Chapter Twelve
Lila
My head throbbed, the sound of the gunshot still ringing in my ears. Blood pooled beneath Tinker’s body, spreading in an uneven circle across the floor, each drop a thunderclap against my eardrums. I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t process what I’d just witnessed.
My analytical mind -- the one thing I’d always relied on -- had shut down completely, leaving only raw sensation. The metallic smell of blood. The echo of the gunshot. The sight of Spade’s expressionless face as he lowered his weapon.
Brothers filed past me silently, their faces masks of grim satisfaction or solemn acceptance. No one spoke. No one needed to. Justice had been served in the only way this world understood. Club style.
Spade didn’t talk about it, and I didn’t ask, but I knew Ripper was already dead, and his body would never be found. Tinker’s end had been swift, as promised. His patches cut away, his identity stripped. His life ended with a single gunshot.
Two traitors. Two men who would never ride again.
My hands trembled uncontrollably against the wall I’d pressed myself against. I couldn’t steady my breathing.
The numbers and connections I’d uncovered -- the evidence I’d presented -- had led directly to this moment.
To this blood. To this death that I’d helped orchestrate with my financial forensics and analytical precision.
I watched Spade holster his weapon with practiced efficiency -- the same hands that had touched me with unexpected gentleness now calmly putting away the instrument of execution. His face betrayed nothing. No remorse. No satisfaction. Just the calm certainty of a man who had done what needed doing.
The last brother -- Wildcard, I thought, though my brain struggled to process details -- nodded once to Spade before pulling the door closed behind him. The sound of the latch catching felt impossibly loud in the sudden vacuum of silence.
Just Spade, me, and the cooling body of a traitor remained.
I tried to swallow but my throat closed against the attempt. My legs felt distant, disconnected from my body. The wall behind me was the only thing keeping me upright as shock traveled through my system in icy waves.
This was justice. This was what I’d wanted. This was vengeance for Marie.
So why couldn’t I breathe?
A sound escaped me -- half-sob, half-gasp -- as my knees finally gave way. I started to slide down the wall, my body forgetting how to stand, how to exist in a world where I’d just watched a man die because of information I’d provided.
Spade crossed the room in three quick strides, his hand catching my elbow with firm precision before I hit the floor. His grip anchored me to reality even as my mind threatened to float away from the horror before us.
“This isn’t on you,” he said, his voice cutting through the silence with quiet authority.
I shook my head, unable to tear my gaze from the blood still spreading across the floor. Tinker’s blank eyes stared at nothing. At everything. At the betrayal that had ended with a bullet. “I brought this down on him,” I whispered, my voice raw and unfamiliar. “On all of you.”
His grip tightened on my arm, not painfully but with enough pressure to force my attention to him instead of the corpse. “Look at me, Lila.”
I dragged my gaze away from the blood, finding Spade’s face just inches from mine. His expression remained controlled, but something burned in his eyes -- something fierce and protective that cut through my shock.
“He chose this ending the moment he sold out his brothers,” Spade said, each word delivered with absolute certainty. “The moment he took money for information that got people killed.”
“That got Marie killed,” I added, my sister’s name sticking in my throat.
“Yes.” No hesitation. No platitudes. Just confirmation of the truth we both knew. “More would have followed if we hadn’t stopped him.”
My legs steadied slightly under his grip, under the weight of his words. The analytical part of my brain fought to resurface through the shock -- calculating cause and effect, processing what had happened with the cold mathematics of justice.
“I’ve never --” I stopped, swallowed hard against the bile rising in my throat. “I’ve never seen someone die before.”
Something softened almost imperceptibly around Spade’s eyes -- not pity, never that, but understanding. “First time changes you. Can’t be helped.”
I nodded, focusing on his face, on the steadiness he projected. On anything except the body cooling just feet away from us. My breathing slowed gradually, matching his without conscious thought.
“We need to move,” he said after a moment, his gaze flickering to the door. “Others will clean this. Not your concern.”
“Not my concern,” I repeated, the words tasting bitter and false. How could a man’s death -- one I’d helped cause -- not be my concern?
