“Three weeks,” Deek murmurs beside me, just low enough that it stays between us.
He’s not talking about the Alliance. He is talking about the woman who has averybad history with them, and what it means when I get my patch.
I exhale through my nose. “I know.”
“Just saying.”
“I fucking heard you.”
He doesn’t say anything else. Across the table, Sin is already moving into contingencies. Ghost on surveillance traffic, Koa on gate rotation, Nitro working through the list of who gets told what and when. The machinery of the club absorbs the new information and redistributes its weight across its moving parts with the ease of something designed precisely for this.
I stand at the back of the room, and I do the one thing a prospect does when he has been allowed through the door.
I watch.
I learn the shape of it.
And I think about how to keep her safe from something that doesn’t yet have a face.
Nitro’s jaw shifts. Dad’s fingers stop their idle movement against the table. Even Deek, who comes back from the coffee machine halfway through his own rambling story, shuts up.
Sin lets the silence sit for exactly long enough to be useful. “Options,” he asks.
“We watch the mine tighter,” Nitro says. “Increase the check-ins. Make sure someone’s running eyes over the perimeter regularly until we know what they’re building toward.”
Sin looks at him, then his eyes shift to me, already knowing where my head is at. “I’ll take the mine runs,” I say. “I’ll fold it into the regular route. Twice a day until we have a clearer picture.” I look at Sin when I say it, not at anyone else, keeping my voice even and my reasoning clean. “The mine is on my usual circuit. It makes sense.”
Sin holds my gaze for a moment. I know he hears what I haven’t said. I know he understands before he asks. Understands what I noticed last night when I crossed onto that mine property and found Millie crouched behind her father’s desk, holding herself together so tightly it looked painful.
He doesn’t say any of it.
He doesn’t need to because he already knows.
“All right,” Sin replies.
Just that.
He doesn’t dress it up or stop me from doing what Ineedto do.
“Report anything unusual directly to Ghost. Donotengage.”
“Understood.”
Dad lifts his coffee mug, takes a slow drink, and says nothing. His eyes find mine over the rim of the mug, and I feel the weight of them the same way I have my whole life, solid, even, and entirely unreadable unless you know how to look.
I know how to look.
He approves. He doesn’t say so. He never says so.
ButI know.
“Ghost, keep digging on the shell company,” Sin continues. “I want to know if there are other registered vehicles. I want to know if this is surveillance or something further along the planning chain. Koa, increase the gate rotation until further notice. Nobody on the mine property after hours without a club escort.”
Koa nods.
“Jonas need to know?” Nitro asks.
Sin’s expression doesn’t shift. “I’ll call him this morning. After Ghost has more.”
