Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Monk
The Comanche County Courthouse steps were bleached white beneath the noon sun, all glare and hard edges.
Heat rolled off the concrete in visible waves, carrying the stink of exhaust, hot tar, and scorched pavement.
I squinted into it as I came down the steps, my wrists still aching where the cuffs had bitten into my skin during processing, the ghost of steel lingering there like an insult. The air hit me, hot and sharp.
And underneath it all, there was freedom.
Temporary freedom, anyway.
The kind they handed you with one eye still on your back. The kind that felt less like release and more like a delay.
I scanned the parking lot and found them immediately.
Blackjack leaned against his bike with his arms crossed, broad and still as a monument.
Whisper stood beside him, sunglasses on, his expression hidden and unreadable in a way that somehow made him look more dangerous.
Shadow lingered near the curb with his hands shoved into his pockets, posture loose, eyes anything but.
And there, right in the middle of them, was my bike.
My Harley.
Black and chrome and beautiful, catching the sun like a blade.
For one thin, fragile second, something in my chest loosened.
My brothers. My machine. A way out.
I started down the courthouse steps, boots striking the concrete with a dull, heavy rhythm, and then I saw her.
Lina.
She stood off to the side near the street, one hand wrapped around her briefcase, the other hanging still at her side.
Her blazer was perfectly pressed, not a wrinkle on it, like the last twelve hours hadn’t happened at all.
Like she hadn’t sat across from me in an interrogation room while my whole life cracked open.
Her hair was twisted into that severe bun she wore when she locked herself behind the lawyer mask—clean, polished, untouchable.
She wasn’t looking at me.
Wasn’t looking at anyone.
She was staring across the street at her car like it was the only thing tethering her to this moment. Like if she looked at me, even once, whatever she was holding together might split wide open.
Something cold slid under my ribs.
I changed direction without thinking and headed straight for her, my jaw locked so tight it hurt.
“Lina.”
She turned.
And Christ.
The look she gave me could have frozen Hell itself.
Her face was composed, but her eyes were dead flat.
Distant. Controlled in a way that felt worse than anger.
Like she had already pulled part of herself somewhere I couldn’t reach.
Like everything that had passed between us last night—every confession, every crack in the armor, every tear, every promise—had been buried by daylight and locked under concrete.
Like I was standing in front of a stranger wearing her face.
“You good?” I asked, though the question came out rougher than I meant it to.
“Fine.” Her answer was clipped, stripped down, all business.
No softness. No warmth. No trace of the woman who had held me together when I was coming apart.
I stepped closer and lowered my voice, trying to keep the edge out of it and failing. “You wanna ride back to the clubhouse with me?”
For the first time, something shifted in her expression.
Not much. Just the smallest flicker in her eyes.
Sharp. Dangerous. Gone almost before I caught it.
“No,” she said.
Flat. Professional. Final.
“I need to head home and make some calls. I’ll see you later today.”
The words landed like a slap across the mouth.
Not maybe.
Not we’ll talk later.
Not give me a minute.
Just no.
Cold and clean and absolute.
I stared at her, my mouth already opening, a dozen different things rising at once—What the fuck changed? What happened between Saturday and now? Why are you looking at me like this?—but she was already turning away.
She moved toward her car with her spine straight and her shoulders rigid, every line of her body telegraphing the same message.
Distance.
I stood there on the sidewalk and watched her go, my hands curling into fists so tight my nails bit into my palms.
What the hell?
Blackjack came up beside me, his voice low and dry. “She pissed?”
“Apparently,” I muttered, though that didn’t come close to covering whatever the hell that was.
“Can’t say I blame her,” Whisper said as he fell into place on my other side. “You got arrested at your own claiming ceremony. That’s not exactly a strong start.”
I shot him a hard look. “Not helping.”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Just saying.”
Across the street, Lina unlocked her car, slid behind the wheel, and shut the door without once looking back at me. A second later, the engine turned over. Then she pulled away from the curb and disappeared into traffic like she couldn’t get gone fast enough.
