Page 26 of Viking (Dixie Reapers MC #24)

Viking

We sat at the kitchen table the next morning, each of us with a cup of coffee. As amazing as my time with her had been last night, something was weighing on me. I hadn’t been completely honest about Kris and everything I knew.

“I need to tell you something. About Kris.”

She set her cup down. “What about him?”

I took a deep breath, knowing once I started, there’d be no going back. “After I stopped coming to your family holidays, we kept meeting up, whenever he was stateside. Never anything formal, never at his place or mine. Always some random bar halfway between wherever he was stationed and here.”

“Why the secrecy?” she asked.

“Because what he was doing wasn’t exactly on the books.” I rubbed my palm against my jeans. “The last few years, Kris was involved in operations that officially didn’t exist. Deep cover stuff.”

“Like what Wire found,” she said, connecting the pieces. “Ghostwalk.”

I nodded. “Three years ago, he reached out after months of silence. Said he needed to meet, needed someone he could trust. I found him in this dive bar about two hours from here. Place was practically empty, just a couple of old drunks at the bar and us in a back booth.”

I could see it now -- Kris hunched over his beer, eyes constantly checking the door, shoulders tight. Different from the laughing kid I’d grown up with. Haunted.

“He didn’t look good,” I continued. “Skinnier than I remembered, dark circles under his eyes. He’d been overseas, wouldn’t say where. Kept checking his phone, the exits, like he expected someone to burst in any minute.”

“That doesn’t sound like Kris,” Karoline said, frowning. “It hadn’t been long since I’d seen him. How could have changed that much in such a short time?”

“War changes people. And what he’d been doing was worse than war.

” I leaned forward, elbows on the table.

“He slid a thumb drive across the table, said if anything happened to him, I needed to keep it safe. Said he’d stumbled onto something big -- government officials selling classified intel, backdoor deals with foreign agents, money laundering through defense contracts.

I’d forgotten about it until you showed up on my doorstep saying Kris was dead. ”

Her face paled. “And they killed him for it. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not just for finding it. For documenting it.” I ran a hand over my beard, remembering.

“Kris was smart -- set up fail-safes, stored evidence in multiple locations. He knew what he was dealing with, knew the risks. And he didn’t enter Ghostwalk lightly.

He assumed he had all the facts. But it turns out, the corruption he was chasing went deeper than he realized.

Even the higher-ups of Ghostwalk appear to be involved. ”

“Why you?” Karoline asked. “Why not tell me?”

The question I’d been dreading. “Because he was protecting you. And because…” I hesitated, knowing the next words might change everything between us.

“Because I was already in this life. Already had resources, connections, the kind of protection you’d need if they ever came looking.

He knew exactly what both me and the Dixie Reapers were capable of. ”

“That’s not all, is it?”

“No.” I met her gaze directly. “He made me promise that if anything happened to him, I’d look out for you.

Said there was no one else he trusted to keep you safe.

I should have told you when you showed up that day, but…

I was still unsettled by the news of his death, and with the letter he’d left you, I didn’t feel it was necessary to say anything. ”

Her expression shifted from confusion to hurt to something harder to read. “So all of this -- taking us in, protecting us, even the things between us -- was that just keeping your promise to my brother? You told me last night that it wasn’t. Did you lie?”

The question hit like a physical blow. “When you showed up at our gate with Athena, I was honoring a promise to a friend. But it became more than that. So much more. When I said I wanted to keep you, that it was more than me owing your brother something, I was telling the truth. I probably should have told you sooner, but I was afraid you wouldn’t trust my motives if you knew I’d been keeping secrets. ”

Karoline was quiet for a long moment. When she finally looked up, her eyes were clear, determined.

“No more secrets.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. “From now on, I need to know everything. About Kris, about the danger, about what comes next. All of it.”

I nodded, relief flooding through me at the absence of anger in her voice. She hadn’t pushed me away. Hadn’t taken Athena and run. She was still here, still willing to trust me despite what I’d kept from her.

“No more secrets,” I promised. “Everything I know, you know. Starting now. Well, except for club business. That’s always off-limits. Club rules.”

* * *

The tech room buzzed with quiet tension as I guided Karoline through the door, Athena balanced on her hip, eyes wide at the sudden crowd of leather-clad men.

Wire and Atlas sat surrounded by glowing monitors, their faces illuminated by the blue light of multiple screens, making them look like figures from some digital underworld.

Around them, brothers had gathered in a loose semicircle -- Sticks leaning against the wall, arm in a makeshift sling.

Tank perched on a desk corner. Savior and Saint standing shoulder to shoulder near the main display.

All eyes turned to us as we entered, a mixture of respect and curiosity in their gazes.

Not just for me, but for Karoline, who had survived the night’s terror without breaking.

“They’re here,” Wire announced unnecessarily, turning back to his keyboard.

His fingers flew across the keys, bringing up files on the main screen -- emails, maps, fragments of code.

“We’ve been piecing together what we’ve got from the men we took alive and cross-referencing it with what we already knew about Operation Ghostwalk. ”

I positioned myself slightly in front of Karoline, not blocking her view but establishing a barrier between her and the rest of the room. Old habits. Protective instincts I couldn’t suppress, even knowing she was stronger than she looked.

“What have you found?” I asked, scanning the information sprawling across multiple screens.

Atlas spoke up, his quiet voice commanding attention despite his youth.

“Ghostwalk was officially terminated three weeks ago, but there’s still a team operating.

The men who attacked us were part of that team -- cleanup crew, assigned to eliminate all traces of the operation.

” He glanced at Karoline. “Including anyone who might have received information from your brother.”

Athena squirmed in Karoline’s arms, reaching toward the colorful displays. Her movement drew Atlas’s attention to them, his eyes lingering on the silver locket around Karoline’s neck.

