Chapter 3
Chapter Three
FALCON
Dawn crawls across the clubhouse with fingers of pale light that do nothing to warm the chill settled deep in my bones. I've been sitting in the same spot at the bar for hours, an untouched whiskey gathering dust in front of me. Sleep isn't an option. Every time I close my eyes, I see her—broken, hollowed-out, a ghost wearing Cara's face.
Thirty-six hours since we pulled her from that container. Thirty-six hours of avoiding the room where she's recovering. Thirty-six hours of my mind replaying five years of hatred and hurt, rewriting the narrative I'd built to make her absence bearable.
She didn't leave me. She was taken.
The thought circles like a vulture, picking at the corpse of the man I became after she disappeared.
"You look like shit," Doc says, his weathered boots scraping against the floor as he approaches. His medical bag hangs from one shoulder, eyes tired behind wire-rimmed glasses. He's been working nonstop since we brought the women in.
"Thanks," I mutter, pushing the whiskey away. "How are they?"
"Recovering. Physically, at least." Doc settles onto the stool beside me, his knees popping in protest. "The mental healing will take longer. Always does."
I nod, jaw clenched tight. "And..." I can't bring myself to say her name.
Doc doesn't need me to. "She's awake. Asking questions." He studies me with eyes that have seen too much over his seventy years. "Smart woman. Resilient. She's already trying to walk."
Something like pride flickers in my chest before I smother it. I don't get to feel that anymore.
"She asked about you," Doc adds carefully.
My fingers tighten around the empty glass. "What did you tell her?"
"That you haven't slept since they brought her in. That you've been pacing outside her room half the night."
"Christ, Doc," I growl, shoving away from the bar. "She doesn't need to know that."
"Doesn't she?" He raises an eyebrow. "Look, I don't know what she was to you before, but?—"
"She was everything," I say, the words escaping before I can stop them. "Then she was nothing. Now she's..." I trail off, unable to find the right word.
Doc nods slowly. "Complicated."
"Yeah." I run a hand over my face, feeling the stubble that's nearly a beard now. "Complicated."
The clubhouse door swings open, and Vulture strides in, his cut impeccable despite the early hour. Our president has always been the picture of control, even in chaos. Maybe especially in chaos. His eyes narrow when he spots me.
"Brother," he says, the word carrying a weight of authority. "We need to talk."
I recognize the tone. It's not a request.
"Take a shower first," Doc suggests, standing with a grunt. "You smell like a distillery." He claps me on the shoulder as he passes, a reminder of the father I never had.
I follow Vulture to the chapel—our meeting room, named with the kind of dark humor that defines the Saints Outlaws. The heavy oak table dominates the space, carved with the names of fallen brothers. My fingers trace the newest addition as I sink into a chair.
"You gonna tell me what's going on with the woman?" Vulture asks, closing the door. "The one from the container who recognized you."
I stare at the table, finding patterns in the wood grain. "Her name is Cara Mitchell."
"And?"
I take a deep breath. "Five years ago, she was my old lady. My fiancée."
Vulture's eyebrows climb toward his receding hairline. "The one who walked out on you?"
"That's what I thought." My laugh is hollow, bitter. "Turns out she didn't walk. She was taken."
Understanding dawns in Vulture's eyes. "Jesus."
"Yeah." I lean back, the chair creaking beneath my weight. "Five years, Vult. Five fucking years I spent hating her, and she was—" My voice breaks, and I slam my fist against the table.
Vulture waits, giving me space to pull myself together. He was there for the aftermath—the drinking, the fighting, the women. The spiral that nearly cost me my patch before I channeled the rage into something useful. Into hunting traffickers.
"Does this affect club business?" he finally asks, always focused on the bottom line.
"No," I say automatically, then reconsider. "Maybe. I don't know."
"Figure it out," he says, not unkindly. "This is bigger than your personal shit now. The Reapers are involved, and we've got their men in our basement. We need you focused."
I nod, running a hand through my hair. "I'm good. I'll handle it."
