Contracted Wife to the MC President

Chapter 11

Harper POV

Elias Vance's eyes bounced between me and the armed man at my shoulder.

He swallowed hard, throat working against his collar. His gaze dropped to my clothes, the mud-stained trousers, the oversized shirt, the leather cut hanging off my shoulders.

"Harper." His hands gripped the counter. "Your father held a memorial yesterday. Police found blood in the apartment. You're supposed to be dead."

"Cancel the flowers, Elias." No warmth in it. "I need the shadow ledger."

He blinked, and the shock slowly gave way to something more familiar, the polished arrogance he'd used to survive in my father's circle his whole life. Spine straight, cuffs tugged into place.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Smooth. Practiced. "I run a legitimate exchange." His eyes cut to Reaper, lip curling. "I have armed security in the back. Take your biker friend and leave before I hit the panic button."

Reaper didn't blink.

He moved fast, faster than I expected, and my pulse spiked. He drew the Glock but didn't aim it. Instead he brought the butt of it down into the display case between them.

The crash was deafening. Glass caved in entirely, diamonds and velvet trays raining onto the cream carpet. Vance shrieked, hands flying up.

Reaper wasn't done. He reached across the wreckage, grabbed Vance by the tie, and hauled him forward into the jagged frame.

I saw his jaw lock, one muscle ticking in his cheek, the only sign that the movement had just torn at whatever was healing under those bandages. He didn't stop for it. He lifted Vance onto his toes and pressed the barrel under his chin.

"Press it," he said, calm in a way that was somehow worse than shouting. "Let's see how fast your rent-a-cops bleed."

Vance clawed uselessly at his forearm.

I should've been afraid of the violence rolling off him. Instead something warm settled low in my chest. He was a monster, sure. But he was tearing this untouchable little world apart because I asked him to.

I walked forward, boots crunching over broken glass and scattered stones, close enough to feel the heat coming off him.

"Reaper. Drop him."

He didn't look at me, but his grip loosened instantly. Vance hit the back wall, gasping, hair falling into his eyes.

I stepped up to the ruined case.

"Elias, listen carefully." My voice slipped into the register I'd learned at my father's dinner table. "Three days ago Thorne wired a payment through your accounts to a private military contractor. I want the routing numbers. I want the drive."

"Harper, be reasonable." He clutched his throat. "Thorne finds out I handed that over, he'll gut me."

"Look at the man next to me." Flat. Merciless. "Does he look like he cares about Marcus Thorne? Ten seconds, or my husband puts a bullet through both your knees and we take the drive off your body."

He looked at Reaper's eyes and saw exactly what was in them.

He broke. Scrambled to the wall panel, slid it aside, pressed his thumb to a scanner. The safe clicked open. He pulled out a USB drive and held it out like it might detonate.

I took it, fingers closing around the cold metal.

"It's all there." He wiped sweat from his forehead. "Every wire, every account. But you're wrong about your father."

I stopped. "What?"

"Richard didn't order the hit. He doesn't even know you're alive. Thorne ordered the mercenaries. He's making a play for the whole syndicate. Told your father the bikers killed you, wanted a war between you so both sides would burn."

My stomach dropped. My father was a lot of terrible things, but he hadn't tried to have me killed. Thorne had. Thorne wanted the empire for himself.

Reaper stepped forward, a diamond cracking under his boot. "How did Thorne get my blueprints? How did he know the exact minute my guards changed shifts?"

Vance flinched back. "He bought them. Two million in untraceable stones. Your VP sold them. Knox."

The room went cold in a way that had nothing to do with the broken glass.

Reaper didn't yell. Didn't curse. Whatever heat had been coming off him disappeared, replaced by something worse, something empty. Knox wasn't just a soldier. Fifteen years of blood between them.

I looked at his face. Nothing behind his eyes now. A man who'd just decided to burn everything down.

He held his hand out. I put the drive in his palm, and he pocketed it without a word.

His burner buzzed before either of us could say anything else.

He answered on speaker. "Talk."

"Boss, we got a problem." Gage, tight with panic. "Sirens, heavy response, coming straight for your block. Not local PD. Looks federal or private military. They're boxing in the whole street."

Reaper didn't flinch. His eyes found mine, and the tactician in him took over completely.

"We're out." He hung up and grabbed my hand, his grip closing around mine hard enough to bruise.

We turned our backs on Elias Vance and ran for the door.