Chapter 4
Ava
Being stuck at the clubhouse under Ice Pick's constant surveillance is driving me insane. It's been three days since church, three days of being shadowed everywhere I go, and three days of feeling his eyes on me even when I'm just trying to work. And it isn’t just Ice Pick. The women notice too. Tess clocks everything from the common area. Cara watches like she’s measuring whether I’m a liability or someone worth protecting.
Being here means being seen from every angle.
Ice Pick’s professional about it, keeping his distance, making sure I've got everything I need. But there's something underneath that professional exterior, something that crackles in the air between us whenever we're in the same room.
I'm not imagining it. I know I’m not imagining it when I catch him watching me with an intensity that makes my skin heat and my pulse quicken.
Right now, I'm in the common room trying to piece together the corporate structure behind the shell companies when my laptop decides to betray me. The screen flickers once, twice, then goes black. Around me, the clubhouse hums; club whores laugh softly, a couple of them curled into patched laps by choice, not obligation. No one touches without permission. No one crosses a line without consequences. It’s rougher than my world, but somehow clearer.
"No, no, no," I mutter, pressing the power button repeatedly like that'll somehow fix whatever just broke. "Come on, you piece of shit."
"Problem?" Ice Pick's voice comes from behind me, close enough that I can smell leather and something darker, more masculine.
I resist the urge to lean back into him. "My laptop just died. All my notes, all my research, everything's on here."
"Did you back it up?"
"To the USB drive, but that's encrypted and I need the laptop to access the decryption software." I resist the urge to throw the useless machine across the room. "This is a disaster."
"Let me see it." He reaches over my shoulder, his arm brushing mine as he takes the laptop. His hands are careful, surprisingly gentle for someone who uses them for violence, and I watch as he opens the back panel with a multi-tool from his pocket.
"You know about computers?"
"I know about a lot of things." He examines the internal components, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Battery's fried. Probably from age and overuse. You've been running this thing non-stop since you got here."
"I have work to do."
"And now you don't have a laptop to do it with." He closes it back up and sets it aside. "Condor might be able to salvage the hard drive, pull your files off it. But you're going to need a new machine."
I slump back against the couch, frustration building in my chest. "Great. That's just perfect. The Reapers have a bounty on my head, I'm trapped in an outlaw motorcycle club's compound, and now I can't even work on the story that got me into this mess."
"You're not trapped. You're protected."
Protection here isn’t just muscle. It’s approval. If the women didn’t trust me, if Tess or Cara thought I was dangerous to the balance of this place, I wouldn’t still be breathing Saints Outlaws air.
"Feels the same from where I'm sitting."
Ice Pick moves around the couch, dropping onto the cushion beside me with a weight that makes me bounce slightly. He's too close, his thigh almost touching mine, and I have to resist the urge to either move away or move closer.
"What you need is a break," he says, his voice low. "You've been staring at screens and files for days. Your brain needs rest."
"My brain needs to solve this case before someone else dies."
"Your brain's going to short-circuit if you don't give it time to process." He stretches out, all casual confidence, and I hate how good he looks doing it. "Come on. Let's go for a ride."
"A ride? Are you serious? The Reapers are watching this place."
"Let them watch. You think I'm scared of those assholes?" He stands, offering me his hand. "Besides, you're going stir-crazy in here. I can see it. You need air, space to think. And I need to check in on some club business across town anyway."
I should say no. Should stay here where it's safe, where the walls are thick and the gates are locked. But he's right about one thing. I am going stir-crazy, and the idea of being anywhere but this compound, even for an hour, is too tempting to resist.
"Fine," I say, taking his hand and letting him pull me up. "But if we get shot at, I'm blaming you."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
Ten minutes later, I'm back on his bike, arms wrapped around his waist as we pull out of the compound. Sterling gives us a look from the guardhouse but doesn't try to stop us. The gate rolls open, and then we're on the road, wind whipping past us as Ice Pick opens up the throttle.
It feels like freedom, even though I know it's an illusion.
