10. House of Knives
TEN
HOUSE OF KNIVES
NEVAEH
I don’t belong here.
I knew it the second the gates opened and that steel-beast clubhouse rose up behind the chain-link fence like a monster waiting to swallow me whole.
There’s no sign, no nameplate, no welcome.
Just cracked concrete, cameras, and men with deadly eyes who look through you like they're measuring your coffin.
To the outside world, this place is a forgotten machine shop, gray, boxy, and lifeless. But inside?
It’s loud with memory.
The door opens to heat and grit and noise.
The main room is a mess of contradiction.
Couches that look like they’ve been bled on and stitched back together.
A Saints flag hangs above a huge flat screen, a game paused mid-fight with the controller on the floor, half-dead batteries rolling underneath.
The walls are cluttered with road maps curling at the corners, Sharpie scrawls over black-and-white photos of men who don’t smile. Some of them are dead. You can feel it. There’s a weight in the room. Every wall hums with unfinished business and notes of a big fuck you to the world.
A guy with massive arms, shaved head, and zero fucks walks by without looking at me. Another one, younger, eyes sharp, tilts his chin like he’s memorizing my face in case he needs to describe it later to the coroner.
I walk past the bar. A monster made of old wood and stories. The liquor shelf is stacked like an arsenal, and the wall behind it is a collage of filth and faith. Marker messages layered so deep they blur. Prayers, slurs, confessions. This is their church. Their absolution. Violence instead of God.
The kitchen, oddly enough, is spotless. The coffeemaker’s working overtime. The fridge has a lock on it, like someone’s hoarding treasure or secrets. Probably both.
I keep following Crusher, forcing myself not to flinch. We pass the reinforced door to the garage. It smells like oil, rust, and testosterone. Music thumps from inside. Angry, loud, metal on metal. Maybe welding. Maybe rage.
And below it all… the basement. The one I haven’t seen but feel under my feet. They say it’s where the ghosts are kept, and I believe them.
A hallway branches off with doors marked in Sharpie: Prospects. Patches. Guests. I guess I’m the last one. Guests. The word tastes like a lie. Crusher stops in front of the door, producing a key from his jeans pocket.
“This is where you’ll be staying. No one but you will have a key to get in. You’ll be safe here.” The gentleness of his voice on the word safe, sends a pang to my heart.
Why would he want to keep me safe after everything I’ve done? His stormy grey eyes aren’t angry. They’re staring at me like he wants to strangle me or fuck me. I don’t know which I’d rather have. And that unnerves me more than it should.
I take the offered key once Crusher opens the door. “Thank you.” My voice is quiet and timid. Not my normal take-no-bullshit attitude. That went out the window the moment the butt of that gun slammed into the side of my head.
I walk past him, inhaling his scent of cedarwood and leather. It’s a heady intoxication, and look into the room. There are no windows, a stiff bed, and no clock. There’s a bucket of toiletries beside the sink and a towel folded neatly next to it.
Crusher closes the door without another word, and I pace. I sit. I stand. I’ve left three voicemails to my editor from the burner phone Crusher gave me. One voicemail to my sister, and none to my mother. She wouldn’t answer anyway.
I can’t stand not knowing what’s on the other side of the door, so I open it. Outside, I can hear them. Footsteps. Doors slamming. Laughter that sounds like a warning.
Then the door creaks open further. A woman stands in the doorway, half-in, half-out, like she’s deciding whether to bother.
She’s beautiful. That kind of aggressive, glossy beauty that comes from hunger.
She has long, bottle blonde hair pulled up in pigtails, making her look like a teenager instead of a grown woman.
Tight tank, tighter jeans, long lashes, and longer nails.
Her mouth is curved like it’s used to owning a room.
“Are you the journalist?” she asks, like it’s a curse.
“I’m Nevaeh.”
She smiles, sharp and false. “Cute. I’m Peach. I sleep with Erik.”
There it is.
I blink. “Okay.”
Peach steps inside, all hips and venom. “He’s not gonna say it. But I will. You brought heat down on all of us. You write your little story, you ruin his life, and now you’re here, like we’re supposed to forget.”
“I didn’t—”
She laughs. “Doesn’t matter what you meant to do. It’s what you did.”
Then she leans close enough for me to smell vanilla and gunpowder. “Don’t mistake his guilt for feelings, sweetheart. You’re a problem. And we fix problems.”
She leaves, slamming the door behind her. I don’t cry, but I shake. I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the wall until my knuckles stop turning white.
Erik doesn’t come that night. Not to the room, not even a knock. I hear his voice down the hall, quiet, sharp, commanding. I hear others, too. Steel, I think. Rock. Rampage. They're arguing in fragments.
"She stays or she goes. Pick one."
"You want blood? Take it from the ones who put her name in lights."
"No leaks without sources. And she’s our only fucking source now."
The next morning, he appears in my doorway like he didn’t sleep. His jaw is tight, eyes hollowed out from whatever weight he’s carrying. “You got five minutes,” he says. “You hungry?”
I nod, too fast. He turns, and I follow. I’m not sure if I’m being walked or watched.
We eat in silence. His thigh brushes mine once beneath the table, and he moves like he touched fire. Then he drops a phone in front of me. My old one, screen cracked, contents wiped clean.
“You backing up anything from the laptop?”
I swallow. “Some. On a cloud.”
His jaw flexes. “I need access.”
My hands shake. “I… I don’t even know what you’re looking for.”
His voice is low. Controlled. “You wrote an article that connected us to something powerful. You exposed a donation trail that should’ve stayed buried. And now they know we see them.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Intent doesn’t unpull a trigger.”
I look at him, at the same man who once brought me hot tea when I was hungover in my car, who looked at me like I was worth the weight I carried. That man is buried under steel now. Maybe I killed him.
Then, just for a breath, his voice softens. “I didn’t want this for you.”
Later, I’m in the main room, skimming my backup files on a club laptop under supervision. I find fragments of names I hadn’t noticed before. Shell companies linked to the Mt. Pleasant Youth Restoration Fund. Laundered money. Military surplus orders. Locations. Names. Some redacted. Some not.
And I feel sick. Because someone wanted this exposed.
And I sit alone in a room that smells like borrowed time, wondering what hell I’ve started. By midnight, Erik comes back. He stands in my doorway, not coming in, not walking away.
“You still think this is a story?” he asks.
I stand. “I think this is a war.”
He doesn’t argue.
“I’m going to move you to another location. One away from prying eyes.”
“Is that safe?”
“Safer than here, where no one trusts you and you have to look over your shoulder,” Crusher responds. He pushes off the door. “We leave in five.”
He walks away without waiting. I want to fight him. But after the Syndicate?
I’m done arguing with people who want to keep me alive.