Twelve Bikes And A Lie
967 Words
Kane moved like the room had been waiting for him to take charge of it.
"Jasper. North gate camera feed on the screen now." He was already pulling on his jacket. "Ryker, get the men positioned. Nobody fires unless I say so."
Ryker was gone before the sentence finished.
Jasper vaulted over the table to a laptop in the corner and within seconds a split screen of security feeds filled the monitor on the wall. Twelve bikes sat outside the compound gate in a loose spread, engines off, riders not moving. Waiting. The black SUV was parked behind them, engine still running, windows tinted dark enough that I couldn't make out how many people were inside.
"They're not attacking," Asher said, studying the screen. "They're presenting."
"Difference?" I asked.
"Attack means they think they can win." He didn't look away from the monitor. "Presenting means they want us to open the gate ourselves."
Kane stood behind Jasper, eyes on the feed, jaw set. "Who's driving the SUV."
"Plates are federal," Jasper said, fingers moving across the keyboard. "Running them now. Give me two minutes."
I was still standing in the doorway of the meeting room holding the knowledge about the drive like a stone in my chest. I had been about to hand it over. Had been one sentence away from placing eighteen months of my life into the hands of men who had just told me they were using me for their own ends.
And yet.
Eleanor Hale had government plates outside the gate. Which meant she hadn't just bought a senator. She had moved people inside actual federal structures like chess pieces.
The drive was the only thing keeping me breathing.
"The drive is on my person," I said.
Kane turned from the screen.
"Whatever happens with those people outside that gate," I said, "you need to understand that the drive stays with me until I decide otherwise. Not because I don't trust you." I paused. "Actually because I don't trust you. But also because the second it leaves my hands I stop being valuable and start being a loose end."
The room was quiet.
Then Jasper looked over his shoulder at Kane with something that might have been amusement. "I like her."
Kane crossed the room in four steps and stopped in front of me close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze. His pale eyes moved across my face with that cataloging intensity that I was starting to understand was just how he processed the world. Reading everything. Filing it.
"Smart," he said quietly. "Keep it that way."
He stepped past me into the hall.
I exhaled.
"Plates came back," Jasper called. "Vehicle is registered to a shell company. But the shell company has a parent." He spun the laptop to face the room. "Ever heard of Meridian Consulting Group?"
Asher went very still by the window.
"Asher," I said carefully. "That name means something to you."
He turned. And this time he didn't lock it down fast enough. The tightening around his eyes lasted a full second before he controlled it.
"Meridian ran logistics for the arms distribution network," he said. "The one connected to Senator Hale. The one that got two of our men killed." His voice stayed flat but something underneath it had gone sharp as wire. "I spent eight months after those deaths trying to trace who was coordinating between the political side and the distribution side." He looked at me. "I never found the bridge company."
"Until now," I said.
"Until now."
Jasper let out a low whistle. "So Eleanor Hale isn't just covering for her son's fraud case. She's protecting a twelve year old criminal infrastructure with federal bodies inside it."
"And I have the documentation," I said.
The gate intercom crackled. Kane's voice came through the compound speakers, calm as still water.
"I'm going to need everyone in the main hall. Now."
We moved.
The main hall was a large open space that functioned as both gathering room and operations center. Thirty Iron Saints were already positioned around it, and the energy in the room was the particular-coiled quiet of men who had done this before and knew exactly how close the edge was.
Kane stood at the front. He looked at me once across the crowd and then addressed the room.
"Meridian Consulting Group has twelve bikes and a federal vehicle outside our gate. They are not here for a conversation." He paused. "They came to take something that is currently inside this compound."
Thirty pairs of eyes moved to me.
I stood my ground.
"They will not get it," Kane said. Simple. Final. "Iron Saints does not hand over guests. Not to rivals. Not to federal shells. Not to anyone."
The room shifted. Not in surprise. In solidarity. These men had a code and whatever else they were, they ran on it.
I felt something loosen slightly in my chest that I couldn't fully name.
Then the intercom crackled again. But it wasn't Kane this time.
It was a voice I recognized so completely that my vision went white at the edges.
Donovan.
"Wren." Smooth, familiar, the voice that had once told me it loved me against my hair on Sunday mornings. "I know you're in there. I know about the drive. Come outside and we end this quietly."
My hands had stopped shaking. Something colder had replaced the shaking.
"He's in the SUV," Ryker said from beside me.
I turned to Kane.
"Open the gate," I said.
The entire room looked at me.
"Open it," I repeated. "I want to see his face when he realizes what he walked into."
Kane studied me for one long moment.
Then he nodded at the man by the gate controls.
- Writer
