Chapter 5 #3
He moves past me, crouches next to the Triumph.
His hands hover over the cuts but don't touch.
Examining without contaminating evidence.
Professional. Clinical. The same hands that poured coffee in the break room now assess damage with the precision of someone who's caused plenty of it.
"Both tires. Clean cuts, angled upward. Someone knew what they were doing. "
I finish documenting, then straighten. "What about security cameras? This section of the lot should be covered."
Cole pulls out his phone. Has a brief conversation with someone, then hangs up. His jaw is tight, expression flat. But there's something underneath the control. Cold fury. "Camera covering this section has been offline since this morning. Reported as technical issue."
"Convenient timing." I look around the parking lot. Active shop, multiple Brothers coming and going all day. "Someone did this in broad daylight. During business hours. In your parking lot."
"Yeah." Cole's voice goes even colder. "That's the part that pisses me off. Someone walked onto our property, in the middle of the day, slashed a federal agent's tires, and nobody saw shit. Either they knew our camera coverage and patrol patterns, or—"
"Or someone inside helped." I finish the thought.
His jaw tightens. "That's what I'm going to find out."
"Someone wants me to think the Brotherhood's sending a message," I say.
"But it wasn't us." Cole's voice goes cold.
The tone is flat, deadly. Years of eliminating problems in black sites and hostile territory, where consequences are permanent and nobody asks questions afterward.
"This isn't our style. We don't slash tires and run.
We'd tell you to your face to back off."
"I know." I do know. MC culture has rules, hierarchy, respect for directness. Slashing tires is amateur hour. "Someone else is worried about what I'm finding."
"Someone who wants you to blame us." Cole's jaw tightens.
Every muscle controlled, but I catch the violence underneath.
The part of him that handled interrogations and eliminations in places that don't exist on maps.
The part that knows a hundred ways to make people regret crossing him. "That pisses me off."
He makes two more calls. First arranges for tire replacement, mobile service that'll come to the parking lot. Second is shorter, just a name and location. Not a request. A command.
"Nash is going to follow you to your motel," Cole says, pocketing his phone. Not asking. Informing. "Make sure you get there safe, make sure nobody's waiting for you."
"I don't need protection."
"Didn't say you did." His eyes meet mine.
Dark. Flat. The expression of someone who's made tactical decisions about life and death enough times that one more doesn't register as remarkable.
"But someone just escalated from ghost orders to direct intimidation.
That means they're worried. Worried people make mistakes, but they also get dangerous. Nash follows you. Non-negotiable."
The command in his voice isn't loud or aggressive. Doesn't need to be. It's the absolute certainty of someone who's given orders in combat and expects them followed because lives depend on it. The kind of authority that doesn't recognize civilian pushback as relevant to the operational reality.
I should argue. Should assert my independence, my federal authority, my ability to handle my own security. But the practical part of my brain recognizes he's right. Someone's escalating, and having backup isn't weakness, it's smart.
And something about the way he's looking at me—like I'm an asset he's decided to protect whether I want it or not—makes arguing feel pointless.
"Fine. But he stays outside. I don't need a bodyguard in my room."
"He'll stay in the parking lot. Just making sure you get there safe." Cole's expression doesn't change, but I catch something shift in his eyes. Satisfaction. Not because I agreed, but because he was going to make it happen regardless. My cooperation just made it cleaner.
The tire service arrives within the hour. I watch them work, aware of Cole watching from the shop entrance. I'm aware of the weight of his attention, different from the wariness of the other Brothers. More intense. More personal.
More complicated than this investigation needs to be.
Nash follows me to the motel like Cole promised. Big guy, easy smile, but I catch him checking mirrors and scanning cross streets with the kind of attention that comes from combat experience. He waits until I'm inside my room before pulling away.
I drop my bag on the bed, pull out my laptop, start transferring the body camera footage from today. Standard procedure. Review everything, catch details you missed during the actual interviews, look for micro-expressions and tells that make more sense with distance.
The footage plays across my screen. Tate's interview, careful and controlled.
The exchange about Nash's bike throwing a rod.
Shaw correcting Axel's kutte with teaching harshness, not cruelty.
