Page 16 of Fang (Underground Vengeance MC, NOLA Chapter #3)

The walk back to my room feels longer than usual, each step weighted with the knowledge that I’m about to defy Vapor.

I don’t feel good about it, but I also don’t see any other option.

The evidence I showed him should have been enough to convince him that she’s for real, but it wasn’t.

Sucks, but it is what it is. I’m on my own.

Well, I guess I’ve got her too. She’s smart. Her intelligence will come in handy.

As I approach my bedroom door, I straighten my shoulders.

Going against Vapor isn’t something I do lightly, but the look on Mina’s face when she spoke about her brother burns in my mind.

He could be right and this could all be an elaborate trap, but I don’t think it is.

I’m also good at what I do, and I would have found something if she wasn’t legit.

She’s right where I left her, perched on the edge of my bed. She looks up and frowns. “What happened?”

“I talked to Vapor.”

“And?” she asks, voice steady despite the anxiety radiating from her posture.

I punch in the code to lock the door behind me. The soft click of the mechanism feels oddly final tonight, sealing us into a shared conspiracy.

“Vapor’s not willing to commit club resources to extracting your brother.” My stomach clenches when our eyes meet, so I drop my gaze. “Not yet, anyway.”

Mina’s eyes narrow slightly as she processes the implications. “But you asked him.”

“I presented everything I found. Your brother’s condition, the cartel’s threats, the financial trail.”

“And he didn’t believe you?” There’s a dangerous edge to her voice now.

“He believes that you work for the cartel,” I clarify, leaning against my desk. “What he doesn’t believe is your motivation.”

Mina stands abruptly, pacing the floor between my bed and the bathroom door. In my oversized clothes, she should look diminished, but somehow, she fills the space with a controlled energy that reminds me of a CPU running at full capacity—powerful, but at risk of overheating.

“Why not?” she demands, stopping to face me. “What more does he need?”

I meet her intensity with blunt honesty. “I don’t know what it will take to convince him.”

A bitter laugh escapes her. “Nobody trusts anybody in this world.” She resumes pacing, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“Can you blame him?” I ask. “The cartel bombed our previous clubhouse. They killed a bunch of our members, some prospects, and a few club girls too. As long as we’re at war, no one’s safe. We don’t trust anyone, and for good reason. Baiting us with a woman sounds exactly like something they’d do.”

Mina nods, her eyes distant. “They like to keep their methods varied. Makes patterns harder to track.”

There’s something in the way she says it—clinical, detached—that makes me study her more carefully. She’s seen and done things that have required her to compartmentalize. It’s a skill I recognize because I’ve developed it myself.

“But you believe me, don’t you?” she asks.

“I do. Everything you’ve told me checks out. I’m good at sorting through information. If there was any kind of red flag, I would have found it. But… Why try to get out now? Why not last week or last month or last year?”

Her pacing stops so abruptly it’s as if I’ve hit her pause button. Her back is to me, shoulders suddenly rigid beneath the borrowed t-shirt. When she turns, there’s something different in her eyes—a crack in her defenses that reveals something raw and wounded beneath.

“Two weeks ago, I was running system maintenance on their main server,” she begins, her voice controlled but tight. “I found a folder that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was labeled ‘insurance’.”

She moves to the edge of the bed, sitting down heavily. Her hands rest on her knees, and I notice a slight tremor in her fingers.

“I thought it might be blackmail material they had on politicians or cops,” she continues. “Something I could use as leverage someday. So, I opened it.”

The tremor in her hands intensifies, and she curls her fingers into fists to hide it. I remain silent, giving her space to tell the story at her own pace.

“It wasn’t blackmail,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It was documentation. Photos and videos of what happens to people who cross the cartel. Not just rivals or enemies—families. Children.”

She looks up at me, her face pale beneath the overhead light.

“I’ve always known what they were capable of.

You don’t work for men like that without understanding the consequences.

But seeing it…” Her voice falters. “There was a little girl who couldn’t have been more than six.

