Chapter 29
Nash
Ruby's voice fills my ear through the phone as I swing off the bike in the clubhouse lot.
"The last piece arrived today. The green jacket.
The one East destroyed by ordering it in a size that could fit a small horse.
I have officially replaced every single item of clothing that man took from me, and Nash, I look INCREDIBLE.
The jeans fit. The tops fit. Everything fits because I ordered it in my actual size, which is a concept East apparently never encountered because the man bought me a bra that could double as a hammock. "
"How much did it cost?"
"We're not discussing cost. We're discussing victory. I won, Nash. I have defeated East's psychological warfare campaign through the power of online shopping and a credit card with a very forgiving limit."
The plan has been sitting in the back of my mind for a week. Since Ruby mentioned the third replacement order. East replaced her clothes two sizes too large. Ruby spent weeks rebuilding her wardrobe piece by piece. Knox already has the group text drafted. Today's the day.
"I have something," I say.
"Something what? Something good? Dangerous? Something that involves East suffering? Because if it involves East suffering, I'm already in."
"Starting at the two o'clock meeting, East's name is Greg. Everyone knows except East."
The phone goes silent for three seconds. The longest Ruby has been quiet in months.
"Nash." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Nashville Sutton. Are you telling me you're going to execute a club-wide identity replacement operation on the man who bought me a bra the size of a parachute?"
"Every member. Every partner. No one explains. No one breaks."
"I'm coming to the clubhouse."
"Ruby—"
"Have Rider pick me up. I should be there for this. I need to witness this with my own eyes and watch East's face when Maggie calls him Gregory."
"The meeting is at two."
"Then I'll be there at two. I'll sit in the main room. I'll be quiet and invisible. I will be the most silent, well-behaved woman in the history of this clubhouse."
"You've never been silent or well-behaved."
"There's a first time for everything, and East being called Greg is the motivation I've been waiting for my entire life. Have Rider pick me up at one-thirty. I'm wearing the new outfit."
I text Rider.
Pick up Ruby at one-thirty. Bring her to the clubhouse.
Inside the clubhouse, I find Kyle at the pool table. The goat is asleep beside the table, one hoof on Kyle's boot.
"Kyle."
He looks up.
"Starting at the two o'clock meeting, East's name is Greg."
Kyle sets the cue down. "How long?"
"Until it stops being funny."
"So forever." The grin spreads across his face. "Who's in?"
"Everyone. I'll tell Candace. You brief Rider when he gets back. Knox will text everyone except East."
I find Candace in the kitchen doorway. She's leaning against the frame, watching Maggie prep dinner.
"Candace."
She reads my face. Candace reads faces the way Knox reads code. "What are you planning?"
"East. Greg. Starting at the meeting."
Her mouth curves. The slow, dangerous curve of a woman who runs an MC president and has been waiting for exactly this kind of operation. "I'll handle Malachi."
"He needs to do it with a straight face."
"Malachi was born with a straight face. The man proposed to me without blinking." She pushes off the doorframe. "I'll brief Sloane and Darla. The group chat will be active by one forty-five."
By one-thirty, the clubhouse is ready. Every member, every partner, briefed through a chain of texts and whispered conversations that East hasn't intercepted because East is in the yard with both twins, trying to wrestle Declan into the tiny leather cut Darla had made during her pregnancy.
PROSPECT stitched across the back in miniature lettering.
Rowan is in the carrier on the picnic table. James sits beside her with his coffee.
Rider's bike pulls through the gate at one forty-five.
Ruby climbs off the back, helmet in hand, and the new outfit is everything she promised.
Fitted jeans, a dark top that sits on her shoulders in a way that makes my hands want to remove it, and boots she bought to replace the ones East ordered in a size eleven.
She crosses the lot toward me. My grip tightens on the doorframe.
She reaches me at the clubhouse door, then grips my cut and pulls me down. Her mouth brushes my ear.
"I'm wearing very pretty, very lacy things underneath this," she says. "Consider it your reward for what's about to happen."
My hand slides from her hip to her ass. I grip, pulling her into me, my index and middle finger pressing between her thighs from behind. Her breath catches against my neck. She holds for a beat, her body arching into my hand, before I release her.
"Sit in the main room," I say. "Past the half wall. Stay quiet."
"I'll be a ghost."
"You've never been a ghost in your life."
"Today I am a ghost with a front-row seat and a vindictive heart." She kisses my jaw and disappears past the half wall into the main room.
