Chapter Thirty-Three #2
His gaze drops to the laptop bag still hanging from my shoulder, and he frowns. He still doesn’t understand which one of us he should have been afraid of.
That’s the moment it hits him.
This wasn’t luck.
This wasn’t a chase.
He didn’t run into me accidentally.
I’ve been waiting for him.
“The car you called this morning to pick you up is registered to a company that’s under investigation in four states,” I say. “I can show you the file if you want.”
He doesn’t answer. There isn’t anything to say to that.
I step through the gate and close the distance between us. My hand settles against his shoulder, turning him back toward the house. He stiffens beneath my touch, glances at me once, then starts walking without a word.
By the time we reach the kitchen, the three hired guns are zip-tied on the living room floor, their weapons stacked neatly on the coffee table just out of reach.
Travis sits at his kitchen table, robe bound tight, both hands braced against the timber as though letting go might make the room come apart around him.
Slate takes the front of the house. Static drifts toward the back. Travis watches them both, a frown pulling at his brow. He doesn’t know either of them. That’s useful. Right about now, I want him wondering how many clubs have shown up at his front door, and how much bigger this problem really is.
Koa stands behind Travis’ chair, close enough that Travis can feel it without needing to turn around.
I set a single printed page in front of him.
His own messages to Calloway’s office. His own communications with the security firm.
And under those, the photograph of Piper, taken the same day he sent the instruction that put her in someone’s crosshairs.
“I was following instructions,” Travis says, his voice thin. “I’m not the one who—”
“You sent the photograph of her sister.” Silence sits heavy in the kitchen. “You wrote the regulatory complaint,” I say. “You sourced the security firm. You coordinated the road team.” I set the second page down beside the first. “This isn’t Calloway’s file. This is yours.”
He looks at the pages, then at Koa’s shadow behind him. Then at the two men by the door he’s never seen before, and I watch him understand that not knowing them is somehow worse than knowing exactly what they’re capable of.
I leave the laptop where it is. “Read it.”
Travis doesn’t move. Instead, he looks at me. “And if I don’t?”
Nobody answers straightaway. The silence stretches until it starts doing the work for us.
I fold my arms. “Since we arrived here, every account in your name has been frozen pending fraud investigations. The IRS already knows about the escrow account where your investment portfolio was liquidated. Every offshore transfer you’ve hidden behind shell companies now points back to you.
Your work emails are sitting on three federal servers waiting to be opened, and every backup you thought you’d deleted now exists in six different places.
” His face drains another shade, but I keep going, “The security firm you used to hide payments? Gone. Burner phones? Mapped. Call logs? Recovered. The financial trail between you and Calloway is already complete.”
His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“You’ve already lost your career,” I tell him. “Your money, your reputation. By tomorrow morning, every agency worth knowing your name will know it.”
He stares at me. “So…” His voice catches. “Why the fuck do you need me?”
“Because paperwork closes loops.” I nod toward the laptop. “That statement fills in the gaps computers can’t.”
He looks down at the screen but doesn’t touch it. “And if I still say no?”
This time it’s Slate who answers, “You can.” His drawl rolls through the kitchen. “Ain’t a soul here gonna force a pen to your hand…” He pauses. “But you’ll leave this house knowin’ you just picked Calloway over yourself.”
The room falls quiet again, and I watch Travis work through it. He looks for leverage but finds none.
I lean forward, resting my hands on the table.
“You’ve got one thing left I can’t take with a keyboard.
” His eyes lift to mine. “Your pulse.” His eyes widen at my clear threat.
“If you walk away from this…” My voice stays level.
“Calloway will spend the rest of his life wondering whether you’ll talk.
” I let that settle. “And so will we.” His breathing shallows.
“You know what’s east of Las Vegas?” His breathing stutters as he shakes his head slowly.
“The desert.” I glance toward the dark window.
“Hundreds of miles of it.” My eyes come back to his.
