Chapter 6 BLADE
BLADE
The outbuilding coffee pot is old, metal dented, the kind you have to coax to life. I manage to get it sputtering, the air filling with that bitter, burnt smell that always makes me feel alive. I pour a paper cup full, the heat warming my hands. This isn’t for me—it’s for her.
I saw her slip out earlier. Thought she just needed air after what went down last night. Hell, I figured she might come back in once the sun burned off the chill. So I made the coffee, planned to hand it over like a peace offering, something normal after all the chaos we spilled in the dark.
I push the door open with my shoulder. The yard is wet and gray, rain still dripping from the eaves, puddles catching dull streaks of light. The cot inside is empty. The stoop is empty. The whole damn yard is empty. Carrie’s gone.
My chest goes tight.
I step out further, scan the fence line, the trash bins, the path toward the clubhouse. Nothing. She’s not hiding, not walking it off. She’s just gone.
The cup in my hand suddenly feels like a joke. I crush it in my fist, hot coffee spilling over my knuckles, dripping into the dirt at my boots. Heat sears my palm, but I don’t care. My hand throbs with the burn. I let the twisted remains drop, dark coffee bleeding into the puddles.
The noise pulls Jace from inside. The door creaks again and he steps out, shirt hanging open, hair mussed.
“What the hell was that?”
I wipe my hand on my jeans, jaw tight. “She’s gone.”
He freezes. “Carrie?”
“Yeah.” My voice comes out rough.
Levi steps out next, tugging his shirt over his head. He reads the air in one look—me empty-handed, Jace tense, the yard silent. “What happened?”
Jace doesn’t take his eyes off me. “Carrie’s gone.”
Levi’s mouth hardens. His gaze sweeps the fence line like he expects to see her ghost. “She ran.”
The three of us stand in the damp yard, rain dripping from the eaves, the outbuilding behind us still stinking of sweat and sex.
My brothers beside me. The space where she should be empty.
And all I can think is how right it felt—and how wrong it feels now that she isn’t here.
We decide to head back to the clubhouse. No one says much on the walk. The morning feels too bright, the kind of light that shows things you want to keep for yourself.
Inside, I grab a towel and hit the shower. The water comes on hard and hot, beating the smell of rain and sex from my skin, and it still isn’t enough to wash her out of my head.
Carrie, lying between us. Her thighs opening, her voice shaking when she said yes.
Levi’s mouth on her while JC held her face and made her look.
My hands on her hips while she took me deep and squeezed like she knew exactly how to break me.
It felt right, like she fit in that space none of us could fill alone.
I brace a forearm against the tile and wrap my palm around my cock.
Heat kicks through me. I stroke slow at first, then harder, chasing the memory of her slick and the sound she made when I pushed all the way in.
I see the way her belly fluttered, the way her eyes went dark, the way she reached for all of us at once like we were one body.
“Fuck,” I breathe, head tipped back.
Knuckles rap the door. “Blade,” Jace calls, voice tight. “We have a problem.”
I close my hand, grit my teeth, try to finish fast. Another knock, harder. “Now.”
I swear, twist the water off, grab the towel. My cock is still hard and angry when I yank the door open. Jace is there with his shirt half-done and a look that means business. Levi is in the hall behind him, jaw clenched.
“What.”
“The safe,” Jace says. “Money’s missing.”
My dick forgets itself. “Come on.”
He holds my stare. No humor. “Count it.”
We hit the office. The room smells like stale smoke and old bills. I spin the dial, open the door, and stare at the thin stack where a fat one should be.
“Don’t look at me,” I snap, heat flaring hot and wrong under my skin. “Only you two, me, and Jinn have the combination.”
Levi folds his arms. “When did you last see it full?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” I say. “I pulled petty cash for the run to the parts store. It was fine.”
Jace’s mouth is a line. “And you locked it.”
“Of course I locked it.”
Levi looks from me to Jace. “Jinn.”
It hangs there, ugly and obvious. Jace scrubs a hand over his face. “He was in and out all night. He wouldn’t have had time.”
The safe door is still shut when Jace’s phone lights up. He glances at the screen, then at us, and taps accept. He hits speaker and sets it on the desk.
“There’s a problem,” he says, voice low.
Static cracks, then Jinn’s voice fills the room. “Carrie.”
Heat punches through my chest. Levi’s jaw goes hard. Jace’s eyes flick to mine and back to the phone.
“What about her?” Jace says.
