Then he sighed heavily. “Yeah, she did.”
The words hung in the air like smoke. Respect. Acknowledgment. Pride, even. Something deeper than any of us had expected to feel in this moment. His sister had killed a man to save a brother she barely knew. A brother who was still more stranger than family. Had taken a brutal beating, absorbed punches that would have knocked most men unconscious, and still pulled the trigger when it mattered most. Had chosen violence over survival, action over escape, vengeance over fear.
That was warrior shit. That was the kind of raw, primal courage not found in most men, let alone a woman who had been broken, brutalized, and traumatized by the very man she was forced to kill. Alexandra Jones had looked her demon in the face and put him down.
Morpheus stood beside Arizona’s body. His expression was unreadable. A mask of stone that revealed nothing of what hethought or felt. The warehouse was silent except for the distant drip of water and the labored breathing of the Brotherhood. “She did what needed to be done,” Morpheus stated firmly, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority.
“She won’t get far,” Cerberus said to no one in particular. “We can track her. Bring her back.”
“No.” Morpheus turned, his voice flat and final. The same tone he used when a decision had been made and there would be no further discussion. “She made her choice. She saved one of ours and walked away. That’s her right. We don’t hunt our own, especially when they’ve spilled blood to protect the club.”
Poseidon stared at Morpheus, his jaw tight with barely contained fury and grief. His eyes were red-rimmed. Whether from smoke or tears, no one could tell. “She’s my sister,” he said, the words coming out rough and broken.
“And she’s Nano’s old lady,” Morpheus replied, meeting Poseidon’s gaze without flinching. “Either way, she’s earned her freedom. For now.” He paused, letting the last two words hang in the air like a promise or a threat. “But if she chooses to come back into our world, if she gets into trouble again, then the Brotherhood will deal with her. She’s a Bastard now, even if she isn’t ready to admit it.”
Poseidon shook his head slowly, a knowing look crossing his weathered face. “Then you don’t know my sister at all. You clearly haven’t been paying attention.” He let out a long, weary sigh. “She’s always in trouble. Has been since the day she was born. Trouble follows her like a shadow, or maybe she follows it. I’ve never been able to tell which.”
Morpheus growled low in his throat, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Like I said,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a threatening rumble. “She’s Bastard now, and no longer your concern.”
“Morpheus,” Carver interrupted, pressing a wad of gauze against my stomach, and I hissed through my teeth. The pain was sharp, immediate, cutting through the fog of blood loss and adrenaline like a hot blade through butter. Every nerve ending in my abdomen screamed in protest as he applied pressure to the wound. “He needs a hospital. Come on, Eros, stay with me. We’re getting you out of here. Just keep breathing. In and out. Focus on that.”
I nodded, my vision blurring at the edges, darkness creeping in from the periphery like an incoming tide. The ceiling above me seemed to pulse and waver, the fluorescent lights creating halos that expanded and contracted with each labored breath I took. My hand still gripped the knife Alex had used to cut me loose, my knuckles white, fingers locked around the handle like it was the only thing tethering me to consciousness. She saved my life. Taken a beating and refused to give in. She killed a man without flinching and walked away without asking for anything in return, without expecting praise or payment or promises. That was the kind of woman men like me would kill for.
The kind of woman we would die protecting, and as the brothers lifted me from the cold concrete floor and carried me toward the exit, their hands steady beneath my shoulders and knees, I made a silent vow. If Alex ever needed help. If she ever called, ever reached out, ever found herself cornered and desperate with nowhere else to turn. I would answer.
No questions asked. No hesitation. No second-guessing.
Because she had done the same for me, and in this world, in this life we had chosen, that kind of loyalty was worth more than blood.
It was worth everything.
Chapter Forty-One
Nano
Six weeks.
It had been six weeks since Alex killed Arizona and saved Eros’ life at Storage Unit 47. Six weeks since she rode off on Eros’ Harley and disappeared into the South Dakota night like smoke dissolving into darkness. Six weeks since I allowed myself to think about her for more than thirty consecutive seconds.
I sat in my room, three monitors glowing in the dim light, spreadsheets and encrypted files covering every inch of screen real estate. The ledger. Arizona’s ledger. The thing Alex had stolen from the Prancing Pussycat and carried in her backpack as if it were just another piece of luggage, instead of a roadmap to a war none of us fully understood yet.
Morpheus, Reaper, and King had agreed to split it three ways after it was discovered there was too much encrypted information that needed deciphering. One third went to the Brotherhood. One third to the Golden Skulls. One third to the Silver Shadows. But the more I dug into my section. Transaction records, shell corporations, offshore accounts, encrypted communications. The more something feltwrong. Off. Like I was trying to solve a puzzle where half the pieces belonged to a completely different picture.
I rubbed my eyes. The blue light from my monitors made my head throb. I hadn’t slept more than a few hours in the pastseveral days. I hadn’t eaten much either. Just coffee, cigarettes, and the occasional protein bar Carver shoved at me when he passed my door and heard the keyboard clicking at three in the morning.
She killed him.The thought slipped through my defenses before I could stop it.She took a beating, grabbed a gun, and put a full clip into Arizona without hesitation.
Pride swelled in my chest. Sharp, fierce, undeniable. She had done what needed to be done and saved Eros. Proved she was more than just a thief, or a victim, or the broken thing I turned her into in that basement.
Stop.
I clenched my jaw and forced my attention back to the screens. Thinking about Alex meant thinking about what I had done to her. What I said, and didn’t say. The way I turned my back and refused to look at her after she confessed everything Morpheus demanded. The way I destroyed the one person who ever made me feel like I was more than just a monster wearing a leather cut.
Focus. You have a job to do.
I pulled up another spreadsheet. Financial transactions linked to Arizona’s alias accounts. Money moving through the Cayman Islands, then Switzerland, then Singapore. Layers upon layers of obfuscation, each transfer designed to hide the origin and destination. But I was good at this. Better than good. I traced the patterns and followed the digital breadcrumbs, and the more I followed, the more convinced I became that something was fundamentally wrong as a picture slowly formed.
This wasn’tSocietymoney. The transactions didn’t match the patterns Sypher and Nav had identified in their sections of the ledger. The timing was off. The amounts were different. The shell corporations weren’t connected to knownSocietyfronts.
