CHAPTER 21
Preparing
°°°
The clubhouse's back room had been converted into something closer to a war room by the time Emery and Rhys arrived, a large table covered in printouts and a hand-drawn map of The Wrenhouse's property lines, Ghost and Preacher already bent over it in quiet, focused conversation.
The room itself felt different than either of the spaces Emery had occupied here before — not the warm chaos of the cookout patio, not the tense formality of the full-club meeting, but something more like a command center, purposeful and stripped of anything unnecessary.
A whiteboard leaned against one wall, half-covered in Ghost's cramped handwriting, timelines and contingencies laid out with a precision that surprised her.
"Sasha's information checks out," Ghost said without preamble, glancing up as they entered.
"I did some digging overnight. Ruiz has been pushing hard for weeks, and there's real friction with the older leadership about it.
He's ambitious, impatient, and according to two separate sources, not particularly well-loved outside his own small crew. "
"So how do we use that," Rhys asked, settling into a chair beside the table.
"Carefully." Preacher's voice carried its usual gravity, though something in his posture today looked different to Emery — less like a man issuing directives, more like one genuinely weighing options.
"If we can make Ruiz look reckless to his own leadership, make this whole push against us look like his personal vendetta instead of a sanctioned crew decision, we don't just slow him down.
We give the rest of Salazar a reason to pull his leash before this costs them something they actually care about. "
"How do we make him look reckless?" Emery asked, pulling out the chair beside Rhys, feeling the room's attention shift toward her with less hesitation than it had at the earlier meeting.
"That's the piece we're missing," Ghost admitted.
"We need something concrete. Evidence of him acting outside what his own leadership actually sanctioned.
Surveillance, threats, the man who followed you down the street — if we can tie that directly to Ruiz specifically, not just Salazar generally, and get it in front of the right people in his own organization, that's the wedge. "
Emery studied the map spread across the table, some old professional instinct kicking in, the same pattern-recognition that helped her spot a flawed seam before anyone else noticed it. "The Thursday signing. It's still on the books at the new time, right? Nobody's canceled it."
"Should be, yeah," Preacher said. "Why?"
"Because if Ruiz already thinks the original signing time got moved because we're onto him, he's going to want to prove he's still in control of the situation.
Men like that don't like looking outmaneuvered.
" She traced a finger along the property line on the map.
"If we let him find out about the new time — just barely, just enough that he thinks he's caught us off guard again — and we have someone documenting exactly what he does when he shows up expecting to catch us unprepared, that's our evidence.
Real, timestamped, impossible to explain away as club business. "
The room went quiet for a moment, and Emery felt Rhys's hand find hers under the table, a small, steadying pressure that had nothing to do with taking over and everything to do with simple support.
"That's using yourself as bait," Rhys said carefully, though she noted, with some private satisfaction, that his voice held concern rather than immediate refusal.
"It's using the signing as bait. I'd be there anyway — it's my property too, I'm supposed to be at that table regardless." She met his eyes steadily. "The difference is we'd know he's coming, and we'd be ready, instead of him catching us by surprise the way he has every other time."
Preacher studied her for a long moment, something like respect moving across his weathered face. "She's not wrong. It's a solid plan. Risky, but solid." He glanced at Rhys. "Your call, VP. You've got more skin in this than anyone else at this table."
Emery watched Rhys war with himself, watched the old instinct to simply forbid it rise and, this time, visibly get set aside in favor of actually weighing the plan on its merits.
He was quiet for a long moment, and Emery could see him running through it methodically, the same careful calculation she imagined he brought to every real decision affecting the club's safety.
It struck her, watching him think, how different this felt from the man who'd stood in her doorway weeks ago insisting she wasn't going anywhere alone — not because the fear had disappeared, she understood, but because he'd finally learned to let the fear inform his caution instead of dictate his answer.
"If we do this," he said slowly, "we do it with real coverage. Ghost inside, out of sight. Two more on the perimeter. And Emery wears a wire, not just carries a recording phone, because if this goes to Ruiz's leadership, I want audio clean enough that nobody can dismiss it as edited or staged."
"Agreed," Preacher said. "Ghost, make it happen."
"There's a fallback we need too," Ghost added, tapping the map.
