Page 11

Jagger

T he sun was rising, casting long, golden streaks over the Compound, but there was no warmth in it. No relief. Just a grim reminder that we’d barely survived the night. The grounds were secured again, the bodies of our fallen gathered, and the damage being assessed, but it wasn’t over. Not even close.

Exhaustion weighed heavy on my bones, but the rage still pumping through my veins kept me upright. My hands trembled—not from fear, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer fury of it all. They had come for Kyle, right under my fucking nose, and five of my brothers had died because of it. Five men, patrolling the perimeter, doing their job, keeping us safe had been gunned down by a pack of perverted, power-hungry fucks.

I clenched my fists, my jaw aching from grinding my teeth. Someone was going to pay. No, all of them were going to pay.

But first, I had to deal with Preacher. He was barely holding it together. I could see it in the way his shoulders were rigid, in the way he couldn’t stop pacing, the weight of something heavier than guilt pressing down on him. Kyle could have died tonight, and if she had, she never would have known the truth about him.

I had said it a million fucking times already, but I said it again. “You need to tell her.”

Preacher snapped. “Now isn’t the time!” he barked, spinning on his heel, his hands fisting at his sides.

My control slipped. If not now, then when?

Duke exhaled sharply from where he stood nearby. “He’s right.” His voice was steely. Final.

Preacher’s frustration exploded. “Look, I know you fuckers think you know everything, but now isn’t?—”

“It’s never been the time!” I roared, cutting him off as I stepped closer. I’d had it. “You’ve had so many chances to come clean, but instead, here we are, sitting around like assholes while this eats away at us, day after day, waiting for the right moment that never fucking comes.” My chest rose and fell hard, my pulse hammering in my ears. “Just tell Kyle the truth.”

A voice cut through the haze of anger and tension like a gunshot. “What truth?”

Everything stopped as our heads snapped in unison toward the doorway.

Kyle stood just inside the room, her stance deceptively relaxed, and her face an unreadable mask of indifference. But her eyes—her eyes were sharp. Unforgiving.

“What truth?” she repeated slowly.

A deadly quiet settled over the room. Duke and I didn’t answer, this was Preacher’s mess to clean up.

I turned to look at him, and for the first time in my life, I saw the fear in his eyes. He swallowed hard, hesitating. “Kyle, I?—”

I lost my patience. “Preacher hasn’t been honest with you, have you, Preacher?” My voice was sharp as a blade, slicing through the silence.

Kyle’s gaze flicked to me, unblinking.

“The shit your mother told you? It was bullshit.” I let it all spill out because Preacher didn’t look like he was going to do it quickly enough. “When she killed herself, it wasn’t because she was running from him. It was because he’d threatened to make her disappear if she touched you again, because she told him she was going to kill you.”

Kyle’s expression didn’t change, at least, not on the outside. But I saw it—that quick flicker in her eyes, there and gone before she turned her full focus on Preacher. She wasn’t going to ask me for more, she was waiting for him.

Preacher moved slowly, sinking down into a chair like his own body was too heavy to carry. “Your mother—” his voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat before continuing. “She was…difficult. She used drugs and it made it impossible to be reasonable with her. She tried to start a war between us and another MC.” His voice faltered as he realized he was getting off track. “I didn’t know what she was doing to you.” His eyes lifted to hers, pleading. “If I had, I would have stopped it. I would have made sure she never touched you again. I swear it.”

Kyle’s eyes flicked back to me, and this time, I saw something I never wanted to see in them. Betrayal.

Fuck.

I had broken her trust. I could feel it.

Preacher kept talking, his voice rough, but I barely heard it. Because for the first time since meeting Kyle, I realized something, I might have just lost her.

“The day she killed herself, she told me she was going to kill you.”

Kyle didn’t flinch but I fucking did.

“I told her that if she touched you, I’d make sure she disappeared. And then… she did it anyway.” Preacher exhaled shakily, rubbing a hand over his jaw, his voice raw with something that sounded like regret. “You were my world, Kyle. You still are. I would have never let anyone—anything—hurt you.”

Silence settled over the room, stretching too long, pressing down like a weight. Kyle’s expression was unreadable, her face carefully composed, revealing nothing. And that was what scared the shit out of me.

I waited and I hoped. I begged in my own fucking head for her to say anything that would tell me we hadn’t just lost her.

Then, she finally spoke, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Don’t contact me.” Her voice was even, controlled. “Don’t come near me.” She looked at all three of us—me, Duke, Preacher—her gaze unwavering, final. “And for all of your sakes, heed me on this.”

Flat. Unyielding.

She turned and slammed the door behind her.

For a second, I couldn’t move. The sound of the door closing echoed in my head, a finality I wasn’t ready to accept. Then instinct kicked in, and I went to go after her, but before my fingers could wrap around the handle, Duke caught my arm, his grip like iron.

“Give her time.” His voice was hard, but his eyes held the same pain I felt in my chest, the same ache I knew was clawing at both of us, Kyle was his family. He had been the one to keep her safe all these years. And now, he had lost her trust too.

I swallowed, my throat tight, my voice barely above a rasp. “I love her.”

Duke nodded, his expression grim. “Yeah. That’s why you’re gonna do what she asks.”

He gave me a quick, hard shake, then let go, stepping back as I turned toward Preacher.

The man who had always been our fearless leader wasn’t pacing anymore. He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t anything. He just sat at the table, his shoulders sagging, his hands limp in his lap, his eyes staring blankly ahead. The fight was gone. The weight of what had just happened had crushed him completely.

I knew that look because I felt the same fucking way.

Kyle was gone, and I had just lost the only world that mattered to me.

Six weeks later….

