Page 75 of Thunder's Reckoning

I tracked his walk across the floor. That’s when I saw it, he slowed just enough to lean close to the bar. Leena was standin’ there with a tray in her hand, dress cut low, smile already too bright. He murmured somethin’, and she laughed quick, loud, like he’d just told the funniest thing she’d ever said. Her hand brushed his arm before he stepped away.

Horse caught it too. “Well, fuck me. That don’t smell right.”

“I’m thinkin’ he knows too much already,” I muttered, my jaw tight.

Horse shook his head, eyes still on Leena. “She wasn’t close enough to hear him. And the way he looked at her? Didn’t seem like a man fishin’ for information. Looked more like a man lookin’ for a quick fuck.”

I grunted. He wasn’t wrong. Even Gabrial’s men had needs same as anyone else. Easy women, quick comfort, it didn’t take much.

“Maybe,” I said, still uneasy. “But I don’t like the way it played.”

Horse shook his head, eyes still on Leena. “Hell, brother, she probably only laughed like that ‘cause she saw you watchin’. You know how she is, half the shit she does is just tryin’ to get under your skin.”

The door swung shut behind the stranger, leavin’ only the stink of his cologne in his wake.

I turned toward the prospect workin’ near the bar, kid sharp-eyed, eager. Gave him a chin lift. “Follow him. Quiet. I want to know what he drives, where he beds down, who he talks to. Don’t let him make you.”

Prospect nodded once, slipped out the side door silent as smoke.

Horse swirled his whiskey. “So what you thinkin’?”

“That he knows about this place,” I said. “That’s bad enough. But if he’s sniffin’ around asking about his niece, broken down car, all that shit, it’s too close to coincidence. Devil’s gonna hear about it.”

Horse let out a long breath, shook his head. “Ain’t never simple, is it?”

I didn’t answer. My mind was already back at the clubhouse. Sable. Zara. Malik.

The stranger’s words clung like oil.My niece is missing…

Family didn’t come huntin’ in places like The Pit.

Only predators did.

***

THE HOUR WASlate when I left The Pit.My boots felt heavier than they should’ve, my shirt reekin’ of cigars and whiskey. The night air had a bite, but it didn’t clear the heat burnin’ behind my ribs.

I was thinkin’ about her.

By the time I pulled into the clubhouse lot, half the lights were out. Bikes lined up like shadows. Brothers either passed out or tangled up in the kind of company that didn’t ask questions. The place was quiet.

I walked the hall, the silence loud as hell after hours of cards and smoke. Empty bottles sat on the pool table like ghosts of louder hours. My hand found her doorknob without thinkin’.

I eased it open.

She wasn’t asleep.

Sable sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on her knees, her fingers buried in her hair like she was tryin’ to claw her way out of her own head. Shoulders shakin’. Breath ragged.

“Sable.”

Her head snapped up. Eyes wild, wet. She’d been cryin’, and not soft tears, hard ones, the kind that tear somethin’ inside on the way out.

I stepped in. “Nightmare?”

She didn’t answer, but I didn’t need her to. I knew that look. Knew what it was to wake up drownin’ in fire that ain’t there anymore but still burns under your skin.

I sat beside her, not touchin’, close enough she’d feel me there.