They made her parents watch while they…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence; doesn’t need to. Her shoulders curve inward as if trying to protect her vital organs from a beating.

“After that, I knew I couldn’t keep making excuses. Every system I built for them, every security protocol I implemented,” she shakes her head, “it all enables these monsters. I’m complicit.”

My chest tightens with an uncomfortable fusion of empathy and guilt.

I understand the weight of complicity, the way it hollows you out from the inside.

For years after Tommy disappeared, I wondered if my refusal to walk home with him had made me responsible for whatever happened to him.

That question still haunts me, still drives me to search for missing people in my spare time.

“After I saw that video, I started planning,” Mina continues. “I needed a way out that wouldn’t leave Rory vulnerable. When I heard rumors that your club was moving against the cartel, I saw an opportunity. A mutual enemy could become a temporary ally.”

“That’s why you were poking around in my system,” I say.

“I needed to know if you were good men, or if you were just as bad as the cartel. You were clean, as was everyone else connected to your club.” She looks at me directly, her green eyes clear and challenging. “That’s the truth. Believe it or don’t.”

“I’m going to help you,” I say simply. “Without the club’s official backing.”

Surprise flickers across her face, quickly followed by suspicion. “Won’t they kick you out? Why would you risk that?”

I could give her the technical answer—that her skills could help us dismantle the cartel’s entire operation, that the strategic value outweighs the risk. But what comes out instead is something closer to the truth.

“Because I know what it’s like to lose a brother,” I say, the words feeling strange in my mouth.

I never talk about Tommy, especially not with strangers.

But Mina isn’t quite a stranger anymore.

I know Vapor told me to keep Tommy to myself, but I’m not telling her everything.

I lost him. That’s all she needs to know.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, placing her hand on my forearm. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I lie smoothly. “It was a long time ago.” At least that part is true.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asks, as if she’s treading carefully.

At least she understands what it’s like to lose someone. That bonds her to me more than anything else ever could. I get her plight. Even though the cartel didn’t kill her brother—not yet, at least—they basically took him from her. That’s wrong, and I want to make things right.

In that moment, something shifts, and we become conspirators against both the cartel and my club. The guilt I should feel is oddly absent, replaced by certainty. This is the correct thing to do, even if it’s against the rules. Some codes are meant to be broken.

“We need to go now,” she says, already on her feet and moving toward the door. Her borrowed sweatpants drag on the floor despite being rolled at the waist, but she moves with a determined efficiency that suggests she’s ready to walk out of the clubhouse in whatever she’s wearing.

“Wait.” I step between her and the door, a symbolic move at best. Even if she wanted to get out, she couldn’t. Our eyes meet, and something electric passes between us—not attraction, but the friction of two strong wills colliding.

“Move,” she says, the word clipped and sharp.

“No,” I reply, keeping my voice deliberately calm. “We’re not going tonight.”

Her jaw tightens, a muscle flickering beneath the skin. “Every minute we waste is another minute the cartel could realize I’ve defected. If they suspect anything, they’ll move Rory or cut off his care completely.”

“I understand the urgency,” I say, not budging from my position. “But rushing in without proper preparation will get us killed, your brother included.”

She steps back, crossing the room in a series of agitated strides before spinning to face me again. “You don’t understand. They have people at the hospital—orderlies, nurses they’ve paid off. They’ve created a pocket of control around Rory’s room. If we wait, they might tighten that control.”

“I know more than you think,” I counter, moving away from the door now that she’s retreated. I sit at my desk and open my laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard. “While you were waiting, I wasn’t just talking to Vapor. I was setting things in motion.”

She approaches cautiously, looking over my shoulder as I pull up a secure messaging thread. “What is this?”

“Communication with our Dallas chapter.” I scroll through the encrypted conversation. “They have a member—codenamed Scalpel—who was a kidney surgeon before he patched in. He’s agreed to help with your brother’s care after the extraction.”

Mina leans closer, her breath warm against my neck as she studies the screen. “A kidney surgeon? In a motorcycle club?”