Chapter Fifteen
Jade
I felt the shift before anyone said a word.
For three weeks, the club lived with its shoulders up around its ears.
Every knock, every phone call, every unfamiliar car on the road made my heart slam against my ribs.
We drilled the kids, checked the fences, watched the news.
Two more laundromats were hit. A construction office. Each raid took a bite out of him.
He didn’t bite back. Not the way I expected. No drive-bys. No ambush at the gate. No black SUVs rolling up to smoke us in our sleep. Just… silence.
The silence crawled up my vertebrae, settling between my shoulders.
I woke up Thursday morning to something unexpected -- lightness. My lungs expanded fully for the first time in weeks. No alarms had sounded. No emergency calls had come through. The world seemed to breathe differently.
Kane lay sprawled beside me, one arm heavy across my stomach, mouth slightly open as he snored.
Beyond our window, birds argued in the branches while the sun still struggled to clear the tree line.
A motorcycle engine fired up somewhere in the compound yard, the familiar rumble fading into background noise my ears had learned to filter out months ago.
I lay there and listened to his heartbeat under my ear.
For the first time in longer than I wanted to count, my brain didn’t immediately run through a list of exits and worst-case scenarios. It just… existed.
“Your face is doing something,” Kane mumbled, voice rough with sleep. “Can’t see it, but I can feel it.”
“My face?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Less murder. More… I don’t know. Suspicious hope.”
I snorted. “You can’t feel my face.”
“Can too,” he insisted. “Your muscles move different when you’re stress-dreaming.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You pay attention to my face while I sleep?”
“Always.” Kane came fully awake now, his hand sliding up my back, fingers tracing each vertebra along my spine. “Tell me what’s happening in your head.”
“The sensation reminds me of standing in the ocean.” My voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I braced myself for a massive wave, locked my knees, tensed every muscle -- but the water went completely calm instead. My body doesn’t know how to relax after being on high alert for so long.”
“That makes you nervous,” he said.
“Everything makes me nervous. But this feels… good. And wrong. And I want to roll around in it while it lasts.”
He smiled, slow and soft. “Could probably be convinced to roll around with you. In the interest of science.”
I laughed, tension loosening another notch.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand.
We both froze.
He reached for it, thumb swiping across the screen. His expression changed.
“What?” I asked, stomach immediately knotting again.
He exhaled. “Spade,” he said. “Meeting. Now. Everyone.”
“Is it Diaz?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet,” he said. “But my gut says yeah.”
The world slipped back into sharp focus.
“Go,” I said, throwing the covers off. “I’ll grab pants.”
“Please do,” he said. “Prez gets twitchy when you show up to Church in my T-shirt and nothing else.”
“Coward,” I muttered, but I pulled on jeans anyway.
We dressed fast and headed down.
In the common room, guys swarmed around the coffeepot, dragged chairs across the floor, and filtered toward the hallway leading to the meeting room. A silent TV flickered in the corner, some perky host waving her arms over weekend weather graphics nobody cared about.
Spade leaned against the bar, gripping his tablet in both hands. His eyes gleamed with caffeine-fueled intensity.
When he spotted Kane and me, he jerked his head toward the back. “Come on. You’ll want a seat for this.”
I crossed my arms. “Planning to explain before or after my blood pressure explodes?”
“After.” He grinned wide. “Creates more suspense.”
Atilla’s voice boomed down the hall. “Move your asses! Now, people.”
We filed into Church.
Same table. Same chairs. Same skull logo glaring down from the wall. Different energy. Last time I walked in here, dread had sat heavy in my throat.
We took our usual spots, Kane at the table, me in the chair behind his shoulder, close enough my knee brushed his hip.
Spade set his tablet down, hooked it to the monitor, and pulled up what looked like a paused video.
A news clip. Field reporter. Microphone in hand. Blue jacket flapping in the wind in front of a big wrought-iron gate.
“You watching the weather?” one of the guys muttered.
“Nope,” Spade said. “Special interest piece.”
Atilla rapped his knuckles on the table. “Eyes front,” he said. “Spade?”
He hit play.
The reporter’s voice filled the room. “… in what officials are calling a major blow to cartel activity in the region, federal agents and local authorities executed multiple coordinated raids late last night. Warrants were served at several properties, including this rural compound believed to be owned by businessman Carlos Diaz…”
My breath stopped.
