Chapter 14 The Chase #3
"FBI training." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Some of it actually stuck."
"More than some." I turned my head, meeting his eyes. "When you took that gap between the boulders—the one barely wide enough for your handlebars—I've been riding for twenty years, and I'm not sure I would have tried that."
"Desperation makes you stupid."
"That wasn't desperation. That was instinct.
Good instinct." I reached over, traced my thumb along the edge of his jaw.
"You're not the same person who got on the back of my bike two weeks ago.
That guy was scared. Careful. Holding himself back because he'd been taught that taking risks meant getting hurt. "
Tyler's expression shifted—something vulnerable flickering beneath the exhaustion. "Cross spent three years teaching me that my instincts were wrong. That I couldn't trust my own judgment. That every independent thought I had was dangerous."
"He was wrong."
"I know that now." Tyler's hand came up to cover mine, pressing my palm against his cheek. "I know it because of you. Because you never tried to make me smaller. You just... gave me space to figure out who I am when I'm not afraid."
The words hit me somewhere deep, in a place I'd walled off years ago after Danny died. I'd failed my brother. Failed to see what he needed, failed to be there when it mattered. But maybe—maybe I could do better this time. Maybe I could be the person Tyler needed, the partner he deserved.
"After this is over." Tyler's voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. "When Cross is dealt with and Sarah is safe and we're not running from crisis to crisis—I want to take you somewhere. Somewhere that isn't about survival or club business or anything except us."
"Like where?"
"I don't know. Somewhere with a beach, maybe. Or mountains. Anywhere I can wake up next to you without wondering if today's the day everything falls apart."
I rolled onto my side, facing him fully.
Reached up to trace the line of his jaw, feeling the slight rasp of stubble beneath my fingers.
In the afternoon light filtering through the blinds, his brown eyes flecked with gold I'd never noticed before.
Or maybe I just hadn't let myself look closely enough.
"That sounds good." My voice came out rougher than I intended. "A beach. You in swim trunks. Nothing trying to kill us."
"Romantic."
"I'm working on it."
He laughed—a real laugh, tired and strained but genuine. The sound loosened something in my chest that had been wound tight since Vince ran.
"I mean it," I continued. "When this is done. The coast, maybe—there's a stretch of beach up near Big Sur that I've always wanted to see. Rent a cabin for a week. Do nothing but swim and sleep and..."
"And?"
I pulled him closer, until our foreheads touched. "And figure out what we're building here. Without bullets flying. Without Cross's shadow hanging over everything. Just us."
"Just us." Tyler's breath was warm against my lips. "I like the sound of that."
Then he leaned in and kissed me, soft and slow, and for a few minutes I let myself forget about Hawk in the basement and Vince and Cross and everything else.
His hand slid up my chest, fingers curling around the back of my neck.
My hand found his hip, pulled him closer until our bodies were pressed together from chest to knee.
Not building toward anything—we were both too exhausted for that. Just... being close. Holding onto each other while the world fell apart around us.
When we finally broke apart, Tyler tucked his head under my chin, and I wrapped my arm around his shoulders. His breathing slowed, evened out. For a while, I thought he might actually sleep.
"Tank?" His voice was barely a murmur.
"Yeah?"
"Don't let me go."
My arm tightened around him. "Never."
Hawk emerged just after three in the morning. The basement door finally opened and he climbed the stairs into the common room, where a handful of us had been keeping vigil. The murmured conversations died instantly, every eye turning toward him.
He looked worn at the edges—not weak, never weak, but like a man who'd spent hours doing something that cost him.
His knuckles were wrapped in white gauze spotted with blood, and there was a darkness behind his eyes that hadn't been there before.
Even so, he moved with the same coiled power as always, shoulders squared, spine straight.
Whatever the interrogation had taken out of him, it hadn't touched his core.
"Church." The single word cut through the silence. "Now. Full attendance. Wake everyone."
The chapel filled in minutes. Every patched member who wasn't on active perimeter duty crowded around the long table, with more standing along the walls—men in various states of dress, some clearly roused from sleep, all of them alert now.
I took my usual seat, Tyler beside me—his presence at church no longer questioned, his place in this room as certain as any patched brother's.
Hawk stood at the head of the table, both hands planted on the scarred wood surface. He didn't sit. Just stood there, letting the silence build until it was thick enough to choke on.
"Vince talked." His voice was flat, emotionless. "It took a while, but he talked. Here's what we know."
He paused, and the room leaned forward collectively.
"Cross has been running Vince for six months.
The prospect program, the gate duty—all of it was engineered to get eyes inside our operation.
