Chapter 5
CIPHER
The compound gates opened before my bike reached the first camera, and I took the private road too fast for comfort without giving enough of a fuck to slow down.
My thoughts remained at Raines’s house, where Bex remained inside a temporary security perimeter.
Every rational assessment confirmed she was safe for the next hour, but reason had lost credibility the moment I found a tracker beneath her car and a photograph proving someone had been watching her.
The clubhouse was quiet when I entered through the side door, but I heard the low murmur of voices down the hall.
I stepped into the office carrying my laptop beneath one arm while my cut settled heavily across my shoulders.
Stryker stood behind his walnut desk facing the entrance, but most everyone else sat around the conference table, where Hawkeye occupied the chair closest to his right, and Ghost leaned back near the far end with a coffee mug between both hands.
Judge, Bishop, Nomad, Ledger, Wraith, and Smoke filled the remaining seats, every man already aware that a technical investigation had become something uglier.
I connected the laptop to the secure club network and laid out the sequence of events.
Nobody interrupted while I spoke, but the shift around the table told me they heard more than the technical facts.
I wasn’t describing a witness anymore, and I was smart enough to know that every brother in the room recognized the difference.
My gaze moved to the small exterior feed in the lower corner of the laptop, where a temporary camera showed the front of Raines’s house and the shadowed line of trees beyond it.
Nothing had changed since I checked forty seconds earlier, but I enlarged the image long enough to confirm the porch remained empty and one of the prospects was still visible near the garage.
When I returned to the access logs, Stryker’s eyes held enough quiet satisfaction to irritate me.
“That feed tell you something new the last six times?”
I ignored him and continued to scroll through the records.
Ghost’s mouth shifted above his coffee. “Breach hasn’t moved.”
“He adjusted position near the north tree line,” I corrected, surprised at myself for letting him get to me.
“Three whole feet,” Ghost drawled. “Good thing you caught it.”
I lifted my eyes from the screen and let them settle on him. “Another word, and I brick your phone.”
His grin appeared slowly, completely unapologetic. “Worth it.”
Stryker settled his palm flat against the desk, and the faint trace of amusement in his eyes disappeared. “Breach and Trigger have your woman covered. Finish the report.”
The wording hit with a dark satisfaction I didn’t bother denying.
No one around the table reacted beyond a few knowing glances, but the claim settled cleanly into the space where three weeks of failed logic had been wasting my time.
Bex was my woman, whether she knew it yet or not, and the tracker beneath her vehicle had only ended my patience for pretending otherwise.
“I recovered four older incidents with similar signatures over the previous eighteen months,” I continued, bringing the summaries onto the main display, then explaining the details of each one.
Stryker came around the desk and braced both hands on the back of an empty chair without sitting. “Four other incidents?”
“The ones I can confirm from the surviving data. Don’t have details,” I added, refusing to turn limited evidence into false certainty.
“Could be four victims. Could be more if other calls were manipulated cleanly enough that the surrounding systems didn’t preserve a trace.
We also don’t know how often they sold victim information, schedules, or patrol gaps without manipulating dispatch. ”
The last hint of humor vanished from every face around the table.
“Whoever sold Nina’s address put an abusive bastard outside her bedroom window and sent the nearest deputy miles away,” Bishop muttered, disgust roughening his voice. “That wasn’t data theft. They sold him time alone with her.”
“Exactly.” Stryker looked at each man before continuing, his expression hardening as the decision was made.
“This is Black Crowns business. Somebody’s using official systems to help predators reach people, deciding which victims get help and which ones are left alone long enough to be hurt or worse. ”
No brother asked whether the club’s interests were directly threatened or if Black Castle had a paying contract.
Our code had never required paperwork before we moved against people who preyed on others they considered easy to control.
Bex made it personal for me, but the Black Crowns would have hunted this operation if she had never answered Nina’s call.
Stryker started barking out assignments with the clipped certainty that had taken men through missions far uglier than this one.
Judge folded his arms and looked toward me. “Anything you obtain without lawful access comes to me before the sheriff hears a fucking word about it.”
“I know how evidence works, jackass,” I grunted.
I’d spent years separating actionable intelligence from admissible evidence, and Bex becoming the target didn’t erase the distinction, but it made waiting for legal process feel like choosing procedure over her safety.
If I crossed that line, though, Judge would keep the contamination away from Raines’s case while the club acted on whatever I found.
“Cipher stays on the digital trail,” Stryker finished, studying me long enough to make clear that the final instruction carried more than an assignment. “You find the people behind this. Don’t get distracted by a need for vengeance.”
“I won’t.” The answer came easily because uncontrolled rage made people sloppy. I wanted every person involved stripped of money, access, allies, and the illusion that their screens could protect them before the brothers ever reached their doors.
Church ended as soon as every man understood his assignment. Chairs moved back, phones came out, and the office filled with low voices as the brothers began activating contacts before they reached the hallway.
I closed the laptop and stood, but Stryker’s voice stopped me before I reached the door. “You moving her tomorrow?”
“First thing.”
His gaze held mine, taking in the certainty beneath the answer without wasting time asking whether I intended to keep my distance after she entered my house. “Good.”
The ride back took less time than the trip to the compound, but it still didn’t feel fast enough.
When I entered the house, Bex sat on the living room couch with one bare foot tucked beneath her and a blanket draped across her lap.
Relief brightened her hazel-green eyes so quickly when she saw me that the reaction reached deeper than the lust that always seemed to be grinding through my body when she was near.
I wanted to cross the room, lift her from the couch, and take her upstairs to a bedroom. But Bex’s father stood beside the fireplace with the expression of a man who had already spent too much of his evening watching me touch his daughter.
