Peak
Someone outside yelled, "Contact!" And another explosion rocked the walls. The emergency lights flickered to life, bathing the room in a dull red glow.
Maeve glared at him. "They're here for me."
"They'll kill everyone if they think I'm still here."
"They breached the front gate,” Warden shouted.
"How many are there?" Peak asked.
"Six confirmed, maybe more." Peak's stomach tightened. "They're organized. They hit us with breaching charges,” Warden said.
“Are they military?” Peak asked.
“Looks that way,” Warden growled. Peak looked at Maeve. She'd gone pale because she knew exactly who was attacking.
"They're wearing body armor," Warden continued. "They have night vision and are carrying suppressed rifles."
Peak frowned. "This isn't another motorcycle club."
"No, it ain't." Captain's voice cut across the radio. "Peak, get the girl out.”
"I'm on it."
"Use the back tunnel," Captain said.
Peak blinked. "The old bootlegging tunnel?"
"You remember where it comes out?" Captain asked.
"Marsh behind the machine shed,” Peak said. It had been a while since he had been in those tunnels, though.
"Exactly." Captain's voice hardened. "Get her the hell out of here."
"What about you?" Peak asked.
"We'll handle our house." The transmission ended, and Peak had a sick feeling that his club was going to have quite a fight on its hands. But Captain was right—he needed to get Maeve out, now.
Peak looked at Maeve. "We're moving."
She shook her head. "No."
He stared. "What the hell do you mean by no?"
"If I leave, they'll follow,” she said.
"Exactly, that’s why we’re leaving,” Peak insisted.
"They'll stop attacking if I give myself up."
Peak couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You want to surrender?"
"I want your brothers to live. I don’t want them to die for me,” she said.
"I know Captain, and he wouldn’t want you trading yourself for our club, Maeve. He won’t hand anyone over."
Maeve closed her eyes. "I never wanted this."
Peak grabbed her shoulders. "You listen to me.
" She looked up at him as tears fell freely down her cheeks.
"My brothers made their choice the second they put kuttes on.
They protect people because that's who they are.
You don't get to sacrifice yourself for them.
" Something shifted behind her eyes, and she nodded. Peak blew out the breath he didn’t know that he was holding.
Another explosion rocked the room. He could tell that they were getting closer. Dust rained from the ceiling and the hallway lights died. The only lights they had left were the emergency lights.
Peak drew a flashlight from his vest. "Come on." He grabbed the key hanging from Warden's belt hook beside the door and unlocked the chain securing Maeve's cuff to the floor. Her wrists were finally free. She rubbed them briefly and then surprised him by holding out her hands.
"What?" he asked.
"Put the cuffs back," she ordered.
"You want them back on?"
"If someone sees us—” She nodded toward the hallway. "It'll look like you're moving a prisoner." Peak stared at her for a second. She was smart. He clicked one cuff around her left wrist and the other around his own.
Maeve looked down at their joined wrists. "That's not what I meant."
"I know,” he said. "They won’t be able to separate us this way.” He tugged gently on the chain.
She couldn't help smiling. "Creative."
"I solve problems. It’s what I do,” he said.
They slipped into the hallway as chaos swallowed the clubhouse.
Brothers sprinted toward firing positions.
Prospects carried ammunition, and ol’ladies were being ushered toward the reinforced basement.
Smoke drifted through the corridors. Peak spotted Ruin kneeling beside a shattered window.
The VP emptied a shotgun through the opening, and another body dropped outside.
Ruin looked over. "You still here?"
"Leaving,” Peak shouted.
"About damn time." He tossed Peak an extra magazine. "Don't waste it."
Peak caught it one-handed. "Try not to die."
Ruin grinned. "No promises."
The tunnel entrance was hidden beneath an old storage room behind the kitchen. Peak shoved aside a rusted shelving unit. The wooden trapdoor underneath looked like it hadn't been opened in years.
Maeve raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"It was used during Prohibition,” he said. “This clubhouse used to belong to bootleggers." He pulled the ring and the trapdoor groaned open. Cold, damp air drifted upward.
Maeve peered into the darkness. "I'm suddenly less impressed."
Peak smirked. "You'll survive."
"Lucky me,” she grumbled as she descended into the narrow tunnel.
The air smelled of earth and seawater. Old brick walls curved overhead.
