Page 139 of Reckless

He follows my gaze. “I was in a hurry.”

A watery laugh escapes me. “I noticed.”

His hand finds the small of my back and never leaves. Together we make our way downstairs, Ghost moving first through every doorway, every hallway, his eyes sweeping each room before motioning me forward. The apartment looks as though someone has thrown a tantrum. Drawers are pulled open, glass glitters across the kitchen floor, and one dining chair lies on its side.

Ghost studies it all in silence. Only when he’s satisfied the apartment is empty does he pull out one of the surviving kitchen chairs and sits opposite me.

For a long moment, neither of us says a word. Then he looks me dead in the eye. “Pack a bag.”

“Ghost—”

“You are not staying here alone.” His voice leaves absolutely no room for negotiation. “You and Piper are coming back to the clubhouse. I’m gonna go check on Liam.”

I look at him for a long moment, taking in the set of his jaw, the way his hands rest flat and still on the table as if he is forcing them not to reach for me yet. Then I get up and pack a bag, because there isn’t an argument left in me that makes any sense.

Ghost finds Liam unconscious in the bushes behind my apartment block. He took a nasty knock to the head, so Ghost called Anchor to come get him and take him back to the club for Dr. Chen to check him over. I have a feeling he’s going to be dealing with one hell of a concussion.

Poor guy.

Piper doesn’t ask questions when I text her.

She replies that she’ll meet us there.

Nobody makes it weird.

Back at the clubhouse, sleep finds me far sooner than I expect. Piper is safely two doors down, the familiar sounds of the clubhouse drifting through the walls, and Ghost sits at the desk across the room, the soft glow of his laptop painting pale light across his face while his fingers move steadily over the keyboard. I watch him for a while, letting the quiet rhythm of his work settle the last of the panic still rattling around inside me.

He’ll come to bed when he’s ready.

Right now, I don’t need him beside me to know I’m safe.

I only need to know he’s here.

Somewhere beyond the edge of sleep, the muted tapping of the keyboard becomes the last thing I hear before darkness finally claims me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

GHOST

The Next Day

Sin calls the meeting for four o’clock, and he doesn’t call the whole table for it. Just Nitro, Koa, Bear, Deek, and Anchor. Tight enough that nothing leaves this room unless Sin decides it should.

I set up the screen at the head of the Chapel and take my time with the opening, because the order matters. I start with the road first.

“Ten days,” I say. “That’s how long it took to run the two men from the SUV all the way back. Facial recognition first, then the burner phones, then the cloned plates. All three point to the same private security firm. Shell-registered outfit out of Montana.” I point to the registration history. “No tax issues. No lawsuits. No compliance notices. No employee complaints.”

Koa frowns. “That’s a bad thing?”

“By itself? No.” I zoom out, bringing the rest of the corporate structure into view. “Put it all together…” I tap the screen once. “Somebody’s been paying to make sure there’s nothing to find.”

Nitro’s jaw works. “And that traces to Calloway?”

“Three layers deep in his financial map. Same nominee director structure we’ve already flagged twice this month. Same accounting firm. Same pattern, every single time.”

I bring up the next screen and let the satellite imagery fill the television. A stretch of dense timber, an airstrip cut into the middle of nowhere, a cattle ranch, a warehouse with no signage and no reason to exist that anyone could explain to a county zoning office.

“There’s more,” I say, and nobody in the room finds any comfort in that sentence. “The shell company owns four properties total. Every one of them sits on isolated land in Montana. Every one of them feeds back to Calloway the same way this one does.”