Chapter 6
TOMCAT
As soon as I received Linden’s call earlier, I texted King and told him there was an emergency we needed to handle when I got back. After leaving Linden in my room, I sent another message to let him know I’d returned. He replied that he was already in his office and to meet him there.
I strode through the compound, adrenaline humming beneath my skin, my jaw locked tight.
The military had trained me to operate with razor precision under extreme pressure, yet the sensation gripping me right now was something far more visceral—a primal urgency, tied directly to Linden’s safety.
I wasn’t accustomed to the feeling, but I didn’t have the time to analyze it.
The door to King’s office stood ajar, a quiet hum of conversation drifting into the hallway. I stepped inside, finding King seated behind his desk, his expression carved from granite. Blaze, the club’s vice president, leaned against the side of the bookshelf, his arms crossed and eyes sharp.
The second I stepped through the doorway, I felt the weight of another set of eyes on me. Cerberus, King’s dog, lifted his massive head from where he’d been stretched out beside the desk.
The name fit. Three-headed hellhound energy in one enormous body.
His dark gaze locked on mine with the kind of silent evaluation that made grown men rethink their life choices.
With his thick neck, broad chest, and muscle layered over muscle like he’d been carved out of granite, the Cane Corso was a damn tank.
Most people saw him and instinctively gave the room a wider berth, which was exactly the point.
He was trained to guard, intimidate, and make strangers feel like prey.
He held my stare for a beat too long, then his tail thumped once against the floor.
“Don’t,” I muttered under my breath.
Too late.
All one hundred-plus pounds of him pushed up and crossed the room like a freight train disguised as a pet. He stopped in front of me, sat back on his haunches like he had manners, then leaned forward and planted his head directly against my thigh with enough force to test my balance.
Blaze snorted softly.
I shook my head. “You’re encouraging him.”
King just smirked.
Like all his breed, Cerberus was extremely affectionate with anyone he grew attached to, cuddling to express his approval and love. And he seemed to have a knack for demanding attention from the ones he recognized as suckers.
He always seemed to warm up quickly once a man patched—as if he knew the significance of the loyalty that came with it. But he didn’t show that side to the prospects, and it was funny as fuck to watch him scare the shit out of them.
Cerberus made a low, satisfied rumble and shifted his weight, clearly angling for ear scratches like he hadn’t been trained to look like a demon straight out of mythology.
I gave in, dragging my fingers behind his cropped ear, and the damn dog immediately tried to fold himself closer like he thought he weighed twenty pounds instead of a small horse.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “You’re still terrifying. Don’t let it go to your head.”
His tail thumped harder.
Blaze chuckled. “Got you pegged, sucker.”
Ignoring him, I gave Cerberus one more pat, then glared at him.
He huffed before lumbering over to his dog bed by King’s desk and settling back down.
When I lifted my gaze to King again, business settled back over me like armor.
Blaze raised his brow at my change in demeanor. “You look like someone kicked your favorite jet. Must be a real shit show.”
“Close enough.” I shut the door behind me and moved to one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Got a situation. I need the club’s protection for someone.”
King leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest as he assessed me with quiet intensity. “Who?”
“Her name’s Linden Holbrook. She’s a data archivist at Aegis Aerospace Systems.” I paused and gave Blaze a knowing look. “And Carson Holbrook’s little sister.”
I’d told them about the crash shortly after it happened.
Blaze whistled low. “Holbrook? The test pilot who went down last year?”
“The very one,” I replied, my tone flat.
King’s expression had hardened, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Pilot for the same program?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, a muscle in my jaw jumping. “Different birds, though.”
Blaze walked to the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey. After taking a sip, he murmured, “Holbrook’s crash was labeled as mechanical failure, right?”
I nodded. “That was the official story.”
King raised a brow. “Official?”
My mouth tightened as I weighed my options, trying to decide whether to break my NDA. But it only took one heartbeat to make the decision. From the moment I met Linden, she’d become my priority. “Internally, we were told pilot error.”
“Shit,” Blaze grunted. “Which story is the truth?”
“Well, that’s where Linden gets tangled up in this fucking mess. She stumbled onto something at Aegis. Found discrepancies in classified flight logs, including one tied directly to her brother’s death.”
“Cover-up?” King surmised.
“Classified lies,” Blaze scoffed.
“Exactly. She flagged it for her supervisor, and now, she’s being watched. My gut says someone tied to this program got nervous she might dig deeper, and whoever they are, they want to bury it.”
Blaze’s eyes darkened with quiet understanding. “That’s why they’re tailing her. She’s become a liability.”
“She was almost run her down in the parking lot outside her apartment tonight,” I confirmed.
Blaze cursed quietly. “The fuck kind of hornet’s nest did she kick?”
“One that kills to cover its tracks.” I forced myself to remain calm, though the idea of anyone hurting Linden had my blood boiling.
“She needs protection. I moved her into the clubhouse tonight after she called me. Told her she’ll stay put until we sort this, but I need the club’s backing to handle the situation properly. ”
My body was rigid with tension as I waited for King’s verdict.
Without his approval, I'd have to handle this alone. King’s word was law here—he held tight control over every aspect of club operations.
Some would call his approach obsessive, but I saw it differently.
By requiring every decision to flow through him, our prez made sure any consequences fell directly on his shoulders, while we all shared every victory.
