Page 15 of Misery (Raiders of Valhalla MC: New Blood #7)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Oskar

The security footage on my phone is grainy but clear enough to make my blood freeze.

I'm sitting in the clubhouse chapel, early morning light streaming through the windows.

The room still smells like cigarette smoke from last night's session of kirkja.

Empty beer bottles line the table, their labels peeling in the humidity.

A fucking prospect should’ve already been in here to clean this shit up by now.

Someone left a knife stuck in the wood—probably Rio, making a point about something during the meeting.

The table's scarred surface tells stories of a hundred arguments, a thousand decisions, all the acts of war planned in this room.

But all I can focus on is the figure on my screen.

The way he moves.

The particular roll of his shoulders when he walks.

The habit of touching his left wrist—where he broke it when we were fifteen, never healed quite right.

We'd been climbing the water tower on the edge of town, drunk on stolen beer and teenage invincibility.

He fell fifteen feet, landed wrong.

I set the bone myself because hospitals meant questions we couldn't answer.

Thiago.

The name sits heavy in my mouth like old blood.

Haven't thought about him in years. Haven't wanted to.

Some ghosts are better left buried, some memories better left to rot.

But here he is, walking into that flower shop downtown.

Hood up but not enough to hide from someone who knows him.

Someone who spent every summer from age seven to seventeen getting into trouble with him.

Someone who watched him go from stealing candy to stealing cars to worse things we swore we'd never talk about.

The timestamp on the footage makes my chest tight.

Three days ago.

While I was holding Elfe through her breakdown about her parents.

While I was promising to keep her safe.

Thiago was buying black roses to send her.

Preparing his next move in whatever sick game he's playing.

"Fuck," I breathe.

"Problem?" Vanir's voice comes from the doorway.

The club's tech expert looks like he hasn't slept—eyes red, clothes wrinkled, energy drink in hand.

His laptop bag is slung over his shoulder, already pulling it out before he's fully in the room.

"I need you to run a name."

He drops into a chair, the old wood creaking under his weight. Already pulling out his laptop. The thing's covered in stickers—band logos, tech jokes, one that says 'I void warranties,' another claiming 'There's no place like 127.0.0.1.' "Shoot."

"Thiago Cisneros."

Vanir's fingers pause over the keys.

Something flickers across his face—recognition, maybe. Or maybe he remembers who he is. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"Because he grew up here. With me and Emil."

"I thought he died."

"So did I."

That's the story we were told.

Thiago went to Mexico at seventeen.

Got involved with the wrong people.

Ended up in a shallow grave somewhere outside Juárez.

We didn't have a funeral—no body to bury.

Just Emil and me drinking ourselves stupid in this very room, promising never to end up like him.

Promising to be smarter, better, more careful.

But dead men don't buy black roses for girls they've never met.

Dead men don't carve 'little artist' into corpses like love letters written in flesh.

Vanir's typing now, fingers flying across keys.

Screens pop up—databases I probably don't have clearance to know about.

Government sites. Criminal records. Things that would get him arrested if anyone knew he could access them. "Holy shit."

"What?"

He turns the laptop toward me.

It’s an arrest record from three years ago.

Thiago's face staring back—older, harder, but unmistakably him.

The boy who taught me how to pick locks.

Who shared his lunch when Charm forgot to pack mine.

Who held my head while I puked after my first real drunk.

The scar through his eyebrow from when we fought those kids from Northside.

The crooked nose from when Emil broke it over a girl neither of them ended up with.

"Arrested in El Paso. Possession with intent. Released on a technicality." Vanir scrolls, pulls up more records. "Then nothing for two years. Like, he went underground. Then this."

Another photo.

This time from a security camera at a gas station.

Thiago pumping gas into a black sedan.

The timestamp makes my stomach drop like I'm falling off that water tower with him.

Two weeks before Elfe's attack eight months ago.

"He's been here," I say unnecessarily. The words taste like betrayal. "He's been here the whole time."

"Gets worse." More typing. More screens. His fingers move so fast they blur. "Cross-referencing with known associates and... fuck me."

The screen fills with images.

Surveillance photos. Social media posts. Security footage from various sources.

Thiago at a bar with known Los Coyotes members.

Thiago with Los Coyotes tattoos visible on his arms—new ink over old scars I remember.

The Virgin of Guadalupe twisted into something darker.

Aztec imagery mixed with gang symbols.

