Chapter 32 #3
Reeze didn’t answer immediately. He looked at the message again, and Charlie noticed something in the wording make him pause.
“Why does it say he?”
Billy frowned. “What?”
Reeze held up the screen. “He just signed his death warrant. Not you. Not the club. Him.”
“Because they want you.”
“Yeah. But they want me to know this is about me.”
Rollo had joined them and took the phone when Billy passed it over. He watched the video once and his expression hardened.
“They’re filming from outside our property.”
“Yeah.”
“And sending threats to your woman.”
Reeze nodded. “Yeah.”
Rollo handed the phone back and looked around. Nobody needed to be told that something had changed. The laughter had already died away and several of the men were now standing with their attention fixed on them.
“Then we’ve got a problem.”
“We already had a problem,” Billy muttered.
“Now we’ve got a bigger one.”
Charlie took the phone back and watched the video again.
The longer she looked at it, the less she liked it.
Whoever had filmed it could have chosen Reeze alone.
His bike. The clubhouse. The gates. Any one of the men.
Instead, they had waited until she was in his arms. “It isn’t only about Reeze,” she said.
Three pairs of eyes turned towards her. Charlie held up the phone. “They could have filmed him at any time. They chose us together.”
Reeze went completely still. She saw the moment he understood exactly what she meant. Someone wanted him to know that they knew who mattered to him.
Rollo swore quietly. Before anyone could say anything else, the gate opened and one of the Assholes came in from the yard.
“Two Sunkholes cars were spotted in the northern district last night.”
Rollo turned towards him. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Billy ran a hand over his beard. “They’re testing us.”
Reeze was still staring at the phone. Charlie watched his mind working and recognised the expression from earlier. Something had caught.
“Dennis.” The name came so quietly she almost missed it.
Billy looked at him immediately. “What?”
“Dennis.” Reeze raised his gaze. “He’s suspended. Lost his job, lost face and got blamed for most of what happened. He can’t come after me through work any more without digging himself an even deeper fucking hole.”
“That doesn’t make him the mastermind behind Sunkholes,” Rollo pointed out.
“No. But it does make him someone who’d enjoy watching two problems solve each other.”
The silence that followed was considerably heavier than the last.
Billy was the first to put it into words.
“You think he’s feeding them information.”
Reeze rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“I think somebody is pointing them in the right direction and waiting for us to do the rest ourselves.”
“The police?”
“Not the police.” Reeze shook his head. “Dennis.”
Rollo remained silent for a moment, weighing it before finally nodding.
“Right. Then we do nothing.”
Billy looked almost offended. “Nothing?”
“Nothing stupid,” Rollo clarified.
Reeze nodded. “That’s exactly what they’re waiting for. For us to react, go after them, hit first and give them a reason. So we don’t.”
“And instead?”
“We dig.”
He looked from Billy to Rollo. “I want to know who Dennis is talking to, who Sunkholes are talking to and where those two lines cross. No spontaneous visits, no retaliation and no bastard goes anywhere alone.”
Billy still didn’t look particularly pleased, but he nodded. “Fine.”
Reeze turned to Charlie and took the phone from her one last time, forwarding the clip to his own. He deleted nothing, changed nothing and handed it back.
“Save everything.”
“I know.”
“And if anything else comes—”
“I’ll show you.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Straight away,” she added.
“Good.”
Charlie watched him for a few seconds. Only a short while ago, he had stood outside admitting that he couldn’t protect everyone at once.
Now he stood in the middle of the club again, gaze clear and body tense, already moving mentally towards the next problem.
The difference was that this time he wasn’t trying to solve it alone.
Rollo stood on one side. Billy on the other.
And she stood in front of him. Reeze put his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her closer until his forehead rested against hers.
“You’re not scared.” It wasn’t really a question.
Charlie thought about it for a moment before answering. “No.”
She glanced down at the phone and the frozen image of the two of them outside in the yard.
“I’m pissed off.”
Something shifted in his eyes. Then he kissed her briefly and released her. “Good.”
Rollo snorted. “You two are fucking made for each other.”
Nobody laughed particularly loudly this time, but the tension eased just enough for the room to begin moving again. Charlie slipped the phone back into her pocket.
The threat was still there. Dennis was still there, and now perhaps Sunkholes were too, in a way they didn’t yet understand. Someone had stood outside the gates filming her while she was in Reeze’s arms, and whoever it was had wanted her to know they were watching.
But they had made one mistake. They had expected her to be afraid. She wasn’t.