Page 48 of His to Claim (The Owner’s Club #2)

Graham

The city blurs past the windshield like a smear of neon and regret.

My grip on the wheel aches all the way to my knuckles, and I keep telling myself to breathe, but my chest won't listen.

All I can hear is Delilah's voice breaking behind the glass—that last "please" threaded through with fury and fear.

I shove it down. If I let it live in my head for more than a second, I'll turn the car around, unlock every door and hold her until the sun comes up.

If I do that, Stanley wins. He'll still be out there, still hunting what's mine.

I found my reason to fight when I was just a kid—something small and precious that needed protecting gave it to me.

Now I've got that feeling again, magnified a thousand times.

Delilah isn't just something I love. She's everything I never knew I was capable of loving.

The thought of Stanley's hands on her, of him taking her somewhere I can't follow, turns my vision red around the edges.

I need a target. I need direction. I need a throat to close my fist around.

Hitting the hands-free button, I call Preston.

He picks up on the first ring, which tells me he's been watching the feeds. "Graham."

"Spare me the tone." My voice sounds like the inside of a furnace. "I want access to Martin Pemberton's apartment."

A pause. A soft breath. Then that measured disappointment he likes to use when he thinks he holds the moral high ground. "I told you not to escalate. I told you to let the Club handle disciplinary matters internally."

"The Club." I laugh, short and humorless. "Your little temple to control lost a parishioner to a mobster with a checkbook and a grudge. Martin was hired inside your walls, on your watch. Save the lecture and give me the address."

"You're not thinking clearly."

"I'm thinking more clearly than I have in weeks.

" Taking a corner too fast, my tires hiss on damp asphalt.

"You didn't vet your patrons. The Collectors took money and looked the other way because it was convenient.

That's why Delilah ended up with cuffs on her wrists and blood on her clothes.

Not because I escalated—because you failed. "

"You're angry."

I let the word sit in the car for a beat, feel it hum through the leather and spark behind my eyes.

"I'm going to be a lot more than angry if you keep stalling.

Give me the address or I walk into the next gala and burn the entire operation down to the studs.

I'll leak the ledger, the guest lists, the private auctions, the donor routes, the side room rotations—every quiet little sin you think you own.

I'll end the Club by morning and I won't lose a minute of sleep. "

"Graham." Another soft sigh, almost fond if you don't know him. "You never did control that temper of yours."

"You never did control your security. Address, Preston. Now."

He gives it with reluctance that tells me we're going to have a discussion about this later—an address in Brooklyn that tastes like rot.

A service apartment near the docks, a name attached to the lease that the Club's accounting will pretend not to recognize.

He adds the floor and unit number plus a note about a private stairwell that bypasses the main hall.

His voice has that distant quality he uses when he's decided to make a mistake look like policy. "What are you going to do?"

"That's none of your concern."

"You know there are preferred channels for this. We have remedies that don't invite a war with a family like Torrino's."

"You had remedies. You chose not to use them." I cut the line before he can shape the next sentence into something reasonable. I have no appetite for reasonable tonight.

The address sits in my messages like a heartbeat. I forward it to two people who never ask me twice if something's a good idea, but will give me shit about it later.

Beckett first. Then Sebastian.

I add a line beneath the pin:

Meet me here. Fifteen minutes. Come ready for violence.

My phone rings before I've set it face down on the console. I answer without looking. Both of them are there, voices overlapping in chaos that somehow sounds like home.

"Graham, what the fuck?" Beckett always opens with that when he wants to sound like the adult in the room, which would be funnier if he weren't usually right.

Sebastian cuts in, clipped and calm. "Is this about Sophia or about the Club? Choose your lane."

"It's about both." I take the Manhattan Bridge with the river below black and slick as oil. "The whole thing was a setup. Pemberton wasn't just shopping—he's embedded. He's a sleeper with a patron pass and a priority line, and Stanley Torrino hired him to snatch my girl."

Silence on their end for the length of one breath.

Then Beckett again. "Say it clean. What did he do to her?"

"He had her grabbed outside a hotel. Had her tied and waiting. I arrived before he could finish the thought." My jaw locks and I force it to loosen before the next words come out strangled. "He lost his chance but he didn't lose the intention. That doesn't go unanswered."

Sebastian's voice loses the calm. "Where is she?"

"At my place." I don't tell them about the locks. I don't tell them about the look she gave me through the elevator doors. I don't tell them about the word she used—prisoner. I fold it into a small square and set it on fire in my chest. "She's safe."

"You're sure she's safe," Beckett says, stressing the word in a way that asks a different question. Are you sure you didn't make it worse?

"I'm sure."

Sebastian lets out a breath that might be relief or might be annoyance. "All right. So you have a location. Why are we on the line instead of already moving?"

"Because I respect the fact that you enjoy being consulted.

" I cut a cab off more harshly than necessary.

The driver leans on his horn like he has opinions I care about.

"I'm taking Torrino apart. If he's there, we end it at the source.

If he's not, I'll turn Pemberton's apartment upside down and find everything I need to bury the man myself.

Either way, this isn't a conversation. You're either with me or you're not. I'll be there in ten."

"Jesus Christ," Beckett says. "You hear yourself?"

"I do. I sound like a man who's done asking permission."

"You also sound like a man who's about to start a war because his heart is louder than his head," Sebastian says. "Not for nothing, but last time you sounded like this, we had to pull you off a guy with a broken jaw and a dislocated shoulder—and that was over a contract dispute."

"Last time I sounded like this, no one had put their hands on my woman.”

The line holds steady for a beat. The only sound is air rushing through open windows on their end. Then Beckett again, softer. "We're with you. We were always going to be with you."

Sebastian clears his throat like he does when he wants to rearrange the air. "But after tonight, you're promising to speak to someone who isn't us. Maybe a therapist who doesn't keep spare hand wraps in his desk."

"Fuck you and your therapy," I say, because anger is easier than gratitude and I don't have room for anything soft. "Just meet me there and bring guns."

"We'll bring more than guns," Beckett says. "We'll bring a plan."

"Your plan can ride shotgun." I end the call before they can try again to ease me back from the edge.