Chapter 61
SIXTY-ONE
SILAS
“She wasn’t supposed to fuckin’ see it.” Phoenix’s jaw clenched and ticked through the hostility that suffocated the office.
“But she fucking did, didn’t she? And now she’s—” My teeth snapped shut, not able to say it. Terror fisting my spirit, not sure where she was.
If she was in danger.
All while my head spun with what Phoenix had revealed. The hate I’d held for a man for years multiplying exponentially. Knowing that she was the one broken on that floor.
Fuck.
I couldn’t even process that she was the one who’d changed everything.
Set my life on a different trajectory.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that she kept doing it. That somehow, she’d end up here and become mine.
The moment in time inscribed in me as deep as the ink on my flesh. As deep as the wounds on my heart.
And she was the only one who could heal them.
“She thinks I ordered it. Thinks I betrayed her the way you betrayed me.” My words were shredded.
Accusations and pleas.
Phoenix’s tatted throat bobbed. “Would never knowingly hurt you. I was trying to protect you and this entire club. I kept thinking that she was familiar, and after you claimed her last night, I realized where I knew her from. I hacked into some old police records in San Jose. Found her picture and verified it was her. I thought…”
He scrubbed a tattooed hand over his mouth. “I thought there was no chance it was random. One way or another, Dereck has to be up to something. I had to stop him.”
“You should have come to me. It wasn’t your choice to make,” I growled, leaning in his direction. “And because of it, she’s out there. Unprotected.”
My chest felt like it would cave, all while my thoughts ricocheted in my mind, trying to calculate where she could have gone. How she got out of the compound without anyone knowing.
“I’ll personally find her,” Phoenix grated. “Bring her back to you. She couldn’t have gotten far. But you know Dereck needs to die.”
My head shook. It didn’t sit right. None of it. “No, Phoenix…”
I turned to pace, roughing an agitated hand through my hair as I clomped across the floor.
“If it was them? The men who hurt her? You think he’d go back? Work for them? You think Kent would just allow it?”
Bile tingled the back of my throat, my twined, gnarled guts squeezing the life out of me.
“I think…I think Dereck was on his own mission.” The words began to rush. “It’s why he came to us with the intel on Elena. He couldn’t stomach that bullshit any more than we could. He wanted revenge for what they did to his sister.”
The same way as I wanted it for mine. For Elena. For my mother. For that unknown girl tortured on the dingy floor.
“You think Kent knows.” It was a statement, Phoenix’s hands curling into vibrating fists.
Awareness taking hold as we came to the quick conclusion that this entire mission was compromised.
Kent likely had known exactly what was happening the entire time.
Had known my goal was him dead.
“He has to. He’d never let Dereck back in otherwise.”
Dereck was a fool for thinking it.
“Which means he’s fucking waiting for us,” I surmised.
He was the one who’d been biding his time. Pretending. Waiting for his chance to destroy us.
And Brinley…she went to warn Dereck. Thinking she could stop this entire trainwreck.
I felt like I was punched in the face.
My heart ripped from my chest.
Phoenix dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
Offering himself.
A penance for his sins.
His betrayal punishable by death.
“Do it,” he gritted, his eyes squeezed closed.
“Get the fuck off the floor,” I grated. “We have to get my girl.”
I stood in front of a sea of motorcycles and leather cuts, the glinting metal swirling with the threads of the night.
“We’re likely compromised.” I did my best to keep the tremoring from my voice, but I was pretty fucking sure my fear was patent.
Not for myself.
But for Brinley.
Brinley, that reckless, brave, ferocious girl.
“If any one of you wants to sit this out, I understand. It’s already the most dangerous undertaking we’ve endeavored, and it’s just become a million times worse.”
“Except we now know that Kent is waiting for us,” Trevan added from where he stepped up to my side. “If it hadn’t happened, we’d be walking straight into an ambush. Every single one of us.”
I looked at my oldest friend. The one who’d been there through thick and thin. From the start and to this end.
He cracked a grin and said, “I’m going to call this little mishap a win. And you fucking know I’ll be riding at your side. Besides, these motherfuckers don’t know who they really are playing with.”
Phoenix stepped up on my other side. Head still lowered with shame but that dark brutality oozing from his body. “I’ll gladly die for this.”
Brody suddenly broke through the crowd, donning his cut with his Prospect patch, his chin fierce as he forced his way to the front.
“I’m coming, too. And don’t fucking tell me I’m not.
This is Brinley we’re talking about. And this is retribution for our sister.
For our mother. For the innumerable others we don’t know about. ”
Emotion flooded from him, and I found I couldn’t refuse. My kid brother who’d become a man.
His own brand of brutality running beneath the surface.
My throat thickened, and I watched as every Crow dipped their heads in a show of agreement then moved to swing onto their bikes. The roar of them kicking over their powerful engines was nothing short of a battle cry.
They pulled back on the throttles. A deep, dark rumble of their loyalty and commitment.
Phoenix shouted above the tumult. “It’s time to get our Prez’s queen back.”
I looked at him. Understanding passed between us.
His true intentions, even though they were wrong. His love for me. His oath to always have my back.
The forgiveness that came on sharp relief.
Then I pulled away, my own determination rolling through me like a rockslide, and I moved to my Harley that sat waiting at the front.
I swung onto the matte black metal, hooked the heel of my boot to the rung, and drove down hard on the kick starter.
It rumbled and growled, and I revved it, my own call that reverberated through my men.
I lifted my hand, giving the signal, and we all flooded out through the gate. An ocean of Crimson Crows cuts and backbones of iron.
We rode through the night.
My body coiled and ready, my pulse thundering as loud as the army of bikes.
We rode for two hours, the night growing long the way we had planned.
The moment we crossed the California state line, Cash and his Sovereign Sanctum crew pulled out from where they were hidden and waiting in the shadows, their motorcycles gliding into formation, the same as Trent Lawson and his brothers did about three miles down the road.
These men I’d known for years. The ones who had helped set this whole thing into motion.
My crew began to segment off.
Teams heading to the different drop sites and the safehouse, while the rest of us barreled toward the compound.
Our only hope was that Kent had no clue about the magnitude of our hit. Had no clue that we intended to completely wipe them out. That we were striking everywhere at once.
Counting on the idea that he likely thought it would only be a handful of my men showing up at his door to rescue Brinley, not the all-out assault that was coming for him.
Ten miles out, we cut our lights. Darkness reigned as we traveled under the cover of night.
Five miles out, we split into thirds, taking the hidden paths that Cash had scoped out so we could completely surround the fenced-in property that covered close to two miles.
All while my heart ravaged and my spirit howled.
Brinley.
Brinley.
I’m coming for you, baby.
This wildfire that had torched my beliefs and brought me back to life.