NO SAFE ROAD

The Body

Chapter Fourteen

The front door opening should not have sounded like a threat.

But it did.

Every man in the room turned at once. Mara felt the shift before she saw anything, the kind of collective reaction that meant everyone present understood one simple fact: whatever came through that door had not been invited.

Cole moved first.

He stepped back from Derek just enough to see the entrance clearly, shoulders squared, eyes cold, body already arranged for violence if necessary. Mara’s stomach tightened at the sight of him. Not because she was afraid of him. Because he looked like a man about to protect a territory that included her whether she liked it or not.

The door swung inward.

Four men entered.

Not club men. Not local deputies.

Suits.

Dark, expensive, neatly pressed. The kind of men who looked out of place in a motorcycle clubhouse until the second they started talking and revealed that they were used to being obeyed.

The first one in was tall, silver at the temples, with a narrow face and the calm, polished expression of someone who had never once been told no in a room he controlled.

His gaze moved across the clubhouse and stopped on Mara.

Then on Cole.

Then on Derek.

Then on the investigator.

Something unreadable crossed his face.

“Well,” he said at last, voice smooth as glass. “This is inconvenient.”

Mara felt her skin go cold.

The investigator’s jaw tightened. “You weren’t supposed to come in person.”

The man’s eyes flicked to him. “And yet, here we are.”

Cole’s voice came low. “Who the hell are you?”

The man smiled faintly. “That depends on what version of the story you’re being told.”

Tessa muttered, “Oh, I hate him already.”

Mara almost agreed.

The silver-haired man stepped farther in, and the others fanned out behind him with practiced ease. Not club formation. Not law enforcement either. Something in between, which was somehow worse.

He looked at Mara again. “Ms. Vale.”

She did not answer.

He gave a slight nod, as if her silence were expected. “My name is Grant Hollis.”

The name meant nothing to her.

But it meant something to Derek.

She saw it immediately. The tiny change in his posture. The way his smugness curdled into caution.

Cole saw it too.

“Should I know that name?” Cole asked.

Grant Hollis folded his hands loosely behind his back. “Possibly. If you’ve been paying attention to who benefits from certain transactions moving quietly through West Texas.”

The room went still.

Mara felt the shape of the trap before she understood it.

Hollis continued, “You have a young woman here who removed material she should never have seen. A local complaint has turned into a jurisdictional problem. And now everyone in this room is pretending the simplest explanation is the least likely.”

Cole’s expression did not change. “The simplest explanation is usually a lie.”

Hollis’s smile deepened by a fraction. “On that, we agree.”

The investigator looked suddenly very uncomfortable.

Mara noticed.

Good. She wanted someone in this room to feel uncomfortable besides her.

Hollis turned his attention to the investigator. “You handled this poorly.”

The investigator’s face tightened. “I handled it exactly as instructed.”

“No,” Hollis said softly. “You handled it as if you were still useful.”

That landed hard.

Mara’s eyes narrowed.

Cole noticed the exchange too. “You’re in charge.”

Hollis considered him. “I’m in the room.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is if you’re smart.”

Cole took a step forward. “Try again.”

Hollis looked at him for a long moment, then said, “I represent interests that are about to become very relevant to your town, your clubhouse, and the woman standing between you and a mistake.”

Mara’s spine went rigid. “I’m not standing between anyone and anything.”

Hollis’s attention returned to her. “No?”

She lifted her chin. “No.”

A small pause.

Then he smiled, and Mara hated him instantly.

“You’re carrying information whether you intended to or not,” he said. “That makes you part of the current problem.”

Cole’s voice sharpened. “You don’t get to label her that way.”

Hollis’s brows rose. “And you don’t get to decide she’s irrelevant.”

Derek laughed under his breath.

Cole turned his head just enough to warn him without speaking.

Derek shut up.

Mara watched the exchange with growing dread. These men knew each other somehow. Not like friends. Not like enemies. More like participants in a system large enough to tolerate both.

That was the worst kind.

Hollis stepped a little farther into the room, stopping well short of Mara but close enough to claim the space. “Ms. Vale. Where is the drive?”

Mara’s face went blank.

There it was again. The same question, now wearing a more expensive suit.

“I already told them,” she said.

Hollis nodded. “And I am asking again.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Did you destroy it?”

“Yes.”

Hollis’s gaze stayed on her. “Entirely?”

Mara’s pulse stuttered.

Cole’s head turned toward her almost imperceptibly.

Derek’s expression sharpened.

Mara realized in one awful instant that the answer mattered too much.

She didn’t answer.

Hollis watched her silence and said, “Interesting.”

Cole’s voice turned dangerous. “Stop circling her.”

Hollis glanced at him. “You think this is about her.”

“It is if you keep talking to her like she’s property.”

The room went silent again.

Hollis stared at Cole for a long moment, then nodded once toward the investigator. “He did not tell you enough.”

The investigator stiffened. “That was not my assignment.”

“No,” Hollis said. “Your assignment was to locate the missing material before it reached people who might be tempted to use it.”

Mara frowned. “Use it for what?”

Hollis looked at her with detached patience. “Blackmail. Exposure. Sale. Leverage. The usual entertaining human behaviors.”

Cole’s expression hardened. “And what was on the drive?”

Hollis’s smile returned, thinner this time. “That depends on who you ask.”

Derek shifted, clearly annoyed at being ignored. “He’s not telling you because he doesn’t have to.”

Cole turned on him. “Then maybe you should.”

Derek smiled. “Maybe I will.”

Mara felt a sick dread climb her throat. “Derek.”

He looked at her, and for the first time since he’d entered the clubhouse, the satisfaction in his face had faded enough to show anger underneath.

“I’m not your problem anymore,” he said.

That was when Mara understood.

Not everything.

But enough.

He had not come here merely to drag her back.

He had come because someone bigger had told him to.

Cole saw it too. She saw the change move through him, subtle and lethal.

The room’s attention had shifted without anyone naming it. The sheriff, the investigator, Derek, Hollis, Cole—each man watching the others, all of them waiting for someone to make the first mistake.

Mara hated that her body had gone very still.

Hollis said, “The matter of Ms. Vale can be resolved quickly if everyone remains rational.”

Tessa laughed once, sharp and humorless. “That ship has sailed.”

Hollis ignored her. “Mr. Mercer, your cooperation would be advisable.”

Cole gave him a look that could have cracked glass. “You keep saying things like that in my clubhouse, and I’m going to assume you want a fight.”

Hollis met his stare without blinking. “I want the drive.”

Mara looked at Cole.

He looked back at her.

Something passed between them then, too fast for words and too sharp for comfort. He knew she was remembering the drive too. She saw it in his face. He knew she had not told him everything.

That realization made her feel both exposed and oddly less alone.

Then the investigator spoke again, voice tight. “There’s been a development.”

Hollis did not look at him. “You’re late.”

The investigator swallowed. “A body was found near the county line.”

The room changed so suddenly Mara felt it in her lungs.

Derek went perfectly still.

Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Whose body?”

The investigator finally looked at Mara.

And when he answered, it was to her, not to Cole.

“Someone who knew your name.”