Chapter Eight
Wyatt
I don't sleep that night, not really, cycling through the footage on my phone every twenty minutes like staring at it hard enough might reveal something new, some detail I missed the first six times through.
Silas confirms by morning what I already suspected in my gut.
The man's name is Colton Reyes, no relation to Rowan despite the coincidence of the last name, a Blackthorn associate who hasn't earned full patch status yet, which tells us something useful.
Dax sent an errand runner, not a made man, which means either he's being careful about exposing his own patched brothers to whatever comes next, or he doesn't consider this important enough yet to risk somebody who actually matters to the club.
Neither option makes me feel better about what's coming.
I spend the morning at the clubhouse instead of at my usual post outside Marked, an adjustment Silas insisted on given how close I'd already been standing when Deb called yesterday, close enough that I made it inside in under two minutes but not close enough to have stopped Colton Reyes from ever walking through that door in the first place.
That failure sits heavy in my chest all morning, a specific, physical weight I recognize now as an old friend, the same weight I carried around for months after Amarillo, the weight of a man who was supposed to be somewhere he wasn't when it mattered.
Silas doesn't blame me for it, not out loud, and neither does Preacher, both of them too disciplined to waste energy assigning fault for something that couldn't have been predicted.
I blame myself anyway, quietly, the way I've learned to blame myself for most things these days, not as punishment exactly, more as a kind of accounting I owe myself if I'm ever going to trust my own judgment again.
Deuce catches me in the parking lot around ten, tablet in hand, practically vibrating with the particular energy of a prospect who's just proven his worth to men twice his age.
"Got a partial hit on the truck," he says.
"Registered to a shell company, but the shell company's registered agent shares an address with a storage facility outside Clearview.
Silas thinks it might be where they're staging whatever they're planning. "
"Good work."
"Preacher already said the same thing, so I'm feeling pretty good about my career prospects this morning.
" He grins, quick and a little nervous, still not entirely sure how much familiarity he's allowed with me given everything.
"You doing okay, Wyatt? Not trying to overstep. Just, yesterday looked rough."
"I'm managing." It's not entirely true, and something in my face must say so, because Deuce doesn't push it, just nods and heads back inside, and I'm left standing in the gravel lot a moment longer, grateful, in a small, unexpected way, for a nineteen-year-old prospect's straightforward concern in the middle of a morning that hasn't offered much softness.
Managing is generous, honestly. What I actually am is a man running on coffee and a low, steady hum of dread, waiting for a phone call I know is coming even before it arrives, some old instinct honed over eight months of bad news telling me this particular quiet isn't going to last much longer.
I'm three hours into a second pot of coffee at the clubhouse, going through everything Deuce and Preacher have managed to dig up on Colton Reyes, when my phone buzzes with a number I don't recognize, area code from down around Amarillo.
I almost don't answer it. Some old instinct, learned hard over the last eight months, tells me unknown numbers from that area code rarely bring good news. I answer anyway, because right now I can't afford to let anything go unchecked.
"Yeah."
"Wyatt." Reina's voice, quieter and more frightened than I've ever heard it, even in the handful of tense moments right before everything fell apart between us. "Don't hang up. Please. I need two minutes."
I step outside the clubhouse, away from the open bay where Tank's working, needing the privacy more than I want to admit even to myself.
"Talk fast."
I glance back toward the open bay where Tank's still working, lowering my voice further out of old habit more than real necessity.
"Dax sent somebody to Rowan's shop. I know he did, I heard him on the phone with Colton yesterday, bragging about it after, said he made your wife shake without laying a finger on her, said it like it was some kind of victory.
" Her voice cracks on the last word, and whatever composure she's been holding onto through the first part of the call finally slips.
"I didn't sign up for this, Wyatt. I want you to understand that.
Whatever I was to you, whatever stupid, selfish thing we did together, I never once thought it would end up with somebody's wife getting terrorized in her own shop because of my half-brother's grudge. "
"You knew about Dax before this. You knew what he was capable of."
"I knew he rode with Blackthorn. I didn't know he'd been sitting on information about the club for a year and a half waiting for the right moment to use it, and I sure as hell didn't know he'd use it to go after a woman who never did anything to either one of us.
" A ragged breath on her end, and I can hear, underneath the fear, something that sounds almost like grief.
"You could have called the club days ago. Warned somebody before it got this far."
"I know. I was scared, and then I was ashamed, and then I told myself it wasn't my place to warn anybody about my own brother, like staying quiet somehow made me less responsible for what he does with what I told him, back when I still thought sharing things with him was harmless.
" Her voice drops lower, rawer. "I've spent five months telling myself all kinds of stories about what was harmless.
Guess I'm still working through which ones actually were. "
"I lost everything already, Wyatt. The bar job, my apartment, half the friends I had down here once word got out about us.
I've spent eight months trying to put my life back together with what's left, and now my own brother's about to make it so much worse for everybody, including me, and I don't know how to stop him. "
I think about Denise's phone call, about the ledger I hadn't fully counted, and something in me softens toward Reina in a way I don't entirely trust yet, careful of how easily old patterns could reassert themselves if I let my guard down even slightly.
"Where are you right now?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me whether you're somewhere he can get to easily if this call gets back to him somehow."
A pause, longer than I expect. "I'm staying with a friend outside Amarillo for now. Away from the clubhouse, away from anywhere Dax would think to look first. I'm not stupid, Wyatt, whatever else you think of me. I know how to disappear for a while when I need to."
"I don't think you're stupid." And I realize, saying it, that I mean it, that whatever else is true about the choices we both made, stupid was never the right word for either of us.
Selfish, maybe. Reckless, certainly. But not stupid, and pretending otherwise would just be one more convenient lie to make the whole thing easier to file away.
"What do you know? Specifically. Not what you suspect, what you actually know."
"He's planning something bigger than a scared errand boy in a tattoo shop.
I heard him on the phone with somebody, talking about a real move, not just intimidation, something with actual money or property changing hands, sometime in the next couple weeks.
I don't know exactly what or when. I know he mentioned the shop by name, and I know he mentioned you specifically, said something about making sure you understood what it cost to embarrass a man's sister in front of his whole club.
" She pauses, and when she speaks again her voice is smaller, almost childlike in its rawness.
"I'm scared of him, Wyatt. I didn't used to be. I am now."
"You need to get somewhere safe. Not for my sake. For yours."
"There's nowhere safe from your own family when they've decided you're the reason everything went wrong.
" A bitter, exhausted laugh, gone as quickly as it arrived.
"I'm not calling for your help. I know I don't get to ask you for that, not after everything.
I'm calling because whatever you think of me, I never wanted this.
I never wanted anyone actually hurt. I need you to know that, and I need you to protect her, because I can't stop what's coming from down here, and you're the only person who might be able to from up there. "
The call ends before I can find the right thing to say back to that, and I stand outside the clubhouse a long moment, phone still in my hand, turning over everything she just told me, weighing it against everything I already know about the kind of woman she is and the kind of man I was when I let myself become part of her story.
Preacher finds me still standing there a few minutes later, must have seen me come outside and clocked something in my posture that told him it was worth checking on.
"Bad news?" he asks.
"Complicated news." I fill him in fast, the gist of it, Dax's bigger move, the timeline, Reina's fear. He listens without interrupting, the same careful, absorbing quality he brought to my own confession the day this all started.
"You going to tell Rowan?"
"Now. Today. All of it." I don't hesitate saying it, and something in Preacher's face shifts slightly, a small, measuring approval he doesn't often show this openly.