Water dripped steadily somewhere ahead. Peak switched on his flashlight, and the beam illuminated decades of dust. Nobody had been down here in a long time.
Their footsteps echoed through the tunnel, and for several minutes, neither spoke.
Maeve broke the silence. "They'll follow us."
Peak didn't slow. "Maybe."
"They know how I think,” she said.
“I do now too, that I know who you really are, Maeve,” he said.
She looked at him. "You've known me for six hours."
"I've been watching you."
"That's creepy,” she grumbled.
"It was investigative."
She laughed quietly. "I'll allow it."
A vibration buzzed through Peak's pocket. He answered immediately. "Captain?"
Heavy breathing answered first. "Change of plans."
Peak stopped walking. "What happened?"
"They've got drones."
His blood ran cold. "Drones?"
Captain coughed. "They're watching every exit." Peak looked down the tunnel. If Captain was right, the marsh exit was compromised.
"They know about the tunnel?" Peak asked.
"We don't know for sure," Captain said. "But they know something’s down there."
Another burst of gunfire echoed over the phone. Captain shouted an order to someone and then came back. "Whatever you do, don't surface." The line went dead, and Peak slowly lowered the phone. Maeve had gone completely still.
"They have thermal drones?" she asked. He nodded, and her face lost all color.
"No,” she breathed. “That can’t be.”
"What can’t be?" Peak asked.
Her voice was barely audible. "The Iron Serpents don't use drones."
Peak frowned. "Then who does?"
She looked at him with genuine fear for the first time since he'd met her.
"Private military contractors." The realization slammed into him.
These weren't bikers that they were dealing with; they weren't traffickers with guns.
Someone had hired professionals with military equipment, who expected to kill everyone inside the Grave Prowlers clubhouse.
Peak looked back at the way they'd come and then toward the darkness ahead. He'd spent years avoiding becoming the club's hacker because he didn't want to be dragged into wars that weren't his. Now one had found him anyway, and it was far bigger than a rival motorcycle club.
Private military contractors. The words echoed through Peak's head long after the call with Captain ended. He stared into the darkness ahead, his flashlight illuminating the narrow brick tunnel that stretched beneath the marshland.
This wasn't some outlaw club trying to muscle into Grave Prowlers territory.
This wasn't a couple of traffickers with stolen rifles.
This was organized and professionally funded.
Someone spent a hell of a lot of money to silence one woman.
That alone told him Maeve wasn't exaggerating.
If anything, she'd been understating the danger.
He looked over at her. She was pale, but her breathing had steadied. The panic had disappeared almost as quickly as it'd come. She was thinking and calculating their next move, just like he was.
"Talk to me,” he breathed.
She met his eyes. "They're adapting."
"Meaning?" he asked.
"They've escalated the mission,” she whispered.
"Because of you?" he asked. “Why would they go through all this trouble to silence one woman?”
She shook her head. "Because of what I found."
Peak folded his arms. "I think it's time you stopped giving me half the story."
Maeve remained quiet. Not because she didn't want to answer, but because she was deciding how much she could trust him. Peak recognized that look. He'd worn it himself plenty of times.
Finally, she nodded as though silently agreeing with herself. "Okay." She leaned against the damp brick wall. "My sister and I built something."
"What did you build?" he asked.
"A crawler."
Peak's eyebrows rose. "A web crawler?"
She nodded. "It searched darknet marketplaces." Now she had his complete attention. "It indexed seller accounts, wallet addresses, escrow transactions, and shipping routes."
Peak whistled softly. "That's ambitious."
"It worked,” Maeve said as though defending her project.
"I can see that. I don’t think that the government would be starting a war over you otherwise,” he said.
"No." She shook her head. "You don't understand. It worked too well."
Peak crouched on the damp floor. "How about you explain it to me then?" he asked.
"We weren't looking for traffickers."
"What were you looking for?"
"Credit card fraud,” she breathed.
He blinked over at her. "Seriously?"
She laughed once. "It started as a side project, but then we found patterns."
"What kind of patterns?" he asked.
"The same cryptocurrency wallets, the same shipping companies, and the same escrow accounts. They kept overlapping."
Peak's mind immediately started connecting the dots. "So the fraud funded trafficking."
She nodded. "Among other things."
"What else did it fund?” he asked.