The gate behind her looked familiar from pictures in Jason’s notes. Long drive. Trees lining either side. Security cameras tucked into the stone pillars.
The footage cut to a shaky shot taken from a distance. Agents in tactical gear moved through an open gate. Vehicles lined the driveway. Men on their knees. Hands laced behind their heads.
The shot zoomed.
Diaz. Dark hair threaded with gray. Expensive coat thrown on over a T-shirt. Hands cuffed behind his back, face blank.
“… Diaz, long suspected of having ties to international drug trafficking, was taken into custody without incident,” the reporter went on. “Authorities also arrested several alleged associates, including Victor Alvarez, believed to be a key lieutenant…”
Victor. He appeared in the next shot, being shoved into the back of a car. Smirk gone. Eyes wild.
I realized I was gripping Kane’s cut so hard my fingers hurt.
He covered my hand with his.
“… sources say this operation was the result of a multi-year investigation led by Detective Brian Hanley of the Metro Narcotics Task Force, in cooperation with federal agencies…”
Hanley.
My throat burned.
Spade hit pause.
Silence filled the room.
Someone sniffed. Someone else cleared his throat.
Atilla leaned back in his chair, eyes on the frozen image of Diaz in handcuffs.
“There it is,” he said quietly.
“He’s done? Already?” one of the younger guys asked.
General shook his head. “A lot went into this. Hanley. Spade. All the threads connected. We pulled some. They pulled others. Now we see the result.”
“Prison won’t kill him,” another voice argued. “The bastard still breathes.”
Atilla leaned forward, knuckles white against the table edge. “For now. Men in his position fare poorly behind bars. He’ll spend his remaining days watching guards and inmates instead of sending men to our gate. I count this as a win.”
Spade yanked the tablet free from its connection and scrubbed his palm across his stubbled face.
“Federal agents raided four properties simultaneously,” he said.
“The downtown condo. His office building. The port warehouse Roth mentioned. The main compound. Half his lieutenants went into custody. The rest scattered when news broke. Every account frozen. Every smuggling route compromised. His influence shrinks by the hour, though a few loyal rats might remain.”
“His family?” I asked, voice raspier than I meant it to be.
Spade’s gaze softened. “Elena and Sofia are out. Hanley made sure they were off-site before the compound raid. They’re not saying where, which is fine by me. Diaz will know they’re safe. It’ll piss him off that his wife is alive. That’s a bonus.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Good. He can rot without dragging them down too.”
Atilla looked around the table. “This doesn’t mean we let our guard down,” he said.
“Cartel doesn’t vanish because one man gets hauled into a courtroom.
Other crews are going to smell blood and try to move into the gap.
Some of them may look at our town and see fresh meat.
We stay sharp. We keep the kids drilled. We don’t get stupid.”
“But Diaz?” someone asked.
“Diaz is done,” Atilla said. “At least around here. This chapter? Over.”
His eyes landed on me.
My heart stuttered.
“Jade,” he said. “How’s it feel?”
A thousand answers fought for space in my mouth.
I thought about Jason laughing with a mouthful of pizza. Miss Irene stamping my library card. Casey’s daughter holding my hand during drills. Kane whispering I love you against my hair.
Thin but steady.
“Loud,” I said finally. “And quiet.”
Kane squeezed my hand.
Atilla shifted his gaze. “We’ve got another piece of business.”
Confusion swept over Kane’s face. “We do?”
“Don’t play dumb, Falcon.” Atilla crossed his arms. “You suck at it.”
Laughter rippled around the table.
My stomach flipped. “What’s happening?”
Kane turned to me, panic and joy wrestling in his eyes. Then he rose to his feet. “Prez,” he said. “Request.”
Atilla raised a brow. “You doing this here? Now?”
“Yes, sir,” Kane said. “Feels like the right time.” Kane pivoted to face me fully.
My blood rushed simultaneously to my face and feet, making me dizzy.
“Ka -- I mean, Falcon. What are you --”
He extended his hand toward me. “Jade Fairmont.” His voice remained steady despite everything happening around us. “Come here.”
My vision swam as I tried to process what was happening.
I rose on wobbly legs and allowed him to pull me up beside him. We stood together facing everyone -- club members at the table, women gathered in the back, and the imposing skull logo looming from the wall above us all.
Facing my future, apparently.
Atilla leaned back, folding his arms across his chest.
“All right, son,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”