Chapter Four #2
I should have been annoyed. Instead, I found myself sliding the computer toward her. She typed with the same efficiency she did everything else -- no wasted movement, no hesitation. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up spreadsheets.
She pointed to the screen. “Almost every compromised operation has a corresponding financial anomaly. Small enough to fly under radar, but consistent.”
Regular skimming. Professional and patient. Not the work of someone acting on emotion or grudge.
“This isn’t emotional,” she said, echoing my thoughts. “Nobody’s leaking intel because they’re holding a grudge. Or not just for revenge. They’re doing it for profit.”
The realization hit like a punch to the gut.
We weren’t looking for a disgruntled brother with a vendetta.
We were hunting a mercenary -- someone cold enough to sell out their brothers for cash.
“They’re skimming from both sides,” I concluded, my voice tight with controlled anger.
“Taking club money through these shell companies, then getting paid by the Horsemen for the intel.”
She nodded. “Double-dipping. Clever.”
“Treacherous,” I corrected.
“That too.” She pushed her glasses up her nose, turning back to the documents. “But it gives us an advantage. Emotional betrayal is unpredictable. Financial betrayal leaves a trail.”
She was right. Money always left footprints if you knew where to look. And Lila Mercer clearly knew. “How much total?” I asked, mentally calculating the damage.
“Enough. The kind of money worth killing for.” She pointed to the most recent transactions. “Whoever it is, they’ve been patient. Building this slowly. Small amounts that wouldn’t trigger suspicion. But it’s accelerating now. They’re getting greedier. Taking bigger risks.”
“Which makes them more vulnerable,” I said, seeing the opportunity.
“Exactly.” She met my gaze directly. “Greed leaves bigger footprints.”
We were after the same prey, tracking the same scent.
And she’d just given us the trail to follow.
I pulled the laptop back, typing in my password to access restricted club files.
If we were hunting a financial predator, we needed to see every transaction.
Every deposit. Every withdrawal. Leave no stone unturned.
“This changes our approach,” I said, pulling up records I hadn’t planned on sharing. “We’re not just looking for someone with a grudge. We’re looking for someone with expensive habits.”
Her eyes gleamed with understanding. “Or someone with a desperate need for quick cash. Gambling. Drugs. Mistresses.”
I nodded, mentally cataloging which brothers fit those profiles. We’d missed something somewhere along the line.
“Show me everything,” she said, sliding her chair closer to mine. “Every transaction for the past year. No matter how small.”
I hesitated only briefly before turning the screen toward her. Club business. Sacred and secret. But finding our traitor mattered more than protocol right now.
Her shoulder pressed against mine as we hunched over the computer, two hunters closing in on their prey.
* * *
The knowledge settled in my gut like cold lead.
Calculated betrayal. Not heat of the moment, not a grudge, not a vendetta.
Cold, methodical profit. Somehow that made it worse.
A brother selling out his family for cash.
Planning it. Building systems for it. Creating shell companies and laundering money while looking us in the eye every day.
While breaking bread at our table. While wearing our colors on his back.
I pushed away from the table, suddenly unable to sit still. My chair scraped against the kitchen floor as I stood, needing space to process what we’d discovered. The first rays of dawn were breaking through the window blinds, casting long shadows across the room. We’d been at this all night.
I paced the kitchen perimeter, mind racing. One wall. Turn. Another wall. Turn again. The controlled movement helped me think. Three steps. Turn. Four steps. Turn again.
“This changes everything,” I said finally, stopping at the counter. “We’re hunting someone who’s been playing us from the start.”
Lila didn’t look up from the spreadsheets, her focus absolute. “That’s why it took so long to notice. Emotional betrayals leave obvious trails. Financial ones are designed to stay hidden.”
I watched her work -- fingers moving across the keyboard with practiced precision, her gaze scanning columns of numbers without missing a single digit. Professional. Methodical. In her element.
I moved back to the table and leaned over her shoulder. “This is smart. Calculated.”
She nodded without looking up, her attention fixed on the screen. “Smart enough to hide in plain sight for months.”
The scent of my soap still clung to her hair from her earlier shower. The unexpected intimacy of it -- her wearing my clothes, using my soap, sitting at my table -- created a strange dissonance. Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been a stranger. A potential threat. Now we were hunting side by side.
I remained standing behind her chair, watching as she created new spreadsheets, correlating data points I wouldn’t have thought to connect. Her skill was undeniable. The Horsemen had underestimated what they had in her. Their mistake, our advantage.