His hand moved from my elbow to my face, fingers gripping my chin with surprising gentleness, forcing me to maintain eye contact. “You provided information. Truth. What happened after was club business. Club responsibility.”
I wanted to believe him. Wanted the absolution he offered with such certainty. But Marie’s face flickered in my memory -- her smile, her laugh, the closed casket at her funeral because the accident had been too devastating for an open viewing.
Except it hadn’t been an accident. It had been murder by proxy. Information sold that put her in the wrong place at precisely the worst time. “He deserved it,” I said finally, the words emerging stronger than I expected. “Both of them did.”
Spade nodded once, approval flickering in his eyes. His hand dropped from my face but remained hovering near my arm, ready to steady me if needed. “Yes. They did.”
I took one final look at Tinker’s body -- at the man who had sold information that killed my sister.
The trembling in my hands didn’t stop entirely, but it lessened.
The shock began to recede, replaced by a cold certainty that justice, however brutal, had been served.
“I need air,” I said, finally turning away from the blood, from the body, from the evidence of club justice.
“Come on.” Spade’s hand moved to my lower back, guiding me toward the door -- away from death and toward whatever came next. “I’ve got you.”
Three simple words that shouldn’t have meant anything. That shouldn’t have penetrated the shock still fogging my brain. And yet they did, cutting through everything else with unexpected clarity.
I had nowhere else to go. No one else to turn to. The realization should have terrified me. Instead, I let him lead me from the room, leaving Tinker’s body and a piece of my former self behind.
Spade’s home felt like an extension of the man himself -- Spartan, precise, not a single item out of place.
Three leather-bound ledgers stacked at the exact center of his table.
Computer monitors displaying spreadsheets with rows of numbers I could have decoded in seconds if my brain had been functioning properly.
Even the pens in the holder were arranged by height.
I sank into the chair he guided me toward, my legs finally surrendering completely to the shock coursing through my system.
The trembling had moved from my hands to my entire body now, small violent shudders I couldn’t control.
The door closed with a soft click, sealing us away from the chaos and blood outside his door. Spade moved to a cabinet behind his desk, opened it with a key from his pocket. Everything locked away. Everything secured. His entire existence built around control and protection.
He returned with a bottle of whiskey -- expensive label -- and poured two fingers into a heavy crystal glass. No words. No questions about whether I wanted it. Just the practical efficiency of a man who understood what shock looked like.
“Drink,” he said, placing the glass in my hand, closing my fingers around it when they threatened to let it slip.
I obeyed automatically, raising the glass to my lips and downing the contents in one swallow. The liquor burned a fiery path down my throat but did nothing to stop the trembling. If anything, the heat spreading through my chest only highlighted how cold the rest of my body felt.
Spade didn’t take a seat. Instead, he leaned against the desk, arms crossed over his chest, watching me with those calculating eyes that missed nothing. I could almost see the assessment happening behind them -- measuring my shock, my resilience, my likelihood of completely falling apart.
“You didn’t cause this,” he said after a moment, his voice leaving no room for argument. “Ripper and Tinker made their choices. Every man here knows the consequences of betrayal.”
I stared at the empty glass in my hand, watching how the overhead light refracted through the crystal. My analytical mind was coming back online in fragments, trying to process what I’d witnessed. What I’d been part of.
“I gave you the evidence.” My voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else. “I tracked the money. I connected the dots.”
“You found truth,” he corrected. “What we did with that truth was a club decision. Club responsibility.”
I looked up at him, studied the hard lines of his face.
No hint of regret or remorse. No indication that executing two men -- men he’d called brothers -- had affected him at all.
Yet I’d seen a different side of him in private moments.
Glimpsed something beneath the VP exterior that suggested depths he rarely revealed.
“Two men are dead because of information I provided.”
“Two men are dead because they sold out their brothers.” He uncrossed his arms, placing his palms flat on the desk behind him. “Because they took money in exchange for putting targets on our backs. On innocent people like your sister.”