Page 8

Pirate

Yarder sat at the head of the table with his posture straight, and his expression was carved and cold as stone. The gavel hadn’t hit yet, but silence had already blanketed the room.

I was seated to his left, between Dice and Smoke. Dice was drumming his fingers against the wood like he couldn’t sit still, and Smoke had a toothpick dangling from his mouth with his arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair.

I kept my hands clasped in front of me, jaw tight, and my thoughts split between what was happening here and the fact that I’d left Saylor with all the ol’ ladies. God knew what I was going to walk back into.

She was safe, though.

I repeated it in my head like a chant. She was safe. She was with Mac and the girls. She was in the compound. She was safe.

But that didn’t stop the twitch in my knee.

“Let’s get right to it,” Yarder said, his tone clipped and heavy with intent.

Good. No small talk. No bullshit. Just business.

“I hope the next words outta your mouth are we’re killing Boone and Gibbs,” Aero said. His voice was sharp and full of fire. I wasn’t the only one ready for all of this to be over.

“Or you’ve got a better lead on how to find Russ,” Throttle added from the other side of the table, arms folded and eyes locked on Yarder.

Yarder didn’t answer right away. He shifted slightly in his seat and gave Compass a quick glance.

“Or the cops know who attacked Saylor,” I threw in.

Any of those things would’ve been nice. Would’ve saved us some time. We knew Boone and Gibbs were behind what happened to her—she didn’t get jumped by accident. They didn’t do it themselves, but they’d orchestrated it. Cowards always worked from the shadows.

If we found who actually laid their hands on her, they’d lead us back to Boone and Gibbs.

Or, hell, maybe we’d just work our way down the ladder and eliminate them all.

“Or,” Dice cut in, “how about this—you found Stretch.”

I didn’t look at him, but I could feel the grin in his voice. He’d been half-joking, but the tension in the room said we were all hoping one of those names—Boone, Gibbs, Russ, Stretch—was about to be laid out like meat on a table.

Yarder nodded toward Compass.

Compass opened the thick leather notebook in front of him and flipped through a few pages before pulling out a loose sheet of paper.

“I’ve been digging,” he said, and held the paper up between two fingers. “Trying to run down anyone who’s got beef with Boone or Gibbs—friends, enemies, anyone with a reason to talk. Or someone who wants to just help.” He slid the paper onto the center of the table. “This is Brynn Maranga. Now Banachi.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Did you just say Maranga?” Fade asked and leaned forward. “As in Guy Maranga?”

Compass nodded once.

Fade let out a low whistle. “Are you saying we’re getting connected to the Maranga? That’s not just any name—they’re like the fucking mafia.” He looked around the table, eyebrows raised. “Everyone in the world knows that name.”

And he wasn’t wrong.

Every guy here gave some sort of nod, grunt, or eyebrow raise of agreement. Even Dice, who joked about everything, looked dead serious.

“How?” I asked and leaned forward slightly. “You’re not telling me we’ve got some kind of secret handshake with the Maranga. What’s the connection?”

Compass smirked slightly like he’d been waiting for someone to ask that. “Alice,” he said.

There was a collective blink around the table.

“Wrecker’s ol’ lady?” Dice asked with his brow furrowed.

“The chick who talks about cows?” Throttle added and tilted his head.

Yarder chuckled. “The one and only.”

“Wait, wait,” Dice said, holding up a hand. “Are you telling me the woman who proudly claims to wear cowprint onesies is our connection to the Maranga?”

“Basically,” Compass said. “She’s friends with Meg. Meg is the ol’ lady of the prez of the Devil’s Knights.”

Everyone nodded.

“Well,” Compass continued, “a member of the Devil’s Knights’ ol’ lady is the sister of Leo Banachi. Leo married Brynn Maranga. Brynn was married to Guy Maranga before he passed, and after his death, she took over.”

My brain did a double-take.

That was a damn twisted line of connection, but it was perfect for us.

“So, let me get this straight,” Smoke said. “Through Alice… who’s friends with Meg… whose man is in the Knights… who one of the other member’s ol’ lady is Banachi… who is the sister of Leo Banachi, who married Brynn Maranga—we now have a path to Maranga?”

“Yep,” Compass said. “And Brynn and Leo are going to be the ones to help us.”

I leaned back slightly and absorbed everything.

Brynn Maranga was now Brynn Banachi, and she ran the show. We weren’t talking about biker clubs anymore. We were talking power. Deep, generational, fear-in-your-gut kind of power.

