Chapter 105
★ 23%
58 vouchers
-Logan-
I leaned on the cane. My bad leg was throbbing. Made it hard to focus on the maps. They were spread out in front of me on the makeshift table we built out of ammo crates.
The brothers were circled around me with grim faces. We were coordinating the attacks. Building a ghost army, and I was the architect.
“Dex, Mason.” I tapped a finger on a spot northwest of the city. An old logging road that cut through state land.
“Your cell. You’re on surveillance. Viktor says they’ve been moving product on these back roads. I want to know how often, what they’re driving, head count. You don’t engage. You watch. Report back. Use the burners Ledger gave you… coded messages.”
Dex nodded while his eyes traced the route. “We can camp there No one goes up there.”
“Link, you’re with Monty and Griz,” I continued shifting my weight off my bad leg. Dull pain shot through my thigh.
“Your target’s their distribution warehouse on the south side. The plumbing supply front. Ledger pulled the shift schedules and there’s a handoff around 3am. You hit the trucks in the loading bay. Slash tires, sugar in the gas tanks, whatever fucks their day up. Fast and quiet. In and out.”
I looked around at them. These were men I’d known my whole life. A lot of them helped build me into what I was. “Remember,” I said. “The goal isn’t to start a war tonight. It’s to make Anatoly doubt his control. We hit from the shadows. We make him look over his shoulder until his neck aches.”
I doled out the rest of the assignments. We’d be hitting Anatoly everywhere we could, all at once.
I glanced up to see Jake and my old man walk in. Whatever they were doing, they were locked in on it. They didn’t look at me, or any of us. They walked straight to the weapons room.
I watched them. My grip tightened on the head of my cane.
This was beyond standard procedure. We were all heavily armed already – the handguns, the shotguns, the rifles we kept for clubhouse defense.
The weapons room was full of the serious shit. The stuff we broke out for all–out war.
Talon pulled out two black rifle cases. Precision rifles. Jake grabbed a metal ammo can. The kind that held hundreds of rounds.
Then another.
They stacked them by the door. A fuckin arsenal.
My head scrambled for a reason. Were they fortifying the range beyond what we discussed? That didn’t track.
I glanced at the brothers around me. I saw the same question in their eyes. Monty’s brow was furrowed. Link’s gaze was locked on the growing pile of hardware.
My father pulled a duffel bag from one of the lockers, and the way it sagged in his grip told me it was full of loaded magazines. He slung it over his shoulder with a grunt. Jake grabbed another case, this one smaller, squarer. It could hold comms gear. Explosives.
My mind went to the worst places.
1/4
10.39 Tue, Jan ZU
Chapter 105
تا
心念23%話
55 vouchers
My gut twisted. This wasn’t for the club… this was for them. A private errand. While I was here, dividing my brothers into cells, they were preparing for something else.
It was a slap in the face. We were supposed to be a unit. A brotherhood. This reeked.
“Logan…”
I blinked, dragging my attention away from my father’s back. It was Monty. He was pointing at a different spot on the “What about the route back? If we take the interstate, we’re exposed. But the back roads add twenty–five minutes.”
I forced myself to focus. To be the leader they needed right now
But the suspicion was already spreading through my chest. It felt a lot like betrayal.
I looked back at the weapons room. Jake was pulling the door shut. Closing the padlock.
All the loot was in their arms now. Slung over their shoulders.
They turned and walked out without a word to anyone.
map.
“Forget the interstate,” I said. My voice sounded hollow to my own ears. I stabbed a finger at the map. “Take the back roads. Stay off the grid. It’s not about speed… it’s about not being seen.”
I leaned harder on the cane. The pain in my leg throbbed with my heartbeat.
The plan was in motion, but suddenly I felt like I was only seeing half the board.
A few seconds later, the women arrived like a convoy. Arms full of coolers and cardboard boxes. Food and supplies.
Scarlett led the way. My eyes scanned past her, past Ruby and Kayla and Trina and my mother, looking for the one face that mattered. The one that settled the riot in my head.
