20. CJ #2
I shove past two agents without thinking—one of them grabs my arm, and I whirl, ready to throw a punch, but Ryder’s there in a flash, stepping between us with his hands up, voice low and deadly calm.
“Don’t touch him. Back the fuck off.”
The agent hesitates—just long enough for me to push through the hallway.
I find Brick and Javi slammed against the storage room wall, both cuffed, faces twisted in pain. One of the agents is rifling through a duffel bag we keep under the register—cash, backup IDs, nothing illegal, but it’s enough for them to spin something.
“Hey!” I bark. “You don’t get to trash this place and treat us like criminals without cause.”
The woman in charge—suit, smug—appears behind me. “Actually,” she says, “we can. You’re under federal investigation for illegal weapons trafficking, fraud, and conspiracy. You want us to stop? Get a lawyer.”
Weapons trafficking?
I laugh, bitter and sharp. “You’re reaching. You know there’s nothing here.”
“We’ll see.” She turns her back on me like I’m not even worth the energy.
Hawk storms in, wild-eyed. “CJ. They’ve got Logan in the back of a cruiser. Said he resisted. They’re throwing ‘gang enhancement’ on top.”
“Of course they are,” I snap. “They want us on camera. Shackled. Unhinged. Dangerous.”
Hawk’s fists ball. “Then maybe we should be.”
I grip his arm, hard. “No. That’s exactly what they want.”
He rips free, but doesn’t argue.
The sound of tires crunching gravel cuts through the chaos. I look up, and my stomach turns.
News vans.
Three of them, pulling up one after the other like this is a scheduled performance. Microphones. Boom cameras. People in suits with too-white teeth and too-polished shoes stepping out like they’re covering a goddamn red-carpet event.
And then, behind them?—
Jake. Fucking. Hollingbow. Dressed like he’s stepping into a campaign photo shoot: tailored jacket, pressed shirt, that practiced look of grave concern painted across his face like he’s rehearsed it a hundred times in the mirror.
He doesn’t even flinch as officers drag one of our guys out in cuffs right in front of him. If anything, he straightens. Adjusts his cuffs. Gives a nod to the press that says, Yes, I’m here to save you from the monsters.
Rage burns through my chest, hotter than anything I felt when the cops kicked in the door. My hands clench into fists at my sides, breath going tight.
Ryder sees him, too. “Motherfucker,” he mutters.
Hawk doesn’t say anything, just turns his back to the crowd, pacing like a caged animal.
I can barely hear the agents anymore. I’m somewhere else, my mind pulled back to a desert that never ended. Heat so dry, it cracked your teeth. Blood in the sand. The sound of someone screaming “Medic!” while the sun set red like a warning.
“Blackthorne, pull back! Pull back!”
“We’re not cleared to assist; do not engage. I repeat—do not engage.”
“He’s dying out there! We can get to him!”
“Orders from D.C. Direct. You leave him. That’s an order.”
I see Jake’s face now like I saw it then—on a grainy screen, in a briefing tent, grinning behind a podium.
“Sacrifice for the greater good,” he said.
He signed the orders. Buried the aftermath. Decorated us with one hand and silenced us with the other.
And now he’s here. Watching our lives burn again.
I take a step toward him, but Ryder grabs my arm. “Not like this,” he warns.
I want to tear him apart. I want to shove him into the ground and scream every name we lost. Every truth he buried.
But I stop. Because I know what Jake wants. He wants us to explode. To look like the villains in his narrative. To validate every camera, every headline.
I turn away, swallowing the fire in my throat. But it doesn’t go away. It sits in my gut like a bomb.
Jake doesn’t rush. He walks through the chaos like he owns it. Like it’s just another fundraiser or ribbon-cutting. Only this time, the backdrop is our bar ripped open like a crime scene.
He buttons his jacket as he steps onto the front walk of The Den, calm, collected, and every bit the polished bastard I remember.
And then he sees us.
Me. Hawk. Ryder.
The fucker smiles. Not wide. Not exaggerated. Just that smooth, practiced, smug-ass political smirk that says, I’m already ten steps ahead of you.
My fists curl so tight, my knuckles crack.
“Gentlemen,” he says, voice all silk and insincerity. “What a mess.”
Ryder shifts beside me. Hawk doesn’t move, but his whole body tenses like a bowstring pulled tight.
