26. Dante
DANTE
Smoke from cheap tobacco hangs in thick, grey sheets beneath the buzzing fluorescent lights of the war room.
The air tastes like copper and ozone. Every time the heavy steel door thuds shut, the maps pinned to the wall flutter—topographical prints of Tartarus Pass bleeding red ink where we’ve marked the Sombra sightings.
The brothers aren’t rowdy today. There’s no clinking of beer bottles or locker room shit-talk.
They’re hushed, leaning over scarred wood tables with the grim stillness of men who know the reaper is checking his watch.
Radios hiss intermittent static from the perimeter, reporting fog and shadows, while the low thrum of the emergency generator vibrates through the floorboards.
I walk to the head of the table, the weight of the club’s future pressing on my shoulders like a lead vest. Savannah walks at my shoulder.
She doesn’t lag behind. She doesn’t wait for an invite.
She just occupies the space, her eyes scanning the room for exits and threats before she even settles.
When we reach the front, the murmurs die out completely.
Gideon and Malachi flank the far side of the table, their expressions unreadable but their posture signaling a united front. The silence that stretches through the room is heavy, weighted by the way the guys are looking at her—not as a guest anymore, but as something they can’t quite categorize.
I place my palms flat on the wood, the grain rough against my skin.
“Listen up,” I say, my voice cutting through the generator’s hum. “The marshal we trusted is burning us. El Espectro isn’t just coming; he’s already inside our perimeter fences via the pockets of the feds.”
I feel Savannah’s presence beside me—cool, sharp, and immovable. I don't look at her. I don't need to.
“Lines are shifting,” I continue, locking eyes with the older patched members at the back. “From this second forward, Savannah holds operational authority. Her word on cartel strategy, compound fortification, and intel coordination is my word. You don't ask me for a second opinion. You execute.”
The room doesn’t just go quiet; it goes stagnant. Dutch, a veteran who’s been with the club since the first patch was sewn, shifts his weight, his leather vest creaking. His brow furrows, mouth opening as if to protest the shattering of a decades-old hierarchy.
Savannah doesn’t flinch. She just stares back, her hands resting at her sides, palms open, ready for the draw.
“She’s a fed-sanctioned ghost,” Dutch barks, his voice raspy from decades of unfiltered Camels.
He points a gnarled finger toward the table.
“We’re a club, Dante. Not a mercenary outfit.
Now you’re telling us a girl who spent her best years cozying up to the Sombra animals is calling the shots?
How do we know she isn't leading us into a cage?”
Behind him, Michaelson grumbles his agreement, crossing beefy arms over his chest. “Maybe the President’s too distracted by what’s in his bed to see what’s in her head.”
The air in the room turns arctic. Gideon’s knuckles crack—a sound like dry branches snapping—as he takes a predatory step forward. I raise a hand, stopping him. My gaze remains fixed on Dutch, but it’s Savannah who moves.
She steps into the light of the overhead lamp, the shadows carving hollows into her cheeks. She doesn't scream. She doesn't even raise her voice.
“You’re right, Dutch. I did spend those years with the Sombra,” Savannah says, voice a low, lethal hum.
“Which is how I know that while you’re worrying about your 'brotherhood,' El Espectro’s advance team is already calculating the trajectory for a sixty-millimeter mortar strike from the north ridge. They’ll hit the fuel tanks first. The explosion will take out the infirmary and the garage in under four seconds.
Would you like me to draw the blast radius, or should I keep going? ”
Dutch blinks, his mouth snapping shut.
“Your perimeter guards are staggered in ninety-minute intervals,” she continues, her eyes darting across the men in the room like she’s reading their vitals.
“That’s a ten-minute window during every shift change where the eastern treeline is a blind spot.
A twelve-year-old with a serrated blade could slip in and slit three of your scouts' throats before they even dropped their cigarettes. Your communications are unencrypted analog—piss-poor tech that the cartel’s signal specialists are likely recording and laughing at right fucking now. ”
She slams a hand onto the map, her palm hitting a specific junction on the mountain pass with a sharp crack.
“You think this is a game of patches and pride? It’s a slaughterhouse, and you’re the cattle. You can worry about who I’ve slept with, or you can listen to the woman who knows exactly how the devil intends to gut you.”
Silence follows her words. It isn't the silence of respect yet—it’s the silence of men realizing they’re standing in a house made of glass. Michaelson’s arms uncurl. Dutch looks at the map, then at me, then back to the woman who just dismantled his ego with three sentences.
“First thing we do,” Savannah says, her eyes burning, “is burn your current patrol schedule and start thinking like prey.”
