Peak
Finally, he broke the silence. "What’s in the shipment?"
Maeve's expression didn't change. "If I tell you, your club becomes involved."
"We're already involved,” he shouted.
"No." She shook her head. "Right now you're curious, but you don’t have a horse in the race yet." She leaned forward, lowering her voice. "The moment I tell you what's inside those containers, you become targets." The room fell quiet again. Even Warden was still.
Peak watched every tiny movement she made. Her breathing stayed even. Her pulse didn't jump in her neck, and her eyes stayed focused on him. The woman had no nervous tells. If she was lying, she was better than anyone he'd ever interrogated, and that alone made him nervous.
"What kind of targets are we talking?" Peak asked.
"The kind that disappear,” Maeve said.
Warden laughed. "Ain't nobody making Grave Prowlers disappear."
Maeve finally looked at him. "No." Her voice was calm.
"But they can disappear your daughters." The smile vanished from Warden's face.
"They can disappear your wives." Nobody spoke, and Peak felt the air in the room grow noticeably colder.
She wasn't threatening them. In fact, she was remembering something—he knew the difference.
He'd seen enough grief in his life to recognize when it walked into a room.
"You've seen it,” he whispered to her. It wasn't a question.
Maeve looked back at him. "Yes."
"Who did they make disappear from your life?" Peak asked.
She hesitated. "My sister." Peak's eyes narrowed as he tried to decide if she was telling the truth or not. She looked away from him for the first time since he'd entered the room.
"You've been holding that back,” he said.
"I've been holding back everything,” she admitted.
Warden pushed away from the wall. "Captain told us to find out if you're a liability."
Maeve laughed. "I am."
Peak frowned. "What does that mean?"
"I'm absolutely a liability." She looked directly at him again. "Anyone standing near me becomes one, too."
Peak folded his arms over his chest. "That's a hell of a sales pitch."
"You asked, and I’m assuming that you want the truth,” she said.
"I asked if you were a threat,” Peak reminded her.
"I am a threat,” she said.
"To us?” Peak asked.
"No." Her voice cracked ever so slightly. "To anyone hunting me or anyone I love." Peak caught it. There was just enough emotion to convince him she wasn't making this up.
He slowly opened his laptop again. "You got a last name for your sister?"
Maeve immediately shook her head. "No."
"You don’t know your sister’s name?" he drawled.
"I can’t tell you her name because if you start searching for her, they’ll know.” She looked straight into the screen. Peak froze with his fingers hovering over the keyboard.
"Explain to me how they’ll know,” he demanded.
"They monitor searches with her name,” she insisted.
"Who does?" Peak asked.
"The people moving the shipment,” Maeve said.
Warden frowned. "What the hell does that even mean?" Peak understood exactly what she was saying.
He slowly closed the laptop. "You think they're monitoring law enforcement databases."
"I know they are. Along with hospital admissions,” she said.
"Missing person files, too," Peak said.
"They are monitoring her social media pages—everything." Peak rubbed a hand over his jaw. That wasn't impossible. It would be expensive, but not impossible. Which meant whoever these people were, they had money.
"You've done this before." Maeve gave him the smallest smile.
"I've spent about eighteen months looking for my sister."
Peak stared at her. "Eighteen months?"
"Honestly, I stopped counting after the first year,” she admitted. Something in his chest tightened. He lost his grandfather, and he knew what grief looked like. This wasn't grief; it was obsession—the kind that hollowed someone out from the inside until all that remained was purpose.
"What happened to her?"
"They took her,” she said simply. But Peak knew that there would be nothing simple about her sister being abducted.
"Who took her?" he asked.
"I don't know,” she admitted.
"You just said—"
"I know who owns the operation." She swallowed. "I don't know which man physically took her." Peak nodded slowly because that made sense.
"What does this have to do with our docks?" he asked.
Maeve looked toward the small window in the door before answering.
"They're moving women using your territory.
" Every muscle in Peak's body went rigid.
"They've been using fishing boats to bring them into the Chesapeake.
" She looked back at him. "The containers leave from your territory because nobody questions freight moving through Grave Prowler waters. "
Warden exploded. "The hell they don't."
"They don't know it's happening." Maeve never raised her voice. "Your club isn't helping them, but they're hiding behind your reputation." Peak's stomach dropped. That was worse, much worse. Someone was using the Grave Prowlers as camouflage. Captain was going to lose his damn mind.
"You deliberately let yourself get caught,” Peak said quietly.
"Yes,” she breathed.
"So we'd listen to what you have to say,” he finished.
"I knew that you’d have to listen to me eventually."
"You gambled your life on that,” Peak said.
Maeve shrugged. "I've made worse bets." Peak studied her for another long moment, and then he stood.
Warden looked at him. "Where you going?"
"I’m going to talk to Captain,” Peak growled.
"Wait, we’re done here?” Warden said.
"Yes." He picked up his laptop. "If even half of what she said is true—" He looked at Maeve. "Then we're no longer talking about one woman caught snooping around our docks." His eyes met hers. "We're talking about someone using Grave Prowler territory to traffic women."
The room went silent. Maeve finally let out the breath she'd been holding, which meant she'd expected him not to believe her. He wasn't sure he did—not yet, but one thing was certain. This wasn't a territory dispute anymore. This was a war, and someone had just declared it on the Grave Prowlers.
Peak shoved through the clubhouse door so hard it slammed against the wall. Every head in the room turned. Captain looked up from where he'd been speaking with Ruin. "Problem?"
Peak didn't answer immediately. Instead, he dropped his laptop onto the conference table with enough force to rattle the coffee cups sitting nearby. "We've got one."
