Marked By The Ruthless President

CHAPTER 11 — THE NAME HE SHOULDN’T KNOW

(Reaper’s POV)

The moment Chains said the Jackal came for Gina, every instinct in me turned lethal.

Not territory.

Not retaliation.

Her.

That changed everything.

Because nobody targeted someone inside my walls without a reason.

And reasons in my world usually bled.

I looked back at Gina once.

She was still standing near my bed, pale, shaken, trying too hard to hide it.

The sight sharpened something violent in my chest.

“Stay here,” I ordered.

Her brows snapped together instantly. “No.”

Even now, after gunfire and blood, she still had the nerve to challenge me.

I stepped closer, lowering my voice.

“This isn’t a discussion. Chapel basement. Patched members only.”

The words carried the same finality as church rules.

Women stayed out of club justice.

Her jaw tightened.

But this time, maybe because she had just heard men trying to break my door down, she didn’t argue further.

I turned and followed Chains down the corridor.

The chapel hall was quieter than the rest of the clubhouse.

The red emergency lights had shut off, leaving only the dim wall sconces and the heavy smell of gunpowder still clinging to the air.

Two prospects stood guard outside the basement door.

The moment they saw me, both straightened.

“Prez.”

I nodded once.

Chains opened the steel door.

The sound from below hit first.

A man groaning. Metal chains rattling. Someone spitting blood.

Then we descended.

The Black Vipers chapel basement was exactly what outsiders would expect from a ruthless MC.

Concrete walls. One hanging light. Drain in the floor. A steel chair bolted down in the center.

The captured Jackal was tied to it.

Mid-thirties. Patch torn off. Lip split. One eye already swelling shut.

He laughed the second he saw me.

A mistake.

I walked forward slowly, letting the room feel my silence.

Every patched brother lining the wall stayed still.

Vice president Graves, Havoc, Chains, and two senior brothers watched without speaking.

This was club business.

Church justice.

The Jackal spit blood onto the floor.

“So the Reaper really keeps pretty little strays upstairs.”

Chains took one step forward, fury flashing.

I lifted a hand.

He stopped.

I crouched in front of the captive, eye level, calm.

That calm was what usually terrified men most.

“Who sent you?”

The Jackal grinned through broken teeth.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

I hit him.

One clean fist to the jaw.

The crack echoed off concrete.

He groaned, chair scraping violently.

Still, he laughed.

Psychotic bastard.

I leaned closer.

“You came through my gates. You touched my door. You threatened what’s inside my walls.”

His grin faltered slightly.

I let my voice drop lower.

“Now you answer.”

He spat another mouthful of blood and lifted his swollen eye to mine.

“Ask Gina about her father.”

The room went silent.

Every sound. Every breath.

For the first time that night, my control slipped.

Just enough for the cold in my chest to sharpen.

“What did you say?”

The Jackal smiled.

There it was.

The real message.

“She doesn’t know, does she?”

I straightened slowly.

The room had changed.

This wasn’t about me anymore. Or the club.

This was about Gina.

Chains frowned. “What the hell is he talking about?”

The Jackal laughed again, weaker this time.

“Tell the girl her dead daddy wasn’t the saint she thinks he was.”

Something dangerous clicked into place in my mind.

Gina had told Tessa she moved here after losing her only living parent.

Her father.

Dead.

At least, that’s what she believed.

But the certainty in the Jackal’s tone told a different story.

I grabbed the captive by the throat and yanked him forward hard enough to make the chair scream against concrete.

“Say his name.”

He smirked.

“Victor Moretti.”

The basement seemed to freeze around me.

I knew that name.

Every Black Vipers officer did.

Graves cursed behind me.

Chains went still.

Because Victor Moretti wasn’t just some dead civilian.

He had once been one of the biggest silent financiers moving money between MC territories across the state.

A ghost broker.

Untouchable.

Then he vanished twelve years ago.

No body. No proof. Just gone.

And somehow Gina—sweet, stubborn Gina—had his last name.

I stared at the bleeding Jackal.

“You’re lying.”

He coughed out a laugh.

“Ask the girl why her father changed towns every few years.”

That hit harder than it should have.

Because Gina had mentioned moving a lot as a kid.

Too much instability. Too many fresh starts.

At the time it meant nothing.

Now?

It sounded exactly like a man hiding from MC ghosts.

I released his throat abruptly.

The Jackal slumped back, wheezing.

Chains looked at me carefully.

“Prez…”

I already knew what he was asking.

Was Gina connected to old MC money routes? Was this why the Jackals came for her? Did she have something her dead father left behind?

Too many questions. No answers.

And upstairs, sleeping in my bed, was the woman at the center of all of it.

The realization settled like ice.

This wasn’t just a protection problem anymore.

This was history.

The kind that started wars.

I turned toward the stairs.

“Keep him breathing.”

Chains nodded.

“You going upstairs?”

I looked back once at the bleeding Jackal.

“No.”

My voice came colder than the concrete walls.

“I’m going to ask Gina why she never told me her real last name.”