Chapter 5
CARTER
Ishouldn’t have gone back to the cemetery. I shouldn’t have risked being seen, but I needed to check if Alex’s grave was still there. I didn’t expect her to show up before sunrise.
The scent of salt, diesel, and bullshit pulls me away from the memory of a blonde-haired beauty.
Long Beach seeps into your clothes no matter how many times you wash them.
I’ve spent half my life in ports like this, watching the same cranes move the same steel boxes full of secrets no one wants their name on.
Tonight is no different. It should’ve been just another shipment, another paycheck wired through someone else’s shell company. But the second I saw the watermark stamped on the manifest, I knew this one wasn’t routine. It was personal.
I check the manifest again, scanning the clipboard with my flashlight. Shipment three-one-four, special handling. Signed off by Delgado.
Delgado means cartel. That means this isn’t standard cargo.
If Alex Slade were still alive, he’d be standing right where I am, smirking and saying, We don’t do standards, brother.
Alex has been dead for four years, and I’m still out here running ghosts.
Still pretending that if I follow enough money trails, I’ll circle back to the moment before I made the call.
I adjust the holster at my ribs, eyes cutting toward the warehouse. The security team I brought in are ex-contractors, good shooters, bad listeners. They smoke too much, talk too loudly, and make the kind of jokes that used to make sense when I was nineteen and bulletproof.
Now I’m thirty-three, sober on paper, still sleeping with the light on, because darkness sounds like gunfire if you listen hard enough.
“Bishop,” one of the men calls, his voice cutting through the night. “East gate’s clear. You want the trucks rolling?”
“Five minutes,” I answer. My voice sounds calm, but my pulse isn’t. It never is when it’s cargo that doesn’t belong to me.
The Pacific wind shoves the smell of rust and ocean into my lungs.
I take it as punishment. The comm in my ear crackles, distorted divine static.
Static always drags me back to the desert, to the sound before something went wrong.
Then silence. I scan the perimeter again.
Everything’s too quiet. No gulls, no forklift echo, no ship horns. Just stillness.
The manifest watermark catches in my light. A tiny gear wrapped in a vulture’s wing. Not cartel. Not Port Authority. A signature I’ve seen in files I shouldn’t have opened. Iron Vultures. Perfect.
That’s when I see her.
Leather jacket. Tight jeans. Boots that look expensive enough to start a fight and sturdy enough to end it. She moves with the calculated confidence of someone who’s owned this ground before and left bodies on it.
At first, I think she’s a distraction, maybe hired by Delgado to keep my attention while something slips out the back. But then she steps into the dock light and tilts her chin up. My stomach drops to the floor.
Alex.
No. Not Alex.
Her.
The woman before me has Alex's eyes. The same molten brown, the same fire burning behind the suspicion. She looks like someone who’s been swallowing grief and gasoline for years and has finally decided to breathe fire.
Four years I've been dreading this moment, and here it is, wrapped in leather and fury. My throat locks up.
“Who the hell…?” one of the men mutters.
“I’ve got it,” I cut him off. “Stay sharp.”
She spots me and zeroes in like a missile. The guards shift, but I wave them down. Something in her stride tells me that if I don’t deal with her, she’ll handle it badly.
When she gets close enough, her perfume hits like a bullet. Leather, smoke, and something faintly sweet beneath, like sugar just starting to burn.
"Are you Carter Bishop?" Her voice cuts through the salt air like a blade.
"Depends who's asking."
She plants her boots on the concrete, hip cocked, every inch of her body spelling challenge. "Victoria Slade, but most people call me Rebel."
Of course they do.
My stomach drops through the pavement. I knew this was coming. The second I saw A. Slade Logistics flagged in the Vulture accounts, I knew she'd find her way to me eventually. Alex's sister. "My twin's gonna change the world, Bishop. She's got numbers in her blood and fire in her belly."
He was right. She's terrifying, and I deserve every second of it.
"You're Alex's sister," I say, keeping my voice neutral even though my throat wants to close.