Silence settled over the room as Warden stepped in behind him, closing the door. "She isn't lying," the Enforcer said simply.
That got everyone's attention. Captain leaned back in his chair. "You sure about that?"
"No," Peak answered before Warden could. "But she's convinced she isn't."
Captain studied him. "That's not the same thing."
"No." Peak rubbed the back of his neck. "It isn't." He looked around the room. "But she knows too much."
"About?" Captain asked.
"Our docks, our patrol schedules, the prospect routes, and the shipping lanes,” Peak said.
Ruin frowned. "That information ain't exactly classified."
Peak nodded. "True, but she also knew I'd search for her sister."
Captain's eyebrows lifted. "And?"
"She stopped me,” Peak said.
"Why would she do that?” Captain asked.
"She says whoever's running this operation monitors database searches." Several brothers laughed, but Peak didn't, and neither did Warden.
"You think that's possible?" Captain asked.
"I know it's possible." Peak flipped open his laptop. “If they've got someone inside law enforcement—” He looked around the table. "Or someone with access to NCIC, then they’ll know that someone is searching for her sister."
Ruin swore. "You've seen that before?"
"I've done it before,” Peak said. The room fell silent, and he sighed. "Legally."
Captain smirked. "I wasn't gonna ask."
"You were thinking it, Peak grumbled.
"I was,” Captain admitted. Peak started typing.
The familiar rhythm settled his nerves. Code made sense, but people didn't. He opened a secure operating system from an encrypted drive hidden inside the laptop.
Several brothers watched him, but none of them understood what they were looking at, which worked for him. In fact, he preferred it that way.
"What're you doing?" Captain asked.
"Checking something,” Peak mumbled.
"You said you weren't searching for the girl," Captain said.
"I'm not." Peak's fingers flew across the keyboard. "I'm searching for shipping manifests."
Captain relaxed slightly. "Can you access those?"
"I can access damn near anything."
Warden snorted. "There's the arrogant asshole we all know and love."
"It's not arrogance, it’s confidence,” Peak countered.
"It's both,” Warden said. Peak ignored him.
He tunneled through three proxy servers before connecting to a commercial shipping database.
He started with Baltimore, moved onto Annapolis, and then to the small commercial docks closest to Grave Prowler territory.
He found nothing unusual. It was all normal container traffic, fishing vessels, and supply barges—exactly what he expected.
He was just about to give up when he saw it. "There."
Captain stood. "What did you find?"
Peak enlarged the screen. "See this?" Nobody seemed to pick up what he found. He sighed. "Thought so." He pointed. "This company—Eastern Atlantic Freight was registered six months ago."
"So?" Captain asked.
"So the company owns twelve trucks,” Peak said.
Captain shrugged. "And?"
"And it has no employees,” Peak explained.
Ruin frowned. "How's that work?"
"It doesn't." Peak kept digging. "The registered office is an empty warehouse in Dover."
Warden leaned closer. "You think they’re laundering money?"
"Possibly." Peak clicked another file. "Huh."
Captain seemed to recognize that sound. "What?"
"The warehouse." Peak's expression hardened. "It burned down four months ago. Yet the company is still operating."
Captain exchanged a glance with Ruin. "You got anything tying it to our docks?" Captain asked.
Peak clicked on another window. "Working on it." Five more minutes passed, but nobody interrupted him. Even the brothers who normally hated silence kept their mouths shut. Finally, Peak stopped typing, and his stomach tightened.
"What is it?” Captain asked. Peak slowly turned the laptop around. A grainy harbor security photo filled the screen of a shipping container sitting on the dock. Nothing unusual—except there was a motorcycle parked beside it.
Ruin leaned closer. "The hell?" Peak zoomed in and the image sharpened.
Captain inhaled sharply. "That's one of ours."
Every brother in the room leaned forward. "It sure as hell is." The bike belonged to a Grave Prowler. Peak zoomed in farther. There wasn’t enough resolution. The rider's face was hidden beneath a helmet and had no identifying marks. There was no plate visible.
"When was this taken?" Captain asked.
Peak checked the metadata. "Three nights ago."
"The night before she got picked up,” Peak said.
Warden's jaw flexed. "So she's right."
"Looks that way,” Peak said.
Captain folded his arms over his chest. "Can you identify the rider?"
Peak hated disappointing people, but there was nothing more he could do. "Not from this."
"You sure?" his Prez asked.
"I'm sure." He stared at the image. Unless.
"Hold on." He reopened another program—one almost nobody knew existed.
The software reconstructed missing pixels using dozens of neighboring frames from archived security footage.
Slowly, the image sharpened, and the motorcycle became clearer.
The image of the rider was still useless, but something else appeared.
A pickup truck parked beside the container.
Peak froze. "No way."
"What?" Captain barked.
Peak zoomed in again. There, on the driver's side door, was a faded logo. It was one he'd seen before, but not recently. It was years ago, back when the government had tried recruiting him. He leaned back in the chair. "This just got worse."
Captain's expression darkened. "What is it?"
Peak looked around the room before answering. "That company—” He pointed at the truck. "Has been under federal investigation before. It’s owned by the Iron Serpents."
“For what?" Captain asked.
Peak swallowed. "Human trafficking." The words hit the room like a shotgun blast, and nobody moved.
Captain slowly looked toward the hallway where Maeve was being held, and then back to Peak. "Looks like our guest just became the most important woman in Maryland."
Peak closed the laptop. "No." Every eye landed on him. "She just became the most hunted." And if the Iron Serpents had already learned she'd walked into a Grave Prowlers clubhouse, they weren't going to wait long before coming to get her.