Biker’s Temptation

The Voice On The Line

I stared at the phone like it was a live grenade.

"You want me to call the person hunting me," I said.

Ryker set his mug down. "Kane wants to know what they're offering before he decides how to respond."

"And what I want doesn't factor in."

Something shifted in his expression. Not softness exactly. More like acknowledgment. "You can say no. Kane will handle it a different way."

I picked up the phone.

Not because I trusted Kane. Not because I trusted any of the four men who had pulled me into their orbit without asking permission. I picked it up because eighteen months of watching Donovan operate had taught me one thing. Information was the only real currency. The more you had, the longer you stayed alive.

I pressed call.

It rang twice.

"Miss Sutton." The voice was a woman's. Smooth, measured, with the particular kind of calm that came from never having been told no. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't call."

My grip tightened on the phone. I had expected Donovan. Maybe his father, Senator Marcus Hale, whose name appeared in four of the documents on my USB drive next to wire transfers, which would end his career and possibly his freedom.

Not this voice.

"Mrs. Hale," I said.

Eleanor Hale. Donovan's mother. The quietest and most dangerous person in that entire family, who smiled at charity galas and destroyed careers before the dessert course.

"You've made things very complicated," she said pleasantly.

"Your son framed me for the fraud he committed."

"My son made a mistake." A pause, precise and deliberate. "I'm calling to correct it."

I said nothing. Beside me, Ryker had gone very still, watching my face like he could read the whole conversation off my expression.

"I want what you took from Donovan's office," Eleanor said. "The drive. Whatever is on it. You give that to me and I make the warrant disappear. The bounty is pulled. You walk away with two hundred thousand dollars and a life, Miss Sutton."

My heart was slamming so hard I was sure she could hear it through the phone.

She knew about the drive.

I had told nobody. I had breathed nothing to anyone across six months of quietly building my exit. But Eleanor Hale knew about the drive, which meant either Donovan had found the hidden pocket in my duffel at some point before I ran, or someone inside my life had been reporting back to this family the entire time.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"You have twenty-four hours." The pleasantness didn't waver. "After that, I stopped being generous and started being efficient. You understand what that means."

She hung up.

I set the phone down on the counter and breathed through my nose for five full seconds.

"Well," I said.

Ryker took the phone, looked at the call log, and walked out of the kitchen without a word. I heard a door open down the hall and then Kane's voice, low and immediate.

I followed.

Kane was already dressed, sitting at a table in what looked like a meeting room with Asher standing by the window and Jasper perched on the edge of the table eating toast like this was a perfectly normal morning. Ryker handed Kane the phone and Kane set it flat on the table between us.

"Eleanor Hale," Kane said, not a question.

"You already knew," I said slowly. "You knew it would be her calling."

His pale eyes gave me nothing.

"You set this up," I said. "You didn't arrange this call to help me get information. You arranged it so she'd confirm what you already suspected."

Jasper stopped chewing.

Asher turned from the window.

Kane leaned back in his chair and looked at me with something that might have been respect if it wasn't wrapped so completely in calculation.

"Asher ran your name last night," Kane said. "Not just the warrant. The whole picture. Donovan Hale's family connections go back twelve years and three dead investigations." He tilted his head. "Senator Marcus Hale shut down a federal probe into illegal arms distribution in 2019. The distribution network ran through three states." He paused. "One of those states was this one."

The room felt like it had shrunk.

"The Iron Saints were investigated as part of that probe," Asher said quietly from the window. "We were cleared. But we lost two men during the process under circumstances that were never fully explained."

I looked between them. "You're not protecting me."

"We're protecting ourselves," Kane said. "And you happen to need protection. For now those two things are the same."

It was the most honest thing anyone had said to me in a year.

"There's a drive," I said.

Every man in the room was still.

"I have eighteen months of documentation." I held Kane's gaze. "Including Senator Hale's transfers."

Jasper put his toast down.

"Where is it," Kane said.

Before I could answer, Ryker appeared in the doorway. His face was the same controlled blank it always was. But something at the back of his eyes made my stomach drop.

"We have a problem," he said. "Corbin came back. He didn't come alone this time."

"How many," Kane said, already standing.

"Twelve bikes." Ryker looked at me once, fast and unreadable. "And a black SUV with government plates."