I didn’t care how we got to Maranga.

I cared that we could.

“Leo and Brynn will be here next Thursday,” Yarder said, his voice steady. “They’re meeting with us as a favor to the Devil’s Knights.”

Smoke leaned forward. “So we’re going to be in debt to the Devil’s Knights?”

Yarder nodded once. “But I think that’s a small price to pay to get Boone and Gibbs off our asses.”

I didn’t know much about the Devil’s Knights. The name carried weight, but not in a way that had ever affected us directly. I squinted at Yarder. “They’re cool?”

Yarder shrugged casually like we weren’t talking about inviting a whole new kind of heat into our business. “From what I know. I’m not worried about what they’re gonna ask of us.”

That was good enough for me. If Yarder wasn’t worried, I wouldn’t be either. He didn’t bet blind.

“What about Stretch?” Dice asked, breaking the momentary silence.

Yarder exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “Hopefully, with the Maranga stepping in, he’ll come to his fuckin’ senses and get his ass back here before Boone and Gibbs get to him. He’s obviously sniffing around them, but if he’s not careful, he won’t be for long.”

“I’m not worried about Stretch,” Compass said with a shrug, like he was shaking off a mosquito. “He was dumb enough to take off on his own to try and fix shit, so he can take care of himself as far as I’m concerned.” He paused and looked around like he knew what he was about to say would sting. “I know that makes me a dick, but him taking off could be making shit worse for us.”

Dice, who had been close with Stretch since they both patched in, let out a low growl. “That’s fucking bullshit, Compass. You can’t be mad at him for trying everything he can to find the end to all of this.”

Compass jerked his chin in my direction. “That end include Saylor getting the shit beat out of her? Pretty sure Pirate ain’t too happy about that. That might’ve never happened if Stretch hadn’t gone after Boone and Gibbs. We all saw the note.”

The room went still.

“Screw you,” Dice spat and slammed his palm against the table.

“Knock it off!” Yarder snapped loud enough that even Compass flinched. “We’re not gonna start going after each other. Stretch shouldn’t have taken off, but I’m not putting the blame on him for what happened to Saylor. That probably would’ve happened either way. Boone and Gibbs are ruthless. We know this.” He looked at each of us in turn. “We get the Maranga involved, and all of this’ll be over.”

Dice’s jaw ticked, and eyes still locked on Compass, but he didn’t say anything more.

“We just lay low until Leo and Brynn get here. We’ll keep looking for Stretch, but don’t stir up anything more,” Yarder ordered.

Dice stood abruptly, and his chair screeched across the floor. “We done then?”

Yarder gave him a short nod.

Dice stormed out, as his heavy boots pounded against the floor. The door slammed behind him hard enough to rattle the walls. Loyalty ran deep with Dice.

Yarder turned his gaze to Compass. “You had to go there?”

Compass just shrugged. “You know we all feel the same way. Stretch went rogue, and now we’re paying for it.”

He wasn’t wrong. Not really. But I got why Stretch did what he did. We were all sick of the endless back-and-forth with Boone and Gibbs. Stretch just snapped first.

Yarder looked at me. “Saylor doing okay?”

I gave a quick nod. “She’s just pretty beat up. Should be fine.”

“You clue her into all this?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. She hasn’t really asked.”

Aero chuckled from across the table. “I’m sure the girls took care of filling her in.”

Yarder sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “If they did, Poppy and I are gonna have a word. I told her not to say anything to Saylor about this.”

I raised a brow. “So you want me to tell her?”

Yarder nodded. “You’ll give her the facts. No fluff. No emotional mess like the girls would. And hopefully, that’ll all be over soon and just be a story to tell our kids one day.”

My chest did a weird thing at that—like a muscle I hadn’t used before clenched tight.

Compass clapped Yarder on the shoulder. “Can’t fucking wait for that, brother.”

Everyone else around the table started nodding, murmurs of agreement and tired chuckles rippling out. Smoke stood first, followed by Throttle and Aero. Chairs scraped back, everyone stood, and for a moment, it felt like we were all letting out the same breath.

Church was over.

But nothing felt done.

I stood and couldn’t stop the drift of my thoughts back to her—Saylor. I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head since the moment I saw her on the stretcher. Every bruise, every flinch, every goddamn moan had carved itself into me like a brand.

And now… now I had a glimmer of hope that this would all be over.

Once Boone and Gibbs were dealt with, once Stretch was found or came back with answers, once the dust settled—I could figure out what the hell this was between me and her.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t going away.