Chapter Ten #2
“I don’t know what else to call it.” I refused to back down despite his proximity, despite the danger radiating from him in almost visible waves. “Secret meetings. Extraction plans. ‘Handling it internally.’ What would you call it?”
Without warning, he released my wrist, rounded the table in two swift strides, and slammed his palm against the wall beside my head.
I flinched despite myself, back pressed against the wall as he leaned in, close enough that I could feel his breath against my face.
“I call it justice.” His voice had risen.
“I call it what it is -- an execution. What we do to traitors.”
The veins in his neck stood out, pulsing with barely contained fury. His jaw clenched so hard I could hear teeth grinding. This wasn’t the controlled, methodical Spade I’d worked beside for days. This was something rawer. Unfiltered.
“Then why shut me out?” I demanded, refusing to be intimidated by his display. “I found him too. I connected the dots. I deserve to be part of this.”
“Part of murder?” He laughed, the sound harsh and without humor. “Part of what happens when we take a brother to a deserted location and put a bullet in his head? Is that what you want to be part of?”
I swallowed hard, unprepared for the brutal honesty. “I want to see justice for my sister.”
“Justice.” He practically spat the word. “There’s no justice in this, Lila. Just vengeance dressed up as club business.” His face was inches from mine now, eyes burning with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe.
I’d pushed him beyond his careful boundaries, and what lay beyond was both terrifying and captivating. “Show me.” My demand came out steadier than I felt. “Show me what you found.”
He stared at me for a long moment, internal struggle visible in the twitching muscle along his jaw, the rapid pulse at his throat. Then he pushed away from the wall, stalked back to his desk, and opened a black leather portfolio. “You want truth?” He slammed it down on the table. “Here it is.”
He spread the contents across the surface with swift, angry movements.
Financial records. Phone logs. Surveillance photos.
All organized with military precision despite his rage.
“Ripper’s gambling debts started three years ago.
” His finger stabbed at a bank statement.
“Casino loans. Credit cards. Then loan sharks when legitimate sources cut him off. The first betrayal happened exactly when the debts became unsustainable.”
I moved closer, studying the evidence. So similar to what I’d found, but more complete. More damning.
“His family’s auto business provided the perfect cover,” Spade continued, his voice dropping to something dangerous and low. “Money laundering through parts orders and service contracts. Shell companies. Offshore accounts. All while wearing our colors. All while sitting at our table.”
I reached for one of the documents -- a transaction record showing payment from Aurora Medical. “Thomas Wright?” I’d seen that name before.
“Ripper’s legal name,” Spade explained. “He was tipped to our investigation.” He pulled up another file. “Created false evidence pointing to General and Gopher. Deliberate misdirection while he continued selling us out.”
The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity. Not just a traitor but a sophisticated one. Not just betrayal but calculated deception designed to implicate others. “And you kept this from me why?” I asked, my anger redirected but not diminished.
He looked up, his expression suddenly stripped bare. “Because the Horsemen already want you dead. Because evidence like this makes you a liability to Ripper and his contacts. Because knowing what we know, seeing what we’ve seen, makes you an even bigger target.”
His hands pressed flat against the table, shoulders hunched forward as if carrying physical weight. “I kept you out to keep you alive.”
“That isn’t your choice to make.”
“The hell it isn’t.” The intensity burned in his eyes. “You matter more than you realize. More than the intel. More than the club politics.”
The admission hung between us, loaded with implications neither of us was prepared to fully address.
He straightened slowly, moved around the table until he stood directly before me.
He raised his hand, hesitated, hovered near my jaw.
“I’ve watched what happens when civilians get caught in club crossfire.
” His voice had softened, though the intensity remained.
“I’ve seen what men like Ripper do to loose ends. To witnesses.”
His fingers remained suspended in the air between us, not quite touching my skin, the almost-contact somehow more intimate than actual touch would have been. “I won’t add your name to that list.” The promise carried weight beyond the simple words. “Not yours.”
I stared up at him, searching his face for deception but finding only raw honesty. The anger that had propelled me into confrontation began to recede, replaced by understanding that was almost more difficult to bear. He hadn’t been protecting Ripper. He’d been protecting me.
I stood frozen, caught between the fury that had driven me and the revelation that had just upended everything.
My analytical mind raced to re-categorize what I’d witnessed -- not a conspiracy to protect a brother but a calculated effort to shield me from danger.
Still annoying, but easier to understand.
Spade remained before me, not quite touching but close enough I could feel the heat from his skin.
Neither of us spoke. Neither seemed to breathe, the moment suspended between confrontation and something else entirely.
I studied his face with the same precision I applied to financial records -- looking for inconsistencies, for tells that might reveal deception.
Found none. Just exhaustion lining his eyes.