"Was." The word is sharp enough to draw blood. "He's been dead for four years. But you already knew that."
The shipping manifests blur in my peripheral vision. The whole reason I'm here, tracking the Vulture pipeline through this port, suddenly feels like a trap snapping shut around my neck.
"Yeah," I manage. "I knew."
She steps closer, eyes narrowing. "Funny thing. Your name keeps popping up in places it shouldn't. Places tied to my brother's old business. Places connected to money that smells dirty."
"That's what I do. I follow money."
"Then you and I have something in common.
" She pulls out her phone, and I know what's on the screen before she shows it to me.
A. Slade Logistics. The ghost account the Vultures resurrected.
"Someone's been using my brother's name to move money.
According to my research, you were the last person to see him alive. "
The concrete beneath my boots is crumbling. "Rebel."
"Don't." She holds up a hand. "Don't 'Rebel' me like we're friends. Just tell me the truth. Were you there the night he died?"
Every instinct screams at me to lie, to walk away, to disappear like I've been doing for four years. But those eyes, Alex's eyes, won't let me.
"Yeah," I say quietly. "I was there."
Her breath catches, just for a second. Then her jaw sets harder. "How?"
"I was..." The words stick like broken glass in my throat. "I was working an operation, tracking Cartel weapons through civilian logistics. Alex was helping me."
"Helping you." She repeats it slowly, tasting the words like poison. "My brother was helping you with what, exactly?"
"Intelligence gathering. He had expertise in shipping manifests and supply chain logistics. He could spot patterns we missed."
"And that got him killed." It's not a question. It's an accusation, and she's right.
"The operation went wrong," I say, each word carefully measured because if I start confessing everything right here, right now, I'll never stop.
"We were ambushed. The Cartel and the Vultures are working together.
Alex," my voice cracks despite my best efforts.
"He saved my life. He pushed me into cover and took the bullets meant for me. "
The silence that follows is worse than screaming.
"So you're telling me," Rebel says, slowly, dangerously calm, "that my brother died protecting you."
"Yes."
"And you've been hunting for the people responsible ever since."
"Yes."
She studies me for a long moment, and I can see her mind working behind those eyes. Calculating. Analyzing. Trying to figure out if I'm lying.
"Why should I believe you?" she finally asks.
"Because I have nothing to gain by lying. And because..." I pull Alex's dog tag from under my shirt, the twin to the one she wears around her neck. "He gave me this the night before everything went to hell. He said if anything happened, I should make sure his sister didn't lose her fire."
Her hand moves to her own tag automatically. For a second, something in her expression cracks.
Then the dock explodes with gunfire.
The first shot cracks from the shadows. A clean, high-caliber sound that shatters the quiet. Rebel jerks, spinning toward the source. I catch her wrist, my instincts taking over, firm but not rough, and drag her down behind a stack of cargo crates as wood splinters above us.
“Get down!” I bark, shielding her with my body as another round whistles by.
Her elbow catches my ribs as she reaches under her jacket. “Who the hell…?” she starts.
"Vultures," I bark, returning fire. "They must have followed one of us."
She draws her own pistol and covers the opposite angle. "You think?"
She hisses as another bullet punches through the crate, inches from her shoulder. I return fire. The recoil jolts through my hands, almost comforting, as I sweep the ridge for muzzle flash.
“Three shooters, maybe four. South ridge. Clean formation. Not cartel. Professionals. Stay low,” I order.
“Don’t give me orders, Marine.”
I glance at her. “Then quit standing like a goddamn target.”
She glares. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, squeezing off another shot. “But I’m the asshole keeping you alive.”
A tracer snaps past, and sparks peel off the forklift’s mast. Clean kit. Suppressed rifles. Whoever’s paying them wants the ledgers erased, along with the bodies.
The gunfire stops as abruptly as it began. Only the ocean answers, lapping against the dock in slow, steady waves. We stay crouched, breathing in sync. I can smell the adrenaline on her skin, sharp and electric.
“You hit?” I ask, scanning her quickly.
“Not yet.”
“Good. Stay that way.”