“May I see that?” he asked, directing the question to Karoline rather than speaking around her.

She hesitated, looking to me. I nodded slightly, trusting Wire’s son implicitly when it came to finding hidden information.

If he wanted the locket, there had to be a reason.

She set Athena down on a clear spot on the desk, the child watching solemnly.

Karoline reached up and removed a locket from around her neck.

“Kris sent this as a birthday present,” she explained, handing it to Atlas.

Atlas examined the silver heart, turning it over in his slender fingers. His brow furrowed in concentration. “There’s something odd about the weight,” he murmured, pressing gently along the edges. “And the seam isn’t quite right.”

Wire rolled his chair closer, peering at the locket. “Might be a hidden compartment.”

“Or something embedded in the metal itself,” Atlas countered. He reached for a magnifying glass from the desk, examining the surface more closely before popping it open. “There’s an inscription inside.” His voice sharpened with excitement. “But it’s microscopic. Deliberately so.”

Athena watched intently as Atlas carefully turned the locket to show everyone a small photo -- Kris in his military uniform.

But it was the inner rim that had the key detail to figuring out this situation.

He connected the locket to a small device, which in turn linked to his computer.

Within seconds, the magnified image appeared on the main screen -- tiny, precise lettering etched into the silver, as well as what looked to be another opening.

“Holy shit,” Sticks breathed, leaning forward. “What is that?”

“Coordinates,” Wire answered, already typing. “And what looks like access codes. Encryption keys.” He glanced at Karoline, something like respect in his eyes. “Your brother was one clever son of a bitch.”

“It looks like it opens again,” Karoline said.

“I think it does, but if we try to open that, we might break it. Your brother clearly knew they might be watching him,” Atlas added, fingers flying across his keyboard as he worked. “This would be virtually undetectable unless you knew to look for it. Even a standard security scan would miss it.”

Karoline had gone pale, one arm wrapped protectively around Athena who seemed fascinated by the locket displayed on the big screen. “What does it mean?” she asked, her voice steady despite the tension I could feel radiating from her.

Wire sat back, a grim smile spreading across his face. “It means your brother left us a roadmap. If I’m guessing right, these coordinates and codes will give us access to a secure server containing all the evidence he gathered against the rogue faction within Ghostwalk.”

“I thought Ghostwalk was trying to take down corrupt individuals,” I said.

Wire shrugged. “That’s what they were supposed to do. However, it looks like some of those corrupt officials were part of Operation Ghostwalk. Probably wanted to make sure they weren’t found out.”

“The information your brother gathered was enough to burn them to the ground,” Atlas confirmed, looking up from his screen. “Names, dates, transactions, recorded conversations -- everything needed to expose the entire operation. It’s what I would do.”

The room fell silent as the implications sank in. This wasn’t just about protecting Karoline and Athena anymore. This was about finishing what Kris had started -- exposing corruption that reached into the highest levels of government.

“They’ll come back,” Tank said, voicing what we all knew. “They lost men here. They’ll regroup, bring more firepower.”

“Let them come,” Savior responded, his voice cold. “We’ll be ready.”

I felt Karoline’s hand slip into mine, her fingers squeezing tight. I looked down at her, at the determination in her eyes that mirrored my own, at Athena watching us both with that solemn gaze that seemed to understand far more than a three-year-old should.

“We need to move on this now,” I said. “Get that information to someone who can use it publicly. Someone they can’t silence.”

“I’ve got contacts at three major news outlets,” Wire offered. “People who’ve broken stories like this before. People who know how to protect their sources. If Kris tried to get this into the hands of journalists before, he sent it to the wrong ones.”

“And we need to prepare for their return,” Saint added. “Double the guards, set up additional perimeters. Repair the damage done by those assholes already. No one gets within a mile of this compound without us knowing.”

I nodded, then turned fully to face Karoline, placing my free hand gently on her shoulder. “You and Athena will stay at the safe house. We’ll have brothers with you around the clock.”

She straightened, chin lifting slightly. “I want to help. This is about my brother. About what he died for.”

Pride surged through me at her courage, even as fear for her safety tightened my chest. “You’ll help by keeping Athena safe. By being there when Wire and Atlas need more information about Kris.”

I turned back to the room, my decision made. “We end this now. We use what Kris left us to burn these bastards to the ground, and we make damn sure they can never threaten Karoline or Athena again.”

Around the room, brothers nodded, determination hardening their features.

Tank checked his sidearm, Sticks straightened, and Savior gave a single, sharp nod of approval.

It looked like the Pres was still fine with me leading the way for now.

Even though this was now so much more than just protecting Karoline and Athena.

“Your brother trusted you with his daughter,” Wire told Karoline as he carefully removed the locket from the scanning device. “And he trusted Viking with you both. Smart man.”

He handed the locket back to Karoline.

“Kris knew what he was doing. Sending you to me. Making sure I’d be the one to protect you.” I looked around at my brothers, at the men who had fought and bled for us last night. “He knew I wouldn’t be alone in it.”

The planning continued around us -- Wire and Atlas diving into the encrypted data, brothers discussing security measures and defensive positions -- but I remained focused on Karoline and Athena.

In that moment, with danger still hovering on the horizon and the taste of last night’s battle still fresh, I made a silent vow.

Whatever it took, whatever price I had to pay, I would see this through.

For Kris, who had trusted me with his most precious treasures.

For my brothers, who had put their lives on the line without hesitation.

For Athena, who deserved a chance at a normal life.

And for Karoline, whose strength had only grown in the face of danger, whose presence in my life had shifted everything I thought I knew about myself and what I wanted for my future.

They were mine to protect now. And God help anyone who tried to take them from me.