Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
MASON
I pace back and forth across the storage room floor. To the point that there’s probably going to be path worn in the linoleum before the night is over.
Cursing myself for not making sure that Phoenix had her phone on her when she went outside. Hating that I let her go by herself in the first place.
Wondering how long I can go without losing my mind completely before we get her back.
Dom continues to click through the camera feeds, his expression cold and forbidding.
“We need to call the police,” I say for the third time.
His reply is flat. “No.”
I stop mid-stride. “What the hell do you mean, no?”
“I mean no cops. Not yet.”
Heat floods my chest, part terror, part rage. “Phoenix has been kidnapped and you want to just—what? Wait around and see what happens?”
“Not precisely, no.”
“She could be anywhere by now!” My voice climbs without my permission, cracking at the edges. “She could be hurt. She could be—”
“I know.” Dom’s jaw tightens, muscle jumping beneath the stubble. “You think I don’t know that? But the second we involve the police, Aaron is going to hear about it.”
“So what?”
“So…the Sinners only took Phoenix an hour ago. As far as Aaron knows we haven’t even figured out she’s missing yet.”
My fists clench and unclench. Am I going to hit him? Maybe. “Explain.”
“The Sinners have contacts in the sheriff’s department.
They’ll know we reported it before the officers even leave the station.
The cops will make a decent show of going to the clubhouse and doing a few interviews that won’t actually result in anything.
And if Aaron thinks the police are sniffing too close, he’ll just move Phoenix somewhere we’ll never find her and Aaron will get exactly what he wants. ”
“And what do you think that is exactly? Ransom? Revenge? What?”
Dom shuts down the camera feed and pushes to his feet. “I’m not going to wait to figure that out.”
“Wait, what are you going to do?”
He doesn’t bother answering, just pushing past me and striding back toward the bar’s front room. I hurry to follow him.
Dom stomps into the bar like a man who is ready to pick a fight with anyone who looks at him sideways.
“Last call!” His voice cuts through the music playing over the speaker. “Drink up and get out. We’re closing early.”
The protest that rises from a cluster of locals near the pool table dies when Dom turns the full force of his murderous expression on them.
Atticus has already wrapped up his set and is chatting with Judah who is still behind the bar.
They both look up when Dom approaches. Dom leans close as he speaks to them, voice soft enough that I can’t hear him over the din of the crowd. But the looks on their faces are enough to gather that he is filling them in on what we saw on the camera feed.
Atticus goes very still. His glass stops halfway to his mouth.
Judah’s reaction is different. No stillness. The color drains from his face in the span of a single breath, jaw clamped shut so hard I can see the muscle jump from several feet away.
“—and the patches are a match,” Dom is finishing as I reach the bar. “I’d bet my life on it.”
Atticus sets his glass down with a deliberate click. “If this is just about ransom money, I only need to know two things. How much do they want and how do we get it to them?”
Dom’s expression somehow turns even more grim. “I’m not sure Aaron wants money. Even if he asks for it.”
Atticus’s face goes hard. “What does that mean?”
“It means Aaron Keenan doesn’t do anything to put his business at risk without a damn good reason. If all he wanted was money then there are easier ways to get it. We all saw the way he looked at Phoenix. She isn’t safe within a hundred miles of him.”
Atticus opens his mouth. Closes it. Something moves behind his eyes, and then his expression settles into something cold and very, very focused. “We need to get her back.”
“That’s going to be hard when Dom doesn’t even want to call the police,” I grind out.
The heat of Atticus’s glare could outshine the surface of the sun. “You’re not calling the police?”
“Not yet. The Sinners practically have the sheriff on their payroll.”
“I don’t care about small-town corruption.
” Atticus slides off the stool and stands to his full height, and whatever charm he usually carries has been stripped clean, leaving something underneath that is genuinely formidable.
“Call the state police, call the FBI, call the goddamn National Guard. Phoenix is out there with these people right now and we’re standing here doing absolutely nothing—“
“The FBI would love to hear from us,” Dom says with a controlled patience that costs him something.
His knuckles are white against the bartop.
“And then what? They open a file. They make calls. They establish jurisdiction. They brief a task force.” He meets Atticus’s stare without flinching.