Vulture's skeptical expression says he doesn't believe me, but he stands anyway. "Interrogation in ten. Clean yourself up."
After he leaves, I sit in the quiet, memories surfacing like bodies in a lake.
Cara laughing, her head thrown back, sunlight catching in her hair as we rode along the coast. The way she'd curl against me at night, fitting perfectly against my side. The ring in my pocket for weeks before I found the courage to ask. Her tears when she said yes.
I force the images away, standing so quickly the chair topples behind me. The past is a luxury I can't afford right now.
Ten minutes later, I'm in the basement interrogation room, face washed, fresh t-shirt under my cut, expression locked down tight. The trafficker sits handcuffed to a metal chair, his face already showing the results of an earlier conversation with Ice Pick. One eye swollen shut, split lip crusted with dried blood.
"Morning, sunshine," I say, circling him slowly. "Sleep well?"
He spits on the floor near my boots. "Lawyer."
I laugh, the sound sharp enough to cut glass. "This look like a police station to you?" I lean in close, watching him flinch. "No lawyers. No rights. Just you and me and all the time in the world."
Fear flickers in his one good eye. Good.
"The women you took," I continue, voice conversational as I pull on a pair of leather gloves. "Where were they headed?"
"Fuck you."
The first blow catches him in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs. The second splits his eyebrow, blood trickling down his face. I wait until he can breathe again before asking the next question.
"The operation. How big is it?"
He wheezes, spitting blood. "You have no idea what you're messing with."
"Enlighten me." I grab his jaw, forcing him to look at me.
"We're just the transport," he gasps. "Small cogs. The organization—it's international. Powerful people. Politicians. Businessmen."
"Names," I demand, tightening my grip.
He laughs, a wet, broken sound. "Kill me if you want. I talk, they'll do worse. To me. To my family."
I release him with a shove, pacing the small room. "The women in that container. Why them? Why her?"
Something shifts in his expression. "Special requests. Some clients have... specific tastes."
My vision blurs red at the edges. "The woman with the scar on her collarbone. Who ordered her?"
"Don't know names. Just that she was a personal request. Expensive. The boss doesn't share the book with drivers."
"What book?"
"The ledger. All the merchandise, destinations, buyers. Coded." He smirks, blood staining his teeth. "Doesn't matter now. She's damaged goods anyway. Used up."
I don't remember crossing the room. Don't remember grabbing him. The chair topples as I slam him against the wall, my forearm crushing his windpipe.
"Say that again," I whisper, pressing harder. "I fucking dare you."
The door bangs open, and Ice Pick is there, pulling me back. "Falcon! We need him breathing!"
I release the trafficker, watching him crumple to the floor, gasping. The rage recedes slowly, leaving me cold and hollow again.
"What?" I snap at Ice Pick.
"The ledger," he says, ignoring my tone. "I've got something."
I follow him upstairs to the tech room, a space that used to be a storage closet before Ice Pick joined the club. Computer screens cast blue light over the cluttered desk where the ledger sits—an unassuming leather-bound book that looks more like an executive's daily planner than a catalog of human misery.
"It's triple encrypted," Ice Pick explains, finger tracing lines of seemingly random characters. "Sophisticated stuff. First layer is a substitution cipher, but it changes every page based on a pattern I haven't cracked yet."
"English," I growl, impatience edging my voice.
"It's a list," he says, pushing a notepad toward me. "From what I've decrypted so far, it's names, dates, locations. The women, where they came from, where they were going. And the buyers—high-profile ones."
I scan his notes, recognizing patterns. "This section, these codes are repeated."
"Client codes, I think." Ice Pick points to a specific entry. "Look here. This symbol appears next to the entry for container 457-B. That's the one we hit."
Something cold settles in my gut. "You're saying someone important ordered that specific shipment?"
"More than that." Ice Pick flips to another page. "The same symbol appears next to entries dating back three years. Always young women, specific physical descriptions."
"Someone's building a collection," I say, disgust thick in my throat.
"Exactly. And based on the pattern, they're connected. Powerful."
