Ghost Riders (A Dark MC Romance)

Sister’s Warning

Victor’s hands dropped from the collar.

Jason stood rigid, the leather stiff across his shoulders and thick with the heavy scent of cedar and someone else’s life. Marcus’s life. Bile rose in his throat while Victor stepped back, taking him in with the cold ownership of an appraiser checking over fresh property.

“Find Anna,” Victor said. “Bring her to the main room.” His mouth curved at the corners, slow and sickening. “She’ll want to see her brother looking like this, don’t you think?”

“I’ll get her,” Jason said. That was all Victor was going to get.

“Make sure she comes straight here,” Victor added, his eyes narrowing with quiet amusement. “Don’t keep everyone waiting.”

Jason nodded once. He turned and walked down the hallway, the cut stiff across his shoulders, the heavy patches dragging against his spine. In his front pocket, the brass key pressed into his thigh - small, distinct, invasive.

He kept his head straight and never looked back.

He reached the bend in the corridor before he caught the unmistakable weight of someone watching him. Cutter shifted off the plaster just enough to drop a pointed glance at Jason’s pocket, his thumb flicking against his own belt in a sharp downward press before his chin tipped toward the kitchens. He shifted his gaze sideways without breaking his stride.

Cutter stood pinned against the wall where Jason had passed him earlier, his arms crossed over his chest. His posture gave nothing away, but his dark eyes fixed straight on Jason. For one breath, the silent air stretched tight between them. No words drifted out, and neither man gave a nod; Cutter was simply standing post, witnessing every small piece of the humiliation Victor had dealt out.

Jason held the man’s stare for a second, then broke away.

Behind him, Victor’s easy drawl cut through the quiet. “Cutter. Come back inside.”

“Right behind you,” Cutter muttered back.

The heavy door swung open and slammed shut against the frame; the latch clicked with absolute finality.

Jason took the corner, and the rough noise of the main room rose to hit him: raised voices, the solid crack of a pool break, and a drunken laugh chopped short. The cut commanded the room instantly. Two younger prospects by the bar straightened their spines, driven by pure instinct, but Jason pushed past them without a glance.

Anna was somewhere inside the clubhouse. Victor knew the exact room, yet he had ordered Jason to fetch her like an object left sitting on a shelf. Jason kept his expression blank and his boots rhythmic, moving past the bar, the crowded tables, and the men who watched him out of the corners of their eyes.

He shoved the door open.Anna stood at the sink with her back to the door, both hands buried to the wrists in greasy grey dishwater.

Jason paused in the doorway while the overhead fluorescent tube buzzed and flickered above them. She was scouring a massive cast iron pan, curved inward around the heavy iron basin as if nothing else in the world existed. This was Anna De’Leon, who had never cleared a single plate at their father’s house; she had laughed right in Jason’s face the one time Marcus told her to wash her own mug. “He sent you to fetch me,” she said without turning around.

He stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind him, smelling old grease, harsh lye soap, and the sour chemical bite of bleach. He kept his boots planted near the entrance.

“Victor sent me down here.”

“I know,” she muttered, continuing to scrape the metal. “He does that.”

Jason stared at the tense line of her shoulders. “Anna.”

“There were four guys working the floor last spring,” she said, speaking in a flat monotone like a clerk reciting inventory. “Three of them were asking questions about the books, and one just walked into the wrong office at the wrong hour. Victor called it an internal investigation, and it took him two weeks to clean up. After that, nobody asked questions anymore.”

Jason stayed completely motionless by the door.

“The cameras are brand new,” she added, working the stiff bristle brush along the curved iron lip. “He put them in right after the Reno expansion. There’s one in the hallway right outside this door, one above the cash register, and two more pointed across the gravel lot.”

“Anna, look at me.”

“I can’t right now.”

“Why not?”

She stopped for a second, her red knuckles freezing beneath the dirty foam before she dragged the bristles across the iron again. “Because if I look at you, I’m going to say something out loud that gets us killed... And there are things you cannot say in here, Jason. There are things that just...” She cut herself off, breathing hard through her nose. “You have to understand how it works now. The rules are different.”

“Tell me who changed them.”

Her hands stopped again, staying motionless under the scum. He watched the taut tendons in the back of her neck; she held herself rigid from the base of her skull straight down to her tailbone.

“The club changed,” she said finally, her voice dropping. “New leadership changes everything. That’s always been true.”

He caught the hesitation. She refused to speak Victor’s name, leaving a glaring silence where the accusation belonged, even alone with him in a filthy washroom where the only witness was a lens she had already pointed out. She knew the surveillance was running, yet she still hid behind the company line to survive. A sick, hollow ache twisted in Jason’s gut. She wasn’t acting out of loyalty; she was just staying alive under Victor’s thumb.

Anna’s hands remained buried in the motionless water, and neither of them broke the silence.“Thursday,” she murmured, her voice barely grazing the drone of the refrigerator coils. “The supply runs clear the gates before dawn. Four in the morning, nobody checks the bay doors.” Anna reached for a stockpot on the high shelf, rising onto the balls of her feet, and her sleeve slid back.

Jason saw the marks in a single instant. Four faded yellow bruises, fingertip-shaped, pressed into the pale skin of her forearm where someone had gripped her hard. His breath caught in his throat.

She brought the pot down, and her eyes cut sideways to catch him staring. Her free hand dragged the fabric down in one sharp, practiced motion, hiding her skin. She turned to face him squarely.

“Don’t,” she said.

Her tone was flat and absolute. He took a step forward, unable to pull his eyes from her wrist. “Anna, let me look at that.”

“There is nothing to look at, Jason.”

“Those are finger marks on your arm,” he said, keeping his voice low and tight. “Who grabbed you like that?”

Her eyes went wide with pure terror, darting toward the open hallway. “Keep your voice down. You need to drop this right now.”

“I am not dropping it,” he whispered, anger flaring through his chest. “Did he do that to you?”

“I said stop!” Her voice cracked, desperate and terrified for him as she leaned across the counter. “You think you’re helping me? You aren’t. You will get yourself killed, and then what happens to me? You don’t understand what he does to people who interfere. Just pretend you didn’t see anything. Please.”

He stared at her, the words dying in his throat.

The fluorescent tube buzzed overhead, smelling of hot dust and old grease. The pot sat on the counter between them, still rocking faintly on its base; neither of them moved to steady it.

“Just drop it,” she pleaded quietly. “Say you will.”

“Fine,” he managed.

The silence hung thick in the kitchen. He understood the brutal math now; his voice would not save her. Speaking out would only cost her everything. Whatever he said, Victor would hear it eventually, and eventually was a death sentence in this house.

“Anna.”

Victor’s voice drifted through the doorway, smooth and unhurried. It carried the casual weight of a man who never had to shout to make people jump.

“Coming,” she called back immediately, her tone instantly smooth and obedient.

She dried her hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle, smoothed the front of her shirt, and walked past Jason without looking at him. Her shoulder brushed inches from his arm, but he kept his hands pinned at his sides. She stepped through the door, her quiet footsteps fading down the hallway without a second of hesitation.

The door swung back and settled into the frame.

Jason stood alone under the buzzing light. The heavy pot rested on the stove. The dish towel hung crooked from the oven handle, and the brass key in his jeans pocket pressed against his thigh like dead weight. He knew what those bruises were, and he knew who put them there.

He pressed the back of his knuckles against the laminate counter until the sharp edge bit into his skin, and he held his breath, and he did not move.