Chapter 18 #2
Sunshine stiffened.
I released her hand only long enough to check the pistol secured beneath my cut.
“Stay here.”
Her expression closed.
The words had come too quickly, sounding like an order rather than a request.
I corrected myself immediately.
“Please stay with Charlie while I find out what’s happening.”
The tension in her face eased slightly. “Come back.”
“I will.”
She looked toward the family drawing.
“Don’t promise unless you mean it.”
“I mean it.”
I kissed her forehead before moving toward the door, then stopped when her fingers caught my wrist.
“Remedy.”
I turned.
Fear had drained the warmth from her face, but she remained beside Charlie rather than following me into danger.
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
I left the room and descended the stairs two at a time.
The common area had transformed. Brothers moved toward exits, lights dimmed across the front windows, and Cipher stood near the security monitors with Toxic and Bishop. A grainy nighttime feed showed movement beyond the western fence line, low to the ground and partially obscured by trees.
“Human?” I asked.
“Can’t tell,” Cipher answered.
Mace checked the magazine in his pistol. “Could be an animal.”
Steel moved toward the side door. “Could be someone crawling.”
Toxic pointed toward the screen. “Nobody opens an exterior door until the second camera confirms direction.”
The shape moved again.
Too large for a fox.
Too controlled for a deer.
It remained low behind a fallen log, then disappeared beyond the camera’s range.
Cipher switched feeds.
Nothing.
Another screen flickered.
Still nothing.
Toxic looked toward Mace and Gage. “West interior patrol. You do not cross the fence.”
Both men nodded.
“I’m going,” I said.
Toxic shook his head. “You stay.”
“I’m armed.”
“You’re also the medic, and if this is a diversion, I need you inside.”
The order tightened against my instincts, but unlike Sunshine, I had chosen the patch and the chain of command attached to it. Toxic was right. If someone breached another entrance or a brother returned injured, leaving the clubhouse without medical support would be reckless.
I looked toward the staircase.
Sunshine and Charlie waited upstairs.
“I need eyes on the second floor.”
“Bishop’s going.”
Bishop already moved toward the stairs.
I caught his arm before he passed. “Sunshine’s with Charlie.”
“I know.”
“Stay near them.”
His expression softened. “I will.”
The west camera came alive again.
The figure crossed the edge of the frame, upright this time.
A man.
Dark coat.
Cap pulled low.
The pale scar beside his ear caught the infrared light.
Brother Malachi stopped at the fence.
He faced the camera directly.
Then he lifted one gloved hand.
Not waving.
Pointing.
Toward the clubhouse.
Cipher leaned closer to the monitor. “What the hell is he doing?”
Malachi remained still for three seconds before lowering his arm and disappearing into the trees.
A second later, every exterior camera went black.
The room erupted into controlled motion.
Cipher swore and began typing.
Toxic issued orders.
Steel and Mace moved toward defensive positions.
Somewhere upstairs, a child started crying.
I looked toward the dark monitors, then the staircase where Sunshine waited with my daughter, and understood exactly what Malachi had been pointing at.
He had not come to inspect the clubhouse.
He had come to show us he knew where Sunshine and Charlie were.
The camera feeds vanished so completely that, for one terrible second, the dark monitors reflected only our own faces staring back at us.
Cipher swore beneath his breath and dropped into the chair in front of the security console, his fingers moving across the keyboard with enough speed to blur.
Toxic stepped closer to the center screen while Steel and Mace took opposite sides of the room, both men already speaking into their radios as patrol teams repositioned around the building.
The clubhouse did not erupt into panic. It hardened.
Doors locked, weapons came free, and every man inside shifted into the kind of controlled readiness forged by years of surviving situations where hesitation became another word for blood.
My attention stayed fixed on the staircase.
Sunshine and Charlie were upstairs.
Brother Malachi had looked directly into the camera, pointed toward the clubhouse, and then blinded every exterior feed within seconds. Whether he had known the exact room where they waited or only understood they were somewhere inside did not matter. He had wanted us to imagine both possibilities.
“Toxic,” I said.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” I moved toward the stairs. “He pointed at them.”
“He pointed at the building.”
“He knows Sunshine is here.”
Toxic caught my arm before I could pass him. “And if he cut the cameras to draw us away from another entrance, running upstairs without knowing what he’s doing is exactly what he wants.”
“My daughter is upstairs.”
“So are Bishop, Lark, Daisy, three armed brothers, and enough women to make Malachi regret climbing through a window.”