The Reapers are still out there. The traffickers are still operating.
The Collector's still pulling strings from somewhere in the shadows.
But for this moment, with the sun on my face and the rumble of the bike beneath me, I let myself pretend none of that matters.
Ice Pick takes us away from the city, out toward the industrial district where warehouses and factories sit like forgotten monuments to better economic times.
He slows as we approach a storage facility, pulling into a parking lot that's mostly empty except for a few work trucks and a black SUV that looks too expensive for this neighborhood.
"What's this?" I ask as he kills the engine.
"The business I mentioned. Stay close, keep your mouth shut, and let me do the talking."
We head inside, and the temperature drops at least ten degrees once we're out of the sun. The facility's clean but impersonal, rows of storage units stretching into the distance like a maze. Ice Pick leads the way with confidence, like he's been here a hundred times before.
We stop at unit 247, and he unlocks it with a key from his pocket.
The door rolls up, revealing a space that's been converted into something between an armory and a workshop.
Guns line the walls, everything from handguns to rifles to things I can't even identify.
Boxes are stacked in the corner, labeled with codes I don't understand.
"Holy shit," I breathe, taking it all in.
"Yeah, we don't usually bring civilians here." Ice Pick moves to one of the boxes, checking its contents. "But you're not really a civilian anymore, are you? Not after everything you've seen."
"Is this legal?"
"Some of it. Most of it, actually. We've got licenses for the majority of these weapons. The rest?" He shrugs. "Gray area."
"That seems to be your specialty."
"It's how we survive. Can't be all white hat when the world's painted in shades of black." He finishes his inventory and locks the unit back up. "Come on. There's someone I want you to meet."
We walk deeper into the facility until we reach another unit, this one already open.
A man stands inside, mid-forties with graying hair and sharp eyes that assess me the moment we appear.
He's wearing expensive shoes, a tailored suit that probably costs more than my entire wardrobe, and there's an air of authority about him that says he's used to being the smartest person in any room.
"Ice Pick," the man says, his voice smooth and cultured. "Right on time."
"Robert, this is Ava, the journalist I told you about." Ice Pick's hand settles on the small of my back, possessive and protective. "Ava, this is Robert Samson. He's a lawyer, specializes in corporate structures and financial crimes. Vulture vetted him,” Ice Pick adds, low. “That’s why we’re here.”
Robert extends his hand, and I shake it, feeling the calculation in his grip. "Ice Pick mentioned you've been investigating some shell corporations connected to human trafficking. I'd like to help."
"Why?" I ask, because I've learned not to trust easy offers.
"Because I used to prosecute these kinds of cases before I went into private practice.
And because the people you're investigating, the ones bankrolling the Reapers, they've been on my radar for years.
" His expression hardens. "I couldn't touch them when I was with the DA's office.
Too much political pressure, too many connections that went too high.
But now? Now I can work outside the system. "
"You want to take them down."
"I want to burn their entire operation to the ground and make sure they can't rebuild.
" He pulls out a tablet, bringing up documents.
"Ice Pick sent me the information Condor pulled on those shell companies.
I've been digging, and I've found connections you wouldn't believe.
City officials, real estate developers, even a few names in law enforcement. "
My stomach drops. "Law enforcement?" I spoke to Cara the other day and she told me about the women she works with; the ones who tried to report and were ignored, dismissed, or warned to stop asking questions. This fits too neatly.
"Low-level, mostly. A few detectives who look the other way, some patrol officers who provide advance warning when raids are coming.
Nothing high enough to completely compromise investigations, but enough to give the traffickers an edge.
" He swipes through more documents. "The corporate structure is brilliant, I'll give them that.
Money laundering through legitimate businesses, shell companies that own other shell companies, layers upon layers designed to obscure the source of funds. "
"Can we prove it?"
"With the recordings you have and some additional digging? Yes. But it's going to take time, and you're going to need more than just audio files. You need witnesses, paper trails, something that directly connects the money to the trafficking."