Gideon doesn’t give Dutch or Michaelson a chance to recover their pride.
He moves with that liquid, heavy-footed grace of a man who lives in the center of a riot.
He stops inches from Michaelson, his body blotting out the light.
The messages on his knuckles look like stone-carved warnings as he leans into the older man’s space.
"Let’s clarify something for those at the back who have trouble hearing over their own egos," Gideon’s voice is a low, vibrating growl that makes the glassware on the side table rattle.
"Disrespecting Savannah isn’t a debate. It isn’t a difference of opinion.
It’s an act against the SGT-at-Arms. You think I’m too blinded to see her value?
Try me. I’ll pull your tongue out through your throat and let you see it for yourself before you die. "
Michaelson pales, his throat bobbing as he takes a half-step back. The room holds its breath. Gideon doesn’t blink, his pale eyes fixed on the man until the silence becomes unbearable.
Malachi slides into the vacuum left by the threat, smooth as silk and twice as sharp. He hooks a thumb into his belt, radiating a calm, bored elegance that’s far more dangerous than Gideon’s rage.
"Dutch, let’s be pragmatists for a moment, shall we?
" Malachi starts, his eyes flicking across the room, catching every man’s gaze with a hypnotic focus.
"The government wants us dead. The cartel wants her dead. By extension, that makes us the most expensive target in the Pacific Northwest. Savannah isn’t here because Dante says so.
She’s here because she has the blueprints to the machine that’s trying to grind us into powder.
We can die with our traditions intact, or we can live by learning a new language.
I prefer living, don't you? It makes the whiskey taste better. "
He begins moving among them, his hands guiding them back toward the table, reframing the moment not as a coup, but as a strategic evolution. He turns their fear into a calculated necessity.
I reach out and grab the heavy oak chair beside mine. I don't ask for permission. I pull it out, the legs scraping a raw sound against the concrete until it’s tucked tight against my own seat at the table.
"Sit," I say.
Savannah drops into the chair with a steady, unhurried grace. She rests her forearms on the wood, leaning over the maps. The transition is seamless. One by one, the guys lurch forward, crowding the table.
"The north ridge," Dutch mutters, pointing a shaking finger at the topographical lines Savannah highlighted. "How many men do they usually send for a mortar team?"
Savannah doesn't look up at me for approval. She doesn't need to. She answers him with cold, clinical precision, and the club moves as one around her. My Hell Court isn't just protecting a witness anymore; they're following a Queen.
The clubhouse air remains thick with the scent of motor oil and cold coffee, but the underlying rot of suspicion has finally burned off.
I lean against the doorframe of my office, a shadow among shadows, watching her.
The overhead light captures the ink on the maps and the sharp line of Savannah’s jaw.
She traces a mountain trail with a calloused finger, her brow furrowed in that focused, predatory way that used to make the skin on my neck prickle.
Now, it just makes me feel a strange, grounded heat in my chest.
Footsteps ring out on the concrete. Dutch approaches. A week ago, he wouldn’t have looked her in the eye. Now, he stops three feet away, his helmet tucked under his arm.
“Cruz,” he says, his voice losing its raspy edge. “The brush on the west flank is dry. If they try to flush us with a fireline, the wind is going to carry it right into the kennel. You want us to clear a burn-strip tonight or wait for dawn?”
Savannah looks up. She doesn't reach for her hidden blade. She doesn't count the exits. She looks at Dutch, really looks at him, and her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
“Clear it now,” she says, her voice steady and sure. “If they see the smoke at night, they’ll think we’re sloppy. Let them underestimate our discipline.”
Dutch nods once—a sharp, respectful tilt of the head—and tromps out. Two more guys stop by, asking about radio frequencies and night-vision battery cycles. She answers them all without hesitation, her Spanish-inflected English sliding into the rough cadence of the club.
I step out of the shadows as the heavy steel door finally groans shut, leaving us in a pool of yellow light. Savannah doesn’t jump. She just looks at me, her eyes softened by a exhaustion that isn't quite as heavy as it was this morning.
“You look like you’re actually here,” I say, my voice low.
She looks down at the map, then back at the empty chairs where my brothers sat. She runs a hand over the scarred wood of the table, her fingers lingering on the spots where Gideon’s knuckles hit or where Malachi’s whiskey left a ring.
“I’ve lived in shadows for eight years, Dante,” she whispers. “I forgot what it felt like to be seen.”
I cross the floor, the space between us closing until I can feel the radiating warmth of her skin. She isn't invisible anymore. She’s the anchor.
“You aren't a guest,” I tell her, my hand finding the small of her back. “You’re the center of the court.”