"Weapons, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, money laundering." She swallowed. "And political bribery."
Peak stared at her. "Jesus."
"We stumbled into something enormous, and now, they seem to want me to disappear,” she said. He didn’t tell her that there was no way that he’d allow that to happen, but he wouldn’t. His hacker instincts were screaming now. He wanted data. Hell, he wanted evidence to prove that she was right.
"Where's the crawler now?" he asked.
Maeve smiled sadly. "Gone."
"You deleted it?" he guessed.
"I destroyed everything—at least, I thought I did."
Peak frowned. "You missed something."
She looked away. "Wren kept a backup."
His stomach dropped. "Please tell me she didn't put it online."
"No, she was foolish, but she’s not stupid,” Maeve insisted.
"Where is the copy?" he asked.
"I don't know."
Peak closed his eyes. "That's what they're after."
She nodded. "They must think I have it."
"Do you have it, Maeve?" he asked.
"I wish I did," she admitted. “But only my sister can tell us where it is now.”
He stood and resumed walking through the tunnel.
The silence between them felt different now.
He understood the battlefield. This wasn't just about rescuing Wren.
It wasn't even just about trafficking anymore. Someone wanted data buried—permanently. He suddenly understood why the attack on the clubhouse had happened so quickly. It wasn’t because the Grave Prowlers had captured Maeve.
It was because someone was monitoring her.
He stopped walking. "So—” He looked over at her. "How'd they find you?" Maeve didn't answer immediately. Instead, she reached into the inside pocket of her leather jacket, and Peak tensed.
"It's not a weapon,” she insisted. She slowly pulled out a flip phone. It was old and scratched up. From the look of it, it had to be at least fifteen years out of date.
Peak frowned. "That's your phone?"
"It's the only one I trust." She handed it to him. "I've never connected it to the internet." Peak turned it over, studying it.
“I don’t understand what this old phone has to do with them finding you,” he said.
"I don't carry smartphones. I don’t have GPS, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi. Nobody should be able to track me electronically."
Peak nodded. "That’s smart."
"Usually,” she said, putting the phone back in her pocket. "But they still found me."
He looked at her. "Meaning they didn't use technology."
She nodded. "They used people who told them where I was."
Peak's pulse quickened. “You think that there is a leak at the Grave Prowlers?” he asked. He hated that idea. Those men were his brothers, and if someone was leaking information to the government, then they were all in trouble.
"That’s exactly what I think."
"Someone on the outside must have seen you and reported back to the government,” he insisted.
"I've been careful,” she insisted. "I've changed names, changed cities, changed vehicles, and slept in truck stops, motels, and even in campgrounds. I never stay anywhere more than two nights."
Peak admired the discipline. It wasn't amateur survival. She was trained by someone to go underground. "You've done this before."
"I had good teachers,” she admitted.
"Were they also government?" he asked.
She smiled at him. “That’s classified.”
He laughed. "You don't have to say it out loud. I already have my answer."
A low rumble echoed through the tunnel, catching Peak’s attention. It wasn’t an explosion, but a vehicle. Peak killed his flashlight, allowing the darkness to swallow them. They both froze as the rumble grew louder above them.
"They're driving overhead," Maeve whispered. Peak listened. If he was correct, it was one vehicle, maybe two, and they were driving slowly as though searching for them. A faint mechanical buzzing sounded overhead, and his eyes narrowed.
"It’s another drone." Maeve heard it too. The sound drifted across the marsh directly above them and then stopped. Neither moved. Several agonizing seconds passed before the buzzing faded.
Peak let out the breath he'd been holding. "They're looking for heat signatures."
Maeve nodded. "We're underground, so ours must have been masked—for now."
His phone vibrated, and this time it wasn't Captain. The caller ID simply read:
Unknown
Peak frowned. "No signal should reach down here." He answered anyway, and a calm male voice filled the other end of the call.
"You've made this much harder than it needed to be, Maeve."
Peak's blood ran cold. "Who is this?"
"I think Maeve already knows." Peak glanced at Maeve.
Her face had gone completely white, and the man chuckled.
"Tell Maeve—” He paused as if for dramatic effect.
"Her sister is still alive." Every muscle in Maeve's body locked, and Peak slowly put the phone on speaker.
The stranger continued. "But not for much longer. "