She pointed to a sequence of transfers. “Every compromised operation follows the same financial fingerprint. Money moves out through suppliers, gets diverted through shell companies, then disappears into untraceable accounts.”
“Can we backtrack the shells?”
“Already on it.” She pulled up another document -- corporation filings for Aurora Medical Supply. “Registered owner is another shell company. But the application was submitted from an IP address we might be able to trace.”
I leaned closer, studying the document over her shoulder. Our positions put us in unusually close proximity, her shoulder nearly touching my chest as I braced one hand on the table beside her. Neither of us acknowledged it. The hunt took precedence over discomfort.
“If we can place someone at that computer when the registration happened --” I started.
“We’ve got our traitor,” she finished.
The synchronized thought hung between us -- evidence of minds working the same trail. She continued typing, pulling up more documents. I returned to my pacing, processing each new piece of information.
Outside, the compound was waking up. Engines starting. Voices calling greetings. Brothers beginning their day, unaware of the traitor in our midst.
“The twenty-thousand-dollar payment. Could be a final payment,” she suggested, glancing up at me. “Maybe your traitor is planning to disappear after this. Cash out and vanish.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me, but it made sense. The escalating amounts. The increasing risks. Setting up for one final score before disappearing.
“Could well be,” I acknowledged. “Makes them more dangerous. Nothing left to lose.”
She turned back to the screen, pulling up transaction records from the past week. I returned to the table, taking the seat beside her rather than across. Better angle to see the screen. Nothing to do with the way her presence had somehow become a focal point in the room.
Sunlight was streaming through the kitchen window. We’d been at this for hours. Her focus hadn’t wavered once. Neither had mine.
“Here’s something,” she said suddenly, highlighting a transaction. “Payment to a vendor for engine parts. Shows they paid out forty thousand. But the vendor only received twenty-eight.”
“Twelve thousand dollars just disappears,” I noted.
She nodded, pulling up more details. “Look at these dates. Small payments a week or so before larger ones.”
“Those dates were Church meetings.” My blood ran cold. “Looks like Church lets out, money starts moving. Their inside man getting paid for the tip.”
“Exactly.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up more records. “Let’s check the other compromised operations. See if the timing holds.”
We worked in silence for several minutes, her pulling up transactions while I cross-referenced with our meeting times. The pattern was consistent. Money always moved within an hour of Church meetings ending. Sometimes sooner.
“Wait.” She stopped suddenly, finger hovering over the screen. “Go back to the Horsemen’s payment records. Here,” she said, voice tight. “Same date. Second payment.”
I checked our incident report. “Ambush happened at 9:05.” The realization hit us simultaneously. “Second payment here too. Thirty minutes after the Westside run failed.”
Her expression was triumphant despite the grim implications. “Partial payment up front, the rest on completion? Or maybe a bonus for successfully completing the job.”
“Thirty minutes,” I repeated, my voice low and dangerous. “That’s not coincidence. That’s payment on confirmation.”
The timing was our smoking gun. Whoever received that payment had to know exactly when the ambush succeeded. Had to be there. Had to be involved. “We’ve got them,” she whispered, the victory in her voice tempered by the weight of what we’d discovered.
“Not yet,” I cautioned. “But we’re close.” Accusations without absolute proof would tear the club apart. We needed the final piece -- the name attached to those payments.
“The timing fits three brothers,” I said, mentally reviewing who had access to the financial information, who attended every compromised meeting, who could move money unquestioned.
“And one of them received a payment exactly thirty minutes after the ambush that killed my sister.” Her voice remained professional, but I caught the slight tremor in it. The personal stake she couldn’t quite hide.
“We’ll find them,” I promised, the words coming before I could question them. “Together.”
She looked at me directly, searching my face for something -- sincerity, perhaps, or resolve. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, because she nodded once and turned back to the screen. “Then let’s keep digging,” she said. “Sun’s up. Clock’s ticking.”
I glanced toward the window. Brothers would be coming to the clubhouse soon.
Questions would be asked. Atilla would want updates.
And somewhere among those familiar faces was a traitor who’d sold out his family for profit.
A brother whose betrayal had cost lives.
A Judas who didn’t even have the excuse of passion or ideology.
Just cold, calculated greed.
My resolve hardened as I turned back to the task at hand. Two days to identify our traitor. Two days before the parts run planned for Thursday. Two days to save my club.
And the woman beside me -- the one who’d walked into our clubhouse with dangerous information and a target on her back -- was now my best hope of doing it.
“Let’s find this bastard,” I said, pulling the laptop closer.