Tension along his jaw. Raw honesty in a gaze that didn’t waver from mine.
“You’re telling the truth.” Not a question. An observation.
He didn’t respond, didn’t need to. The evidence was there in the steady way he held my gaze. In the portfolio spread across the table. In the vulnerability he’d shown by letting his control crack open enough for me to see inside.
My shoulders lowered gradually from their defensive position, the anger that had sustained me draining away, leaving clarity in its wake. Clarity and an uncomfortable understanding of what his protection had cost him. What it would continue to cost.
He stepped back suddenly, moving away from me, creating distance where moments before there had been none as he turned to face the window overlooking the compound.
Nightfall wasn’t far off -- the sky outside beginning its transition to dusk.
He stood in the dim light, his silhouette dark against it, shoulders rigid, hands clasped behind his back in that formal stance I’d come to recognize as his defense mechanism when emotions threatened to breach his carefully constructed walls.
The silence stretched between us, filled only by the distant sounds filtering through the compound -- a motorcycle starting somewhere near the gates, the clock counting down minutes to the ride he had to take.
I remained where I stood, processing everything he’d revealed.
About Ripper. About the execution planned for tonight.
About his reasons for keeping me in the dark.
About what I apparently meant to him. “I thought --” I started, then shook my head, reorganizing my approach.
The analytical part of me always seeking the most efficient path to truth.
“I thought you didn’t trust me with club business. ”
He didn’t turn from the window. “This isn’t club business. It’s an execution.”
The bluntness should have shocked me. Didn’t.
I’d known what I was walking into when I entered this clubhouse with my evidence and accusations.
Had always known what justice would look like in this world.
“I can handle knowing the truth,” I said, my voice steady despite the weight of what we were discussing.
“I’ve been handling it since I walked into this clubhouse. ”
His shoulders tensed further at my words, the muscles visibly bunching beneath his cut. “There’s a difference between knowing and being involved.”
“Not to me.” I took a deliberate step toward him, closing some of the distance he’d created. “Not anymore.”
He turned then, watching my approach with those calculating eyes that missed nothing. I took another step. Another. Each bringing me closer to the dangerous line he’d drawn to protect me from what was coming.
“Lila.” Just my name. A warning. A plea.
I ignored it, continuing forward until I stood directly before him, deliberately invading his space. “If I matter to you, then stop shutting me out.”
The challenge hung between us, heavy with implication. With acknowledgment of whatever had started growing between us in the darkness of his bedroom. In the heated moments of connection neither of us had mentioned since.
He towered over me, his height and breadth making my smaller frame seem almost fragile in comparison. But I stood firm, chin lifted, refusing to be intimidated by the physical disparity. By the power he represented. By the violence I knew he was capable of executing.
Something shifted in his expression -- a softening around the edges that few would notice but I’d learned to recognize. His posture remained imposing, but the tension in his shoulders eased slightly. The rigid line of his jaw relaxed.
“It’s not that simple.” His voice dropped lower, meant only for me.
“It never is.” I maintained my position, refusing to retreat now that I’d claimed this ground. “But I didn’t come this far to be sidelined when justice is finally within reach.”
He gave me a speculative look. “What exactly are you asking for?”
“Information. Inclusion.” I held his gaze steadily. “No more secrets. Not about Ripper. Not about what happens next.”
“That makes you complicit.” The warning was clear in his tone. “Legally. Morally.”
“I already am.” I didn’t flinch. “The moment I walked in with evidence that would lead to his execution, I became part of this.”
Silence fell between us again, charged with unspoken understanding. With recognition of boundaries being redrawn. With acknowledgment that whatever happened next would alter things between us irrevocably.
“I can’t let you be there.” His voice hardened slightly. “Not for the actual --”
“I’m not asking to be.” I cut him off, understanding the line he wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- allow me to cross. “Just don’t shut me out.”
He brushed his thumb gently over my jaw, the touch so light it might have been imagined if not for the warmth spreading from the point of contact. “You’ve already paid too high a price for truth.” The words were barely above a whisper, his gaze fixed on the discolored skin beneath his thumb.
I didn’t pull away from his touch. Didn’t want to. “My choice. My risk to take.”
His eyes returned to mine, something dangerous and protective warring in their depths. Then he nodded once, a barely perceptible movement. A concession. An agreement that changed everything between us.
He traced the outline of my jaw as if memorizing its shape. The contact anchored us both in this moment of mutual understanding. Of boundaries redrawn. Of trust cautiously extended and accepted.
Outside, the compound was coming back to life. Inside this house, something else awakened between us -- not just the physical connection we’d shared in darkness, but something deeper. More dangerous.
Partnership. Built on truth rather than protection. On shared purpose rather than separate paths.
On the mutual understanding that whatever happened next, we would face it together.