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Nicco couldn’t help but remember how Ash had reacted to the information about Magnus Ralston the night before. He knew Ash’s anger like his own, two broken boys finding solace in metal and chrome all those years ago, but there had been an old hurt there, poisoning the blood below the healed skin.

“Tell me about Ralston.”

Maybe it was cowardly to ask at a distance, when Ash couldn’t break his eye socket or, worse yet, look at him with that clear sense of betrayal that always seemed to sway Nicco’s choices.

“All right there, Judas,” Ash muttered. “The Iversons were old money. Established in Bitterroot from the beginning. But Magnus Ralston Junior was…something else.”

Nicco reached for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, flinching when he found it empty. “What kind of something else?”

“A legend,” Ash answered honestly. “No one could ever seem to get a straight answer from him about his past. We didn’t even know where he came from or how he ended up in Montana. And that just made the rumors even more…exciting.”

Jinx’s voice came over the line. “He must have changed his name somewhere along the way, because Magnus Ralston Junior only came to life two decades ago. You said he died last year?”

Ash made a noise of agreement. “Apparently it was heart failure of some kind. Though I’m not entirely sure about that.”

The weight of his statement hung in the air for a long moment. Finally, Nicco managed a reply. “You think someone killed him?”

“I think,” Ash muttered, his tone bitter and dark, no trace of humor to his words, “that there is no overestimating the depths of depravity to which Magnus Ralston III will go.”

Before Nicco could push the subject, he caught sight of two men slipping through the alleyway behind the office building.

“Gray and Xander just got back,” he said.

The two men moved with grace, especially given their size, each of them large and muscled, standing out in Bitterroot as much for their emanating power and strength as they did for their leather jackets, riding boots, and piercings.

And Nicco was happy as hell to have them on his side.

Since he’d broken away from his first club to form The Princes all those years ago, he’d found that the best heroes were the ones who had done what it took to survive. Gray and Xander had been well on their way to jewel thief notoriety, top of the list for FBI collars, when he’d finally convinced them their talents were better served surveilling and strategizing.

The one thing Nicco could give himself credit for was that he knew how to put a team together, and Gray and Xander’s careful planning and surveillance expertise made them essential additions to the club.

“What do we know?” he asked, as the two men approached.

“Surveillance is top of the line,” Gray replied. “Not surprising, since Iverson is a multi-millionaire with lots of corporate secrets to protect.”

“But…” Xander added.

Gray nodded. “But what is surprising is the guns for hire he had walking the premises.” He glanced over at Xander. “We know these guys, Capt. They’re paramilitary, some washed out of service, most got kicked out for bad behavior, and it’s given them a very rough edge.”

Xander glanced back at the innocuous-looking office complex. “Heavily armed. We’re talking combat firearms.”

“Stolen?” Nicco asked.

Gray nodded. “Or bought underground. It’s way too much firepower to protect a few company secrets.”

Nicco had suspected as much. Even in Colorado they’d heard of Iverson Oil, and from the moment Hanna had explained that Grace Iverson had been kidnapped—rather than killed—he’d known there was a paper trail Bryce Iverson didn’t want anyone following.

“That’s good work,” he said to Gray and Xander. “Was there any indication his wife was inside?”

Gray shook his head. “No sign of her from what we could tell of it. Want us to stick around?”

“Not right now,” he replied. “Come back around closing, see what you can see of who goes in and out, but right now we need to focus on determining what information Grace could have stolen to make her such a target.”

Ash’s voice came over their shared comms. “And who in Hanna’s department shared the details of the safehouse.”

Their primary objective above all else was finding Grace and getting her to safety. But if Sheriff Van Rijn’s department had been compromised, it would mean that whoever needed support the next time around would be in the same danger. Niccolo had formed The Princes Motorcycle Club to help, whatever that looked like. Most of the time, it meant creating documents, moving people in need away from their abusers, or showing up to courthouses en masse. But sometimes, it meant trying to fix broken systems, systems that made it feel like he was playing a carnival game, throwing the hammer down on one bad actor only for another to spring up in its place. If they could help root out corruption, even in a small, local police force, it would have lasting impacts that could help a great number of people.

Including the sheriff, herself.