Chapter 12
HAWK
T he moment we stepped into the lounge back at the clubhouse, chaos erupted.
Molly, Maverick’s wife, burst out of the kitchen, baby on one hip, yelling over her shoulder. “Luna, if you eat that cookie, you’re not getting another one!”
The three-year-old in question was already halfway behind the bar, crumbs trailing behind her like guilty glitter.
Molly groaned, catching her ten-month-old baby—Chase—just as he tried to wriggle free. She sighed when she saw us. “I swear, he skipped walking. Went straight to sprinting. I haven’t sat down since.”
Gemma laughed, and I felt some of the pressure inside me ease just a notch.
“I can help,” she offered.
“You’re an angel,” Molly said, her face lighting up. “Seriously.”
Before I stepped away, I leaned in and kissed Gemma’s cheek. “This’ll be good practice.”
Molly burst out laughing. “Oh, he’s definitely one of ours.”
Gemma blushed hard but didn’t have time to react further because Chase had wriggled free and took off like a rocket toward the hallway. Gemma darted after him, caught him mid-squeal, and the little punk smacked her cheeks with chubby hands and giggled hysterically.
“Up!” he shouted.
She laughed, heart-deep, as he wriggled and twisted, and I couldn’t help the grin that tugged at my mouth. For one sliver of a second, I let myself imagine her like that—with our kid. Our chaos. Our joy.
I gave her a lopsided grin that made her eyes sparkle and kissed her once more. Then I turned and headed down the hall, where reality was waiting.
Fox’s office was heavy with the kind of tension that soaked into the walls like smoke.
The blinds were drawn against the afternoon glare, the only light coming from the overhead fixture above the round conference table and the glow of Deviant’s laptop screen.
The low hum of conversation cut off the second I stepped inside.
Fox stood near the table with his arms crossed, leaning against the edge like he’d been born there.
Maverick sat across from him, one boot resting on the opposite chair, fingers steepled under his chin as he watched Deviant work.
Midnight was off to the side near a small bar sipping coffee, his scarred knuckles drumming a rhythm against the counter.
Deviant didn’t look up as I entered. He just kept typing, rapid-fire, muttering under his breath as code scrolled across his screen. I didn’t speak until I crossed the room and stood beside the table, close enough to read the files flashing past his eyes.
“I want names. Now.” My voice was low and even, but the tension in my spine didn’t ease.
Fox nodded once. “You’ll get them. Sit down.”
I didn’t. Couldn’t.
Midnight raised a brow but didn’t comment. Neither did Fox, though his eyes held a warning. They understood. Sometimes you needed to stay standing so the rage had somewhere to go.
Deviant finally stopped typing. He leaned back in his chair, stretching until his spine cracked.
“Took some work, but I pulled the last-known backups off the cloud where the stolen photos were hosted. The metadata’s scrambled to hell, but I recognized a few digital fingerprints from the hacker world. ”
My vision narrowed, a red haze crawling around the edges. “The ones helping him collect the photos?”
Deviant gave a slow nod. “Possibly. Or they work for the buyers. The black market collectors.”
“What’s the buyer list look like?” Maverick asked.
“Still tracing the backdoors. But the seller? That I got.”
I crossed my arms and leaned forward, voice hard. “Who?”
Deviant spun the screen around. “Name’s fake.
But the IP that uploaded the files bounced through three VPNs and a Tor server before hitting a cloud storage address traced to a house outside Nashville.
Belongs to a shell corporation, but guess whose name showed up on an internal transfer request last year? ”
He clicked, and a face appeared.
My blood turned molten.
Darren Thomas.
Ellen’s ex.
I gripped the back of the chair so hard I heard the wood creak. My molars ground together, rage clawing up my spine. It wasn’t enough that he’d hurt Ellen—he had to drag Gemma into it. Put her in his crosshairs like she was nothing but leverage.
“When I saw him, I went back to Ellen’s phone and pulled more off her cloud backup. Stuff that hadn’t synced to her visible folders. Like texts she’d deleted.”
The words hit hard. I didn’t move. Just stared at the lines of text now filling the laptop’s display.
Deviant clicked to enlarge the file. “They’re all from her ex.”
I took a step forward. The room fell into a tense hush as the first message came into focus.
Asshole Ex
You don’t get to walk away. You think you can just erase me and start over? I was the only one who made you feel beautiful. You think someone else will lie to you like that?
Another pinged up as Deviant scrolled.
Asshole Ex
You don’t need other people telling you you’re beautiful. That’s just fishing for attention.
Then another.
Asshole Ex
You should be grateful I overlooked the things other guys would’ve walked away from. That’s how much I love you.
You need me. Other men wouldn’t have looked twice at you. I didn’t care about all that. I chose you anyway.
You owe me, Ellen. I stuck around when no one else would have. Don’t forget who made you feel wanted.
There’s a difference between love and settling. You were lucky I never made you feel the difference.
I overlooked a lot because I loved you. That kind of patience doesn’t come around twice.
You were never easy to love. I just never said it out loud.
The more I read, the harder my jaw locked, my pulse thudding behind my eyes.
The language was textbook control. Possessive. Threatening. The kind of psychological warfare that left invisible bruises.
But it wasn’t just manipulation. It was a roadmap to violence.
“Here’s the kicker,” Deviant said as he brought up a screenshot of Ellen’s phone calendar. “See this? After she added the appointment with Gemma to her calendar, she got one last text an hour later.”
He clicked back to the messages.
Asshole Ex
Don’t think I don’t know where you are. I see you every time you step outside.
“Motherfucker’s been watching her,” I said, low and lethal. “Tracking her.”
“Wasn’t just watching,” Fox said grimly. “He was targeting. This wasn’t random. He thought this through. Wanted those photos. Wanted control of her.”