She wasn’t there.
My gaze locked on Abby instead. She was carrying a case of water bottles. “Abby,” I said a little too loud. I limped toward her. “Where’s Hailey?”
She stopped, and her eyes went a fraction wider. She looked from me to the other women, then back. “I… I thought she was with you. She was bringing you coffee…”
“That was an hour ago,” I said. “Where is she?”
The fear in her eyes was instant and unmistakable. It wasn’t just concern though. She knew something.
“I don’t know, Logan. Really. We were in the kitchen, and then she… she said she wanted to find Ledger. She had a question about her phone. An app or something.”
An app. Really. The excuse was so flimsy it was insulting. My hand clenched around the cane.
“An app,” I repeated, my voice flat.
“Yeah, that’s what she said…” She trailed off, hiking the water case up.
Her knuckles were white. She was a terrible liar.
The urge to grab her shoulders and shake the truth out of her was a physical ache in my hands. But the bigger urge won out
I needed to find Hailey. Now.
2/4
19:00 Tue, Jan 20 DG.
Chapter 105
“Right,” I muttered. I turned away while she was stammering something about checking upstairs. I didn’t hear the rest. I was already hobbling toward the garage.
The garage. I scanned the shadows behind tool chests, around the bikes on their lifts. Nothing, Just oil stains and silence.
“Hailey?” I called out. My voice echoed. No answer.
I moved through the main room of the clubhouse. The two prospects on watch looked at me, confused by my frantic pace. I ignored them.
I checked the bathrooms, shoving doors open. Empty. The storage closet. Empty. My heart was hammering against my ribs
now.
I took the stairs two at a time, and my leg screamed in protest. Jogged down the hall and burst into our apartment. “Hailey?”
The bed was still unmade from last night. The room smelled like her shampoo. But it was empty.
I checked the bathrooms, the closets. Like she would be hiding in the closet for some fucking reason.
I went back into the hall and started throwing open the doors to the other apartments. It kicked up dust. No Hailey.
Where the hell was she? My mind raced through the possibilities, and each one was worse than the last.
Had she slipped outside? Had someone gotten to her inside the clubhouse? The thought was ice in my veins.
The pain in my leg was a white–hot fire now. A constant, grinding agony that made my vision blur at the edges. I stumbled back down the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing.
The clubhouse felt different. The walls were closing in. She wasn’t in the kitchen either.
I found myself standing in the hallway. My breath was coming in ragged pulls.
There was only one place left to look. It had been at the back of my mind since I saw Jake and my old man with those rifles.
The door to Jake’s office was twenty feet away. A bad feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Whatever was happening, it was behind that door.
I stood in front of it. The pain was becoming a distant roar, drowned out by the static in my head. I could hear voices inside. Jake’s, then Ledger’s. Talking quietly.
I didn’t knock. I shoved the door open so hard it slammed against the wall.
Jake was behind his desk, half–standing, leaning over something couldn’t see. Ledger was in a chair next to him. Laptop open on the desk in front of him.
Their eyes met. For a split second. Brief, but I saw it. A flash of shared calculation. A silent message passed between them in a glance.
The rage that pushed me through the door was gone now. I was hollow. The heat in my chest wasn’t anger anymore.
My legs felt like they were gonna give out.
“Where is she?” I demanded, but the words came out quiet. Less roar, more a strained whisper. The cane was the only thing holding me up.
Jake slowly straightened up. His face was blank. “Logan What’s wrong?”
“Hailey,” I said a little louder. “Where the fuck is she? I’ve looked everywhere. Abby’s lying through her teeth. Where is she?”
3/4
19:00 Tue, Jan 20 DSG.
Chapter 105
23%
My eyes darted to Ledger. He was looking back down at his laptop. “What the fuck is going on in here? What was with all the hardware from the lockup?”
Jake just looked at me for a few seconds. He looked guilty, and it trade me want to put my four through the wall
Then he exhaled hard. Gestured to the empty leather chair in front of his desk
“Sit down, son.”
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