I rub my temples, fighting a building headache. "This is valuable, but right now my priority is the women we rescued. Getting them safe, home, whatever they need."
"But Falcon, this could lead us to?—"
"I know what it could lead to," I cut him off. "And we'll get there. But those women have been through hell. They come first."
Ice Pick looks like he wants to argue but nods instead. "I'll keep working on it."
I leave him to his codebreaking, retreating to my room at the back of the clubhouse. The space is spartan—bed, dresser, weapons locker, a single window overlooking the garage. Nothing personal on display. Nothing to suggest who I was before.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, exhaustion settling over me like a shroud. For five years, I've lived with a story I created—that Cara walked away because she didn't love me enough to stay. That story shaped me, hardened me, gave me someone to blame for the empty space in my chest.
Now that story is gone, replaced with a truth too horrific to process. While I was drinking myself numb, she was suffering. While I was cursing her name, she was fighting to survive. While I was building a wall around what was left of my heart, she was living a nightmare.
The morning I realized she was gone. Her side of the bed empty, cold. The closet half-empty. The note on the kitchen counter: "I'm sorry." Just that. Nothing else. No explanation. No goodbye. Just two words that didn't begin to cover the hole she left behind.
I slam my fist into the wall, welcoming the shock of pain that shoots up my arm. The drywall cracks, leaving a dent the shape of my knuckles. Physical pain is easier than this—this guilt, this rage, this helplessness in the face of a past I can't change.
My phone buzzes with a text from Vulture: Reapers on the move. Meet in chapel. 10 min.
Club business. The world keeps turning, regardless of personal apocalypses. I push myself up, straightening my cut, pulling the mask of Vice President back into place. The club needs Falcon the enforcer, not the man drowning in regret.
As I head toward the chapel, voices from the hallway catch my attention. Maggie speaking in hushed tones to Ice Pick.
"—says she knows something about the ledger. Overheard things during her captivity."
My steps falter.
"How much does she know?" Ice Pick asks.
"Enough to help, maybe. She's scared, but she wants to talk."
"I'll grab my notes?—"
I round the corner, cutting their conversation short. "What's this about Cara and the ledger?"
Maggie straightens, her expression carefully neutral. "She asked to speak with someone about it. Said she might have information."
"And you didn't think to tell me first?" The words come out sharper than intended.
"She specifically asked that it not be you," Maggie says, not backing down. "At least not yet."
The admission stings more than it should. "I need to speak with her."
"Falcon—" Maggie starts, but I'm already moving past her toward Cara's room.
I pause at her door, hand raised to knock, suddenly uncertain. What do I say to the woman I loved? The woman I hated? The woman I failed to protect, to find, to save until it was almost too late?
I take a deep breath, steel myself, and knock.
Seconds stretch into eternity before the door opens. Cara stands there, pale and fragile-looking in borrowed clothes that hang from her too-thin frame. Her eyes meet mine, and the jolt of connection is physical, like touching a live wire.
"Falcon," she says, my name barely a whisper on her lips.
"Maggie says you know something about the ledger." My voice is professional, distant. Safer that way.
Disappointment flickers across her face before she masks it. "Yes."
"May I come in?"
She steps back, allowing me into the small room. The bed is neatly made, the window open to let in fresh air. She's trying to create order in chaos. I recognize the coping mechanism—I've used it myself.
"You should have come to me," I say, keeping my distance, hands shoved in my pockets to resist reaching for her.
"Would you have listened?" she asks, perching on the edge of the bed. "Or would you have shut me down like you did Ice Pick?"
I flinch. "You heard that."
"These walls aren't exactly soundproof." She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, a familiar gesture that hits me like a physical blow.
"What do you know about the ledger?" I ask, focusing on the reason I'm here.
She studies me for a long moment, as if deciding whether I'm worthy of her trust. The irony isn't lost on me.
"The men talked," she finally says. "When they thought we couldn't hear or were too broken to care. The ledger isn't just a record—it's leverage. Insurance."
"Against who?"
