Survives Even After Maps Are Burned by Niro Mason 102

Chapter 102 

Chapter 102 

-Hailey- 

Opening the door to Jake’s office felt like shoving against the weight of the entire club. Esp I was here. 

Vouche 

y because Logan didn’t know, 

The door swung inward, and I struggled to breathe as three pairs of eyes swung toward me from behind Jake’s massive oak desk. 

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The office smelled like an ashtray, but in a strangely comforting way. 

The overhead light was off, and Ledger’s laptop glowed on the desk in front of them, casting a pale blue light on their faces. They’d been hunched over it, and my entrance had frozen them mid–thought. 

“Hailey,” Jake said. His voice was neutral, but his eyes were sharp as ever. 

темо 

There was a single empty chair facing the desk. Worn black leather. I stepped toward it on legs that felt like jelly. I perched on the very edge of the seat with Logan’s coffee mug clutched in both hands. 

They watched me. Talon leaned back in his chair, and the creak it made sounded like a gunshot in the silence. His green eyes didn’t leave my face. 

Ledger looked from me to his laptop screen and back again. His fingers were still hovering over the keyboard. 

My throat was so tight I wasn’t sure any sound would come out. I took a deep breath, but it caught halfway, making me cough. 

Jake cleared his throat. 

The words were in there somewhere, and I knew if I didn’t just start talking, I’d lose my nerve completely. Or they’d kick me 

out. 

“It’s my boss,” I blurted out. The sentence landed awkwardly in the quiet room, and I cleared my throat. “Stella. From the tattoo shop.” 

I saw a flicker of recognition in their eyes. 

“She’s missing.” God, I sounded melodramatic. 

“I mean, she didn’t show up for work today. For an appointment. She never does that. Ever. And her car’s missing. And she’s not answering her phone. I called her last night, and this morning, and I called Nikki – one of the other artists – and she hasn’t heard from her either, and she drove by her place and…” 

The sentences tumbled out, tripping over each other. I was aware I sounded unhinged, but I couldn’t stop. 

“The other day, after those guys in suits came by the shop asking about me, Stella was worried. Nikki said she was jumpy. Locking the back door during the day. And now… she’s gone.” 

I forced myself to stop. Take another breath. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic canary trapped in a cage. 

I looked at each of them in turn, pleading with my eyes for them to understand the magnitude of this, for it not to be just the paranoid ramblings of a scared girl. 

“I think… I think they took her.” It felt like I was swallowing glass. “Because of me. To get to me… to get to Logan.” 

The silence that followed was dark. It was a shadow figure in the room, reaching its hand out to strangle me. 

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Chapter 102 

5 voucher 

Jake’s expression didn’t change, but he leaned forward in his chair. Talon’s jaw flexed. Ledger slowly closed the lid of his laptop, with his full attention now on me. 

I had to finish. I had to ask the question that was the whole reason I was here, risking ever 

My eyes landed on Ledger. “The shop has security cameras. Stella keeps the footage on he p. I don’t have access. But I thought… I was hoping… could you? Could you get into the system? See what happened? Maybe last night, when she closed up?” 

It hung in the air between us, naked and desperate. I’d just vomited my personal crisis in the middle of their war room, and now I was asking for their top tech guy to drop everything and help me. 

gaze to the mug in my hands. Then I brought it to my lips just for 

The audacity of it curdled in my stomach. I dropped something to do. The coffee was bitter cold and bitter on my tongue. 

Jake cleared his throat and ran a hand over his face. When he looked at me again, his eyes were tired but sharp. “What’s Logan think about this?” 

My heart sank. I should have known that would be the first thing he’d ask. I dropped my gaze to the floor, staring at a little scuff on the toe of my boot. “I haven’t… I haven’t told him yet.” 

I braced for the backlash, for the lecture about trust and club unity and the danger of keeping secrets. But it didn’t come. 

“Good,” Talon said, a quiet rumble from the corner. I looked up at him, surprised. He was watching me, and he looked almost… relieved. “Keep it that way for now.” 

The approval, if that’s what it was, felt complicated. The relief that washed over me was immediately followed by a fresh wave of guilt. I was now conspiring with Logan’s father and president to keep a secret from him. 

While I was reeling from that, Ledger was already moving. His laptop was open again, and his fingers were flying across the keyboard. The blue glow reflected off his wire–rimmed glasses. 

“Stella…” He stopped typing and glanced up at me. 

