Ride Or Die: The Prez's Claim

Chapter 4: The Deal

I had exactly two seconds to decide.

I shoved the phone under the quilt, pulled the laptop bag across my knees, and arranged my face into something that wouldn't get me killed.

The knock was soft. Two knuckles.

"Marlowe."

Knox.

I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding, and then hated myself for the relief. "It's open."

He didn't come in. He stood in the doorway with one hand on the frame, a mug in the other. Steam curled up from it.

"You didn't eat," he said. "It's chamomile. Rook's wife swears by it."

"I don't need anything from you."

"I know." He set the mug on the dresser without stepping over the threshold, like there was a line on the floor only he could see. "Judge started barking upstairs. He does that when someone's afraid."

"I'm not afraid."

"Then he's a bad judge of character." Something almost gentle crossed his face, and then it was gone. He looked at the bag on my knees, then at my hands, which were gripping it too tight. "Lock the door if it helps. I won't come in."

He left. I heard him go down the stairs, one heavy step at a time, and then the low murmur of a television in the kitchen.

I sat there a long time with a full mug of tea and a phone that felt like it weighed ten pounds.

*Delete the photos. He's watching your phone.*

*He.* Knox? Or someone else? Or was the text itself a trap, some lie written by whoever wanted me scared and alone?

But nobody else had known about my brother's little sword through the Q. Nobody but Eli signed it like that.

I didn't delete the photos. I didn't answer the text either. I turned the phone off, wrapped it in a sweater, and shoved it to the bottom of my bag.

Then I lay awake until the window turned gray.

---

Breakfast was eggs, and Rook made them.

He stood at the stove in a Saints T-shirt with a dish towel over one shoulder, and when I came into the kitchen he turned and gave me the kind of smile that makes you want to tell someone your whole life story.

"There she is. Sit, sit. You take your eggs soft or hard?"

"Soft."

"Good girl." He slid a plate across. "Prez said you'd had a rough night. Said not to push."

"Did he."

"He worries. Doesn't look like it, but he does." He leaned on the counter and dropped his voice. "He doesn't bring people here, you know. Not ever. That's why the guys are so..." He made a vague gesture. "Wound up."

*Trust nobody at the shop. Not even the ones who seem kind.*

I picked up my fork. The eggs were perfect. The man was perfect. I thought, with a small, cold shiver, that I had never met anyone so easy to like.

"Where's Knox?"

"Out back with the dog." Rook nodded at the window. "He does that when he's thinking."

Out back, a long lawn ran down to a line of trees. Knox stood at the edge of it, hands in his pockets, Judge sitting at his boot. He wasn't doing anything. He was just standing there in the pale morning, a man who looked as if he'd been standing that way for years.

I finished my eggs. I thanked Rook. And I went outside.

---

"I found something," I said.

Knox didn't turn around. "Eli's signature."

"That, and more." I stopped beside him, not close. "Somebody's been skimming the club for at least three years. Small invoices, one vendor, every month. It's a shell company. Parts & Supply Co, with a P.O. box for an address. The amounts creep up a little each quarter so nobody notices."

"How much?"

"Between two hundred and three hundred thousand. Maybe more." I made myself look at him. "Whoever signs off on those invoices knows the club's accounts. They know what nobody's checking."

He was quiet a long moment. A breeze moved across the grass.

"I've suspected," he said finally. "For a year. I couldn't prove it. The books were clean on paper, and I don't have the head for what you do. I hired three accountants. Two disappeared. The third told me everything was fine."

"You hired them, and they *disappeared*?"

"One left town. One took a payoff. I don't know which was which." He turned then, and his eyes were the palest thing in the morning. "I don't trust easily, Marlowe. I trust you least of all, because you came here for a reason that isn't the audit."

I didn't flinch.

"No," I said. "I didn't."

"Then say it."

"I came for my brother. And I'm not leaving without him."

There it was. Out in the open, on cold grass, in front of a dog and a man I'd known for less than a day.

Knox looked at me for a long time.

"Here's what I can offer," he said. "You find who's stealing. You give me a name and proof I can put in front of my club. And I'll tell you everything I know about Eli. All of it. No lies, no half-truths."

"Everything?"

"Everything I'm *allowed* to."

"That's not a deal. That's a leash."

"It's the only deal I've got." He held out his hand. It was scarred across the knuckles, steady, waiting. "You want your brother. I want my club. We want the same man, Marlowe. Whoever's got their hands in the books has their hands in Eli."

I stared at his hand.

Every instinct I had told me to walk away. Get in my car. Drive until the tank was empty. Forget the little sword through the Q.

But Eli's text was in my bag, and Eli was alive, and this man had said his name without flinching.

I took his hand.

It was warm. His grip was gentler than I expected, and his thumb rested for half a heartbeat against my pulse.

"Deal," I said.

"Deal." He let go too quickly. "One more thing."

"There's always one more thing."

"The claim." He glanced toward the house, toward the kitchen window where a man was washing dishes. "For anyone watching, it stays real. You're mine. You wear my jacket, you ride with me, you sleep in my house. If the club thinks you're a lie, the Vultures will find out, and then neither of us survives."

"You want me to pretend."

"I want you to be convincing."

I should have said no. I should have told him I wasn't an actress, wasn't his, wasn't anyone's.

But the words that came out were, "How convincing?"

Knox looked at me. Something moved behind his eyes, so fast I almost missed it, something that might have been fear or might have been hope.

"Convincing enough," he said, "that even I believe it."

Behind us, the back door opened. Rook leaned out, still smiling, dish towel over his shoulder.

"Prez! Phone. It's Cade."

Knox's whole body changed. It was like watching a door lock.

"Stay here," he said, and walked toward the house.

I stood alone on the grass with the wind in my hair, watching Rook watch me. He smiled and waved, and I lifted a hand and waved back.

And then I noticed something I should have seen at breakfast.

Rook's phone was on the porch railing beside him, screen glowing. And for one second, before he turned it face down, I saw the name on it.

*E.*