Chapter 4
REBEL
The tattoo shop is closed for the night, but my pulse refuses to follow orders. The bar's neon sign bleeds across the window, casting the skull logo across the room like a heartbeat that refuses to flatline.
I should have walked away. I should have let Bones’ cryptic trash rust in the back alley of my mind, with the rest of our bad memories. But I can’t. The name won’t let me sleep. Carter Bishop scratches at my skull until I taste metal, like static riding a live wire.
I pour a shot of whiskey, throw it back, then pull up Divine’s side server.
The terminal flickers. My face blinks back at me for a second.
Tired eyes, a coworker’s smear of black ink on my wrist, the line between my cheekbone and jaw where I’ve learned to hold my expression in public.
Where I’ve trained myself not to flinch.
I type his name like it’s a dare.
Carter Bishop.
Nothing at first, so I dig deeper into encrypted databases, old contract ledgers, even the black-market employer lists Divine keeps “for research.” I move laterally, pinging aliases, reverse-resolving IP hops, following the math of money.
A file pings. A tiny, stubborn heartbeat in the noise.
Ex-Marine. Private security consultant. Specializes in high-risk retrieval operations for high-end clients. No criminal record. No public footprint. That means he’s either a ghost or someone with friends who bury things for a living, or someone who knows how to bury himself.
That should have been the end of it. Then another hit blinks.
Alex’s encrypted contact list. My throat tightens, and my fingers go cold.
A. Slade — last call received six hours before his death, to C. Bishop — outgoing message. No transcript. File sealed.
For a second, I feel the room tilt. The whiskey burns my throat on the exhale.
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter, leaning back, rubbing my temples. Every lead ends in silence. Every file stops where the truth should begin. Whoever built him into a clean man built his silence into a vault.
French’s voice slides from the doorway like she’s been summoned by my curse. “Talking to the dead again, sugar?”
I jump because she’s there, grinning like she knows too many sins and too few consequences. She leans against the frame in those ridiculous diamond-studded heels she refuses to retire, a glittery apostle of chaos, even though it’s after midnight.
“Thought you were home,” I tell her, trying to make my calm sound casual.
She smirks. “Home’s boring. Besides, your furious typing is my late-night entertainment.” French steps closer, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “You type angrily. It’s like listening to Morse code for a midlife crisis.”
I crack a smile despite myself. “You’re hilarious.”
“It is if someone makes a ringtone out of it.” She eyes the screen, squints. “Carter Bishop? New toy?”
I hesitate. The folder on my desktop already holds a scrubbed, half-redacted file, a fanged timestamp from Alex’s last day, and the sealed tag that smells of bad paperwork. I close my mouth around the truth.
“Lead on the money trail.” I finally answer.
Her jaw tightens, not in judgment but because she knows me. “You mean the one you’re not telling the rest of us about?”
“French.” The single-word warning is sharp, old-school.
“Rebel.” She folds her arms, the look any sister gives before letting you fall or catching you. “You’ve got that look again. The one that says you’re about to do something either stupid or heroic, and I can’t tell which till someone bleeds.”
She’s not wrong. That look has gotten us out of fires. It’s also started a few.
“I just need to know who he is.”
French studies me like she’s weighing my odds on a bet she doesn’t plan to lose. At last, she exhales. “Ever think maybe you’re digging too deep? Ghosts stay buried for a reason.”
“Yeah, well, some of them steal your name and launder money through it,” I reply. The edge of my voice is thinner than I want.
“That’s a hell of a haunting.” Her tone drops. The levity dies. She leans in close, her curl brushing my cheek. “Listen, if you dig up ghosts, babe, don’t be surprised when they bite.”
Her warning lands harder than I expected.
Her hands are splayed across the desk, and suddenly I remember who will hold my hand when the ground gives way.
I should tell them all, Allura, Sloane, Calypso, but the ledger in my head has margins and secrets, with a folding line that says, if you tell them and you’re wrong, you burn the whole house down.
“I’ll handle it,” I answer.
“You always say that.” French smirks, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Because it’s always true.” The bluff tastes like rust.
She shakes her head, grinning. “Fine. But if you end up on the six o’clock news with a byline that reads, ‘Local Harlot Hunts Phantom Security Guy,’ I’m not bailing you out again. I’ll just design a commemorative shot glass.”
“Make sure it says ‘Rebel: died doing math.’”
She laughs, the sound warm and wicked, and for a moment, the tension breaks. That’s what I love about French. She doesn’t judge. She just throws glitter at the apocalypse and dares it to shine.
When she’s gone, the silence folds back in.
I print what little I have. The half-redacted file, the timestamp from Alex’s last call, and the sealed data tag that mocks me in gray.
I fold and then tuck them into a manila folder, slide my Glock into the small part of the bag I keep in my bike’s saddlebag, and zip it.
