Chapter 20
Sophia
Grim pulled into the clubhouse lot fast enough that gravel spit out behind the tires. He was out of the car before the engine fully stopped, rounding to Sophia’s side like he expected another attack to come out of the shadows.
Sophia stepped out on unsteady legs, and Grim’s hand immediately found the small of her back, steady and warm and protective.
Seeing her hurt cracked something open in him. Something he’d welded shut years ago. He didn’t just want her safe. He wanted her. All of her. And that terrified him more than any enemy ever had. He wasn’t losing her. Not now. Not ever.
He didn’t drag her or carry her. He stayed glued to her side, his body angled like a shield as he scanned the lot.
Switchblade and Ghost were closest to the door. They straightened instantly, eyes widening as they took in Sophia’s pale face and Grim’s lethal expression.
“Everything alright?” Ghost asked, voice low.
“No,” Grim said, and the single word made both prospects tense like coiled wire.
Switchblade’s jaw clenched. “Who do we need to bury?”
Grim didn’t answer. He just pushed open the door.
They walked into the clubhouse together.
The moment the door opened, the room froze.
Music cut off mid-beat. Cards were dropped. Conversations died. Every Saint in the room turned toward them.
Rook was the first to stand, slow and controlled, eyes narrowing as he took in Sophia’s pale face and Grim’s lethal expression. Fish shifted forward too, silent and shadowed, reading the threat level in a single glance. Lacey’s smile was gone, replaced with something sharp and protective.
Behind them, the prospects fanned out instinctively, Switchblade, Ghost, Brick, and Vandal forming a loose wall near the entrance, ready to move if Grim so much as twitched.
Brick wasn’t posturing like he had at his welcome-back party. His eyes were sharp, scanning the room, the exits, the windows — not frantically, but methodically. Controlled.
He stepped half a pace forward, subtly putting himself between Sophia and the door. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud. It was instinct — protective and precise.
Sophia hadn’t expected that from him. Not from the kid who joked too much and talked too loud.
But right now? He looked like someone who’d die before letting anything touch her again.
Grim’s face was carved from stone, fury simmering under the surface and adrenaline still burning through him. Sophia looked pale, shaken, her fingers curled into the fabric of Grim’s shirt.
Stone rose slowly from the table, eyes narrowing. “Tell me what happened.”
Grim’s voice was low, lethal. “Reapers. Four of them. They grabbed her outside the hospital.”
A ripple of rage moved through the room. Even Lacey looked shaken, her usual brightness dimmed.
Havoc stood so fast his chair scraped the floor. “They put hands on her?”
Grim’s jaw flexed. “They tried.”
A low growl came from behind Sophia, Switchblade. “They touch a woman on our turf, they answer for it.”
Rook’s voice cut through the room, quiet and controlled and deadly. “They tried that shit with Avery too.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “We should’ve burned them to the ground then.”
Fish’s gaze sharpened, silent and deadly.
Ledger was already pulling his laptop closer, fingers flying. “This is connected. It has to be.”
Stone motioned toward the table. “Sit. All of you.”
Grim guided Sophia to a chair beside him, his hand never leaving her. She sat stiffly, trembling slightly, but she lifted her chin. She wasn’t hiding. Not from this. Not from them.
Stone’s voice softened just a fraction. “You alright, sweetheart?”
Sophia nodded. “I will be.”
Fish’s eyes flicked to Sophia’s shaking hands, then to Grim’s rigid posture beside her, calculating and protective and already adjusting his threat assessment.
Grim’s hand slid onto her thigh under the table, grounding her.
Stone turned to Ledger. “What do we know?”
Ledger exhaled. “Still can’t get into Reyes’s phone. Whatever he encrypted, he did it right before he was attacked.”
Sophia swallowed hard. “He said something before he died.”
Every head turned toward her, even the prospects near the wall went still.
“What’d he say?” Stone asked.
“One word. A name,” she whispered. “Elena.”
The room froze.
Ledger’s typing slowed. “Checking Reyes’s background.”
A beat later, his brows shot up. “He had a wife. Elena Reyes.”
Sophia’s breath caught. “Had?”
Ledger nodded grimly. “She’s been missing for over a year. Went to the grocery store one afternoon and never came home. Reyes filed reports, hired private investigators, searched everywhere.”
Stone leaned forward. “You think he found something?”
Ledger nodded. “He was looking for her right up until the day he was attacked.”
Sophia looked at the phone on the table. “Could her name be the password?”
Ledger typed it in.
Access denied.
Rook leaned back. “What about…wife?”
Ledger tried it.
Access denied.
Sophia frowned, thinking. “Reyes was Mexican American. What about esposa?”
Ledger typed it.
The phone unlocked.
The room went dead silent.
Rook exhaled slowly, not relief but the kind of breath a man takes right before violence. Fish didn’t move at all. He didn’t have to. His stillness said everything.
Even the prospects froze, Switchblade’s hands curling into fists, Ghost’s jaw tightening, Brick muttering a quiet curse under his breath.
Two files. Both photos.
Ledger clicked the first. The image filled the screen, grainy and taken in low light but unmistakable. A shipping truck. Interior lined with metal. And inside, cages. Stacked two high. Bars welded shut. Women inside them, cramped, bruised, terrified.
Sophia’s stomach twisted. “Oh my God…”
Grim’s hand tightened on her thigh until she covered it with her own.
Stone’s voice was low, lethal. “Son of a—”
Ledger clicked the second photo.
This one was clearer.
A man in a Reaper cut who had a black snake tattoo running up his neck was standing beside a shipping container. Shaking hands with a man that was harder to make out. Stacks of cash exchanged between them.
Havoc slammed his fist on the table. “That’s the Reapers’ President, Viper. They’re running women through our county.”
Rook growled. “Using our roads. Our territory. Our people.”
Fish finally spoke, just two words, low and certain: “Not anymore.”
Grim leaned closer to the image, “I can’t tell who’s with him?”
Ledger zoomed in, fingers flying over the keys. “I’ve pushed it as far as it’ll go,” he said, frustration tightening his voice. “The resolution’s trash. I can’t clean it up any more than this.”
From the back of the room, Switchblade added quietly, “Tell us where to stand. We’ll hold the line.”
Sophia’s voice trembled. “His wife… she might be one of them.”
Ledger nodded. “He must’ve tracked the Reapers. Got close enough to get these photos. They caught him. Tried to finish the job.”
Stone’s jaw tightened. “The Reapers aren’t working alone. They’re moving women through our county…and handing them off to someone else. Now they’re trying to take Sophia.”
Grim’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble. “They’re not getting near her again.”
Rook nodded once, a silent vow. Fish mirrored it, a promise without words. Switchblade, Ghost, Brick, and Vandal all nodded too, four young men ready to die for her without hesitation.
Stone nodded once, eyes cold. “Then we end this.”
Sophia looked around the table at the men who had become Grim’s family, at the fury in their eyes, at the way they closed ranks around her without hesitation.
She wasn’t just protected.
She was claimed.
Grim slid his hand into hers under the table, squeezing gently.
She squeezed back.
And for the first time since Reyes died, she understood. Elena wasn’t a memory he clung to. He whispered her name so someone would know who he gave his last breath for.
And now… they did.