“In four to six hours, they’ll be ready to begin preliminary steps.
By which point Aaron has had time to hide Phoenix somewhere we’ll never find her. ”
Atticus stares at Dom. Dom stares back. Judah is gripping the edge of the bar hard enough that I’m genuinely worried about the structural integrity of the wood.
“You said you might know where she is,” I say.
Dom’s gaze cuts to mine, sharp and immediate, checking the room. The last two locals are pulling on their jackets near the door, apparently oblivious to the crisis unfolding at the bar. He waits until they’ve pushed through the exit and the door swings shut behind them before he answers.
“There’s an old salvage yard the Sinners have used for storage. Maybe two miles east of the docks.” Dom’s voice is very quiet. “Off-grid. No neighbors. The kind of place you’d take someone if you didn’t want anyone to hear them.”
Judah exhales through his nose, a sound that’s barely controlled.
“And how the fuck do you know that?” Atticus snaps.
With a sigh, Judah pushes himself off the bar. “You should just tell them everything, Dom. I think they deserve to know. I’m going to make sure there aren’t any more customers and lock up.”
I’m equally confused. “Tell us what?”
Dom’s hands still on the bartop. He doesn’t move for a long moment, just stares at the space between them like he’s weighing something.
“I ran with the Sinners when I was a kid.” The words land flat and simple. “I never became a full member, but it was a close thing.”
Atticus’s eyebrows climb. I say nothing, waiting.
“I was thirteen, fourteen. In the system. No family, no money, no one who gave a shit how I spent my time. The Sinners were the first people who ever made me feel like I belonged somewhere.” His jaw works as he glares at the wall behind us, unable to meet our gazes.
“They had a habit of recruiting out of foster care. Boys with nothing to lose make excellent errand runners.”
“What kind of errands?”
“The kind that got me arrested at fifteen.” He doesn’t flinch from Atticus’s stare.
“I was two weeks from prospecting for full membership when a fight with some college kids at a gas station went sideways. Three of us got arrested. I was the youngest and the only one without priors, so I got sent to juvie instead of county jail.”
“You went to juvenile detention,” I say slowly. “I never knew that.”
“For almost a year.” Dom picks at the label on the water bottle. “Best thing that ever happened to me, which is a pretty damning statement about the available alternatives.” He pauses. “When I got out, I had nowhere to go. The Daniels family took me in.”
Something quiet and immense passes across his face.
“Being part of a real family changed me. Having people who actually gave a shit whether I came home.” He exhales. “I stayed clean. Stayed out. The Sinners left me alone because Judah’s father had enough local reputation that coming after me would’ve cost them more than I was worth.”
I stare at him.
Dom, who I’ve known since I was fifteen years old, never told me any of this.
The hurt is reflexive and immediate, a sharp thing behind my sternum.
I know it isn’t rational. I kept my own secrets from him for a decade and have very little standing to feel betrayed by his.
But knowing something is irrational and stopping yourself from feeling it are entirely different skills, and I have never been especially talented at the second one.
“But Judah knew?” The question comes out quieter than I intend.
Dom’s expression softens, as if he knows exactly the direction my thoughts are going. “Only a few years ago. I needed character references when I petitioned the judge to seal my juvenile record. He found out because I had to tell him.”
Atticus, who has been uncharacteristically silent, clears his throat. “If it’s been years, how do you know the Sinners are still using this salvage yard?”
“That location has never been raided, so the Sinners have to be thinking it’s still off the radar and close enough to hear that they don’t have to risk someone catching sight of Phoenix while they’re moving her.”
“That’s a significant assumption,” Atticus says. “If they’ve changed hideouts since you were fifteen, then we’ve wasted a bunch of time.”
“Or I’m right and we get Phoenix back before this situation completely devolves,” Dom declares, not aggressive but absolute. “I just have a hunch. I can’t explain it. But I just know this is where they have her.”
“And how exactly are we supposed to get past the guards?” I ask.
Dom’s gaze slides past me to watch Judah approach after locking the door. “The guards will all be on the service road, but the salvage yard backs up to the waterfront. And we just happen to have the best boat captain in the state standing right here.”