If Carter Bishop’s connected to Alex’s death or the money trail, then sitting here isn’t going to get me answers.
Outside, the compound breathes like something alive. The low hum of the perimeter, the dark bulk of the ring, the bar’s neon like a sleeping heartbeat. My bike waits, its chrome flashing in the light, an iron promise. I swing my leg, feel the familiar ache as leather and metal align.
I don my helmet. The visor catches the compound’s glow and fractures it into a thousand tiny maps, each a path I might take. I don’t tell them. I can’t. If I’m wrong, I’ll drag every sister into a war that’s not ours. If I’m right, I’ll be the one draped in the consequences.
A text buzzes my phone without an ID. No number, a single line:
Nice work, Treasurer. Keep the books balanced.
My stomach drops as if I just swallowed a stone. Attached is an image of my spreadsheet, with a line circled reading "A. Slade Logistics LLC."
They’ve been watching. Not just the club, but me. That realization burns more than whiskey ever did.
I kick the bike to life. The engine growls, a deep animal beneath my boots. I twist the throttle, and the street swallows me. The city opens like an old wound.
Riding in the dark is like meditation. The cool air sharpens my edges. Heads turn; the world notes our passage. I thread through back roads, not looking for fireworks but for a name where a face should be.
I pull over at a diner that smells of grease and of good decisions gone wrong. The kind of place where nobody asks for ID and everyone knows how to keep a secret. I sit at the counter, eat fries like they’ll mend my nerves, and thumb through the printed file until the letters blur.
Alex’s name glows faintly under the fluorescent lights, as if the page itself remembers him. The world moves on, but paper doesn’t. Paper remembers everything.
I flip through directories until a shadow blinks. A forwarding address tucked inside a courier manifest. Nothing direct, just a courier who moves late-night “private consignments” for cash. Couriers never ask questions. They move things, people, and sometimes truth, disguised as merchandise.
There’s a pickup scheduled in three days at a warehouse on the edge of Long Beach. Private handoff. Time-stamped. Everything anonymous. Everything is perfect if you were laundering a name through a shell.
I tuck the last fry between my teeth, swallow, and feel the familiar knot of adrenaline. If this is the trail, this is my map. If it’s a trap, it’s a nice one, too neat, too professional.
When I get back on the bike, the night presses my jacket against my skin. I ride clean, with no theatrics or aggression. I’m a shadow on two wheels.
Back at the compound, I park and kill the engine. The security lights wash the yard in harsh white, and the gate closes with a thunk. Inside, the clubhouse sleeps, except for the small light over the office.
I stand for a second and just breathe. The swirl of risk and memory is dizzying. Ghosts haunt me not because they’re irretrievable but because they keep demanding accounting.
I grip the manila folder, fingers curling tight.
The name Carter Bishop is both a target and an invitation.
My throat tightens around the truth I don’t fully know.
There is a ledger to close and a debt to settle.
Some ghosts send invitations instead of knocks.
Tonight, mine wrote his name in the margins.
I place the folder on my desk, then slide into the chair and stare at the glowing monitor and a familiar picture of Carter Bishop until my reflection blurs with the images.
I shouldn’t be thinking about him. But I am, and it’s not because of the way he looks at me now.
It’s because I’ve seen him before. The memory creeps in like fog.
Dawn crests over the cemetery. Wet grass and the smells of stone, lilies, and cold earth permeate the air.
I’m visiting Alex’s grave early in the morning, before traffic and noise. Before the world starts pretending everything is fine.
He’s already here.
Boots planted in the mud, hands clasped behind his back, standing like a sentry instead of a mourner. Fresh white lilies rest against the stone. Grief shouldn’t look so controlled.
“You lost?” I ask.
He turns just enough to look at me. Salt air, clean soap, and a hint of metal scent cling to him.
“No.” His voice is low and steady.
“You know him?” I ask, pointing to the grave.
This strange man pauses. “Yeah.”
His tone isn’t defensive or casual. It’s heavy, like a weight is pressing down on his shoulders. Before I can push further, I feel a shift in the air.
I glance toward the tree line and see Bones leaning against a headstone, cigarette ember glowing like a warning. He’s not watching the grave. He’s watching us.
Bones approaches us, his gaze dragging over the stranger once, assessing.
The stranger doesn’t flinch, but I notice the recalculation in his posture, two predators measuring distance.
“Careful who you share mourning with, Rebel,” Bones says softly as he passes. Then he disappears into the fog.
The stranger steps back. “I’ll let you have your time.” He walks away without giving me a name.
The smell of salt and gun oil stays in the air long after he leaves.
I let the memory settle where I keep everything I don’t have time to examine. I told myself it didn’t matter who he was. It was just a stranger paying respects. Another man carrying grief he didn’t know where to put.
Now I’m not so sure.