Page 25 of Property of Mako (Kings of Anarchy MC: Louisiana #1)

The Things She Saw

Mako

Lily sat at the end of the worn leather couch like she was afraid it might bite her—or that we would.

Her hands stayed locked in her lap, knuckles bone-white, and her eyes kept flicking to the door like she was memorizing her escape routes. Lyra stayed close enough that their knees touched, a silent anchor in the storm.

The Kings we knew we could trust were scattered around the room. The rest of the chapter had been sent on a run to support the Central Texas Chapter on a big job they had to do. They’d be back tonight, however.

Dexter leaned forward, elbows on his knees, intensely watching everything unfold.

Crypt Keeper lounged in the armchair across from Lily, his expression unreadable, yet I was getting a weird vibe off him.

Bugsy was perched on the edge of the bar with his cane balanced across his lap, every muscle in his face pulled tight.

Boomslang and Killswitch leaned against the wall adjacent to the couch but so far hadn’t said a word.

Spook lurked in the shadows—so quiet, I almost forgot he was there.

“We need you to tell us everything,” I encouraged, keeping my tone as even as I could. “From the moment they took you.”

Lily swallowed, eyes flitting to me, then away.

“They moved us. Twice. Both times in vans with blacked-out windows. I think they were trying to make it impossible to track where we were going. The last place…” She hesitated, pressing her lips together like she was trying to hold something back.

“Go on,” Lyra urged gently.

“It was that old plantation. Or… that’s what it looked like.

” Lily’s gaze went distant, like she was seeing it again.

“When you get close, it changes. Everything—the rotting wood, the sagging roof—just melts away. Inside, it’s beautiful.

Rich. But not in a good way. It’s… wrong. Like the walls know you’re trapped.”

I felt the muscles in my jaw twitch. Thane. It had his fingerprints all over it.

“Who was running it?” Dexter asked.

She glanced between us. “A vampire. Tall, dark hair, pale. He had this… presence. Everyone treated him like he was above the rest. His name was Thane.”

No one in the room reacted like they were hearing it for the first time. We all knew. But hearing her say it put more weight on the name.

“What else?” I pressed.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “He told me I had legacy blood. That it makes me… valuable. That my blood could make someone more powerful. And that my sister—” she shot Lyra a quick, pained glance “—has it too. He said he’d be bidding on both of us.”

Fury at that reveal burned through my veins like wildfire, but I tamped it down, and Lyra stiffened beside her.

“That’s not going to happen,” I vowed.

Crypt Keeper leaned forward. “What about security? Numbers? Wards?”

Lily nodded, voice shaking. “There were guards—lots of them. Not all vampires. I think there were demons too—or something… scary anyway. And something else… I couldn’t tell what.

There were symbols on the windows and doors, glowing faint red at night.

And before the auction, they moved some of the girls into another part of the house.

They talked about ‘keeping the inventory fresh.’”

Dexter muttered a curse under his breath.

Then she said something that made the room go still.

“They knew you were coming. Before the night you showed up. They were talking about it. Said the ‘inside source’ had given them enough time to move us from the last place. They didn’t think you’d get past the veil of the one you rescued me from.”

The air in the room tightened. My gaze cut to Dexter, then Crypt Keeper.

A rat. Confirmed.

Lyra’s hand found her sister’s and squeezed it.

“That’s enough for now,” she said softly, pleading in her sad gaze.

But in my head, the map was already forming—routes in, routes out, kill zones. Thane thought he had us figured out. He thought the rat would keep us one step behind.

He was wrong.

When Lily was taken to rest, the rest of us stayed in the room. Crypt Keeper leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. “The plantation’s wards are layered—if we hit it wrong, we won’t even get inside before they know we’re there.”

“Which is why we have the potion,” I said. “Octavia gave me exactly what we need to walk through the veil like we belong there. No alarms, no suspicion. We go in looking like buyers.”

Bugsy tapped the end of his cane on the floor. “What if the auction is canceled? And even if it’s not, that gets us inside. But the second anyone sees us, every guest in that auction will turn on us. They know us.”

“Then we make sure they don’t get the chance,” I said, voice low.

Dexter shook his head. “Mako, Octavia told you?—”

“I don’t give a damn what she told me. I’m not leaving a single girl behind for Thane to slaughter like he did my… I mean, sell like cattle. If that makes me reckless, fine. I’ll own it.”

“Mako,” Boomslang warned. Other than Crypt, he was the only one in the room who knew about my sister and from his tone, I was aware that I was letting past hurts superimpose my decisions.

“You do this, and you risk not only making an enemy of Octavia, but Haidyn. You need to cool your jets and think about this long and hard. Perhaps we should consult Haidyn before you rush in trying to be the hero.”

The silence that followed was heavy.

Finally, Crypt Keeper broke it. “So we consult Haidyn? And then what?”

“We see what he has planned, then if he has things under control like he assured Mako, perhaps we get Mako his revenge on Thane,” Boomslang replied with the corner of his mouth tipping up.

“But if he isn’t going to save those girls, then we are,” I stubbornly insisted.

Boomslang cocked a brow and glanced around the room. “I’d say we need to vote on that.”

“All in favor of a rescue if Haidyn doesn’t have one planned?” Killswitch called out.

The ayes were unanimous.

Bugsy was the first to speak. “Right. If we’re doing this, we need to assume the rat’s still feeding him information. That means false trails. Dummy comms. Only the seven of us know the real plan.”

My jaw tightened. “Good. That way, when we flush the bastard out, I can deal with him myself.”

“Ha! He belongs to all of us,” Crypt Keeper chimed in.

“Fair enough,” I conceded with a reluctant grin.

Now to reach out to a demon that I was already in the shithouse with.