The ache in my chest came back hard enough to feel physical.
Sharp. Immediate. Mean.
Fuck.
I thought we were past this.
Thought after everything I told her—everything she said back, the way she looked at me, the way she touched me like she wasn’t afraid of what she’d find—we were finally standing on solid ground.
But maybe I’d been wrong.
Maybe a few days apart had done what it always did—burned the lies away and left only the truth.
And the truth was this:
Being with me meant danger.
Secrets.
Blood in the walls.
A life built on things she couldn’t control and probably couldn’t survive without losing pieces of herself.
Maybe she had finally seen that clearly.
Maybe she was already pulling away before I could drag her any deeper into it.
“Come on.”
Kansas’ voice cut through my thoughts like a blade.
I turned and found him standing by his bike, his expression carved into something grim and unreadable. No trace of relief. No trace of victory. Just tension, hard and heavy, hanging off him like smoke.
“Church?” I asked.
“Officers only,” he said. “Now.”
No explanation. No room for one.
Just that same hard tone that said something bad was already in motion.
I nodded once, swallowing down the frustration and confusion clawing at my throat. Then I swung a leg over my bike, fired the engine, and followed my brothers away from the courthouse.
Away from Lina.
And straight toward whatever fresh hell was waiting for me at the clubhouse.
The church room smelled like stale smoke, old whiskey, and the kind of tension that turned the air heavy. It pressed down on everything. On the scarred wood table. On the patched men gathered around it. On the silence waiting underneath every word.
Kansas sat at the head of the table, hands folded in front of him so tight the knuckles had gone pale. His jaw was locked, a hard line of strain cutting through his face. He looked like a man holding himself together by sheer force.
Blackjack sat on his right, arms crossed over his chest, broad and unmoving, his expression dark as a storm front.
Whisper sat on Kansas’ left, leaning back in his chair with that same unreadable stillness he wore whenever something bad was coming.
Widow sat near the far end, his fingers tapping out a slow, steady rhythm against the table, each sound sharp in the silence.
Shadow stood near the door, arms folded, silver-gray eyes moving across the room like he was already assessing angles, exits, contingencies.
I took my seat at Kansas’ right hand—the VP chair—and waited.
No one spoke.
No one needed to.
The room already felt like it knew blood was in the water.
Kansas didn’t waste time.
“Shadow,” he said, his voice flat and stripped clean of anything human. “Update.”
Shadow straightened, but only barely. Even that small movement seemed grim.
“Ruby’s missing,” he said.
The words dropped into the room like a body hitting deep water.
Everything went still.
“Missing?” Blackjack repeated, his voice sharp enough to cut skin. “What the fuck do you mean, missing?”
Shadow didn’t flinch. “I mean the bitch is gone.”
He pushed away from the wall and stepped closer to the table, every word measured, controlled.
“After she left the hospital, I had Trigger and Bongo check out her trailer on F Street. When they got there, it was empty. They asked around but the neighbors haven’t seen her.” His jaw tightened.
“The trailer?” Widow asked.
Shadow gave a single nod. “Empty. No sign of a struggle. No overturned furniture. No blood. No note. Just gone.”
Kansas’ face darkened. “You got people looking?”
“Yeah,” Shadow said. Then, after a beat, “But I’m not expecting to find her.”
That landed harder than the first bomb as silence rolled over the room, thick and ugly. Not expecting to find her.
That meant one of two things.
Dead or disappeared for good. And neither option left us with anything but problems. I leaned forward, my elbows settling onto the table, my stomach twisting harder by the second. “There’s more,” I said.
Kansas’ eyes snapped to mine instantly. “What?”
I held his gaze, even though I already knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Roberts knows we disposed of a body.”
The room detonated.
“What the fuck?!” Blackjack roared, his hand slamming down on the table so hard the sound cracked through the room.
“How the hell does he know?” Widow demanded.
Kansas threw up a hand, silencing them with a force that barely held as his eyes never left mine. “Explain,” he hissed.
His voice was quiet.
Deadly quiet.