"If Ruiz brings more muscle than we're expecting, or if something spooks him before he commits to anything we can actually use, Emery needs a clean way out that doesn't look like she planned one.
A reason to step outside, a reason to end the meeting early — something that reads as ordinary business, not evacuation. "
"The financing paperwork," Emery said, already thinking it through. "I can tell Denise I need to step out and call the bank if any number looks off. Nobody questions that. It happens in real closings all the time."
"Good." Preacher nodded, something like approval in the gesture. "Build that in as the default exit. Anything goes sideways, she calls the bank, and that's the signal for everyone outside to move."
The planning continued for another hour, details accumulating — timing, positions, contingencies for a dozen ways it could go wrong — and Emery found herself, somewhere in the middle of it, genuinely enjoying the satisfaction of watching a plan take shape from raw uncertainty into something concrete and actionable.
It reminded her, distantly, of the early days building the shop, the pleasure of solving a problem that had real stakes attached to it.
Dally arrived partway through, dropped off by Vivian for what was supposed to be a quick supply run to the clubhouse kitchen, and lingered at the edge of the war room with undisguised curiosity until Rhys finally waved her over.
"You know the property better than anyone who's not actually lived there," he said. "Any blind spots on the map we're missing? Anywhere someone could watch the lot without being seen from the office?"
Dally studied the hand-drawn map with unexpected seriousness, tracing a finger along the tree line at the property's edge.
"There's a gap in the fence back here, behind the old storage shed.
Kids used to cut through it to get to the creek.
You can see the whole back lot from there, but nobody watching the front would ever think to check it. "
Ghost made a note, glancing at her with open approval. "Good eye."
Dally flushed slightly at the praise, some of her usual bravado replaced by quiet pride, and Emery watched the exchange with a warmth that cut through the tension of the planning session — a reminder that whatever else this family had been through, it still knew how to make room for a sixteen-year-old's competence rather than dismissing it.
"Can I stay?" Dally asked, glancing between the adults with the specific hopefulness of someone expecting to be told no. "Just to watch. I won't say anything."
Rhys hesitated, and Emery watched him weigh it honestly instead of deciding automatically — a small, visible instance of the same growth he'd been working on with her, extended now to Dally as well.
"Twenty minutes," he said finally. "Then Ghost drives you home.
This isn't a spectator sport, and some of what we're about to talk through isn't something I want you carrying home in your head tonight. "
"Deal." Dally settled into a chair at the edge of the room, and Emery caught her exchanging a small, grateful look with Rhys — not the full trust of an equal partner in the planning, but something real nonetheless, an acknowledgment that she'd earned a place at the table's edge even if not fully at its center yet.
By the time the meeting broke up, the sun had started sinking toward evening, and Emery found herself lingering in the clubhouse parking lot with Rhys, both of them quiet with the specific exhaustion that came after hours of careful planning.
"Thank you," Rhys said, "for what you did in there. Not just the plan. The way you handled Preacher, handled the room. You didn't ask for permission to be smart. You just were."
"I'm getting more comfortable doing that." She leaned into him slightly, some of the day's tension finally starting to release. "It helps, having you actually back me up instead of running interference."
"I'm trying." He wrapped an arm around her, and she let herself lean into it fully now, some of the morning's unresolved fight settling into something that felt less like a wound and more like an ongoing conversation they were both still learning how to have.
"Thursday's going to be dangerous, Em. I need you to know I'm still scared about it, even agreeing it's the right call. "
"I know. I'm scared too." She turned to face him fully, something steady in her own gaze despite the admission. "But I'd rather be scared and doing something that might actually end this than scared and waiting for it to happen to us again."
He kissed her then, slow and unhurried in the fading light, and Emery felt the specific, hard-won peace of two people choosing a difficult path together instead of one person deciding it alone.
Her phone buzzed against her hip, breaking the moment, and she pulled back to check it with a small, rueful laugh at the now-familiar interruption.
"Denise," she said, glancing at the screen. "Confirming Thursday's session. Two o'clock, same conference room." She looked up at Rhys, something settling into place between them. "It's really happening. Two days."
"Two days," he agreed, and something in his voice carried both the fear and the resolve of a man who'd finally learned to hold both at once.