Chapter 9 #2
“Well,” I say, standing up. “Time to get this show on the road.”
Carter stands with me and presses his hand to the small of my back in support. The heat from his body sends a shiver down my spine. He leans close enough, his lips barely touch the shell of my ear. “I’ve got you, Wildcat.”
No one’s ever said that to me like it was a vow instead of a warning. He’s proven this over the last few days more than any man ever has. That scares me more than I can put into words.
Inside, the clubhouse smells of smoke and adrenaline. I spill it all. The ghost accounts, the ledger, the textile plant, the way Carter found me before the bullets did. The words fall like confession and penance, each line a small, hard thing I set down on the table and step back from.
When I finish, the room is a study in faces. Allura’s expression is unreadable. Divine’s fingers drum a rhythm on the tablet, processing even in silence. Sloane’s jaw is a closed trap. French’s hand tightens around her mug. Calypso’s brow is low and taut.
Divine wipes her mouth and nods. “You should’ve told us sooner.”
“I know.” The apology tastes like copper.
Sloane studies me for a long moment. “You think we’re gonna sit this out?”
“I didn’t want to drag you in.”
“Too late,” Allura says. She leans forward, eyes sharp. “If the Vultures are reactivating Syndicate pipelines, they’re coming for us next. We handle it together.”
The vote is silent, one nod from each woman in the room. French raises her coffee as if toasting. “Family, fists, forgiveness.”
Allura turns to Carter, who’s been standing near the back like a shadow that refuses to detach. “You work with her. You protect her. But understand this. You are a guest in our house. You cross a line, we’ll bury you under it.”
He nods once. “Understood.”
I should have felt relief at the verdict. Instead, the adrenaline curdled and left me hollow. The fight’s over, but the work is just starting. The ledger sits on the table between us. It needs bending, breaking apart, tracing, and I don’t have to do it alone now.
Allura clears her throat. “Logistics.”
Divine’s already halfway to the whiteboard, pulling up the ledger on the wall-screen, fingers pinching addresses into focus.
“Carter, you and I run the digital trace. I’ll mirror their relay and hold a bait node.
If they ping us, we watch where the packet goes.
No direct hits, just breadcrumbs they can’t resist.”
Carter nods. “If their relay’s in the textile plant, we need eyes on the ground.
Masked shipments, night shifts, this is organized.
” He looks to Allura, who gives a slight nod of her head.
“Sloane, Raven, you two shadow the perimeter. Iris routes the convoy paths and times.” He glances at Iris.
She’s already jotting down routes on a tablet.
“We’ll need a safe breakout route if things go south.
Sloane, you’ll coordinate with Calypso for quick exits.
Use the tattoo shop’s alleyways and the bar’s service entrance. ”
He talks like he belongs here. That should bother me more than it does.
Sloane’s mouth twists, but she gives a curt, “Got it.”
French chimes in, practical as always. “I’ll run the front. Bar’s open for a weeknight promotion. Draw the crowd, make the plant think it’s just noise. Give us cover.” She grins crookedly. “Also, if anyone asks, we’re literally just drinking and dancing. No questions.”
Divine throws up a hand. “Legally, I’ll scrub our trail. I can spin them off enough false flags to look like a jealous rival club or a contractor dispute. But if the Vultures are careful, they’ll smell that. We need a direct observation team.”
“Allura?” I ask because she runs the club and our lives in equal measure. She meets my gaze and then the ledger.
She pins a finger on a line of transfers.
“We hit them where it hurts. We don’t take the broadsides.
We get precise. Carter, you and Rebel go into the plant and run recon, not engagement.
Gather proof. Divine will be the ear and mask.
Sloane and Raven hold egress. Iris gets us in, French gives us a soft exit.
Calypso scopes interior ways, the same ones she uses to get clients out under a different name. ”
I feel the map forming like bone. The plan is tight, surgical. It makes my mouth soften because it’s made of people I trust.
Carter looks at me. “You in?”
The air shakes between us. Saying yes feels like going under the knife, but I nod. Carter nods once in response. No smile, no words, just steady trust between us.
Allura’s tone softens in a way that’s foreign and fierce. “You move together. No lone wolves. No improvisation. We are the squad. If one of you gets counted, the rest pulls them back or burns the place down.”
Divine squares her shoulders. “I’ll set the bait tonight, trace the heartbeat, and hand you the path. But if they touch our kids or the shelter. If they even look at the women there wrong, we don’t negotiate.”
The room tightens. It’s agreement and warning braided into one line.
We divide the tasks like an animal into parts to be dissected.
Sloane handles routing and muscle. Iris takes transport, Divine, and Carter focus on the nodes.
French and Calypso manage the public face and extraction.
Allura and I stay in command. The shelter’s patrol doubles.
Volunteers are assigned to safe rooms tonight, and the kids are moved to a spare safehouse until we clear the plant.
Carter finishes wrapping the bandage around my ribs and pulls the tape tight enough to cause discomfort, his movements practical yet with a personal touch.
His knuckles brush my waist as he pulls away, and he locks eyes with me.
Talk about a man who keeps his distance but never his hands off the job.
“When we go in,” he says quietly, “we get what we need, and we leave without a war.”
“We get what we need,” I echo. His eyes briefly drop to the dog tag at my chest, then return to my face.
French clinks her mug on the table. “To the plan.”
We all echo it, a chorus of hard voices. Family, fists, forgiveness, and a plan to follow the money until the Vultures have nowhere left to hide.
Outside, the night breathes cold and patient. The plan waits, and so do the syndicates. We have a day to set baits, plant cameras, and make sure the women in The Haven sleep without nightmares. Then we move.
I look at Carter for a long second at the line of his jaw, the stain of dried blood on his collar, and I think, this is dangerous, but it’s honest work. If Alex’s name is being used as a shovel, tonight we start digging it up, and we’ll bury whatever crawls out.
Carter nods, and the nod is permission, threat, and promise all at once. This time, as the darkness presses in, I don’t face it alone.