Mike's careful respect when talking about the memorial patch.
Danny's nervous energy easing under the Brothers' ball-busting support.
All of it painting a picture of tight-knit crew culture. Men who've been through things together. Who protect their own but hold each other to standards.
Then the break room. The camera kept recording during my break—standard protocol, continuous documentation of time spent on premises. Me pouring coffee, turning to find Cole in the doorway.
I watch the footage with what should be professional detachment.
Except there's nothing detached about the way my pulse speeds up watching him move into the room.
The camera catches what I felt but couldn't fully process in the moment—the deliberate way he closed distance, the calculated positioning that put him between me and the exit, the predatory stillness before he spoke.
Delta Force operators move like that in hostile territory.
Controlled. Efficient. Every step serving a tactical purpose.
On the recording, I can see what I couldn't see from inside the moment: I never stepped back. Never created distance. Just stood there and let him get close enough to touch, close enough to cage me against the counter if he'd chosen to.
The body language expert in me recognizes a dominance display. The UC agent in me recognizes threat assessment. The woman in me recognizes something far more dangerous than either.
I'm about to close the file when I remember something from earlier today.
After the Mike interview, I'd walked past Cole's office on my way to the restroom.
His door was open, and I'd glanced in—automatic surveillance, reading the environment.
He was focused on his computer screen, didn't notice me passing.
Building schematics. I'd only caught a glimpse, but the image was clear enough. Floor plans. Not the shop—different structure, different layout.
I pull up property records for Ironside Customs on my laptop. Cross-reference with county assessor data. Find the second property. 249 Waterfront Avenue. The building Cole deflected about during yesterday's interview. The one listed as a delivery address in the ghost orders.
The building he was studying schematics for while I was conducting interviews in his shop.
Different structure. Separate property. Specialized layout from what little I saw—not simple storage, not just an events space.
Whatever's in that building, Cole doesn't want me to know about it.
Which means that's exactly where I need to look next.
I close the laptop, lean back against the headboard. Someone slashed my tires today. Someone altered records and created security blind spots. Someone's running a sophisticated operation using the Brotherhood's shop as cover.
And Cole Holloway is looking at schematics of a building he won't let me search.
The smart play is to get a warrant. Go through proper channels, bring backup, treat the Brotherhood like any other organization under investigation.
But the instinct that kept me alive for three years undercover is telling me something different. Telling me this isn't simple. Telling me Cole's cooperation this morning was genuine, and whatever's in that second building isn't connected to weapons trafficking.
Telling me the real threat isn't the Brotherhood.
It's whoever's trying to make me think it is.
I pull out my phone, start drafting a warrant request for 249 Waterfront Avenue. But before I send it, I pause.
Once I execute that warrant, whatever fragile cooperation exists between me and Cole ends. The investigation becomes adversarial. Any chance of working together to find who's actually setting them up disappears.
And something about the way he looked at me in that break room, the way he arranged protection without being asked, the way his anger focused on whoever slashed my tires rather than on me for bringing federal heat to his door.
.. something tells me Cole might be more valuable as an ally than a target.
I save the warrant request as a draft. Don't send it. Not yet.
Tomorrow I'll return with harder questions. Push deeper into who had system access and opportunity. Figure out what's really happening here.
But tonight, I'm going to trust the instinct that's kept me alive this long.
Cole Holloway is dangerous in every way that matters. Smart enough to run a sophisticated operation without leaving evidence. Trained to eliminate threats with surgical precision. Twelve years in Delta Force taught him exactly where legal lines are and how to operate in the spaces between them.
But the real danger isn't what he could do to my investigation.
It's what he already did in that break room. Moving into my space with absolute certainty. Testing my boundaries with Delta Force precision. Issuing orders about my protection like he had every right to command me.
And I let him.
Stood there and let him get close enough to touch. Accepted his protection without argument. Felt my pulse kick up watching him on the footage, cataloging the deliberate way he closed distance, the calculation behind every movement.
Three years undercover taught me to survive in violent worlds. Taught me to read dangerous men and know when to run.
The problem is I'm not running... and that should worry me far more than it does.