30. Illusion Shattered
THIRTY
ILLUSION SHATTERED
CRUSHER
Steel’s final words about strategy are still hanging in the air when Rampage’s phone buzzes sharply and viciously like it’s cutting straight into the moment. His eyes go flat when he checks it.
“Movement,” Rampage growls, tossing his phone down on the table. “Iron Cross just left the rail yard. Five bikes, one SUV. They’re heading north.”
Toward us. Toward her.
Every man in the room goes silent.
Steel looks at me. No plan. No debate. Just a single order: “Mount up.”
The Clubhouse explodes into motion. Boots slamming on pavement, engines roaring awake, guns being checked with the quick, brutal efficiency of men who’ve done this too many times to flinch.
Nevaeh doesn’t ask if she’s coming. She’s already pulling on her helmet, her cut already on, lips pressed but steady.
I swing onto my bike and hold her gaze for half a second. The question in her eyes is the one she’ll never say out loud. Are we ready for this?
I answer the only way I know how. “Stay close, baby. We finish this tonight.”
Nevaeh nods and climbs onto the back of my bike. We roll out in formation, engines humming loudly.
We intercept the Iron Cross two miles past the county line. Headlights splinter out of the darkness. The lead bike sees us too late. Steel opens fire first, dropping the rider clean off his Harley. After that, it’s chaos in the best way, our way.
City and Rampage flank the SUV like wolves cutting off a stag. Tires blow. Metal shrieks. Rock rips the back door open mid-skid and drags Duke out by the throat.
He’s screaming at first, until he sees me. The moment our eyes lock, his mouth snaps shut. He knows.
We bring him back to the clubhouse, bound and bleeding, to the basement, the place we keep for men like him.
Nevaeh stays upstairs with the prospects.
She might be ride or die with us, but only patch members are allowed down here.
Cinder block walls are cool to the touch.
A metal chair is bolted to the floor, a rusted drain that’s seen more truth than any confessional ever will.
Steel slams the door behind us and locks it. Rock plants Duke in the chair and tightens the chains until bone creaks.
I step in front of Duke and drop to a crouch. “Let’s talk about Nevaeh.”
Duke spits blood and tries a smile that dies before it reaches his eyes. “Fuck you.”
So I start with his fingers. One joint at a time, crushed under the flat edge of a hammer. Slow. Purposeful, how I earned my road name. City stands to my right, handing me tools without a word. Rampage leans in the corner like he’s waiting for his turn. Rock smokes. Steel just watches.
It doesn’t take long before Duke’s begging. “It wasn’t just us! We were paid. The Syndicate, Bria, they wanted the girl gone. Said she knew too much.”
“Why?” I snarl.
“She wasn’t supposed to survive the first grab. They said the reporter is becoming a liability.”
My blood turns to ice. I lean closer, voice low enough to strip the meat from his bones. “Give me a name. Or I’ll start working higher.”
Duke’s head drops. A ragged whisper leaves his lips. “Bria Thatcher. She took Syndicate money. Sold your prospect. Sold the girl. Said it was business.”
I nod. “Good.”
Then I put a single bullet through Duke’s forehead, because I’ve heard everything I need. Duke’s body jerks with the last spasm and goes still. It’s quiet in the basement except for the ticking of Rock’s lighter as he flicks it shut and pockets it again.
I wipe the hammer clean. I should feel better, but I don’t.
Steel unlocks the door. “Let’s move.”
By the time we climb the stairs and hit the top landing, something’s off. The house is too quiet. The common room too still.
Nevaeh’s purse is missing, and so is her 9 Mil. My chest grows cold. She already knows.
I find Nevaeh an hour later in the parking lot outside Bria’s apartment building. The complex is half-lit, one streetlamp flickering like a bad pulse. Somewhere, a baby is crying behind thin drywall.
Nevaeh’s cheeks are wet, but her hands don’t shake. Bria’s on her knees, mascara running, mouth gagged with her own scarf. Nevaeh stands behind her, gun pressed to the back of Bria’s skull.
Nevaeh doesn’t even look at me when I step up beside her.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Nevaeh says, softly.
“I know I should,” I reply. “You’re not alone in this.”