Two o'clock. War room.
Knox has the photographs spread across three screens. The originals from Lawrence's folder, the surveillance shots Phoenix's network pulled from the pipeline's communication channels. Eight images of Ruby total. Six taken at the clubhouse. Two outside the Leighton house.
Malachi sits at the head of the table. Knox to his left.
I take my spot to his right. East is across from me with Declan asleep against his chest in the tiny cut.
Victor sits beside East, arms crossed with the particular focus of a man whose own history with the pipeline runs deeper than most. Kyle and Rider stand by the door.
Arden leans against the back wall. James sits in his chair with coffee.
"Same photographer," Knox says. He zooms in on the partial reflection in the Amaranth shop window. "Every shot, same angle, same lens distortion. One guy."
James' instruction runs the framework. Trace the threat. That person is local, active, and close enough to find.
Knox walks through the evidence. Diner security camera. White pickup on three occasions. Partial plate cross-referenced against Lawrence's sealed records.
"Dale Whitmore," Knox says, highlighting the name on screen. "Last known address: trailer outside Batesville. Courier for the Gulf pipeline before the Blackwell takedown. Low-level. His name appears in one of Lawrence's sealed files as a peripheral witness who was never called."
"Connected to Alice?" Malachi asks.
"Two degrees removed. When the network fractured after Blackwell, the muscle was left without a chain of command." Knox pulls up Whitmore's file. Heavy man. Weathered face. Neck tattoo done in a kitchen. "He's executing a playbook that nobody's running anymore."
"A soldier without a general," James says.
"Dangerous because he's isolated," Knox adds. "No handler means no restraint. He's making his own decisions about escalation."
"The apartment break-in?" Malachi asks.
"Matches his profile. Solo entry, nothing taken, designed to send a message."
My jaw sets.
"Location?" I ask.
"The trailer's been abandoned. But the diner footage shows a pattern. He returns to the same three positions every four to five days. Next rotation puts him at the laundromat bench within forty-eight hours."
"Greg, what's your read on the financial trail?" Malachi says in a flat voice aimed at East.
East opens his mouth. Closes it. His hand stills on Declan's back.
"Did you just call me Greg?"
"The financial trail, Greg. Focus."
East looks at Knox. Knox's face is neutral. East looks at Kyle. Kyle's face is neutral. East looks at me.
"He called me Greg," East says.
"The financial trail," I say. "Whitmore's funding. Where's it coming from?"
"You're not going to address the Greg thing?"
"There's nothing to address, Greg."
East looks around the table. Arrives at the conclusion that every person in this room was briefed on his new identity without his knowledge.
"Fine." He shifts Declan against his chest. "Whitmore's accounts are dry. No deposits in six months. He's running on savings or cash. If he had network support, the funding would show. He's solo."
"We take him at the laundromat," Malachi says. "Forty-eight hours. No scene, no collateral. Nash makes the approach. Rider and Kyle on perimeter. Knox on comms."
"And if he runs?" Kyle asks.
"He's five-ten, two-twenty, and driving a white pickup with mud on the plates." I look at Kyle. "He's not outrunning a motorcycle."
Malachi holds my eyes for two seconds. "Forty-eight hours. Brief the team tonight."
"I have eyes in Batesville," Victor says. "People who owe me. If Whitmore moves before the forty-eight hours, I'll know."
"Use them," Malachi says.
"Copy."
"Anything else?" Malachi looks around the table.
"Yeah," East says. "Who started the Greg thing? Because I want it on the record that this is a violation of my constitutional rights as a member of this club and also as a human being who was given a perfectly good name by parents who—"
"Meeting adjourned," Malachi says. "Greg."
The war room clears into the main room. East walks out with Declan and runs straight into Darla. She lifts Declan out of his arms, settles Rowan into them instead, kisses his cheek, and says, "Thanks, Greg. She needs a change."
East stares at her. "You too?"
"You too what, Greg?"
"DARLA." Declan fusses at the volume. East drops to a whisper immediately, one hand on the baby's back. "The mother of my children. The woman I love. She's calling me Greg."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Darla walks away with Declan against her chest. Over her shoulder: "Dinner's in an hour, Greg."
The war room clears. James stops at the door.
"Nash." He holds my gaze. "Whatever needs to happen with Whitmore happens. But you come home after. The woman in the other room needs you next to her."
"Copy."
James leaves. The war room holds the quiet.