"Their clients. Powerful men who can't afford to be connected to trafficking." Her voice is steady, detached, as if discussing the weather instead of her own nightmare. "The organization keeps evidence on everyone. Videos, recordings, the ledger. It's their protection."
"That's why it's so heavily encrypted," I realize. "It's not just to hide their operation—it's blackmail material."
She nods. "I heard them mention a key. Not a password, an actual physical key that decodes the system."
"Did they say where this key is kept?"
"No." Frustration crosses her face. "But I know who might. There was a guard who talked more than the others. Liked to scare us with details about the operation, how escape was impossible because of how connected they were."
"Would you recognize him?"
She flinches, gaze dropping to her hands. "Yes."
The implications of what she's been through hit me again, a sucker punch to the gut. I take a careful step closer, still maintaining distance.
"Cara." Her name feels strange on my tongue after years of avoiding it. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. For not looking for you. For thinking?—"
"Don't," she interrupts, voice brittle. "Not now. I can't..." She takes a shaky breath. "I want to help bring them down. That's all I can handle right now."
I nod, respecting the boundary. "The information about the key helps. Ice Pick can focus his efforts."
"There's more." She meets my eyes again. "The Reapers MC. They're not just providing security—they're partners. Full integration. That's why the operation is so successful. They use MC distribution networks, territory knowledge."
The revelation sends ice through my veins. The Reapers are our oldest rivals, a larger club with chapters across three states. If they're fully invested in trafficking, this is bigger than a territorial dispute. It's war.
"How do you know this?"
"One of the guards wore their colors. Said their president was meeting with 'the boss' to expand territory." She wraps her arms around herself, suddenly looking smaller. "They're planning something big. Soon."
"Thank you," I say, meaning it. "This helps."
She nods, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "Still useful for something, I guess."
The self-deprecation hits like a knife between my ribs. "Cara, you're not?—"
"Please," she cuts me off. "I can't do this right now. The emotional part. It's too much."
I back toward the door, respecting her need for space. "Get some rest. I'll have Maggie check on you later."
She doesn't answer, just turns to look out the window. The dismissal is clear, and I tell myself it doesn't hurt.
Five minutes later, I'm briefing the club leadership in the chapel. Vulture, Osprey, Ice Pick, and Condor listen as I relay what Cara told me, minus the personal parts.
"War with the Reapers," Osprey says, shaking his head. "We're outnumbered three to one."
"We have something they don't," Vulture points out. "We have one of their men in our basement, and we have their ledger."
"And we have Cara," I add. "She can identify key players."
Ice Pick leans forward. "If the ledger contains what she says—evidence against clients—that's leverage we can use."
"Against the Reapers?" Condor asks.
"Against everyone." Ice Pick's eyes gleam with possibility. "Politicians, businessmen, cops. If we control that information, we control them."
"We're not blackmailers," I snap. "We're going to use this to shut down their operation, not start our own."
Vulture holds up a hand, silencing the debate. "Falcon's right. This isn't about profit. It's about justice." He looks around the table. "These bastards have been operating in our backyard, using people like commodities. That ends now."
"What about the authorities?" Osprey asks. "This is bigger than us."
"We handle it ourselves," I say firmly. "We can't trust the cops. Not when the ledger might implicate some of their own."
Vulture nods slowly. "We move carefully. Ice Pick, focus on decrypting that ledger. Osprey, double security around the clubhouse. Condor, reach out to our allies. We may need numbers."
"And Hawk?" I ask, referring to our contact in the sheriff's department.
"Keep him in the dark for now," Vulture decides. "Until we know who's clean and who's dirty."
The meeting ends with assignments distributed, a plan taking shape. As the others file out, Vulture holds me back.
"You sure you can handle this?" he asks, eyes searching mine. "Working with her, after everything?"
I think of Cara's hollow eyes, the way she flinched at sudden movements, the strength it took for her to survive five years of hell.
"I'll burn their world down for what they did to her," I say, conviction hardening my voice. "Then I'll figure out what the hell to do with the ashes of ours."