Chapter 8 Elias #2
Balance: Zero.
I look up. Mia is standing in the doorway, drowning in a thick, oversized flannel blanket she’s scavenged from the display shelf, her honey-blonde hair a wild mane that makes my cock throb with a heavy, leaden ache.
She’s abandoned the smudge-stained pink cardigan in the tent, and through the gaps in the wool, I can see the dark, purple marks I left on her neck in the Vault, stark against her pale skin.
She looks beautiful. She looks like chaos.
"What time is it?" she whispers.
"0400," I rasp. My voice is gone.
She looks at the desk, taking in the stack of freshly written pages and the pile of ash in the metal wastebasket where I burned the originals. Her breath hitches, her gaze darting between the ash and the ink with the sharp realization of what I’ve done. She walks to the desk and picks up a page.
"Elias," she breathes. "This... this is a reconstruction."
"It's the truth," I say. "Or the version of it the Feds are going to see."
"You falsified the club records to hide the other business." Her voice is low and tight.
"I removed the variables that would complicate your exit."
"You committed a felony," she hisses, dropping the paper. "If the Fed runs a carbon date on this ink—"
"He won't. I used the old pens from the supply closet. The ink is oxidized. I backdated the entries. I even spilled coffee on February just to sell it."
She stares at me. "Why?"
I stand up, my knees popping and my back screaming as I walk around the desk until I am standing right in front of her. "Because you were balancing the equation wrong."
"What?"
"You thought you were a liability. A negative integer." I reach out, my hand hovering near her face. I want to touch her. God, I want to touch her. But my hands are covered in ink and ash. "You're not. You're the sum total."
Tears prick her eyes. "Elias, if you go to jail for this..."
"I won't."
"You can't know that."
"I counted the odds," I lie. The odds are shit. Sixty-forty against me. But I'll take those odds for her.
I reach into my pocket. The metal feels cold against my skin.
Not the ring—that isn't ready yet. That is for later, for when the world stops trying to tear us apart.
I pull out the electronic keycard and the heavy steel master set for the Vault.
It is the symbol of my office. Only the Treasurer held it.
It grants access to everything: the money, the secrets, the history of the Broken Halos.
I take her hand. I press the key into her palm and close her fingers around it.
"Elias?"
"The back door is clear," I say. "Oliver is distracted. Chase is asleep in the front. You take this key. You take the file I just made."
"And go where?"
"Anywhere you want. The Feds are looking for a fraudster. This file proves you're innocent. You walk into the precinct, you slam this on the desk, and you walk out a free woman."
She looks at the key, then at me. "And you?"
"I stay. I handle the Fed."
"He'll know you forged this."
"He'll suspect. He can't prove it. And even if he does... the club is insulated. I burned the connections."
She squeezes the key so hard her hand cramps. "You're firing me."
"I'm freeing you, Mia. You didn't ask for this. You didn't ask to be kidnapped by a biker gang. You didn't ask to be hunted."
"No," she says softly. "I didn't."
Her gaze drops to the key before shifting to the file and the ash in the bin.
"You stayed up all night," she notes. "You destroyed your own safety net to build mine."
"It was a necessary calculation."
"Stop it!" She slams the key onto the desk. The sound rings out like a gunshot. "Stop talking like a calculator, Elias! You didn't do this because of math. You did it because..."
She trails off, her chest heaving.
I step closer. "Because why, Mia?"
"Because you love me," she whispers. The words hang in the air, heavy and terrifying.
I don't flinch. I don't retreat. "Yes. I love you," I say again, testing the weight of it. "I love the way you count. I love the way you chew your pens. I love that you aren't afraid of the dark, only of being wrong. I love you, Mia. And that's why you need to take that key and go."
She stares at me. Silence stretches between us, thick with dust and pine and the smell of burnt paper. Then, slowly, she reaches for the key. My pulse stalls, then kicks back into a heavy rhythm.
She picks it up and drops it into her own pocket.
"I'm keeping the key," she says, her voice steady.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Good."
"But I'm not leaving."
My brow furrows. "Mia—"
"No." She grabs the stack of forged papers.
"We're going to the Fed together. We're going to hand him this pile of beautiful, artistic bullshit, and we're going to tell him to shove it up his ass.
And then..." She steps into me, wrapping her arms around my waist, pressing her face against my chest. She smells like sleep and stubbornness.
"And then I'm coming back to the Vault. Because I have work to do.
And because you still haven't finished making my ring. "
I look at her, my thumb tracing the rough edges of the steel. "You know what I’m building here."
She looks up, a smirk playing on her lips—the first real smile I've seen in days. "I'm an auditor, Elias. I saw you measuring my finger. I know exactly what you’re forging in that bottom drawer. And I’m not letting you finish it until we’re both safe."
I wrap my arms around her, crushing her soft curves against the hard, aching ridge of my cock.
My hands, stained black with the ink of the lies I’ve written for her, gripped her hips and marked the back of her shirt.
I am branding her—externally with the ink and internally with the memory of my seed still cooling inside her pussy.
She is the only asset that matters, and I am making sure the world knew she was claimed.
"You're making a mistake," I murmur into her hair. "I'm dangerous, Mia. I'm a criminal. I just committed forgery before breakfast."
"I know," she says, resting her cheek against my heart. "But your math is solid."
I close my eyes. One. Two. Three. She is staying.
The bell above the front door jingles. Heavy boots sound on the floor followed by a loud, booming voice.
"The Fed's outside!" Chase yells from the front. "And he's got backup! Two SUVs blocking the lot!"
I pull back, framing Mia's face in my hands. The quiet shatters. The war is back. "Are you ready?" I ask.
She smooths her pink cardigan and picks up the file. Her eyes are steel. "Let's go balance the books."
We walk out to the front of the store together.
Through the plate glass window, I can see the flashing lights.
Two SUVs. The federal agent's smirk is a target I intend to hit.
I see Old Jack across the street, sweeping the sidewalk in front of the Timber Trail Tavern.
The pub owner pauses, leaning on his broom, watching. He'll tell everyone by noon.
The Treasurer and his woman. Standing their ground.
I open the door. The morning air is cold and biting. I step out, Mia right beside me. I don't count the agents or the guns. The only number that matters is us.