10. Chapter 10
Striker
A few hours pass. Long enough for me to start checking the time every ten minutes and pretending I’m not.
Striker texted once.
Stay inside. Getting close.
That was almost an hour ago.
I’m curled into the corner of his couch when the window behind me explodes.
Glass sprays across the floor. Something metal hits the wood, rolls beneath the table, and starts pouring out thick white smoke.
I’m on my feet before I really understand what I’m looking at.
Then I breathe.
My throat closes.
“Shit.”
I grab my phone and stumble toward the back door, coughing hard enough that my eyes water. By the time I get it open, the room is disappearing behind smoke.
I hit Striker’s name as I stagger outside.
The phone rings once.
Twice.
“June?”
I barely get a breath.
“Striker—”
An arm locks around my waist and jerks me backward.
The phone drops from my hand.
I drive my elbow behind me, but whoever has me only grunts and pulls me harder against him.
“Easy.”
“Get the fuck off me.”
Something cold presses into my ribs.
A gun.
That gets my attention.
The man turns me enough that I can see him. Gray at the temples. Expensive coat. Calm face. He looks like he should be walking into a boardroom, not standing outside Striker’s cabin with a gun on me.
His eyes move over my face.
“So you are June.”
My stomach drops.
Behind us, Striker’s voice comes faintly from the phone lying in the dirt.
“June?”
The man looks down, then kicks it out of reach.
I hope Striker heard enough.
He moves me farther from the cabin while smoke curls through the broken window.
“I wondered what had Sanders so distracted.”
I look at him.
“You know Striker.”
His mouth curves.
“I recruited him.”
That shuts me up.
“I saw what he could become before most people did. Sanders was sharp. Disciplined. Loyal.”
Something bitter slips into the last word.
“He could have gone far.”
“Could have?”
“He made a choice.”
The gun stays firm against my side.
“Years ago, Grim refused a withdrawal order. Command needed someone to answer for what followed, and I made sure they had one.”
My pulse kicks.
“Grim disobeyed. Grim acted alone. Grim was responsible. Simple stories are usually the easiest ones to sell.”
Jesus.
“And Striker?”
His expression changes.
Not much, but enough.
“I gave Sanders a way out. All he had to do was confirm the official version. Say he disagreed with Grim. Say he tried to stop him. He could have kept his record clean and walked away with his career intact.”
He refused.
“I recruited him,” the man continues. “Put him where he belonged. Opened doors for him. And when it mattered, he threw all of it away for Grim.”
“He chose his brother. He chose the truth.”
“He chose badly.”
“No. He chose exactly like Striker.”
The gun presses harder into my ribs.
Apparently that one landed.
He moves us another step away from the cabin.
“You know about the missing liquor?”
I stay quiet.
His mouth twists.
“Of course you do.”
“What was it for?”
He studies me for a moment.
Then he answers.
“General Marios Vale.”
The name means nothing to me.
“He gave the withdrawal order Grim refused. Recently, Vale discovered that the intelligence behind that order had been manipulated. He started reopening doors that were better left closed.”
“And those doors led to you.”
His eyes sharpen.
Good guess.
“Vale was attending the Defense Foundation dinner tonight. I made sure Damned Sinners Reserve was on the beverage list.”
My stomach turns.
I can already see where this is going.
“The stolen bottles were opened, altered, and resealed. They would have replaced part of the legitimate shipment before dinner.”
“Poison.”
“Yes.”
Calm as hell.
“Vale dies with Damned Sinners whiskey in his glass. Then the investigation uncovers the old mission. Vale gave the order Grim defied. Grim lost his career over it. Sanders went down beside him. Vale had started digging into the case again.”
His smile is thin.
“By the time anyone asked who wanted Vale dead, the answer would already be sitting in front of them.”
Grim and Striker.
Revenge.
Wrapped up nice and neat.
“You were going to frame them again.”
“Why abandon a strategy that already worked?”
The arrogance of it makes me want to hit him more than the gun scares me.
Almost.
“And now?”
His expression tightens.
“The club found the bottles, and more than enough evidence.”
Enough to expose him.
Enough to destroy the whole thing.
Enough that instead of running, he came here.
I glance toward my phone, then back at him.
“So this is revenge.”
“Sanders cost me everything twice.”
“No. You did that yourself.”
His face goes flat.
“He chose Grim over the future I gave him. Now he’s helped destroy the only chance I had to keep the past where it belonged.”
His gaze settles on me.
“So before this ends, Sanders gets to lose something too.”
Cold slides down my spine.
He isn’t here to bargain.
He wants Striker to lose me.
A motorcycle engine cuts through the trees.
Then another joins it.
The man stiffens.
My heart slams against my ribs.
Striker heard.
The first bike tears into the clearing with several more behind it.
Striker is off his before the engine fully dies. Grim, Riot, Torch, and Hound fan out behind him.
