Chapter 18
Rook
I hear her before she knocks, the familiar sound of her confident strides, nervous, hesitant. She shifts in the hallway, hovering outside the door. I can imagine her hand paused before striking, knowing that once she’s knocked, there’s no going back, no claiming ignorance.
I’m at my desk, the office dim except for the low light over the paperwork I’m not reading.
I’ve been expecting this day to come since the moment Sloane started digging deeper.
From the moment she stopped asking questions out loud and started answering them on her own, I knew that sooner or later, she’d find out the truth.
Sloane Mercer doesn’t miss things. There’s no keeping secrets from her, and I’ve been sitting on a big one.
The knock comes, soft and controlled, no hesitation once she’s made up her mind. I lean back in my chair, running a hand through my hair. “Come in.”
The door opens, and there she is. My heart stutters every time I see her.
I don’t think that part’s ever going to change.
Every day, I find new things to admire, new hidden depths.
She’s not dressed for court anymore. Gone are the sharp suits and armor she walked in here wearing the first day.
She’s softer now, still put together, still precise, but real, comfortable, dare I say it, at home.
The thought of this being her home makes me warm.
Her hair’s loose, falling over her shoulders, conjuring images of her straddling me, hair flung back as she moans.
There’s a crease between her brows, faint but there, like she’s been thinking too hard for too long. Her eyes lock on mine immediately, direct and unflinching. Sloane isn’t afraid to have difficult conversations.
She closes the door behind her, the door clicking shut with ominous finality. “You knew,” she says without build-up or preamble. Sloane doesn’t mince her words or dance around the truth. I appreciate it. Her directness is one of the many things I admire about her.
I nod once. “Yeah.” There’s no point lying. Not to her. Not now. Not ever.
She steps further into the room, slow, deliberate, like she’s in play, the conversation already mapped out in her head. She fizzes with tension, no doubt expecting one of the explosive arguments that plagued us when we first met. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be that guy to her.
Her shoulders shift, her eyes flick just slightly, not away, but inward as she processes the implications.
She moves to the desk and sets a folder down in front of me.
“I found this buried in the acquisition records,” she says.
“Briggs’ company made a formal offer to buy the clubhouse land eight months ago. ”
“I know.” I don’t soften it or make excuses, there’s no hiding the truth.
Her fingers rest on the edge of the desk. “And this,” she adds, tapping the second document, “is an internal memo. Preliminary consideration.”
Silence settles between us. She isn’t angry like I would have expected. Somehow, her disappointment stings worse than her rage would have. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asks. There’s no heat behind her words, no accusation. That almost makes it worse.
I exhale slowly, dragging a hand over the back of my neck. “Because I didn’t want it to become a discussion,” I say. “They elected me as their prez to make the hard decisions. It was my burden, my responsibility, my choice, no one else’s.”
Her brow furrows slightly. “That’s not how a democracy works.”
“I know.” I hang my head, shoulders slumped.
“Then why—” The words come out in a sharp exhale, frustration seeping in.
“Because the money was enough to make it a real conversation,” I cut in. The words sit between us, ugly and true. “The club was in debt,” I continue. “Not crippling, but enough. Briggs’ offer—” I shake my head once and sigh. “It would’ve cleared all of it. And then some.”
Her expression doesn’t change, but her eyes sharpen. “You considered accepting, even though you knew none of the guys would ever want to sell the clubhouse, that it wouldn’t even be a last resort to them, it would be a death.”
“Yes.” The word is quiet. Heavy with all the shame and guilt I’ve been carrying. “I didn’t bring it to a vote,” I admit. “Didn’t tell the club. Didn’t even tell Boone.”
“And Cruz?”
“He found out after the fact.” I don’t bother telling her how he punched me for hiding it, and again for considering it, that if it weren’t for Cruz, none of us would be here today.
She absorbs the betrayal, understanding that it means Cruz was complicit in hiding the truth from Boone, from the club, from her. “But then you said no to Briggs, and you buried the offer as if it never existed,” she says.
“Yes.” I meet her eyes, praying I won’t see something I don’t want to see.
There’s no malice in her expression, only understanding. “Why?”
“Because it didn’t feel right.” I shrug, unable to formulate the words to explain the gut feeling I had, how I distrusted Briggs from the start.
“I sat on it longer than I should have,” I admit.
“Ran it through every angle. What it would mean for the club. What we’d lose.
What we’d gain. We could have purchased somewhere new with the money left over after paying off our debt, but this place is more than just bricks and mortar; we’d lose more than just the land.
This place is Iron Vale MC.” She nods, knowing exactly what I mean.
“Most of all, I didn’t trust the offer,” I say.
“I didn’t trust Briggs. I didn’t trust what he wanted that land for.
The offer was too good; no successful businessman pays more than something is worth. ”
Her gaze doesn’t waver, her mind already five steps ahead. “So you said no.”
“Yes.”
I remember how Briggs’ polite, professional smile slipped when I told him.
He was so confident, so self-assured that there was no way I would refuse such a generous offer.
He told me I was a fool, his voice dripping with resentment.
I knew then that he would have paid more if I’d asked.
I also knew there was no way I would ever sell to Briggs.