“Dry washes. Dry creek beds. Abandoned mine shafts. Places nobody’s looked in for fifty years because nobody has a reason to.
” The calm presses in around him. “If it were me… I’d rather file paperwork.
” I shrug. “But I’m prepared to do either. ”
Travis’ hands shake against the table, his eyes darting between all of us like he’s having trouble deciding his next move.
Slate steps forward, folding his arms across his chest. “Look, kid, Calloway’s done.
” The words settle over the kitchen, and Travis doesn’t answer.
Slate doesn’t seem to expect him to. He studies him for a long moment before speaking again, “Ain’t much point pretendin’ otherwise.
” The air thickens, heavy enough to feel.
Finally, he says, “Question is… whether you’re smart enough to outlive him. ”
Travis’ gaze drifts to the window over the sink, unfocused, like he’s searching for a version of the night where the answer changes, and his shoulders lose a fraction of their tension.
Barely noticeable.
But enough.
I don’t reach for the laptop yet. “Before we get to the paperwork, I want you to say it. Out loud.”
Travis looks at me, wary. “Say what?”
“The security firm. The car that ran Sage off the highway. The man who followed her sister and photographed her outside a studio full of people who had nothing to do with any of this.” I keep my voice level, because that’s the only tone this deserves. “That was you!”
Something in Travis’ face tightens, but he doesn’t deny it. “I told them to watch her. Follow her. Make her nervous enough to back off the inquiry before it went any further.”
“That’s not what happened on that highway.”
“That wasn’t supposed to—” He stops, then starts again. “That was supposed to be pressure. I told them to scare her, not…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.
“You told armed men to scare her?” I don’t move. “And you had a deaf kid photographed outside her job and followed on the street because you needed to look useful to a man you already knew was dirty?”
“I needed him to trust me!” The words come faster now, like he’s been carrying the answer alone long enough that he’s relieved someone’s finally asking.
“If Calloway thought I was soft, if he thought for one second I wasn’t handling problems the way he wanted them handled, I’d have been the next loose end he cleaned up.
So yes… I made the calls he expected me to make.
And every damn night I went home and copied another folder onto a drive he doesn’t know exists, because I always knew a day like this might come, and I wanted to be the one still standing when it did. ”
“So you protected yourself twice?” Slate’s voice comes from behind me, quiet and even. “Once by hurting people. Once by keeping the receipts that let you walk away from having done it?”
Travis doesn’t argue. I watch him decide not to, which is the first honest thing he’s done since we walked in.
“I’m not going to tell you it was right. I’m telling you it’s what happened.”
Nobody answers him.
I turn the laptop around and slide it across the table until it stops in front of him. “Read the damn paper.”
He exhales, then nods, leaning in to finally read it.
Every page lays out exactly what he knows about Calloway’s operation.
The shell companies used to move money. The private security firms that acted as cutouts.
The meetings he attended. The instructions he carried out.
The payments he witnessed. The names of the people sitting between Calloway and the crimes they thought they’d buried beneath layers of paperwork.
Every statement cross-referenced against the files we already pulled from his servers and the evidence sitting on drives back at the clubhouse.
It’s more than a confession.
It’s the roadmap that ties Calloway’s entire operation together.
At the bottom of the final page sits a declaration that everything he’s provided is true to the best of his knowledge and given voluntarily.
His signature makes him a cooperating witness.
Once the statement is filed, copies land with enough agencies that they can’t quietly disappear, and Calloway loses any chance of burying this alongside everything else.
Travis reads every word, then his jaw tightens. His thumb rubs slowly over the edge of the table while he weighs whatever future is still left to him.
Mace shifts his weight against the wall, arms folded across his chest. “You already know how this ends.” He nods once toward the laptop. “Quit dragging it out.” His voice is quiet, almost conversational. “You’re fresh out of better options.”
Travis’ eyes close, just for a second, and when they open again, something is gone out of them—resistance.