I was going crazy not knowing how she was. I knew from Duke that shortly after leaving here, she’d gone out to the Middle East to do something with the military. Since then, he said there had been radio silence from her. His exact words.

I was struggling to sleep at night and had found myself going into her room just to feel close to her so that I could get a couple of hours. I spent most of my time helping fix up the Compound again after the attack, the first area being where she had been and where they’d focused their attention. Every time I saw the damage and thought of what could have happened, I felt sick. Preacher wasn’t doing much better, and Duke was a foul tempered son of a bitch.

I’d just rolled out of her bed and was headed toward my room when Duke came running up to me with Preacher behind him. “Get your shit together, we’re leaving in five,” Duke barked as he ran past me in the direction of his room.

“What the fuck?”

It was Preacher who stopped, and I noticed that his hands were shaking. “Kyle’s hurt!”

Those two words made the bottom drop out of my world. What the fuck had happened?

KYLE

There are moments in life that burn themselves into your soul, searing into your memory so deeply that no amount of time or distance can fade them. Some are good—ones you cling to when everything else falls apart. But then there are moments like this. The kind thathaunts you and that turn into living nightmares.

I had been in this line of work for years, had faced death more times than I could count, but never—not once—had I lost a member of my team. Until now.

Now, I was lying on a stretcher, my body bruised and battered,staring at the pine boxes lined up before mein the belly of the transport plane. The air inside the cargo hold was cold and stale, but it couldn’t touch the fire burning beneath my skin.

Three of my own. Gone.

I tried to move, but the pain was like knives stabbing through my body, reminding me that I was stillalivewhile they weren’t. My hands curled into the thin blanket over me, trying to keep the rage at bay, but it was useless.

How the fuck had it gone so wrong ?

It had been a routine recce—a sweep of an area we’d cleared two days ago.There had been no warnings, no signs of trouble. Hell, we hadn’t even known where we were being sent until the last minute. It was a strategy to prevent leaks, to keep our movements unpredictable.

Except, it didn’t fucking work this time.

I should have been the oneflying the helicopter, but lately, I’d been spending more time on the ground, burning off the frustration and anger that had been eating at me since everything fell apart. I needed thenumbnessthat came after pushing my body past its limits—needed the exhaustion to keep my mind from wandering where it wasn’t supposed to go.

Because the one time I let myself feel it, I’d done something I hadn’t done in years. I’dcried and I wasn’t letting that happen again.

Yesterday, everything had been fine. The team had been talking shit, the mission had been simple, and Data had even sent me one of hisnew signal interceptorsafter I mentioned how some previously quiet areas were suddenlyturning hotfor no damn reason.

I’d had a gut feeling, and gut feelings weren’t something I ignored.

We were hunkered down, taking a break, passing around water bottles when the device suddenlypinged. A message had been sentfrom somewhere close—too close.

I’d checked the readout and saw that ourcoordinateshad just been transmitted. My stomach dropped, and I’d done aheadcount—one missing.

Then the first explosion hit.

Heat scorched the air as the blast rocked the ground beside me, and before I could react, another detonated. Then another.Precision strikes, meant to wipe us out. We’d never stood a chance.

By the time I was loaded onto the plane, my body wrecked, I could barely keep my eyes open. But I hadone last thing to do before they took me home. As they wheeled me toward the ramp, I reached out, my fingers locking weakly around the wrist of theCamp’s General Administrator—the man signing off on the bodies.

He hesitated, then leaned down.

I didn’t need to say much, I didn’t even have the strength to if I was honest, yet I forced outone namethrough gritted teeth. “Jared.”

His whole body wentrigid.

I didn’t need to explain. Didn’t need tospell it out. He knew.

And I made sure he saw it in myeyes—the promise, the vow.

Jared had beenfeeding them our intelthe whole time.Betraying us and selling us out. And I was going to be the one toend him when I was ready. But they needed to know so they could keep eyes on him wherever he went.

The wheels of the planeslammed against the tarmac, and I forced my eyes shut. I couldn’tcry. Wouldn’t.

As thecargo bay lowered, I saw theuniformed soldiers marching in. They moved inunison, their boots striking against the metal as they carefully lifted the first casket. It was then—only then—that my resolve broke, and the firstsob tore out of me.

I clamped my jaw shut, but it was too late.

They had been here, beside me, hours ago, laughing, talking aboutgoing home. They hadkids and families who were now going to live their lives without them. They would never truly know theheroes they were.

The music played softly in the distance, the rhythm of boots against the pavement fading as thecoffins were carried away. More soldiersboarded, wheeling out the injured.Five men, barely clinging to life, strapped to gurneys hooked up to oxygen and IV drips.

We should have beenflown to Germanyfor immediate treatment, butour work didn’t exist on the record. We had all signed thewaivers before deployment—we wouldn’t stop. We’d beflown homeno matter the risk.

As they rolled me off the plane, the sunlight hit my face like a blade. I squinted, my body still too weak to protest. Then I heard it, a low, familiar growl.

Engines.

Not the kind from military trucks or med-evac transports. This wasdeeper, rougher, more powerful. It startedsoft, but it grewlouder,stronger, until I couldfeel the vibrations in my bones.

The soldier pushing me hesitated, then gestured toward the edge of the airstrip. “I think they’re here for you.”

I turned my head, my breath catching as I took in theline of motorcycles parked in formation behind the fence. Chrome and steel gleamed under the morning sun, asilent wall of metal and men.

I couldn’t seetheir faces, but I didn’t need to. I knew who they were.

Three figures stood just in front of the lineup,waiting. Watching.

The darkness finally pulled me under, but not before I knew—I wasn’t alone.