“She found me and Marcy,” Jinn says. He sounds annoyed, not worried. “She freaked out. Marcy is losing it too, so I’m stashing her in the next town with my sister. I’m running late.”
The floor seems to tilt.
Levi shifts his weight, every muscle wired. I can feel the choice forming in his head. Go find Carrie or hold the line.
It lands like a slap. I want to punch a wall. I want to find her and put her back between us where she fit like the missing piece we didn’t know we needed.
“The guys will be there soon,” Jinn says. “I need you to handle it.”
Levi and I trade a look. Right. The gunrunners’ meet is today.
“You have to be here, Jinn,” Jace says, jaw tight. “They won’t trust a handoff without the president standing on the gravel.”
“I’m sorry, guys,” Jinn says, not sounding sorry at all. “Jace, as my VP, I have full faith in you.”
The line clicks off.
For a breath, none of us talks. Missing cash from the safe, and now this. My palm still burns from crushing that cup, and my gut burns worse.
“So we carry his mess,” I say, voice low.
The gunrunners want us to move a shipment across state lines, no questions, no names, just cash. All high risk, federal heat if anyone slips. None of us agreed to this, not really. Jinn made the promises, Jinn set the price. He’s the one they expect to see.
My hands curl into fists. We’re left holding his bag, the club’s rep on the line, and all I can think about is Carrie—gone, out there, maybe running straight into more trouble.
Jinn’s already disappeared with Marcy and a stack of cash.
Now he wants us to smooth things over with armed strangers on our turf.
I can feel Levi’s tension next to me, the hard edge in Jace’s stance. In my gut, everything is wrong.
For a second, none of us move.
Jace scrubs a hand over his face. “He’s unbelievable.”
Levi’s jaw is locked, his eyes cold as steel. “We’re the ones standing here if this blows up. Not him.”
I nod, anger grinding under my skin. We all knew the score, even if we didn’t agree to play.
Jinn cut the deal with out-of-town gunrunners—crossing state lines, carrying enough heat to fry all of us if it goes sideways.
Jinn’s name is the only reason they’re coming.
And now he’s disappeared, and it’s on us to look them in the eye.
Jace looks at both of us, shoulders set. “Doesn’t matter what we want. Only way is through.”
Levi glances at the door, then the lot. “He dumped this in our lap, but we’re not letting him ruin the club. We get through today, no matter what it takes.”
He glances at the screen, thumb hovering, then shows us—the coordinates from Jinn.
A location. Coordinates we recognize: the old gravel lot just south of the truck stop, a place nobody goes unless they’ve got business better kept in the shadows.
Jace swears under his breath. “He wants us to meet them there. Now.”
No one argues. There’s no time to second-guess, no point in splitting hairs about how Jinn keeps pushing the dangerous shit onto us.
I grab the keys to my truck. It’s big, battered, nothing flashy. No club decals. Nothing to stand out but the dented fender and a reputation you can’t see unless you’ve heard stories in the right bars.
We pile in, Levi shotgun, Jace behind me.
We take back roads, tires humming over cracked asphalt.
Every intersection looks empty, but I’m watching mirrors, windows, every flick of motion.
The world outside is all sun and shadow, ugly little towns strung along highways, broken fences and the hollowed-out shells of old motels.
I can feel the weight in my chest, the kind that never really leaves when you’re running a job like this—especially one you never wanted.
We pull into the gravel lot. It’s wide, open, with tall grass pushing in at the edges.
The ground’s rutted, puddles glinting in the low morning light.
No one else here yet. I kill the engine and the silence is total.
Birds scatter from the grass. In the distance, a train wails like it knows what’s coming.
Jace checks his phone again, then glances at me. “We wait.”
We do, five minutes, then ten. Tension builds with every tick of the second hand. I flex my fingers on the wheel. Levi drums his fingers against the door, eyes never leaving the horizon.
And then they arrive.
First, a black SUV pulls in slow, heavy with attitude.
The windows are tinted, spotless, the kind of ride bought with untraceable cash.
Behind it, a beat-up white panel van rolls in, riding low—too low for what it ought to be carrying.
The van parks at an angle, blocking the only easy exit from the lot.
My neck prickles. That’s not an accident.
Doors open. Three men from the SUV, two from the van.
All of them in work jackets, caps pulled low, sunglasses even though the sun’s still weak.
They spread out, but not casual—too practiced, too alert.
One stays by the van’s rear doors, hand never straying far from his pocket.
Another lights a cigarette and keeps his back to the lot, eyes on us over his shoulder.