Chapter 15
NORTH
Luca’s bike is faster than my truck, so I take the coastal road sharply.
The Pacific runs beside me in a sheet of impossible blue. It still catches me sometimes, that color, even after living here all my life. The wind claws at my jacket, and I lean into the corners, letting the engine grunt.
A group of tourists spills into the crossing ahead, half dressed for the beach, carrying towels. Blonde hair flashes in the middle of them, and my brain goes straight to Adelaide before I can stop it.
Which is new, also irritating. For years, my life has made sense.
The house, surf, luau work. Me, Luca, and Ace in our pack.
I figured maybe an Omega would happen eventually.
Maybe not. I’d stopped expecting the story people like to sell about scent matches and lightning strikes and all that fated bullshit.
Then she paddled toward us, and my system went, Oh, this is a problem.
I take the turn inland, and the ocean drops away behind me.
The pressure in my chest has nothing to do with attraction now. Not entirely. It’s the knowledge sitting under all of it that she’ll run the second she thinks she can.
Not because she doesn’t feel it, but because she’s afraid.
Women like Adelaide don’t accept help easily.
They bite down on it until they’re bleeding and call that independence.
I can’t mark her yet, can’t give her the one thing that would lock this into her body as hard as it’s already locked into mine, because if I take that choice from her, I become exactly the kind of Alpha she should be afraid of.
So I protect her instead.
The road flattens into residential streets, palms overhead, old houses behind wire fences.
A bar sits on the corner, with peeling paint and dark windows with rust on the railing and dead neon in the glass.
Three men out front. One is on his phone, another is smoking, and the third is just watching the road.
I ease off the throttle.
Phone Guy spots me first. Smoker follows, and Watcher doesn’t move at all, which is interesting. Men who don’t shift when a bike rolls up are usually one of two things—very confident or very stupid.
I park and kill the engine. Every single mission I did for The Breakers surfaces. Faces I still see when the sleep doesn’t come. They belong to fucking monsters who deserved what they got, and the night we stood in a parking area without discussion, the three of us were done with this life.
Watcher gives my bike a slow glance, then me. He’s mid-twenties maybe, solid through the chest with a face that’s been broken before and kept going out of spite.
I swing off the bike and pull my helmet free. “Afternoon,” I say.
Smoker flicks ash onto the pavement. “You lost?”
“No.” I hook the helmet under my arm. “That would imply I was hoping this place would be easier to find.”
Phone Guy snorts.
“I’m here to catch up with the chief. He knows I’m coming,” I tell him.
“About?”
I glance past them toward the dark door behind the three of them. “Depends how honest everyone’s feeling.”
Watcher’s mouth shifts, not quite a smile. “You a cop?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame. I like charging cops double.”
I smile back. “Then it’s lucky for both of us that I’m not here to buy anything.”
The air changes a fraction. Phone Guy lowers his mobile and glances my way. “He’s waiting,” he says.
“I know.”
They move aside, and I stride through the door.
Inside, the bar is exactly what it always was.
Dark wood, bad lighting, the smell of old beer and something fried in the kitchen that nobody’s ordered in hours.
A few men at the far end with drinks. Two others at the dartboard, one of whom hasn’t thrown a dart since I walked in.
I don’t acknowledge any of them and walk straight to the back where a man the size of a refrigerator stands in front of a door and stares at me.
“North,” I state.
He stares for three more seconds, then knocks twice, pauses, and once more.
The door opens from inside, and I enter.
Couches against two walls, worn leather.
A bar in the corner that’s better stocked than the one out front.
A desk with a closed laptop and a notebook I know better than to try to read upside down.
Television mounted high, showing something with the sound off, and four men, each one carrying enough hardware to outfit a small conflict.
One of them pats me down before I’ve fully crossed the threshold. I let him. No point in making it adversarial over a formality, and besides, I came here with only my helmet in hand. Which serves as the perfect weapon if needed.
On the center couch, one arm stretched along the back, legs wide, is the chief.
He’s forty-four and got the position by stepping into his father’s place after he got stabbed at a card game.
He’s tanned, with shorter hair than the last time I saw him, has a crooked nose, and wears a white tank shirt that shows off scars on his neck, forearm, and collarbone.