Sloane meets my eyes, and I’m surprised to see sympathy in hers. “You kept this to yourself this whole time.” She shakes her head slightly. “Such a burden. I can’t imagine Briggs took it well,” she says with a quirk of her lips and a slight huff of laughter.
I smile back at that. “He did not.”
The silence stretches between us as she absorbs everything I’ve said, and the things left unsaid, too.
I think the silence will finally break into a row.
I expected it to break the second she walked in.
I keep waiting for the anger and disappointment to burst forward.
Instead, she exhales slowly, and her posture softens slightly. “You didn’t betray them,” she says.
The words catch me off guard. I blink. “That’s not what I said.”
“No,” she replies. “But it’s what you’re thinking.”
She steps closer, moving around the desk into my space. She places her hands over my shoulders, looking me in the eye. I snake my arms around her waist, holding onto her like a life raft. “You considered an option,” she continues. “You didn’t take it.”
“I didn’t tell them.” I won’t let myself off that easily. “They had a right to know, to decide what’s best for the club.”
“Maybe,” she agrees. “But you didn’t sell them out. I know you would have told them eventually, if it came to it, if selling seemed like the best move.” She says this with such conviction, I want to believe her. I’m touched by her faith in me.
I watch her, feeling wary, as if this might be a trap. Trying to understand what I’m seeing. Not anger or disappointment. Just understanding, acceptance. Just when I think I know Sloane, she finds new ways to surprise me. “How are you not pissed right now?” I ask.
Her mouth curves slightly. “Because I’ve made worse calls than that. I’ve pushed evidence harder than I should have,” she says. “Followed instincts that weren’t clean. Sat on things because they complicated the case.” Her eyes hold mine. “We both live in gray areas.”
She’s right there. I’d always thought of Sloane as so good, so honorable and just, it had never occurred to me that she’s also working outside of the lines.
“These files, this information, it changes everything.”
I lean back slightly, wondering if this is the moment where she pulls the rug out from under me, where she says she understands but cannot forgive me.
“How?”
She moves away, and I feel the distance like a knife. But then she steps to the side of the desk, pulls the map toward her, and spreads it out. She tucks her hair behind her ear, brow furrowed as she focuses on the map. “Briggs wasn’t reacting to me,” she says. “I wasn’t the target. The land was.”
I feel like an idiot for not realizing it sooner.
She taps the map. “This is the last piece Briggs needs to complete the pipeline. Everything else is already in place.”
I look at it, following the lines Sloane traces with her fingers. Like a light switch turning on, suddenly I can see the pattern, the structure, Briggs’ true intention. “He wasn’t hunting you,” I say.
“No,” she agrees. “I was a loose end. Briggs didn’t want me investigating Escar further, didn’t want me finding out his connection, his plans. But I wasn’t the goal.”
“You didn’t bring this to us,” I say slowly, realization dawning that Sloane came to us for protection and instead walked into the eye of the storm. “You walked into something that was already happening.”
“Yeah.” Her expression is a muddle of emotions.
I can see in her eyes that she knows that if she had chosen to run, to go into WITSEC, or simply leave town, she and Jessy would have been safe. No one would have followed them. Briggs just wanted her gone. By coming here, she put herself right in his crosshairs.
“By coming here, I put myself right in his sights,” Sloane says. “But I also gave you the one thing he didn’t account for.”
“What’s that?”
“A lawyer who knows exactly how he operates.”
I study her, the woman who walked into my clubhouse with a kid, fearing for her life but still fiery as hell, the woman who didn’t blink to sign a contract to protect her, no matter what. Sloane should be angry right now, should be filled with regret, but she isn’t.
“You’re not walking away,” I say. It’s not a question, even though I can hardly believe it. Sloane could still leave and stand a chance of escaping Briggs. It’s Iron Vale he wants.
Her expression softens slightly. “No.”
I reach out without thinking, my hand finding hers where it rests on the desk. “You should be mad at me,” I say softly.
“Probably,” she replies with a small smile.
“But you’re not.”
She tilts her head slightly. “I understand you.”
I don’t know how to process that. No one sees the whole picture and stays anyway. Sloane truly sees me, knows me, warts and all, and still she wants to stay. My thumb brushes against her knuckles.
“You’re going to bury him,” I say. Knowing without doubt that Briggs is no match for the strong, incredible woman before me.
She agrees without hesitation; she knows her worth, knows what she can achieve. “Yes.”
“And you’re going to do it clean.” I know the answer before she replies, but part of me wonders how she can stick to her morals when fighting a completely immoral opponent. Briggs has proved he’s not above fighting dirty, yet Sloane refuses to stoop to his level.
“Yes.”
I nod. I believe her. I admire her. She’s so much stronger than I am.
Sloane being here isn’t just about protection anymore.
It isn’t just a deal. We’ve moved beyond that into uncharted territory.
I look at her, strong, beautiful, intelligent, a woman of moral integrity who stands in front of me like she’s not afraid of anything.
Somewhere between her walking into this room and standing here now, I’ve realized something. This feeling I’ve been holding tight for a long time finally settles, and I can finally see the truth I’ve known all along. I’m in love with Sloane Mercer.
And I know I’m not letting her go. Not now. Not ever.