Chapter 11
Eleven
Dagger
The tires kick gravel as I roll up to the clubhouse, engine growling like it’s just as pissed off as I am. Link pulls in behind me, visor down, his bike humming low as we coast into the open lot.
The place is quiet, but not dead. Too quiet, considering how much shit is popping off lately.
This isn’t a motorcycle club—we’re not playing Sons of Anarchy out here.
But the clubhouse? It’s still home. A fortified little fortress at the edge of nowhere.
Safe enough to stash our product. Private enough for meetings, deals, and breakdowns.
Neutral enough that when something goes south, it’s the first place we come.
I kill the engine, yank off my helmet, and swing my leg over the bike. The heat clings to me like a second skin—muggy, thick, California sweat. I tug off my gloves, jaw tight, eyes already sweeping the lot.
Someone steps out from the shadows by the entrance. Razor. Cigarette tucked behind his ear, arms folded.
“Where the fuck you been?” he calls.
I shoot him a look. “Handling it.”
“Handling it?” he scoffs. “You’ve got two shipments gone, a dead dealer, and now this.”
“Now what?” I snap, stepping toward him.
Link is at my side, helmet under one arm, already tense.
Razor exhales hard. “Link, you didn’t tell him yet?”
Link swears under his breath. “Didn’t get the chance.”
“Tell me what?”
Link turns to me, serious now. “It was a warning. After Janks didn’t show, I went to his last drop point.
Took one step into that alley and got jumped.
Two guys. One held me, the other said—” He pauses, looking at me dead in the eye.
“They said if you don’t pay up, he’ll make you pay in blood. And he’s starting with her.”
My stomach drops. “Her?”
Link nods. “Blair.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw.
“They saw you with her. At the motel. Said she looked just like the last one.”
The last one.
Brynn.
My chest tightens, rage rising. Before I can react, my phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
I answer. “Yeah?”
A slow, oily laugh greets me on the other end. “Well, well. Dagger. Twice in one week? I’m flattered.”
Dante.
I move toward the side of the building, pace quickening. “You calling to flirt, or you got something to say?”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty to say. Like how one missed shipment was already a headache. But now two?” He clicks his tongue. “I’m getting fucking annoyed.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You better be. Because I’m out of patience. And your girl? The little motel plaything with the pink and purple hair? Cute. Didn’t know Brynn had a twin.”
My spine stiffens.
“She looks just like her,” he continues, voice a sick drawl. “But hey—second chances are rare. Maybe this time, I’ll get to really enjoy it. Watch her die slower.”
“Touch her and I’ll?—”
“You’ll what?” he snaps. “You’re not in a position to threaten anyone, Dagger. You owe me. Money, product, bodies. And now? Interest.”
I grit my teeth. “Give me a fucking minute to figure out who’s killing my dealers and hijacking the shipments. Let me hand the fucker over to you, tied up with a pretty bow. Then we’re even.”
“You’ve got forty-eight hours. After that? She bleeds.”
The line goes dead.
I lower the phone, fingers curled so tight around it I hear the casing crack.
Link steps forward. “That was him?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And it’s on now.”
The moment I hear the crunch of tires on gravel, I look up.
It’s not a bike.
A black Civic, older model, windows down, bass thumping like someone’s trying to compete with their own heart rate, pulls into the lot. The engine cuts and the door swings open.
Blair steps out.
What. The. Fuck.
She slams the door like it insulted her, boots hitting the pavement with a purpose that sends a ripple of unease straight through me. Her hair’s a tangled halo of pink and purple chaos. Her bag is slung like a weapon across her chest. Her jaw’s locked.
My chest goes tight.
“Yo,” Link mutters beside me. “Is that?—?”
“Yeah,” I grind out.
Blair marches toward me like she’s ready to go twelve rounds. No hesitation. No fear. Just fury wrapped in a five-foot-something storm with glossed lips and vengeance in her veins.
The second she’s close enough, she shoves something into my chest.
A fucking Polaroid.
I glance down then everything in me stops.
Brynn.
And Noir.
Mouths smashed together. Her fingers twisted in his shirt. His hand on her throat like he owned her.
“You fucking knew her,” Blair spits.
My head snaps up.
Her eyes blaze. Not the usual bratty gleam, no, this is betrayal. This is the kind of rage that doesn’t scream. It carves. Cold and surgical.
Link’s standing nearby. The moment those words leave Blair’s mouth, he shifts like someone pressed a blade to his spine.
“Ah shit,” he mutters under his breath, already turning. “I’ll go settle the Uber.”
“Blair—” I start, but she’s already moving.