Every church meeting, every planning session, every piece of sensitive information that passed through this compound was reported back to Cross within hours. "
Murmurs rippled through the room. Hawk held up a hand, silencing them.
"The pharmaceutical operation is bigger than we thought.
Cross isn't just recycling seized drugs—he's coordinating distribution across six states.
The contaminated pills that are killing people?
That's intentional. They're cutting with fentanyl to create addiction, to build a customer base that keeps coming back even when the product starts killing them. "
My stomach turned. Beside me, Tyler's jaw tightened.
"Cross has a shipment coming through in three days," Hawk continued. "Major delivery—enough contaminated product to flood the Southwest for months. According to Vince, the transfer is happening at a warehouse outside of Reno. Cross will be there personally to oversee the handoff."
The implications hung in the air. A chance to hit Cross directly. A chance to cut the head off the snake.
"There's more." Hawk's voice dropped, something dangerous entering his tone. "Cross knows about Tank and Tyler."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Silence crashed through the room—a different kind of silence than before.
Heads turned. Eyes widened. I felt the attention of every man in the room swivel toward us, felt the weight of their stares like a physical pressure.
Some faces showed confusion. Others showed dawning understanding.
A few—Blade, Axel—showed no surprise at all, just grim acknowledgment.
I didn't look away. Didn't flinch. Beside me, Tyler sat equally still, equally unbowed. Let them look. Let them know.
"Vince reported it. The relationship." Hawk's expression twisted with something like disgust—not at us, I realized, but at the violation.
At the fact that something private had been weaponized.
"Cross is obsessed, apparently. Vince said he ranted about Tyler for hours after the extraction.
Called it a betrayal. Said he was going to 'reclaim what's his' and make Tank watch. "
The silence in the room shifted. The surprise faded, replaced by something harder. Something angry. These were men who understood loyalty, understood what it meant to have a brother's back. And they understood, in this moment, that one of their own was being threatened.
Rage flooded through me, hot and immediate. My hands curled into fists under the table, and I had to force myself to breathe through the red haze descending over my vision.
"Cross wants Tyler back." Hawk's eyes found mine, held them. "And he's willing to burn everything to get him."
Tyler's hand found my thigh under the table, gripping hard. Not hiding—grounding. Reminding us both that we were here, together, and no amount of threats was going to change that. I covered his hand with mine, laced our fingers together. Let anyone who was watching see it.
"So what's the play?" Blade's voice cut through the tension. "We hit the warehouse? Take out Cross and the shipment together?"
"That's what we need to decide." Hawk finally sat, lowering himself into his chair. "The intel is solid—Vince had no reason to lie by the end. But this could be exactly what Cross wants. He knows we have Vince. He has to assume we'll get the location out of him."
"A trap." Axel's voice was quiet, thoughtful. "He gives Vince just enough real information to be believable, then sets up an ambush at the warehouse."
"Possible. Likely, even." Hawk's gaze swept the room. "But the alternative is letting that shipment reach distribution. More people dying. More communities destroyed. And Cross walking free to plan his next move."
Silence fell. The weight of the decision pressed down on everyone—the risk of walking into a trap versus the cost of doing nothing.
"We need more information." Tyler's voice was steady, the trained investigator cutting through the emotion. "If Cross is expecting us at the warehouse, he'll have positioned his forces accordingly. We need eyes on the location before we commit to an assault."
"Agreed." Hawk nodded slowly. "Which is why I'm not calling for a vote tonight.
We have three days. We use that time to scout, to plan, to identify every possible angle Cross might exploit.
" His gaze hardened. "And we go in with enough firepower that even if it is a trap, we're the ones who walk out. "
His palm came down on the table—not a slam, but firm and final, the sound sharp as a gavel crack in the quiet room.
"Church dismissed. Get some sleep. Planning starts at first light."
The members filed out slowly, conversations resuming in hushed tones. A few glances came our way—curious, assessing—but no one said anything. No one challenged. Whatever they thought about Tank and Tyler, it would wait until Cross was dealt with.
I stayed seated, Tyler beside me, both of us processing everything we'd just learned. Cross knew about us. Cross wanted Tyler back. Cross was willing to kill anyone who got in his way. The stakes had just gotten higher than I'd ever imagined.
Tyler's hand was still in mine, our fingers still laced together on my thigh. Neither of us had let go.
"We'll figure this out." My voice came out harsher than I intended.
Tyler turned to look at me. In his eyes, I saw fear and determination and something else—something that looked a lot like the same fierce, impossible thing that was burning in my own chest.
"Together." A promise.
"Together."