Thiago at what looks like an initiation ceremony, blood on his hands that probably isn't his.

"He's not just affiliated," Vanir says quietly. "He's inner circle. Lieutenant, maybe higher. This level of integration doesn't happen overnight."

I stand so fast, the chair falls backward.

The crash echoes through the empty chapel, loud as a gunshot.

"Oskar—"

"How long has he been in town?" My voice sounds calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that comes before I hurt people.

The kind Emil recognizes as danger.

"Based on traffic cameras and credit card activity..." Vanir types more, pulls up financial records that definitely aren't public. "At least a year. Maybe longer. He's been careful, though. Different names. Different addresses. But facial recognition doesn't lie."

A year.

Thiago's been here a year, and I didn't know.

Didn't sense it. Some fucking executioner I am.

Some protector.

The best friend I thought died in Mexico has been walking the same streets, breathing the same air, watching the same girl.

"Why Los Coyotes?" I ask, more to myself than Vanir. "He hated gangs. Called them stupid. Said independence was the only way to survive. Said joining a gang was just trading one cage for another."

"People change."

"Not that much."

But even as I say it, I know it's not true.

I changed.

Went from lost kid to killer.

From civilian to prospect.

People change all the time. Sometimes, into things we don't recognize.

Vanir pulls up more records.

Financial transactions showing regular deposits.

Phone records that he definitely shouldn't have access to.

Location data from cell towers. "Want the really fucked up part?"

"There's more?"

"He requested transfer here. Specifically. Los Coyotes have chapters all over the Southwest—Phoenix, Albuquerque, Houston—but he fought to come to this one. Turned down a promotion to stay in Phoenix to come here as regular muscle."

"When?"

"Eight months ago."

Right around when I started watching Elfe.

When her name first came across my radar as potential collateral in the brewing war. When Runes first mentioned keeping eyes on vulnerable family members.

No. That can't be coincidence. Nothing with Thiago was ever a coincidence.

"I need everything," I tell Vanir. "Where he lives. Where he goes. Who he talks to. Everything."

"Already on it." His fingers never stop moving. Data streams across multiple windows. "But Oskar... if he's who's been killing for Elfe—"

"He is."

"Then he's playing some kind of game. Los Coyotes don't kill their own for outsiders. That's not how cartels work. Loyalty is everything."

Unless they're not really Los Coyotes.

Unless they're something else wearing gang colors like camouflage.

Like a wolf in wolf's clothing, hiding among the pack.

The chapel door opens.

Emil walks in, coffee in one hand, phone in the other.

He's got that morning look—hair still messed from sleep, wearing yesterday's shirt.

He looks between me and Vanir, reads the tension immediately.

That brother instinct that knows when something's very wrong.

"What's wrong?"

I turn the laptop toward him without speaking.

Watch his face go through the same progression mine did—confusion, recognition, shock, anger. I watch him recognize the ghost.

"That's not possible," he says finally. "Thiago's dead."

"Apparently not."

"But we... Mom said... The news from Mexico..."

"All lies. He's been here for at least the last 8 months. We heard he died years ago, so my thought process is that he worked his way up with Los Coyotes and then came back." I pull up the flower shop footage on my phone, show him. "He's the one killing for Elfe. Leaving her presents."

Emil sets down his coffee carefully. Too carefully. The control of someone trying not to explode. "Why?"

"Don't know yet."

"Bullshit." His voice is sharp. Accusing. "You know. You always knew him better than me. You two were like shadows of each other. So why?"

The truth sits bitter on my tongue because Thiago always copied me.

He always wanted what I had.

Always tried to be the better version of whatever I was.

When I learned to fight, he learned to fight dirtier.

When I kissed my first girl, he had to fuck her.

When I protected people, he had to save them.

If I'm the Executioner, he wants to be Death itself.

If I'm watching Elfe, he needs to own her.

"He knows about me," I say instead of explaining. "About my surveillance. Has to."

"How?"

Vanir interrupts. "Found something. Rental agreement for a unit in the same building where Elfe lived. Floor above. Rented under an alias—Tomas Cisco—but the signatures match. Same handwriting quirks."

The room tilts.

Thiago was living above Elfe.

Watching her from above while I watched from the street.

Both of us circling her like satellites, neither knowing about the other.

Was he one of the ones who attacked her?

He has to be.

"Jesus Christ," Emil breathes. "He's been stalking her longer than you have."