Striker sees me.
Then the gun.
Everything in his face goes still.
“Let her go.”
The man laughs softly.
“You always were predictable, Sanders.”
Grim’s attention locks on him.
“It’s over, Munn.”
Munn.
At least now the bastard has a name.
“You should have taken the offer I gave you,” Munn says.
Striker doesn’t answer.
“Career. Rank. A future. All you had to do was tell them what they needed to hear.”
Striker’s eyes stay on me.
“I remember.”
“And you wasted all of it.”
“Maybe.”
One word.
Nothing else.
Munn clearly wants more from him.
Striker doesn’t give it.
Munn’s attention shifts between Striker and Grim, waiting for a reaction neither of them gives him. Little by little, the gun stops digging into my ribs. His wrist turns just enough toward Striker.
Striker sees it.
That’s what he’s been waiting for.
He moves so fast I barely register it.
One second Munn has me. The next Striker has his gun wrist twisted away from my body and Munn is going down hard.
The shot cracks harmlessly into the dirt.
Riot takes the gun before it stops moving.
Hound gets Munn upright while Grim catches Striker by the shoulder before he can put him back on the ground.
Then Striker turns to me.
“June.”
“I’m okay.”
He’s already checking anyway. My face, my throat, my shoulders.
“Did he hurt you?”
“My ribs are going to hate me tomorrow.”
“Smoke?”
“Some. I’m fine.”
His jaw locks before he pulls me against him.
That’s when I feel his hands shaking.
I hold on tighter.
Grim comes closer once Riot has Munn secured.
“We got every bottle.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. Riot got Jamie talking.”
Something in Grim’s expression tells me Jamie did not enjoy that conversation.
Good.
“He gave up the storage pickup and the contact he was using,” Grim continues. “Hound followed it from there. Lock tied the vehicles, Northline, and the staging access back to Colonel Adrian Munn.”
I look toward Munn.
Colonel.
Of course.
“And Jamie?”
Grim’s mouth goes cold.
“After Riot finished with him, he went to the cops. Theft, conspiracy, assault. Eliana gave them a statement about the beating.”
A small, vicious piece of satisfaction settles in my chest.
Good.
Jamie can spend a long time explaining himself to people who don’t love his excuses.
“And Vale?” I ask.
“Alive. And he knows enough about Munn to reopen the whole damn thing properly.”
So that’s it.
Munn tried to bury them once and almost succeeded.
This time he tried to kill the man who could expose him, use the club’s whiskey to do it, then let Grim and Striker’s history finish the frame job for him.
Except Jamie talked.
The club found the bottles.
Vale lived.
And Colonel Adrian Munn is standing in Striker’s yard with Riot holding one arm and Hound holding the other.
Grim jerks his chin toward Munn.
“We’ll handle him.”
Riot and Hound drag him toward the waiting truck, and the others follow.
A few minutes later, the clearing goes quiet.
Striker still hasn’t let go of me.
I look down at his hand against my back.
It’s shaking.
“You were scared.”
His jaw flexes.
“Yeah.”
No joke. No denial.
Just the truth.
“I thought I was gonna get here too late.”
“You didn’t.”
His eyes close for a second.
When they open again, whatever usually keeps him guarded isn’t there.
“I love you.”
Everything inside me goes quiet.
“I love you, June.”
My throat tightens.
“I love you too.”
His forehead rests against mine, and for a few seconds neither of us says anything.
Then his fingers close around mine.
“I never had much of a family. Never knew my father. My mother left. Then the Army went to hell.”
I stay quiet.
“The club gave me brothers. Figured that was it.”
His eyes hold mine.
“Then I got you.”
My chest aches.
“You have me.”
“I want more.”
“How much more?”
“All of it.”
My heart starts pounding again.
“A home. You in it. Your shit in my bathroom. You stealing my shirts and arguing every time I tell you what to do.”
“I don’t argue every time.”
His mouth twitches.
“Close enough.”
Then he gets serious again.
“I want you there when I come home. Tomorrow. Ten years from now. Fifty if I get lucky.”
My eyes burn.
“Striker.”
“Marry me.”
I stare at him.
“You’re serious.”
“Yeah.”
I glance toward the cabin. Broken window. Smoke still curling out.
“You’re proposing after somebody smoked me out of your house and held me at gunpoint.”
His eyes narrow.
“Is that a no?”
I wrap my arms around his neck.
“No.”
His hands settle at my waist.
“No?”
I smile.
“It’s a yes.”
Something in his face opens.
Then he kisses me.
Hard. Deep. Like he’s still making sure I’m here.
When he finally lifts his head, I stay wrapped around him.
For most of my life, family has meant loving people while waiting for them to disappear.
Striker looks at me like he’s already decided exactly where he belongs.
With me.
And for once, I don’t have to wonder where I belong either.