Her glare could gut a lesser man. Good thing I like a feisty woman. “You could say thank you. I did bring my own gun.”
“I could,” I admit. “But I’d be lying if I said it impressed me.”
“Typical man.”
“Typical Harlot.”
That gets to her, causing her to narrow her eyes. “How do you know?”
“Royal Harlots, right? All-female MC. You wear the name like a crown.” I nod toward the cut she’s half-hiding under her jacket. “Your patch gave it away.”
She straightens a little, defiant even while behind cover. “You got a problem with that?”
I shake my head. “No. I just didn’t think Alex’s sister would join an outlaw club to balance ledgers.”
“Then you don’t know me.”
“Maybe not.”
Silence hums for a moment, broken only by the crackle of static from my radio. My team’s gone dark. They’re either hit or hiding. Whoever set this up knew exactly where to strike.
Rebel breaks the silence first. “You think someone followed me?”
“Could’ve been you,” I mutter. “Could’ve been me. Could’ve been the wing-and-gear crowd with a sense of humor.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Good. That makes two of us.” I peek around the crate’s corner. No movement. The wind picks up, carrying the distant sound of sirens. We’ve got minutes before this place is swarming with uniforms, and I can’t have my name anywhere near this job.
I grab her arm again, firm but not rough. “We’re leaving.”
She jerks back. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
“Fine. Stay here and explain to the cops why your fingerprints are all over cartel cargo.”
Her glare could melt steel, but she moves. I guide her along the dock, staying low, until we reach the motorcycles parked under the far floodlight.
Her bike’s black and sleek, with a skull-and-crown decal I recognize as her club’s symbol. Mine’s matte silver, no logo, no flair.
Before I can argue, Rebel is already on her bike, the engine roaring to life. The sound drowns out everything, including the part of my brain screaming that I should tell her the rest, the whole truth. But I don't.
She looks back once, her eyes meeting mine across the distance. "You said Alex saved your life."
"He did."
"Then you owe him. That means you owe me." She revs the engine. "I'm going to find out who's using his name. You can help or you can get in my way. Either way, I'm not stopping."
"I wouldn't expect you to."
Something flickers in her expression. Not quite trust. Not quite forgiveness for showing up in her life like a ghost she didn't ask for. But maybe… maybe curiosity. Maybe the beginning of an alliance, or maybe the moment she finds out the truth and destroys me for it.
"There's more," I hear myself say. The words escape before I can stop them. "About that night. About why Alex was there. About..." Sirens wail, growing closer, cutting me off.
"Later," she says. "If you're not lying, you'll still be here tomorrow. If you are..." She leaves the threat hanging unfinished.
We roll out together, two streaks of chrome and rage slicing through the night. In my mirror, the manifest curls in the heat on the dock, that wing-and-gear watermark blackening at the edges. Silver Talon invoices will vanish in the fire, but the Vultures won’t. They never do.
Behind us, the warehouse burns. Slow at first, then fast. Someone wanted every trace of that shipment erased, maybe us along with it.
As the wind tears across my face, I glance at her from the corner of my eye. She rides like she fights, with her head high, shoulders back, reckless enough to make the road shiver.
She has his eyes. His fire. His stubborn refusal to quit, even when the world burns down.
And I just lied to her. Not directly, but through omission.
By not telling her that I'm the reason Alex was on that roof in the first place. I promised it was safe, and that’s the part I can’t say out loud yet.
"Forgive me, brother," I whisper to the ghost that's haunted me for four years. "I'm trying to protect her. That's what you wanted, right?"
The wind doesn't answer.
I shouldn’t have let her walk into my life. But when she said his name, the past reached out and tightened its grip around my throat. For the first time in a long damn while, I’m not sure I ever truly walked off that roof alive.
We ride toward her clubhouse, toward whatever comes next. Toward the woman who has every right to hate me. Toward the moment when Rebel finds out the truth and I lose her before I even really have her.
The engine roars, the city swallows me whole, and Alex’s ghost rides pillion, silent as judgment.