Whitney doesn’t deny it.
Her expression falters, just slightly. “I think he wanted to hurt you,” she says carefully. “Maybe to get to Bennett. Maybe to finish what he started. Maybe both.”
Maverick shifts beside us, his presence suddenly heavier, more deliberate. “I didn’t tell you the details of Phillip’s dealings because I was trying to keep you out of it,” he says. “The less you knew, the safer you were.”
“Safer,” I repeat, the word hollow.
“There’s more,” he adds, his voice tightening.
A new kind of dread settles in.
“What?” I ask.
He hesitates, glancing at Whitney before looking back at me. “Chrissy is about to be arrested for Phillip’s murder.”
The words hit harder than anything else has.
“What?” My voice breaks on it. “How do you know that?”
“The club has people inside the investigation,” he says. “They’ve known where this was going from the start.”
“Chrissy?” Whitney’s voice is softer, disbelieving. “Why her?”
“Because she fits,” Maverick replies. “Young. Close to him.Easy to paint as emotional, unstable. It’s a story that makes sense to the people who need it to.”
“She didn’t do it,” I say, the words almost pleading now. “She didn’t kill him.”
Maverick exhales slowly. “It doesn’t matter what’s true. It matters what can be proven. And right now, she’s the cleanest answer they have.”
The room sways again, and I have to steady myself against the edge of a chair before sinking into it. Everything feels too big, too tangled, too far beyond anything I can fix.
“What do we do?” I ask, though the question already feels pointless.
Maverick leans back against the wall, arms crossing loosely over his chest. “We don’t do anything,” he says. “If we step in, we don’t just risk ourselves—we risk everything tied to this. The club won’t tolerate interference.”
My gaze drops, my hands curling in my lap.
“But Chrissy…” I whisper.
His expression softens, but only slightly. “Sometimes,” he says quietly, “one person takes the fall so everything else doesn’t collapse.”
The finality of it settles over me like a weight I can’t lift.
I turn to Whitney, searching her face for something—an answer, a refusal, anything that suggests we’re not just going to let this happen.
“What comes next?” I ask.
She takes my hand again, her grip steady despite the tremor beneath it. “We survive,” she says. “That’s what we’ve always done.”
Survive.
The word feels different now.
Heavier.
“I don’t know how to live with this,” I admit, the truth spilling out before I can soften it. “You’re alive. Phillip is dead. And Chrissy is going to pay for something she didn’t do. What am I supposed to do with that? What am I supposed to tell Bennett?”
Whitney and Maverick exchange a look, something quiet and loaded passing between them.
