Page 22 of Grim’s Angel

“The station camera was redirected before the bus arrived,” Lock adds. “Someone accessed the municipal system and turned it toward the road for eleven minutes. The broker is Cyrus Rivers. He has no visible connection to the buyer, and the client request came through three shell companies. I’m tracing all of them.”

“The payment?” Grim asks.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand total,” Lock says. “Half cleared this morning. The balance was due when you reached Vegas.”

The figure empties the air from my lungs.

It is more than my parents’ house is worth.

Someone offered a quarter of a million dollars to make certain I reached the man who bought me.

“Return the cleared payment,” Grim says. “Reject the balance.”

Lock looks up. “All of it goes back?”

“Every cent.”

“The shelter’s winter budget and the clubhouse repairs were tied to that contract,” Striker says quietly.

“Then we find the money somewhere else.”

Silence settles over the table.

“Agreed,” Razor says.

Torch nods next. Hound follows, then Lock and Striker.

Every man in the room agrees to lose money that could protect vulnerable women because keeping it would make them part of what happened to me. No one asks what I can offer them in return.

I stare at Grim. “You’re giving up that much because I changed my mind?”

“We’re returning it because the job was a lie.”

“But I signed the contract.”

“You withdrew your agreement at the station. That ended the job.”

“The shelter needs the money.”

“Then we fund the shelter another way.”

“You would let the club take that loss for me?”

Something closes in his face. “We are refusing money that should never have been offered. You are not the loss, McKenna. The loss belongs to the bastard who believed this club could be bought.”

Before I can answer, my phone rings.

Alan’s name fills the screen.

Every man at the table sees it.

Grim rises. “Give her the room.”

The Sinners leave without question. Grim follows last, but I catch his wrist.

“Stay.”

His eyes drop to my fingers. “You sure?”