I exhaled slowly, but it did nothing to loosen the pressure building in my chest.
“Roberts came to see me in the interrogation room before Lina got there,” I said. “Usual bullshit. WITSEC. Relocation. Cooperation. Same old threats dressed up like options.” I paused, and just thinking about his smug face made rage crawl up my spine. “But then he said something else.”
Kansas didn’t blink.
I felt every eye in the room on me.
“He said he knows what the club did with the body,” I said. “And he said he’s going to make sure the police find it unless I go back into WITSEC.”
Kansas went rigid.
Completely still. The kind of still that meant violence was only one breath away. “Where is the body?” he asked.
The question came out low and sharp as his gaze shifted to Whisper.
Whisper didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
Didn’t so much as twitch. He just sat there with that same unreadable expression, like the room wasn’t one second from coming apart.
“Whisper,” Kansas said, more force in his voice now. “Where. Is. The. FUCKING. Body?”
Whisper shrugged once, casual as hell, which only made the tension worse. “Taken care of.”
Kansas’ eyes narrowed into something lethal. “That’s not what I asked, asshole, and you know it.”
Whisper leaned forward slowly, elbows on the table, eyes steady, then he spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “Put it this way. Whatever body Roberts is talking about—” He paused just long enough for it to dig in. “It ain’t Pence. Because they will never find his body.”
The room went dead silent.
I stared at him, my mind racing too fast to catch hold of anything clean.
Never find his body.
Not buried shallow.
Not dumped.
Not hidden.
Gone.
Permanently.
Burned, maybe. Dissolved. Buried where no one would ever think to dig.
Something final.
Something absolute.
Blackjack dragged a hand down his face and muttered, “Then who the fuck is Roberts talking about?”
I shook my head once, jaw tight enough to ache. “No clue. But he was serious.” I looked around the room. “I’ve been around that motherfucker long enough to know when he’s bluffing. This time he’s not. He thinks he has leverage, and if he’s got a body, he’s gonna use it to force me back under.”
Widow’s voice cut through the silence like a blade being drawn. “That motherfucker needs to die.”
Every eye in the room turned toward him. Widow didn’t blink. Didn’t back off. He just sat there, cold and steady and absolutely certain.
Kansas scrubbed both hands down his face like he was trying to wipe the whole mess off his skin, stood, and then started pacing.
No one said a word. We just watched him.
Back and forth. To the end of the table and back again as his fists clenched at his sides. His shoulders were tight and his jaw was locked so hard it looked painful.
The room felt smaller with every pass. Hotter. Meaner.
Like it was closing in around us.
Finally, he stopped and looked at each of us in turn.
When he spoke, his voice was flat. “We’re fucked.”
No one argued because no one could.
“This shit could not have happened at a worse time,” Kansas said, his voice rough now, fraying at the edges. “Especially not with the meet next weekend with Benedict.”
Blackjack gave a grim nod. “We’re already fractured after Pence’s execution. We broke with the Federation, so they won’t help. Now Roberts is threatening to expose us, Ruby’s missing, and Monk’s got a rape charge hanging over his head.”
“Not to mention the mystery corpse Roberts somehow has his hands on,” Widow added.
Kansas’ mouth flattened into a dark line. “Yeah. That too.”
Shadow pushed off the wall then, his voice calm in a way that made it sound even more dangerous. “Give me twenty-four hours, Kansas,” he said. “I’ll find Ruby.”
Kansas looked at him, eyes narrowing. “You sure?”
Shadow didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.” Then, quieter: “And when I find her, I’ll get the truth out of her.”
There was something in the way he said it that made the room go still all over again.
Kansas stared at him for a long moment, then gave one sharp nod. “Alright.”
He went back to the head of the table and lowered himself into his chair. Slow. Controlled. Deliberate. Like the room had shifted, and now every move mattered more as he folded his hands in front of him again.
The room waited and no one moved. No one breathed too loud.
When Kansas finally spoke, his voice was steady. Certain. Cold enough to raise the dead. “Alright,” he said again. “This is what we’re gonna do.”