His voice remained calm, but his grip tightened once before releasing me.
Toxic understood. He had Lark in the building, children under this roof, and more family gathered in one place than any enemy should have been allowed to threaten.
The difference was that he could command the room while fear tried to hollow him out. I was still learning.
Cipher struck another key.
“Internal feeds are live.”
The monitor grid changed, replacing dark exterior views with hallway cameras, stairwells, the kitchen, garage access, and every common room.
Upstairs, Bishop stood outside Charlie’s room with a pistol held low against his thigh while Lark guided two sleepy children into the nursery.
Daisy moved quickly down the hall carrying blankets and whispering reassurances to a little girl who had awakened crying.
Then the camera outside Charlie’s room shifted enough to show Sunshine in the doorway.
She held Charlie against her chest with one arm while the other wrapped around Mr. Pickles and the family drawing she had apparently pulled from the wall. Her face looked pale, but she remained steady, speaking softly into Charlie’s hair while Bishop checked the windows and hall.
They were safe.
For the moment.
Air returned to my lungs.
“Can you talk to the second floor?” I asked.
Cipher nodded toward the wall panel. “Internal intercom still works.”
I crossed the room and pressed the button marked for the upper hallway.
“Bishop.”
His head turned immediately toward the speaker.
“Go.”
“Charlie’s room secure?”
“Window locked, curtains closed, no breach. Sunshine and Charlie are with me.”
“Move them to the interior nursery.”
Sunshine looked toward the camera.
Even through the grainy feed, I saw the fear in her eyes when she heard my voice.
Bishop glanced toward her, then back at the hall. “Understood.”
Charlie lifted her head from Sunshine’s shoulder.
“Daddy?”
The intercom carried her voice into the command room, small and uncertain enough to cut through every layer of training I possessed.
“I’m here, Bug.”
“Are the woods bad?”
I looked at Toxic.
He gave one slow nod.
“Someone’s outside,” I said, keeping my voice gentle. “The brothers are making sure he stays there.”
“Are you coming upstairs?”
Everything inside me wanted to answer yes.
Instead, I forced the truth through the fear.
“Not yet. I need to help Uncle Cipher and Toxic downstairs.”
A pause followed, and I could picture the way her brow would furrow whenever she tried to understand a decision she did not like.
“Sunshine’s here,” she said finally.
“I know.”
“She’s staying with me.”
“I know that too.”
Sunshine’s gaze lifted toward the camera again. She could not see me, but she seemed to understand I was watching.
“I’ve got her,” she said.
The words reached me through the speaker with quiet certainty.
Not Charlie alone.
Her.
Them.
I closed my eyes for half a breath.
“I know,” I answered.
Bishop guided them toward the interior hallway while the feed switched to another camera.
Sunshine kept Charlie close, never allowing fear to hurry her steps or turn the movement into something that would frighten the children watching.
The family picture remained clutched against her side, the purple roof folded slightly along one edge.
Toxic touched the radio at his shoulder. “All teams hold interior lines until cameras return. Nobody crosses the perimeter. We don’t chase shadows into woods he prepared.”
Mace’s voice answered from the west corridor. “Copy.”
Steel came through next. “North secured.”
Gage reported from the garage.
Every entrance remained intact.
So far.
Cipher opened a diagnostic screen. “He didn’t destroy the cameras. Signal’s being jammed.”
“From where?” Toxic asked.
“Close enough to overload the wireless relays, but not necessarily inside the property. Could be portable.”
“Can you isolate it?”
“I’m trying.”
The old urge to move burned through me. Standing still while an enemy manipulated our sight felt unnatural, especially with Charlie’s voice still echoing inside my head.
I wanted a body to treat, a wound to close, something tangible beneath my hands.
Instead, there were only dark screens, uncertain woods, and the knowledge that Malachi had turned fear itself into a weapon.
Bishop’s voice came across the radio.
“Second floor secure. Sunshine and Charlie are in the interior nursery with Daisy and the children. Lark’s here too.”
“Any windows?” Toxic asked.
“One small one facing the courtyard. Steel covered it from below.”
“Good.”
I moved back toward the internal monitor.
The nursery feed showed blankets spread across the floor, children clustered together beneath the warm glow of a lamp, and Sunshine seated against the interior wall with Charlie in her lap.
Lark knelt beside them while Daisy distributed stuffed animals from an emergency basket.
Bishop remained near the door, watching the hall.
Sunshine looked toward the camera once more.