Jake walks closer. A few reporters follow, trying to get shots of the moment, but he waves them back like they’re pets. His eyes don’t leave mine.
“I wish it didn’t have to be like this,” he says, his tone syrupy-sad like we’re old friends who just drifted apart over the years instead of what we really are—enemies bound by blood and betrayal.
“You came all the way here to gloat?” I say, voice low, vibrating with everything I’m holding back.
Jake shrugs. “To cooperate. To show transparency. It’s what the voters expect.”
“You don’t give a shit about transparency,” Hawk growls.
Jake’s gaze flicks to him, then to Ryder, and back to me. “No,” he says, smile sharpening. “But I do care about optics.”
The press hangs back just far enough to let him play both victim and hero—concerned citizen, involved father, and orchestrator of the slow destruction of everything we’ve built.
“You should’ve stayed away,” he says, voice low but venomous as he looks directly at me, then at Hawk and Ryder in turn. “Stayed buried when I gave you the chance to get out. But you had to come crawling back, clinging to your little club and your sad excuse for brotherhood.”
“You smug piece of shit,” Hawk mutters, barely restrained.
Jake smiles. Not warm. Not even human. “Now you’ll pay for it. All of you. And it won’t be just court dates and lawyers this time. You’re going down hard.” He pauses, then adds with a cool satisfaction, “And so is she.”
I step forward, every instinct screaming to break his fucking jaw, but before I can take another breath?—
“Officer! We’ve got something!”
A shout cuts through the tension. One of the K9 units—young guy, clean face, too eager—waves his hand over his head as his dog barks, pawing frantically at the ground near the back shed behind The Den.
Another officer jogs over. “What is it?”
The first guy pulls up a heavy duffel bag from the ground… like it was planted there. He unzips it.
“Kilos,” someone announces. “Two, maybe three.”
The cop stands, eyes wide as he turns toward his superior. “That’s more than enough for distribution charges.”
Jake just beams.
I hear Hawk curse low under his breath. Ryder goes stone-cold beside me.
And me? I stare at the bag.
I know what this is.
“Hands behind your back.” The words come cold and mechanical as one of the cops steps in front of me, cuffs already drawn.
I don’t move.
“CJ Bowes, you’re being taken into custody as the registered owner of this establishment,” he recites like he’s reading from a goddamn script. “Suspicion of drug possession with intent to distribute, obstruction, and association with known felons.”
I raise my hands slowly, locking eyes with Hawk across the lot. He’s seething, fists balled at his sides, jaw clenched so tight that his temples pulse.
Ryder takes a step toward me, but a second officer moves in beside him.
It happens fast.
The cop “accidentally” bumps Ryder with his shoulder—barely a graze—then stumbles back, throwing his arms up dramatically like he’s been shoved.
“Assaulting an officer!” someone yells. Too loud, too quick.
Ryder doesn’t even get a word out before three more are on him, twisting his arms behind his back and forcing him to the pavement, boots on his spine.
“Bullshit!” Hawk shouts, lunging forward.
“Hawk, no!” I bark, loud enough to stop him mid-step.
He freezes, eyes wild. “They’re planting it, CJ. They’re lying through their fucking teeth.”
“I know,” I grind out as cuffs lock around my wrists. “But you throw a punch, and they take all of us.”
“They already are.”
“They’re setting you up,” I say, breathing hard. “That’s what this is. One push. One swing. And it’s assault with a weapon, resisting, enhancement clauses—stacked charges. You go down swinging, they win.”
Hawk stares at me, chest rising and falling like a war drum.
“Call the lawyer,” I say. “Stay clean. Keep your head down. Get Marcy somewhere safe.”
Ryder is being hauled upright now, wrists zip-tied so tight, his fingers are turning white. He meets my eyes. There’s no fear, just rage and frustration barely held in check.
Hawk finally nods, jaw tight. “I’ve got it.”
“You’d better,” I say, because I need to believe one of us is walking out of this with options. “You’re the face now. Handle it.”
Two officers drag me toward the cruisers, pushing me forward like I’m some lowlife off the street. I don’t resist. I don’t look back.
But I feel the weight of it all on my shoulders. Jake is still watching, arms folded behind the line of press, not even pretending to look concerned anymore.
He’s winning.
For now.