He waves me over with two fingers. “North.” He says my name like he’s tasting it. “Shoots, brah, it’s been a minute.”
“Chief.”
“Sit down, you’re making me anxious standing like that.”
I flop down on the opposite couch. Back straight, forearms on my thighs.
“You look good,” he says. “Surf life treating you?”
“Well enough.”
“Heard you been doing the luau work.” He grins, wide and genuine and slightly unhinged, which is the particular quality that makes him more dangerous than men twice his size. “The great North, fire dancer. Your ancestors would be confused, yeah?”
“My ancestors would be grateful I’m not in prison.”
He laughs. “Fair. Fair.” He picks up a glass from the side table, something amber, doesn’t offer me any. “So what brings you to my door, seeing as you made such a production of walking out that door before.”
“Business.”
“Everything’s business.” He tips his head. “You want something. People only come to me when they want something.” He studies me with an intense stare.
I pull out my phone. Bring up the photo Luca took at the garage, the tracker sitting in his palm before he put it in the drain. I turn the screen toward the chief.
He leans forward. Squints, then enlarges it with two fingers.
The room is very quiet. I’ve been tracking him in my peripheral version since I sat down.
“That’s ours,” the chief says. He sits back, completely neutral now. “Where’d you find that?”
“On a vehicle belonging to someone I know.”
“And you want to know why?”
“I want to know who called it in.”
The chief sets his glass down. Stands up, slowly, and walks to the desk in the corner. Opens the notebook. Pages through it with one finger, unhurried, while nobody in the room speaks or moves. He finds what he’s after, and he doesn’t turn the notebook toward me.
“Adelaide Merrick,” he says.
Something cold moves through me.
He closes the notebook, turns around. “Grew up in Whispering Grove. Brother’s a bounty hunter.” He walks back to the couch and sits. “Surprises me that it’s you standing in my room asking about her and not him.”
“He doesn’t know yet,” I answer.
“Mm.” The chief glances my way, a thick eyebrow arching. “Who is she to you?”
“Someone I’m helping.”
He grins too widely, and I hate when he does that because everything is a game to him. “The great North, helping someone, just like that. Walking into my place after all this time, calling in airtime, all for helping someone. That’s unlike you.”
I swallow back the frustration. “I need to know who put the contract out.”
“You know I don’t give that up.” He spreads his hands, almost apologetic. “Rules, brah. Same rules you operated under when you were working contracts for me. Client privacy, take it to the dirt. I never broke it for anyone.”
“I’m not asking for much.”
“You’re asking for everything.” He leans forward, elbows on knees, voice deeper.
“What you’re asking costs me a client relationship, my reputation for discretion, and potentially a messy conversation with someone who paid good money for a service.
” His eyes are flat and steady. “That’s not nothing. ”
I exhale through my nose. “Then don’t tell me the name.”
He raises an eyebrow again.
“Pull the contract,” I request. “Tell them circumstances changed or whatever you want about it falling through. I don’t need the name. Just take her off your board.”
The room falls very quiet.
The chief stares at me for a long time, long enough that the guy in the corner shifts his weight slightly, and I track it without moving my head.
“You remember,” I say slowly, “the house situation. Three years back.”
“Yeah,” he answers.
“Three Mercy boys came over the wall on your property at two in the morning,” I say. “You weren’t there, but your cousin was.”
He says nothing. A small movement at his jaw, and no denial.
“I got there in eleven minutes,” I continue. “My men and I cleared the place and made sure nobody came back or touched your cousin.”
His gaze stays on me. Flat. Waiting.
“And before I left, you gave me that private job. The one you didn’t want near normal channels.” I keep my voice even. “I did it. Clean. No noise back on you. And when your client got ugly about how it was handled, I took that heat and kept your name out of it.”
The room stays quiet, and I let it. He stares deeply at me, then I say, “So don’t sit there and pretend this is me walking in cold-asking for a favor. It’s not.”
He picks up his glass, takes a slow drink, then sets it down with care. “You think that buys you the right to dictate terms in my office?”
“I think it means you owe me the courtesy of hearing this properly.”
“Okay, fine.”