“Uh, Greer,” I said quickly. “Stella Green. The shop is called Green Ink.” 

He nodded. Looked back down at the screen, fingers flying again. 

“Green… Ink…” he murmured to himself. “Mhm. Residential–grade system. Cloud–b find a backdoor.” 

probably. Shouldn’t be too hard to 

And just like that, the decision was made. The mission was a go. There was no debate, no weighing of pros and cons. A civilian was missing, and the club’s resources were being mobilized. The efficiency was almost scary. 

I was left with nothing to do but wait. I focused on the mug in my hands, tracing the crack on the lid with my thumb. I studied the grain of the wood on Jake’s desk, the scars and stains. 

My eyes wandered up to the Warriors MC logo painted on the wall behind them. A massive flaming skull with two pistols crossed below it. It looked more ominous than proud in the dim light. 

I found a tiny speck of dirt on the floor near my foot and stared at it, trying to keep my mind as blank as possible. 

The only sound was the soft click–clack of Ledger’s typing. I could feel Jake and Talon’s attention, no longer solely on me, but on the screen. On the digital hunt unfolding in front of them. 

The wait was agony. A slow drip of acid on my nerves. 

After what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes, Ledger let out a soft, satisfied grunt. He stopped typing and leaned back, his eyes scanning the screen. Then he looked up, and his gaze found mine across the desk. 

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Chapter 102 

“I’m in,” he said flatly. He jerked his head, a silent command to come around and see. 

toucher T 

I stood up too fast, and my vision went staticky for a second. I rounded the corner of the desk and leaned in, and my shoulder brushed against Talon’s solid arm. 

The four of us crowded around the laptop. The screen showed a black and white image of the street outside the tattoo shop, timestamped from the previous evening. It was empty. Silent and waiting. 

Then Stella appeared. The footage was from a high angle, making her look small. She was pul across the front of the shop like she’d done a thousand times. 

el security grate 

She finished, gave the lock a final tug, and turned, slinging her bag over her shoulder. 

She took one step away from the door, toward the lot where her car was parked. 

She never took the second step. 

A figure, massive and dressed in dark clothes, moved into the frame from the blind spot behind the camera. 

It happened with such speed and precision it felt like an action movie. 

One arm wrapped around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides. A gloved hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off any sound before it could start. Her body went rigid with shock, and her bag dropped to the sidewalk with a silent thud. 

Another man, just as large and just as anonymous in his ski mask, appeared. He bent and grabbed her legs, lifting her effortlessly. Together, the two faceless men carried her, a struggling, silent bundle, toward the curb. 

A plain, windowless van slid into the edge of the frame with its side door already open. 

I think that was when I stopped breathing. 

A third man hopped out of the van. He caught her bag as one of the other guys tossed it to him, rifling through it and pulling out her keys. 

He didn’t even glance at Stella as they bundled her into the van. He just turned and walked out of frame. 

Then the headlights of Stella’s car appeared, pulling out from the parking lot. The third man was driving it. 

The van followed close behind. 

The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds. 

The street on the screen was empty again. Just the locked grate, the quiet sidewalk, the lingering ssion of horror. 

I still wasn’t breathing. My world had narrowed to the grainy gray image on the laptop. 

The coffee I’d drunk felt like it was about to come back up. This wasn’t a suspicion anymore. It wasn’t a paranoid delusion. It was a fact, captured in plain, brutal detail. 

They’d taken Stella. 

Because of me.. 

The silence in the office was different now. It wasn’t the quiet of waiting or assessment. It was the kind that rings in your ears after an explosion. 

Jake let out a long, slow breath. Talon’s fist landed on the desk. 

I couldn’t look away from the screen. I kept waiting for the footage to rewind, for Stella to walk backwards into the frame, 

vouchers 

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Chapter 102 

for the nightmare fo undo itself. 

But it just sat there, a fixed point in time. A before and an after. A woman I cared about was gone. Dragged into the underworld by men with no faces, 

My Persephone nickname felt suddenly, sickeningly appropriate. 

This was all my fault. The truth of it was a hollow ache behind my ribs. I had brought this plag 

orstep. 

Anatoly’s message was received, loud and clear. He wasn’t just playing mind games. 

He was dismantling my life, piece by piece, and he was starting with the parts I thought were safe. 

I needed to tell Logan. I needed to warn Nikki. 

I needed to call my mom. 

AD