He'd never forced our loyalty. He'd proven himself worthy of it time and again. We trusted him completely, knowing without question that he’d always have our backs. Because of the trust between us, King allowed us the freedom and independence we needed in critical situations. He had an instinct for recognizing when one of us required space and autonomy to handle our own shit. It wasn’t just about giving us room—it was his way of silently communicating his belief in us.
That quiet confidence strengthened the entire club, making us more capable, effective, and united.
After a minute filled with loaded silence, King leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, his eyes never leaving mine.
“I agree. Club’ll have her back. Get Wizard in the loop. Bring him everything you know. Names, details, discrepancies. If there’s smoke, he’ll find the fire.”
I nodded once. “On it.”
“Keep her close, Tomcat,” King ordered. “And watch your six. This kind of cover-up doesn’t stay buried unless someone really fucking powerful wants it hidden.”
“I know.” I straightened, determination burning through me. “I’ll keep her safe.”
King held my gaze steadily, his silence stretching for a moment as he considered everything I'd laid out.
Behind those sharp eyes, I could practically see the wheels turning.
Blaze noticed it, too. He glanced over at King, catching some unspoken cue, and gave a slight nod, clearly already aligned with whatever our prez was thinking.
“Tomcat.” King’s deep voice finally broke the heavy silence. “You thought about the other options we have available to keep her safe?”
I felt my jaw tighten, suspicion pricking the back of my neck. “Meaning?”
Blaze leaned against the bookshelf again, folding his arms casually as he chimed in, “Meaning, the Hounds could step in and handle it with what we do best.”
I knew exactly what Blaze was referring to.
The Hounds of Hellfire had several legitimate businesses, and our treasurer, Ace, was a fucking genius when it came to money. His mad skills in the stock market and investments helped to keep the club flush.
But our core income stream was making people disappear. We weren’t contract killers, but we absolutely “killed” identities. And we were fucking rock stars at it. WITSEC was child’s play compared to our identity erasure and relocation network, especially since we weren’t hampered by government shit.
We had a reputation—earned and whispered in shadowed corners.
Our hands reached into every sphere. Some legal, others dipping into a deep, dark gray.
Justice, for us, wasn't dictated by broken bureaucracies.
The lines drawn by flawed legal systems never meant much to us, especially when they were the only thing keeping innocent people in danger.
We gave new lives to those who needed an escape.
It began as a few favors, grew into lucrative operations, and became a significant portion of the club’s income.
Not everyone was required to pay. Sometimes circumstances made it necessary to intervene for free, but we never advertised that fact.
It stayed hidden, a guarded secret so we wouldn’t have unscrupulous assholes trying to screw us over.
Many of the patches in the club had unique skills that lent themselves perfectly to our operation.
King had been a CIA operative before the MC and was a master forger.
He gave us clean document trails. Ace took care of financial ghosting.
Our club lawyer, Ash, handled legal insulation.
Our resident tech genius, Wizard, could create or scrub anything digital. And the list went on.
Within the operation, my role was precision movement and risk architecture.
I ensured physical relocations left no trace.
Airspace, radar patterns, flight tracking systems, and security protocols—I navigated complexities that most people couldn’t fathom existed.
My expertise wasn’t flashy midnight runs; it was designing routes invisible to audits, establishing plausible travel histories, and knowing precisely when air travel was the safest option or a dangerous risk.
I specialized in extracting targets under surveillance, even internationally, without leaving a whisper of our involvement.
But my contributions went beyond mere transportation.
Along with a few of the other guys, I was a risk modeler and a contingency architect.
We predicted how investigations unfolded, anticipated how military and federal agencies cross-referenced their data, and identified pressure points months before they emerged.
If any of our disappearances risked unraveling under scrutiny, we saw it first and built redundancy after redundancy to ensure that never happened.
Blaze wasn’t talking about simple protection. He was suggesting we make Linden disappear.
At that realization, a wave of instinctive fury surged through me. “No fucking way, I’m not putting her on the other side of the fucking planet and crossing my fingers. She’s not going anywhere out of my sight.”
Blaze lifted his hands in a placating gesture, one eyebrow arched. “Just putting it out there, brother. If it’s as serious as it sounds, maybe taking her off grid completely is the smartest play.”
I clenched my fists at my sides, a possessive growl rumbling from my chest. “She stays with me. End of discussion.”
King remained silent, studying me with the kind of calm intensity that would’ve made a lesser man squirm.
His gaze cut straight through me, assessing everything—my reaction, my conviction, and exactly how far I’d go to protect the woman who’d gotten under my skin.
Slowly, he raised a single brow, the only question I needed.
I took a step forward, my stance wide and unwavering. “She’s mine.”
Blaze chuckled softly, amusement glinting in his dark eyes despite the seriousness of the situation. “Well, well, brother. Looks like you just stepped right off the flight deck into the eye of the hurricane.”
I shot him a glare. “Glad you’re amused.”
“It’s always fun to watch a brother fall.” Blaze’s mouth twitched. “When one of ours goes down this hard, it means trouble. And you just strapped yourself into the catapult. There’s no punching out now.”
I grunted, refusing to give him the satisfaction from admitting how right he was.
I left the office, closing the door firmly behind me. The hallway felt lighter somehow, the weight of uncertainty lessened now that the club had my back. Linden wasn’t just under my protection—she was under the Hounds’ protection.
But the rage simmering beneath my skin hadn’t cooled. Whoever thought it was a good idea to go after Linden Holbrook would learn exactly what kind of hell the Hounds of Hellfire could unleash.