“This woman isn’t a loose end. She isn’t collateral or some job sitting in a notebook waiting for a tick beside her name.” My hands stay loose at my sides, but every muscle in me is pulled tight. “She’s under my protection. Mine, Luca’s, and Ace’s. That is me telling you where the line is.”
He stands then. “You’re making a mistake,” he says quietly, “if you think your history with me puts you in a position to draw lines.”
“I’m making myself clear.”
He comes toward me and stops close enough to make the point. “I don’t burn contracts.”
Neither of us moves for a moment, but then I get to my feet, and the bouncer tenses.
After a beat, I say, “Name your number.”
His expression doesn’t change, but I know I’ve got him listening now.
“Contract fee?” he says.
“Done.”
He watches me in silence, his face giving away nothing. The pause drags on long enough to feel deliberate. “Plus interest,” he says finally.
I don’t hesitate. “Done.”
His stare doesn’t break. A muscle works once in his cheek. “You don’t walk in here and start negotiating for her?”
“I’m paying what’s owed. That’s all.”
He stands there for a second, saying nothing, letting the weight of the room press in around us before he gives a single nod. “Then, if I pull her name, it vanishes. No one in this place touches it again. No one speaks about it. No one revives it. It dies here.”
I meet his eyes. “That’s all I want, and everything I did for you is favored out.”
Then he steps back and turns away, just enough to show the decision has been made without giving me the comfort of hearing it plainly. “She must matter,” he says.
I don’t answer straight away. Then, because he’s earned the truth more than most men ever do, I say, “More than the money.”
That makes him glance back at me. “Careful,” he says. “Men get stupid when they start weighing women against business.”
I refuse to answer, as I’ve said enough.
His gaze holds mine for a moment, unreadable. Then he returns to the desk. “My accounts guy will send the figure.”
I give him a single nod.
And because neither of us needs the scene dragged out any further, I turn for the door.
“One more thing.”
I pause.
“You do one job for me. Something coming in next month needs a team who can operate without a trace. You and your crew, one job, and I give you everything. Client name. Their address. What they eat for breakfast and who they’re fucking scared of.
" He spreads his hands. “Favor for favor. Clean transaction.”
I glance back at him. “No,” I say.
“North—”
“We’re done with contracts. That was the agreement.”
“The agreement was you walk away clean. I honored that.” He tilts his head. “I’m asking for one favor.”
“You’re asking me to go back in. And the answer is no. What I did for you before I left, that doesn’t expire. You remove the contract for Adelaide, and we’re even.”
The man in the corner has his hand resting near his sidearm and not on it, which is as much courtesy as I’m going to get, and I acknowledge it.
The chief stares at me for a long moment. Then he exhales, his nose scrunching into disgust. “Get out of my bar,” he commands. “Before I change my mind because I’m looking at your face.”
I move to the door.
“She’d better be worth it,” he says.
I walk out.
On my bike, I take off fast and ride three miles before I pull over on a quiet stretch where the road runs alongside a chain-link fence backing onto a residential property, nothing around.
I get off the bike and check it. Every panel. The underside of the wheel wells, the exhaust housing, the storage compartment. The chief didn’t build what he had by being sentimental about protocol when it stopped being useful.
Clean. Nothing. Surprising.
I climb back on and sit for a moment with the engine off.
The amount of blood on my hands for that man… not all of it mine. And he sits on a leather couch in a back room with his arms spread wide and acts like the balance sheet is even. It isn’t even close. Part of what I’m paying for by walking away from the work is not having to calculate it anymore.
But if he pulls the contract, Adelaide has one less thing following her. Not zero since whoever hired the chief used him because they had money and intent, and when the chief declines, that person finds someone else. They always do.
I need to find the bastard who’s after her.
I start the engine and pull back onto the road. The sun is lower now, cutting long across the asphalt, and I lean into the first bend.
She laughed at the luau last night. Stood on her feet and screamed for Luca and Ace like she’d been waiting her whole life to have something to scream about. Leaned into my shoulder afterward and let herself stay there without acting nonchalant about it.
Yet, she’s trying so hard to hold the distance.
I push the bike harder on the straight and think about the fact that Adelaide is ours.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
But she’s going to stay.