7. GUNNER
Chapter seven
GUNNER
By the time the Iron Flames compound came into view, the gauze Myla had pressed against my shoulder was soaked through, and she had stopped pretending the blood didn’t bother her.
I’d told her more than once that the bullet had only grazed me, which apparently made no difference when she could see the evidence running down my arm.
Somewhere during the drive, her hand had shifted from holding pressure on the wound to resting lightly against the back of my neck whenever she thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I noticed every fucking time.
The front gates stayed closed when we approached, exactly as they should have.
Hawk knew we were coming because I’d used one of the old emergency numbers from a pay phone twenty miles back, but nobody inside had been given our route, and I wanted to keep it that way until we knew whose ears belonged to Rafe.
I stopped the Jeep far enough from the entrance that anybody watching the compound would have to work to see us.
Myla studied the gates. “You sure about going back in there?”
“No.”
She turned toward me, clearly expecting something more useful, and I flexed my injured shoulder before immediately regretting it.
“But I trust Hawk, and right now that’s enough.”
“You trust Grizz too.”
“With my life.”
“And Knox? Reaper?”
“Yeah.”
Her brow furrowed. “Then why call Hawk?”
Because Hawk watched before he spoke. Because he’d spent years beside Grizz without ever needing to prove how dangerous he was, and if somebody told him the club had been compromised, he would investigate before tearing the place apart looking for somebody to blame.
More importantly, there were women and kids behind those gates now. Getting this wrong didn’t only risk patched men anymore.
“Hawk thinks before he swings,” I said. “Useful tonight.”
Myla smiled faintly. “Knox doesn’t?”
“Knox thinks. Sometimes afterward.”
That earned the quiet laugh I’d been aiming for.
Headlights flashed once from inside the compound, then twice.
Hawk.
I drove forward.
The gates opened barely wide enough for the Jeep and slammed shut the second we were through. Every outside light was on, but nobody stood beneath them. Men watched from darker positions instead, weapons close, while a tow truck blocked the rear access road and the garage shutters stayed down.
Myla noticed all of it.
Her hand found mine where it rested near the gearshift, and I turned my palm beneath hers before she could second-guess the gesture.
Hawk was already coming down the clubhouse steps when I stopped, Reaper behind him with a rifle hanging low across his chest.
Hawk took one look at my bloody shirt. “Storage unit?”
“Black Thorns were waiting.”
His expression changed immediately.
Reaper opened Myla’s door without touching her. “You hit?”
“She ain’t,” I said as I climbed out. “I am.”
Myla gave me a look that suggested she was perfectly capable of answering for herself, and Reaper’s mouth twitched.
Hawk caught that too.
Of course he did.
“Inside. Elaina’s waiting.”
The clubhouse felt wrong without the usual noise. No music, no television, no Diesel yelling from somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, only a handful of brothers moving through the main room and stale coffee sitting behind the bar.
Grizz and Knox were waiting there.
Myla told them the Black Thorns had already been at the storage facility when we arrived, which wiped any remaining fatigue from both their faces, but Elaina cut off the questions before they started and pointed me toward a chair.
I sat mostly because arguing would take longer.
Myla stayed close while Elaina cleaned the graze and wrapped my shoulder, one hand settling absently on my knee as if she had forgotten anybody else was watching.
Knox noticed.
Naturally.
I gave him a look that promised consequences if he opened his mouth.
He smiled instead.
Then Myla leaned closer to inspect Elaina’s work and said, “You alright, Grant?”
The room went quiet.
Myla froze.
I closed my eyes.
Fuck.
Diesel chose that exact moment to walk in with half a sandwich in his hand. He stopped chewing.
“Grant?”
“Don’t.”
His face lit up with the kind of joy usually reserved for somebody else’s suffering. “Nobody calls him Grant.”
“I gathered,” Myla said, already trying not to laugh.
Diesel pointed the sandwich toward me. “You gave her Grant?”
“If you keep talking, I’m gonna give you a head injury.”
That only made him grin wider, and by the time Reaper informed me the club had never possessed the standards I claimed it once had, Myla was laughing properly.
I liked the sound enough to let them live.
As soon as Elaina finished, I got Myla into the private room behind the bar with Hawk, Grizz, Knox and Reaper before anybody else could hear more than they needed.
“No one outside this room gets Fallon’s name until we know exactly what we’re doing,” I said.
Knox immediately looked ready to argue, but I nodded toward Myla before he could start.
“Her evidence. Her call.”
His jaw tightened, though this time he actually looked at her before deciding what to do with the irritation.
Myla had spent too long being betrayed to hand over control just because the Iron Flames wanted answers. Whether Knox liked it or not, that didn’t make her difficult. It made her smart.
He finally nodded. “Fine.”
Grizz pulled out the chair beside the old laptop. “Show us.”
The machine stayed disconnected from the club network while I inserted the flash drive.
Myla took over from there.
She moved through payment records, freight logs and shell businesses with a confidence I hadn’t seen when she first arrived, explaining the structure without drowning us in details.
Watching her work made it obvious why Rafe wanted her dead.
She hadn’t simply stolen information; she understood what connected it.
Then she opened a route record changed six weeks earlier.
Knox leaned closer. “That’s ours.”
“I know.”
Only a handful of people had known about the change when it happened.
The next file was worse.
An updated map of the compound filled the screen, complete with camera positions and access points. In the lower corner sat a remote maintenance stamp.
Hawk leaned over my shoulder and swore.
“Whose login?” Grizz asked.
Hawk checked the account details before answering. “Security contractor.”
Something cold settled in my stomach.
