Page 45 of Reckless

Whatever she’s thinking, she leaves it where it is.

A small nod is all she gives me before she turns and steps through the front door. Sin waits until she’s outside before pulling it closed behind her, and the clubhouse slowly settles back into itself. Conversations start again, and somebody laughs. Koa heads for the kitchen, probably to see if anyone’s finally hungry enough to eat his soup.

I lower myself onto the sofa and wrap both hands around my coffee, letting the warmth seep into my fingers while my mind circles back to Maria.

To the way she looked at me.

There’d been something in her eyes that hadn’t belonged with the rest of the visit. It wasn’t suspicion or concern, but it felt… unfinished. Like she’d arrived at the end of a sentence and decided the last few words could wait for another day.

One thing keeps scratching at the back of my mind—she never mentioned Calloway.

She knew who I am, and she knows the work. She was looking at me with something she decided against saying, and she didn’t mention his name.

I don’t have an answer yet.

Just a feeling I can’t quite shake.

Maria Moretti walked out of here carrying something she chose not to say.

Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s going to stay unsaid for long. And the way she looked at me in that doorway, more than politely interested, tells me that whatever it is, she’s decided it belongs somewhere near me.

I’ll know what it is when she’s ready to give it.

Until then, I stay where I am.

Marcus’ soft little breaths drift through the room. Sin moves back to Victoria’s side, placing his hand on her shoulder supportively.

Around them, the clubhouse slowly finds its rhythm again.

I don’t try to make sense of any of it, and it all settles somewhere low in my chest.

There are worse things than feeling the weight of something that matters.

Chapter Ten

GHOST

The Next Day

The mine report sits in front of me on a single sheet of paper, but it took Millie three weeks to build the numbers behind it from nothing. I know because I watched her do it, hunched over her laptop at the clubhouse counter until two in the morning, more nights than I can count, muttering about depreciation schedules as if they’d personally offended her.

She isn’t allowed in the Chapel. Club rule, older than any of us, and not one Sin is inclined to bend even for the woman who just turned an illegal hole in the ground into something that pays taxes. So I’m the one standing at the head of the table with her slide show pulled up on the screen behind me, and I make sure every man in this room knows exactly whose work they’re looking at.

“Millie built this,” I say before I say anything else. “Every page of it. I’m reading it out, but it’s hers.”

Sin gives a short nod from his seat and lets it sit before he speaks, “Mine numbers.”

That’s my cue.

I pull up the numbers on the screen at the end of the room, the updated figures from Millie’s accounting, cross-referenced with the operational log from the site manager. The room settles. Even Deek, who has the attention span of a kid in a candy store, goes quiet.

“Month on month, production is up nine percent,” I say. “Operating costs are down because the secondary shaft is running clean now. No structural issues since the lining repair.” I advance the slide. “Net income for the last quarter came in at approximately thirty-two thousand above projection.”

Bear lets out a low sound that is essentially his version of a whistle.

Nitro leans back in his squeaky chair, arms crossing over his chest, something satisfied and quiet in his expression. “That’s legitimate income. Taxable, documented, above-board income.”

“Millie’s done her job,” Sin says.