Chapter 13 The Price of Witnessing
Mara
We do not move.
The kiss is still on my mouth. The rain is still on my skin. Ronan’s name is still hanging in the air from outside the garage like a wire pulled too tight.
“I know you’re in there.”
The voice below is calm. Male. Familiar in a way that takes my pulse half a beat to place because I’ve heard it before without ever hearing it directly—on local clips, shaky clubhouse videos, background footage when reporters talk about the Iron Titans like they’re a civic problem nobody has solved yet.
A club brother.
One of the visible ones.
The kind who looks good in front of cameras.
Ronan goes completely still beside me.
Not startled. Not confused. Just still in the way predators get when they’ve recognized another predator and finally know which set of teeth they’re dealing with.
I open my mouth.
Bad instinct.
His hand covers it before I can make a sound.
Not violently. Not softly either. Just fast, firm, final.
My back hits the loft wall. His body angles in front of mine, shielding me from the hatch and the thin slit between the stacked crates and the loft railing that looks down over the dark garage below.
He doesn’t look at me. He’s listening with every inch of him now, gun low in his free hand, head slightly turned toward the floorboards.
My pulse goes wild for all the wrong reasons.
Or maybe exactly the right ones for a night like this.
His palm is warm against my mouth. His chest is close enough that I can feel the rough drag of his breathing even though he’s trying to quiet it.
His body cages mine, close and controlled, without touching more than necessary.
I should be focused on the danger below. Part of me is. The rest of me is acutely, humiliatingly aware that thirty seconds ago his mouth was on mine and now his hand is over my mouth, and somehow both things feel like variations of the same disaster.
The footsteps start.
Slow. Unhurried. Circling the shop below.
I can hear them through the loft boards and the rain hammering the roof. Gravel outside. Then the scrape of boots on concrete once he comes inside through the side door Ronan either forgot to re-secure or never had time to bother with. A pause. Another step. Then another.
No rush.
No shouting for backup.
One man inside, maybe more outside, but only one claiming the room like he owns it.
Ronan’s fingers tighten against my face, warning me before I even realize I’ve started breathing too hard.
The voice comes again.
“Come on, Vale. Don’t make me insult your intelligence by pretending I can’t smell your bike oil from here.”
There’s light laughter in it. Easy. Persuasive. The kind of voice that could sell comfort to a drowning man if the timing were right.
I know him now. By the voice. By the polish. By the face I’ve seen before in club footage beside Jax. Charity rides. Toy runs. Public smiles laid over private violence.
Dark hair. Controlled smile. Expensive charm draped over menace like a tailored jacket.
Silas.
The thought lands and stays there.
Ronan doesn’t react visibly, but his jaw tightens once.
That’s enough.
Below us, the footsteps stop.
Then the man says, “Here’s the thing. I’m trying to be polite.”
The loft feels smaller by the second. My heartbeat is so loud I’m sure anyone downstairs should be able to hear it through the floor.
Ronan’s hand still covers my mouth. The intimacy of it has crossed beyond awkward into unbearable because there’s no space left in me to separate fear from awareness.
His thumb shifts slightly against my cheek when I swallow.
That tiny movement almost undoes me.
The man below keeps talking, smooth as oil.
“You come down, we have a civil conversation, maybe I even get you safe passage to somebody who still remembers how much blood you spilled for the patch.”
Safe passage.
I don’t need to look at Ronan to know he doesn’t believe a word of that.
But the line is crafted well. Hope-shaped. Respect-shaped. Just believable enough for desperate men.
The worst part is, if I hadn’t already seen Silas smile at me in the storage yard like he owned my fate, I might almost buy it too.
Ronan finally moves his mouth to my ear, voice low enough that it barely exists.
“Don’t.”
Just that.
Don’t breathe loud. Don’t speak. Don’t trust the voice below. Don’t do anything stupid because the man downstairs is better at sounding gentle than most men are at actually being it.
I nod against his hand.
Below us, the voice shifts. Less amused. More intimate.
“Jax doesn’t want this ugly.”
I feel Ronan’s whole body go colder.
There it is.
The club leader’s name dropped like a blessing. Or a leash.
The man below knows exactly which nerves to press.