“Who?”
“Mike Fallon.”
Everybody in the room knew him.
Fallon wasn’t club, but he’d worked around us for nearly three years. He’d installed the gate cameras, replaced keypads, handled repairs after storms and helped wire trackers into club vehicles. His van sat outside the garage often enough that nobody questioned it anymore.
We had spent days looking at patched men and people connected to the club while the civilian we’d willingly given remote access walked in and out whenever he pleased.
Knox swore under his breath.
Grizz remained focused. “Login ain’t proof.”
He was right.
Credentials could be stolen or copied.
Myla reached into her pocket.
“I know.”
She pulled out the memory card.
Every man in the room watched her, but Myla looked at me.
Only me.
I held out my hand.
She placed the card in my palm.
The trust behind that simple movement hit harder than the bullet had.
There was one audio file.
Forty-three seconds.
Myla’s fingers closed around my wrist before I pressed play.
“Rafe’s clear. The other voice comes through better near the end.”
“You don’t have to listen again.”
“Yes, I do.”
I nodded and started the recording.
Static filled the room before Rafe’s voice came through, cold and unmistakable.
“You tell me Iron Flames changed the run, I expect the new fucking route before they move, not after.”
A muffled answer followed.
Then Rafe again.
“I don’t give a shit what Hawk changed. You’ve got access. Use it.”
The second voice finally sharpened.
“Remote login got flagged last time. I ain’t risking the contract because you’re impatient.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
I knew that rasp.
Two months earlier I’d spent half a day listening to Fallon complain while replacing a faulty camera controller in the garage. Same voice. Same drag across the word contract.
Hawk replayed the line twice.
By the second time, nobody in the room was arguing.
“That’s Fallon,” he said.
Myla’s hand tightened around mine.
She didn’t look relieved.
She looked sick.
I knew why.
Another trusted man who had smiled to people’s faces while selling them out behind their backs.
Grizz closed the laptop. “We find him before he realizes we know.”
Hawk started to reach for his phone, then stopped. “If he’s watching system traffic, sudden calls or access changes could tip him.”
Knox wanted to grab Fallon immediately.
I understood the urge.
I also knew it could hand Rafe exactly what he needed to disappear.
“We give Fallon something worth selling first.”
Myla went rigid beside me.
I turned toward her before she could misunderstand.
“You are not the bait, sweetheart.”
That eased nothing from her face until I explained.
We would put a false movement into the system Fallon monitored, something that looked routine enough to be real but valuable enough that he would have to pass it to Rafe. A vehicle transfer. A controlled route. Somewhere far from the compound where we could decide exactly who was waiting.
Hawk understood before I finished.
“We make it look like Myla’s being moved.”
Her fingers went cold in mine.
I hated that immediately.
“You stay here,” I told her. “They think you’re in the vehicle. You never go near it.”
Reaper suggested the old Miller yard north of town, an abandoned trucking lot with two access roads, plenty of cover and nobody living close enough to get caught in the middle.
Grizz nodded. “Tomorrow night.”
“Tonight,” Myla said.
Everybody looked at her.
She folded her arms carefully over her ribs. “Cole knows I took the recording. If he’s called Rafe, then Rafe already knows something went wrong at the storage unit. Fallon won’t sit around until tomorrow if he thinks he’s exposed.”
I wanted her to be wrong.
She wasn’t.
Hawk looked at Grizz.
“Tonight.”
The plan came together quickly after that. Hawk would seed the false transfer into the same system Fallon had been using, while Reaper and Knox took the yard and Diesel and Axel covered the second road. Nobody outside the room needed to know Fallon’s name until everyone was already in position.
When the meeting ended, Myla started toward the door with the others.
I caught her hand.
“Stay a minute.”
The room emptied around us.
The second the door closed, some of the control left her face.
“You’re angry.”
“Yeah.”
“With me?”
“No. Mostly because your brain was right.”
Her mouth curved faintly. “That must be difficult.”
“Terrible.”
I pulled her closer until she stood between my knees where I leaned against the edge of the table, then rested my hands lightly at her hips.
“If anything goes wrong tonight, you stay inside this compound. No deciding you can help at the yard, no trying to follow us, no hero shit.”
Her expression softened rather than bristled.
“I know.”
“Myla.”
“I know, Grant.”
My name from her mouth still did something I wasn’t used to.
Her fingertips moved carefully over the fresh dressing on my shoulder, and worry returned to her face.
“You’ve already been shot once today.”
“Grazed.”
“You bled all over me.”
“Kinda dramatic when you say it like that.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I took her hand and pressed her palm flat against my chest.
“I’m coming back.”
Her eyes tightened. “You can’t promise that.”
No.
I couldn’t.
There were some lies I might tell to keep a woman calm, but not that one. Not her.
“What I can promise is I’m gonna do everything I know how to do to make sure I do.”
Myla looked at me for a long moment before leaning down and kissing me.
There was no heat behind it this time, only something slower and deeper that settled beneath my ribs while her fingers curled into the front of my shirt.
When she pulled away, she stayed close.
“Come back to me, Grant.”
Three days earlier, nobody outside my blood family had called me that.
Now I wanted to hear it again tomorrow.
And the day after that.
I touched my forehead to hers.
“Plan on it, sweetheart.”
Outside, the clubhouse had started moving again as men prepared for what came next.
Fallon didn’t know we had his voice.
Rafe didn’t know the information about to reach him was ours.
For once, the Iron Flames weren’t waiting for Black Thorns to make the next move.
We were giving them one.
And this time, we would be ready for whatever came back.