My stomach dropped. “When he saw the appointment and decided to act.”
Deviant nodded. “Day after the session, the texts started coming again.”
Asshole Ex
You think you’re some kind of model now? You’re disgusting. Pathetic. No one’s going to want you after they see what you really look like.
You looked ridiculous posing like that. Like some girl playing pretend in a woman’s body.
You degraded yourself for a camera. Don’t pretend it was for confidence or closure.
You showed everyone what I had to put up with. All you did was prove me right—no one else would’ve wanted you if I hadn’t made you feel like you were worth something.
You should’ve been ashamed of that body, not showing it off like it’s something special.
“Now he gets pissed,” Deviant murmured as he kept scrolling.
“They always escalate,” I said quietly, voice low and full of ice. “The moment she took control back, he had to remind her he still had power.”
Asshole Ex
You’re not walking away from me. You’re just dragging the leash until I yank it tight again.
If you ever let another man touch you, I’ll fucking kill him. You know I will.
Come back now, or I swear, I’ll make sure no one else ever wants you.
Keep pretending you’re free. I’ll be the shadow you never see coming.
You’re not brave. You’re stupid. You’ll get someone killed.
Smile for the camera all you want, bitch. I’ll be the one waiting behind the flash with a bullet.
Midnight grunted in disgust. “I’d bet everything I have that he’s the one who planted the bug. And vandalized the studio.”
My rage wasn’t fire. It was cold. Controlled. Deadly.
This wasn’t just about Ellen anymore. This was about what could’ve happened to her. What might still happen to other women if we didn’t end this. Because that was what men like him counted on—that no one would take these kinds of threats seriously until it was too late.
Maverick exhaled through his nose, sharp and measured. “This guy’s got a god complex. He’s been building this business for years—trading, threatening, maybe worse.”
“He used Ellen’s pain to justify his own sickness,” I said. “Tried to twist it into something righteous.”
Deviant nodded. “He didn’t like that she posed for someone else. Even though he’s been running this ring, he still couldn’t handle her reclaiming herself.”
“Fucking hypocrite,” Midnight muttered.
Deviant’s laptop pinged, and his fingers danced over the keyboard again. Then he leaned back, a slow grin curving his lips. “Got an alert for a recent log-on. Same alias. Same server. Different location.”
“You get an address?” Midnight asked.
Deviant frowned at him. “Course I did, motherfucker. I always come through.”
Maverick rolled his eyes. “Just give us what we need.”
“Southern edge of Nashville. Big place. Remote. Surveillance feeds off-grid, but I hacked a drone scan. Looks like a fortress, but not one we can’t crack.”
Midnight’s voice was calm, but his eyes gleamed like frostbitten steel. “We hit it fast and hard.”
Maverick shook his head. “We’ll do recon first. Make sure the sick fuck is home and see if Ellen’s there. If she is, we’ll have to be more strategic than hitting it like a battering ram.”
Fox pushed away from the table, walked around his desk, and sat down. “Once you’re in, take out the servers, rip up their network, do whatever it takes to wipe this shit out.”
Deviant grinned. “I’ll salt the digital earth.”
“What about Darren Thomas?” Midnight wanted to know.
“He’s mine,” I snapped.
No one argued.
I nodded once, sharp and brutal. My fists itched for contact. “He’s not walking away from this.”
“Agreed,” Fox murmured. “But he isn’t the only one out there. He can point us to the other dealers and buyers. So he stays alive until we get answers.”
As much as I wanted to put a bullet in the fucker the second I had him in my sights, I wasn’t about to let any other depraved asshole get away with this shit if I could help it.
I nodded, then turned and headed for the hallway, not bothering to say goodbye. I didn’t have it in me to waste words. Not when my girl’s name had been dragged through a pit of filth and her work twisted into currency by a monster who should’ve rotted years ago.
When I found Gemma back in the lounge, she was crouched beside Luna, who was whispering secrets into her ear and giggling like they were plotting world domination.
Chase had a cookie in one hand and was using the other to tug on Gemma's toffee-colored braid while babbling nonsense as she laughed. He made a move to take off, and she caught him before he could slip away again. “Oh no, you don’t, little jackrabbit.”
I watched her for a moment. The vision of her in the center of something bright, safe, and chaotic. A dream I’d never dared to want.
When I slowly crossed the room to her, my boots were heavy on the floor, and my chest was tight with something too big to name. Then I cupped her face in my hands. “Come with me.”
Her smile faded at my tone. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, baby. I just want you where I can see you.”
I waited until she handed the little boy off to his mother, then I led her out, fast but not rushed, aware of every movement and every glance over her shoulder. When we reached my room, I scooped her into my arms before sitting in the desk chair and settling her on my lap.
“We’ve got a lead,” I told her. “You don’t need the details, but we’re going after the people responsible. And I want you to stay here where you’re protected.”
Her brow furrowed. “Is it about Ellen?”
I hesitated. “Yes. That’s why I need to go.”
Her voice cracked. “Then let me come. If she’s there?—”
“No.”
“Callum—”
“No.” I grabbed her hips, eyes locked on hers. “This isn’t up for debate. I need to know you’re here where no one can get to you. I won’t be able to breathe, much less focus if I’m worried about you.”
Tears welled in her gorgeous brown orbs, but she nodded slowly.
“Thank you, baby,” I murmured before I kissed her. It was dark and intense as I poured every violent promise and aching need into that one point of contact. When I finally pulled back, I wrapped my hand gently around the back of her neck and pressed my forehead to hers.
“He’s not going to win.”
Her throat bobbed. “But what if he already?—”
“He won’t, Gemma.”
I kissed her forehead, then rested my lips on her temple.
“We’ll end it. All of it.”
Her lips trembled. “Come back to me.”
“Always, baby.”