsy right now, and we don’t need anyone slipping. Also, show a couple of the officers how to use all this shit without blowing it up. Once we are locked in, it’s time to expose everything.”

I lean back in the chair, cracking my knuckles. “About time you let me fix the half-ass bullshit Eric put up for you guys. It was pathetic, like him. I also plan to get rid of any bugs that give anyone else access to these systems. Give me two hours. I’ll lock it down so tight even Redline’s tech guys will cry.”

Corbin’s eyes lock on mine, dark and possessive, but he doesn’t say anything in front of Lennox. My brother gives me a slight nod as they slip out the door.

I dive into scraping most of the current set up. New VPN layers. Segmented networks so one breach doesn’t take everything. Biometric backups on the critical drives, fingerprints plus passphrase. I reroute the camera feeds through encrypted proxies only I control. Set up auto-alerts that ping every officer’s burner with live feeds if anything trips. Silent watchers on all member phones for unusual pings. I even patch the weak spots in the perimeter sensors that let Thomas funnel information and slip in and out whenever he wanted.

“Done,” I mutter after the final keystrokes, rubbing my eyes and stretching. I shoot off a text to Lennox.

Me:

It’s all done. Bring me everyone who needs to know how to not fuck up my shit.

They file in moments later—Lennox, Judge, Fuse, Diesel, Ledger, and Corbin, who stays glued to my side, one hand resting on the back of my chair like he’s daring the world to try anything. I walk them through it slow and clear, leaving no room for them to fuck it up.

“This dashboard is your new bible.” I point at the main screen. “Live feeds, member logs with anomaly flags, comms that self-destruct after thirty minutes. Change your master passphrases weekly, using the generator I installed. No sticky notes, no ‘password123’ bullshit. I have admin access; Lennox has secondary. Everyone else gets a tier style access—enough to see threats, not enough to break shit.”

Ledger leans in, whistling. “This is next-level, Tatum. You really planted backdoors in Eric’s old setup all this time?”

I smirk. “You’re welcome. And yes, I can see if any of you idiots try to go rogue. Don’t.”

Corbin’s fingers brush my shoulder, a silent good girl that sends heat straight between my legs. I ignore it. Mostly.

We run drills for another hour—simulated breaches, how to pull footage, how to lock the compound down remotely. By the end, they’re nodding with respect in their eyes.

Even Fuse claps my back with his good arm. “Tatum’s earned her patch ten times over by now.”

Next comes the full club, but they don’t shove everyone into church. Instead, the common room packs out—patched members, the few prospects they haven’t tossed yet, everyone wired and anxious from all the movement with no explanations. I hook my laptop to the big projector, and the Thomas files glow large on the wall. Photos, juvenile records, the money trails, the texts to and from Redline—everything. It's all out in the open.

I stand at the front, voice carrying, sharp to cut through the tension. “Thomas Collins is Raymond’s brother. For those of you who don’t know what that means, Raymond is the vice president and right hand of Redline Revenant. He’s been leaking routes, member backgrounds, and had knowledge of my own history with their President, Nicholas.” I let that sit for dramatic effect before continuing, “Last night was his final nail in the coffin. While out on a less used route, all officers were ambushed. The knowledge of this run, down to it’s fucking timing was given directly from Thomas. He’s why runs kept getting hit. And why he’s been so obsessed with me.”

Murmurs turn to growls. Fists slam tables. I click through the evidence, explaining each piece without dumbing it down. The room eats it up—anger shifting to focus. When I finish, Lennox stands. “Thomas stays in the cage until we decide his end, and if there is any more we can get out of him, we will get it, even if it means by breaking some bones. No one rides alone. Let’s move all bikes to the garage. Tatum has input digital safeguards and systems into place. They are law now—learn to respect them or get the fuck out.”

The meeting breaks into smaller knots of planning. I slip out with a few members, going to move bikes from out in the open. Tink sits alone in her usual spot near the fence, gleaming under the morning sun like a beacon of normal in all this chaos. She’s fast, mean, and the only thing that’s felt purely mine since I rolled into Iron Wraiths’ territory.

Swinging a leg over her, I put the key in the ignition, twisting but nothing happens. I try again—nothing. Frown deepening, I try for the last time. A soft click⁠—