Nevaeh’s lips tremble, but her grip never loosens. “She gave them everything. My meeting spots. My sister’s number. She set Niko up so they could flip him.”
Bria chokes against the gag. Nevaeh ignores her. She turns her face to mine. She’s shattered and furious and steady all at once.
“You said we would finish it together.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “So finish it.”
Nevaeh pulls the trigger.
Bria’s body hits the pavement with nothing left to say.
Nevaeh’s legs give for half a second, and I catch her before she hits the ground.
Her hands fist in my cut, and she shatters against my chest, silent, hard, shaking.
I don’t say a word. I just hold her. Because love, real love, isn’t soft.
Sometimes it’s standing next to someone while they burn the world that tried to break them.
We ride back in silence. Nobody talks about what Nevaeh just did. Nobody needs to. Rock, Honor, and Draft stay behind to clean up the body and leave no evidence behind. The cops will think it’s a Syndicate deal gone bad.
In the quiet of my room at the clubhouse, Nevaeh curls against me. Scars on scars, truth laid bare. “They took everything from me,” she whispers. “But they didn’t break me.”
“No,” I say, pressing my lips to her temple. “They made the mistake of turning you into one of us.”
She looks up at me, eyes raw. “You’re sure you want that?”
I drag my thumb across her cheek, wiping away the last of someone else’s blood. “I don’t want it. I need it.”
Her mouth lifts in something that’s more promise than smile.
She pushes me back onto the bed and climbs over me, kissing like she’s trying to brand her name into my bones.
We move roughly at first, then slower. Flesh against flesh.
My hands in her hair. Her nails on my shoulders. No fear. No hesitation.
Just truth. Just us.
Light filters through the blinds, pale and gold across the sheets.
Nevaeh’s still wrapped around me, her thigh thrown over my hip, her face tucked against my throat like she’s trying to anchor herself to something solid.
She didn’t really sleep last night. She drifted in and out, every time her breath hitching like she was back in the alley, pulling the trigger on Bria all over again.
I don’t wake her at first. I just hold her. My thumb strokes slowly over the curve of her lower back until the tension in her eases, just a little.
When she finally shifts and blinks up at me, her eyes are dark and raw, but determined.
“You okay?” I ask, brushing her hair back.
“No,” she whispers. “But I want you.”
It’s not desperate. It’s deliberate.
So I kiss her. Slow at first, then deeper.
She climbs over me and moves like she needs every inch of skin between us to remind her she’s still here.
I let her set the pace. Let her take what she needs.
Those soft little sounds in the back of her throat pull heat into my blood until I roll her under me and push in with one clean thrust.
Her breath catches. Her hands fist on my shoulders.
“Right here,” I murmur against her mouth, thrusting deep and steady. “I’ve got you. Nobody else. Just us.”
We move together until her body goes tight and trembling beneath me, her release hitting fast and fierce. I follow her over the edge a heartbeat later, burying my face in her neck as I spill inside her, letting her pull me under with her.
For a long minute, we just breathe, tangled together in the quiet morning light.
Then reality starts knocking again.
By the time we reach the chapel table, she’s pulled her cut on and braided her hair back tight. I take my seat at Steel’s left. She stands behind me, one hand resting lightly on my shoulder.
Steel drops a folder on the table.
“Intel came in overnight,” he says, voice low and clipped. “Duke wasn’t the only one working a deal.”
He flips the top page and slides it forward.
I lift the grainy surveillance photo. Dog, the Sergeant-at-Arms who served under Steel’s father, presumed dead for years, was shaking Niko’s hand in a back lot behind the Iron Cross’s warehouse.
“It was never just about us,” Steel mutters. “Kid got in deep before we ever saw it coming. This goes back further than we thought.”
Nevaeh’s fingers tighten on my shoulder. I lay my hand over hers. Grounding each other.
Rock sparks a cigarette and exhales a slow stream of smoke. “Then we cut deeper.”
Steel looks at each man in the room. Faces hard. Eyes narrowed. Brothers waiting for the word. “You ready to finish what they started?”
Twenty fists slam into chests.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
My gaze lifts to Nevaeh’s.
“It’s not over,” I tell her.
She doesn’t flinch. She smiles sharply, fiercely, and unbroken. “Good,” she says. “I’m not done.”