“He wants this contained,” the voice continues. “You know how these things work. You made hard calls for him before. Don’t make me believe you’ve gone sentimental now because of one pretty witness.”
Heat flashes through me—anger fast and bright enough to cut through fear for a second.
Ronan must feel the way I stiffen because his hand presses tighter over my mouth.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to say yes, he heard that too. No, I do not get to react.
The man below laughs softly.
“Oh, she’s with you. Good. That saves time.”
My stomach turns.
He doesn’t know for sure. He’s fishing.
But he’s fishing with skill, tossing lines where any flinch or movement might answer him.
Ronan stays silent.
The footsteps start again, pacing under the loft. I picture him looking up into the rafters and shadows, taking in the stacked tires, the tarp, the ladder. Knowing we’re above him but not yet where.
“Safe passage,” he says again, like he believes repetition turns lies into contracts. “You bring her down and hand over the notes, and I can make sure nobody gets hurt in the process.”
I almost laugh behind Ronan’s hand.
Nobody gets hurt.
We are way past that.
Something in Ronan’s face shifts. I catch it only because I’m close enough to see everything now—the hard stillness around his eyes, the lethal patience locked into the set of his mouth.
He lowers his hand from my face.
I inhale too fast.
Before I can speak, he angles the gun toward the loft railing and says, voice flat enough to freeze water, “If you wanted me to believe you, you should’ve led with the truth.”
Silence below.
Then a soft, delighted laugh.
“Still dramatic,” the man says.
His voice is clearer now. Near the base of the loft stairs, maybe. Or directly under the platform. I can hear the smile in it, and that is somehow worse than hearing rage.
“I missed that about you.”
I look at Ronan.
He does not look back.
But his expression tells me all I need.
He knows exactly who this is.
Below us, the man goes on. “You know what I think? I think you’re tired. I think you’re bleeding. I think the girl’s smarter than is good for her and you’re about three hours away from doing something reckless in the name of a loyalty that isn’t being returned.”
That lands. I see it land.
Not because Ronan flinches. He wouldn’t. But because his stare goes emptier somehow, more stripped down, like every unnecessary human piece in him is shutting off one by one.
The voice softens.
“You don’t have to make this ugly, brother.”
Brother.
That word in that tone makes my skin crawl.
Ronan finally answers.
“No,” he says. “You already did.”
The garage below goes quiet enough that I can hear the rain coming through the roof seams and the hum of the emergency light over the workbench.
Then the man laughs again.
Low. Genuinely entertained.
Not offended. Not angry. Like this is a game he expected to last longer and is enjoying anyway.
“That’s a shame.”
The footsteps move away from the stairs.
Toward the shop door, maybe. Or deeper into the bay. I strain to track him, but the acoustics blur everything into echoes.
Ronan shifts his weight, every line of him tightening.
I swallow. “What now?”
His eyes cut to mine for half a second. “Whatever comes next.” That answer frightens me.
And yet the look in his face frightens me more. Because it says he already knows what comes next. He has done this dance before. Charming voice. False offer. Smile in the dark. Then the part where civility burns off.
A beat later, something clinks on concrete below.
Small. Metallic.
I stop breathing.
Ronan moves.
He grabs me by the back of the neck and drags me low behind the stacked crates at the center of the loft, shoving me down hard enough that my knees hit wood. He drops beside me, body curved over mine, one arm braced to cover my head.
“What was that?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t need to.
Another sound rolls across the garage floor below us.
Light. Hollow. Wrong.
I twist just enough to look through the gap between the crates and the railing.
A canister.
Matte gray. Army-green band around the middle. Small enough to throw one-handed. It has rolled to a stop beneath the loft stairs where the light catches it just enough to make the shape unmistakable.
For one absurd second, my mind reaches for the wrong explanation.
A flashbang.
A flare.
Just junk kicked loose.
Then the canister starts to hiss.
A thin white snake of smoke curls from one end.
My entire body goes cold.
“Ronan.”
He is already moving, one hand hauling me up before the word is out.
The hiss turns louder.
The smoke thickens.
And the loft fills with the first sharp, chemical bite of it just as the canister rolls one last inch and settles under the stairs.