“Everything okay?” Bex asked, unfolding herself from the couch as I approached.
“This shit’s bad enough that the club’s involved.” I wrapped one hand around her waist when she came within reach, checking the windows beyond her before letting my attention settle fully on her face.
Bex looked over my shoulder toward her father, and the reluctant acceptance in Raines’s face answered the question she hadn’t asked.
He had spent his career believing the department existed to put help between vulnerable people and whoever wanted to hurt them, only to discover someone might have turned his own systems into a weapon.
If the Black Crowns getting involved meant saving more lives, he wasn’t gonna stand in our way.
Bex crossed to him and wrapped both arms around his waist, giving him the same warmth she offered to anyone she found in need of comfort.
Raines held her for a moment before pressing a kiss to the top of her head and looking at me over the blond knot in her hair. “You boys going to interfere with my case?”
“Judge will keep the lanes separate.” I didn’t promise the Black Crowns would limit themselves to whatever punishment a courtroom could deliver, and Raines knew better than to ask for a lie. “You’ll get clean evidence. What happens outside your case stays outside it.”
His mouth flattened, but he gave a nod before releasing Bex and checking the time. “We should get some sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’m staying.”
Bex turned toward me, surprise widening her eyes before warmth began spreading through them.
Raines’s expression hardened for an entirely different reason, but he glanced toward the dark windows and reconsidered whatever argument had started forming.
He knew the men outside were capable, but I could see that he was coming to understand that no one in Sable Canyon would protect his daughter the way I would.
“Couch pulls out into a bed,” he finally offered.
“Have work to do.” I lifted the laptop slightly before carrying it toward the dining table positioned beside the bottom of the stairs.
Raines looked from the table to me, then at Bex, who was trying to hide a small smile behind her hand.
She started toward the staircase, pausing beside my chair with one hand resting lightly on the back. “You need anything? Food? A blanket?”
“You asleep.”
She shook her head with a small smile. “I don’t believe that was one of the available options.”
“Doesn’t change my answer.” I caught her wrist before she could move away and let my thumb pass once over the pulse beneath her skin. “Go to bed, baby. You need rest.”
The contact colored her cheeks, but she didn’t pull free. “Good night.”
“Lock your door.”
She opened her mouth to argue, took one look at my face, and apparently decided the disagreement was useless. “Bossy.”
“Get used to it.”
The smile she carried upstairs stayed with me long after her bedroom door closed.
Raines remained in the kitchen for another ten minutes, drinking the last of his coffee and studying me as though he could determine my intentions by watching long enough.
He eventually told me the alarm code I already knew from securing the panel, warned me that his gun was within reach, and went upstairs after I reminded him mine was closer.
The house settled around me, but I never mistook quiet for safety.
I worked through the audit records while exterior camera tiles ran across the second screen, tracking every movement by my brothers, passing vehicles, and animals shifting along the tree line.
My awareness remained divided between the digital trail and the staircase beside me, where my woman slept one flight above my head.
Bex came downstairs shortly after two in the morning wearing soft sleep shorts and an oversized white shirt that fell off one shoulder. Her bare legs caught the low light from the dining room, and my cock hardened.
She paused on the last step when she caught me staring, and the awareness that moved across her face had nothing to do with fear.
Her nipples tightened beneath the thin cotton, visible enough to make my fingers clench against the laptop while she crossed toward the kitchen.
I watched her fill a glass at the sink, then return to the dining room doorway instead of heading upstairs.
“You’re still at the table.”
“Yeah.”
Bex glanced toward the living room, where a long couch and two oversized chairs sat empty beneath the dark windows. “You know there are several perfectly comfortable places to sit in there.”
“None of them is between you and the front door.”
Her gaze returned to mine, and the glass stopped halfway to her mouth.
The teasing warmth in her expression softened into something deeper while she looked from me to the entrance beyond my shoulder, understanding that I hadn’t chosen the hard dining chair by accident.
The entire property was connected to my security network, but I had still put my body on the line anyone would have to cross before reaching her.
“You think someone could get through all the men outside?” The slight breathlessness in her voice told me the practical answer mattered less than the reason behind it.
“No.” I closed the laptop far enough to give her all of my attention. “But if someone does, he has to go through me before he reaches you.”
Bex stared at me, her lips parting while a flush moved slowly across her cheeks and down the throat my mouth wanted to explore. She stepped closer, stopping beside my chair. “That sounds a lot like you’ve changed your mind.”
“About leaving you unprotected?” I asked, although we both knew she meant more.
“About us.”
I reached for her hip and drew her one step closer, letting my palm span the warm skin beneath the loose edge of her shirt. Her breath caught as her body softened toward me, and my cock throbbed hard enough to make staying in the chair feel like punishment. “Go back to bed, Bex.”
“That still isn’t an answer.”
“Only one you’re gonna get while your father sleeps upstairs and I’m deciding how many bad ideas I can survive in one night.
” My thumb moved over the curve of her waist, and the small shiver that followed nearly ended the restraint behind the words.
“Tomorrow, you move into my house. You’ll get your answer there. ”
Her eyes widened, heat replacing the last trace of sleepiness before a pleased little smile curved her mouth.
“Sleep, baby.”
She looked back over her shoulder from the stairs, her smile soft and openly hopeful before she climbed toward her bedroom.
The threat to Bex had stripped away any illusion that I could stay away from her.
The reality was that I didn’t want distance, and I no longer gave a fuck whether wanting her was sensible.
She belonged under my protection, inside my home, and beneath my body.
The only remaining question was how long I intended to wait before making sure she understood that every part of my claim was permanent.