“Don’t you fucking Blair me,” she snaps. “You knew. This whole time, you fucking knew, and you didn’t say a goddamn thing.”
“Keep your voice down,” I growl.
“Why? Embarrassed? Or you just don’t want your little crew to know how deep your lies go?”
I grab her wrist—not hard, but firm. Grounding. Controlling.
“We’re not doing this out here.”
She yanks against my grip.
“Fuck you! I don’t want to go anywhere you with!”
“Too fucking bad.”
I pull her with me, not giving her the chance to bolt. My boots hammer down the hallway. I don’t care who sees. I don’t care who hears. My pulse is pounding, my blood’s on fire, and everything I didn’t want to face is suddenly exploding in my goddamn hands.
I shove open the door to my room and drag her inside.
She stumbles, glares, yanks her arm back. “You don’t get to manhandle me like I’m some fucking problem to put away in a closet?—”
“Sit the fuck down.”
“No.”
I step forward, and she lifts her chin like she’s daring me to try her. God, she’s so fucking defiant it kills me. She’s not just mad, she’s wounded. Raw. She looks like she clawed her way through hell just to scream in my face.
I run a hand through my hair, then shove it into my pocket, pulling out the Polaroid.
I should’ve burned this shit the second it happened. But that wouldn’t have fixed anything.
Because this? This is the truth. The one I tried to keep from her.
But now?
Now it’s time she knew.
I exhale hard handing her the polaroid before dragging a chair out from the small table in the middle of the room, the legs scraping across the concrete floor. I sit, steadying myself. Not because I’m calm. But because I need to say this straight, without pacing or punching a wall.
“You wanna know everything?” I mutter. “Fine.”
She paces in front of me, one hand still gripping that Polaroid like it’s a goddamn dagger. “You knew her. You knew my sister. And you didn’t tell me.”
“I was trying to protect you,” I grit out.
“Bullshit.”
My gaze sharpens. “You think I wanted this to come out like this? Some grainy fucking photo from a wall in a backroom?”
“I think you didn’t want it to come out at all.”
“You’re right,” I snap. “I didn’t. Because I’ve seen what the truth does. I saw it destroy her.”
She flinches but recovers quick, jaw tightening.
“Brynn was a mess, Blair. She came into this world already looking to burn, and I tried—fuck, I tried—to pull her out of the flames.”
“You think I don’t know she was a mess?” Blair throws the Polaroid at the table, it skids and lands face-up, her sister’s lips on Noir’s. “You think I haven’t spent the last year trying to make sense of how someone can just fucking vanish without a trace?”
I rub a hand down my face.
“She met me at a bonfire,” I say quietly. “Spring break. She was already high. Already hunting for something to numb the edges. She liked the pills I had, liked the feeling but it got bad fast. I cut her off.”
“Then what?” Blair spits. “You just watched her spiral?”
“No. She stole my phone. Started contacting my suppliers behind my back. Got herself locked in with people you don’t fuck with. Started using her own product, and when she couldn’t pay what she owed?—”
I stop. The words catch like smoke in my throat.
“She disappeared,” Blair finishes flatly. “Same as always.”
“No,” I say. “Not the same. She’s gone. And not the maybe-she’s-in-hiding kind of gone. The kind of gone that leaves silence behind it. The kind of gone that makes people stop looking.”
Blair’s hands curl into fists. “And Noir?”
“They were a thing,” I admit. “She was in love with him. Thought he’d save her. I don’t know if he loved her back, but... when she needed him most, he wasn’t there.”
“And you were?”
“I tried,” I say. “I offered to pay her debts. Tried to talk her out of it. But the only person she would’ve listened to was Noir, and he... he didn’t show.”
Blair’s silent. Breathing hard. I can see her fighting the tears, see them lining her eyes like a challenge. She’s furious. She’s hurt. And I deserve every bit of it.
“You should’ve told me,” she whispers, but there’s venom under it.
“I know.”
“Before you touched me. Before you kissed me.”
“I know.”
“Before you made me feel like I could trust you.”
I stay seated. I don’t move. Just lean forward, arms braced on my knees, like if I stay grounded enough, maybe I won’t fuck this up worse than I already have.
“I didn’t tell you,” I say, “because I knew what it would do to you.”
Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t interrupt. Not yet.
“If I told you Brynn pissed off a fucking drug lord… that she got in too deep and never came out… you’d have nothing left here.
No reason to stay. No reason to keep looking.
You’d spiral. You’d turn deeper into the drugs, into the noise, the chaos.
You’d disappear the same way she did. And I—” My jaw clenches. “I couldn’t handle that.”
I look up at her, and she’s still. Listening. Breathing hard.