Page 45 of Wings (Heavy Kings MC #5)

The phone bounced on his hip with each step, that chain catching light like a beacon.

I breathed steady, hands relaxed, ready to move the second opportunity presented itself.

Through the earpiece, Thor's voice rumbled updates I barely processed.

All my focus narrowed to the two people in the center of the bay.

Alex reached for Kiara, and she swayed backward just enough to make him pursue.

Leading him like a dancer, positioning him exactly where I needed him.

Her eyes flicked past his shoulder for a split second, finding me in the shadows.

Just a flash, so quick anyone else would have missed it, but I saw the message there: ready when you are.

My brave, brilliant girl.

"You stupid bitch," Alex spat, closing the distance between them. "You can't be here!"

Alex's hands closed on Kiara's shoulders with enough force to bruise, shaking her hard enough to make her hair whip across her face.

"You ruined my life!" The words tore from her throat, raw and real despite being scripted.

She shoved at his chest, not hard enough to actually move him but enough to make his grip tighten, his focus narrow to just controlling her.

Perfect.

I moved like water finding its level, three silent steps across oil-stained concrete.

My hand found the phone's clip with the muscle memory of a thousand practice runs in Duke's office, thumb and forefinger working in concert.

The real phone lifted away smooth as silk while my other hand was already positioning the clone.

The weight difference sang through my fingers—2.3 ounces that felt like pounds in that stretched second. But the clip accepted the replacement with a soft click that Alex's raised voice covered completely.

"You stupid bitch, you can't be here! You're not meant to be here, this isn't part of the plan." His words barely registered past the mission focus, but some part of me filed away that odd phrasing. What plan?

I was already melting back into shadows when Kiara's eyes flicked over Alex's shoulder again. Just for a microsecond, her gaze touching mine with surgical precision before returning to Alex's face. Message received—she'd seen me clear, knew the primary objective was complete.

"You ruined my life!" she repeated, shoving harder this time. The passion in it wasn't entirely fake. Three years of abuse, of fear, of watching him spiral into someone she didn't recognize—all of it channeled into this moment.

The real phone sat heavy in my jacket pocket as I found new cover behind a tool cart twenty feet from my original position. Always shift after contact, never be where they expect if things go loud. Through the earpiece, Dex's breathing quickened with anticipation.

"Thirty seconds," I whispered into the mic, already plotting my exit route. Back door, into the alley, gone before anyone knew I'd been there.

But the universe had other plans.

"Hey, boss." One of the prospects straightened from his position by the bay door, squinting into the parking lot. "Is there someone else out there? Thought I saw someone out front."

Every muscle in my body locked down. Through years of training, I kept my breathing steady, silent, even as I watched Alex's entire demeanor shift. The paranoia that lived in his bones, fed by stimulants and guilty conscience, flared to life like gasoline meeting flame.

His head snapped up, the motion sharp enough to make Kiara stumble. His hand went to his belt, fingers finding the phone still there, but his eyes swept the shop with new intensity. Looking for shadows that didn't belong, for threats in familiar spaces.

"Check the perimeter," he ordered, shoving Kiara away hard enough that she had to catch herself on a workbench. "Now!"

The prospects moved with the reluctant speed of men who'd rather watch drama than work. One headed for the front, the other starting a lazy circuit of the bay. Neither focused, neither expecting actual trouble, but movement meant eyes in places they hadn't been before.

"Alex, wait—" Real fear crept into Kiara's voice now. Not for herself, I realized, but for the plan. For me.

"Shut up." His hand found his gun, not drawing but resting on the grip. "Something's off. Something's—"

"Data transfer initiated," Dex's voice cut through the earpiece, calm as a morgue. "Clock's ticking."

Twenty-eight seconds until we had everything. Twenty-eight seconds I needed to stay hidden while two prospects swept the building and Alex's paranoia cranked higher with each heartbeat.

The prospect checking the bay moved closer to my position, flashlight beam playing across tool benches and equipment. I shifted minutely, keeping the tool cart between us, calculating angles and distances. If he came around the left side, I'd have to move. Right side, I could stay hidden.

Fifty-fifty odds.

"I don't see anybody," the front prospect called back. "Just her car parked crooked as fuck out there."

"Keep looking," Alex snapped. His hand hadn't left his gun. "And you—" He spun back to Kiara. "Who brought you here?"

"Nobody!" The indignation in her voice was perfect. "I drove myself. Jesus, Alex, paranoid much? Not everything is about you."

But his instincts, honed by months of stealing from killers, weren't buying it. I could see it in the way his weight shifted, the way his eyes kept scanning even while he focused on her. The animal part of him that knew predators circled in darkness.

The flashlight beam swept closer. Fifteen feet. Ten. The prospect would round the cart in seconds, and then—

"Fifteen seconds," Dex whispered.

I made the calculation in an instant. Fifteen seconds was too long to stay hidden once they raised the alarm. But if Kiara could give me ten, maybe twelve . . .

Through the shadows, I caught her eye again. The tiniest nod from her, message received without words. My brilliant girl, already three steps ahead.

"You know what?" She pushed off from the workbench, stumbling toward the exit with renewed drunk determination. "Fuck this. Fuck you. I came here to make peace and you're acting like—"

"Stop her," Alex barked at the closer prospect, who abandoned his search to intercept.

Eight feet from my position, the flashlight beam moving away. I breathed silent relief into the darkness.

"Ten seconds," Dex counted down.

But Kiara had run out of room to maneuver. The prospect had cornered her. "Let me go!"

"Five seconds."

Alex stalked toward them, everything about to collapse into violence. His paranoia had won, overriding any lingering emotion for the woman he'd claimed to love. His hand cleared leather, gun not quite pointing at anyone but ready.

"Three . . . two . . . one . . . We're good! Data secured!"

I was moving before conscious thought engaged. The back door crashed against its frame as Kiara burst through the shop's side entrance, the prospect with the beard right on her heels. His hand reached for her hair, fingers almost tangling in the dark strands.

Not fucking happening.

I changed trajectory like a fighter jet pulling Gs, intercepting him with a clothesline that would've made my high school football coach proud.

The impact sent shock waves up my arm but dropped him like a sack of cement.

His head bounced off the asphalt with a wet crack that said he wouldn't be getting up soon.

"Go!" The command ripped from my throat as Kiara's eyes went wide seeing me. Smart girl didn't need to be told twice—she sprinted past me toward Thor's truck.

The back door of the shop exploded open, Alex silhouetted against the fluorescent glare with his gun already drawn. For a moment that lasted forever my brother and I locked eyes across twenty feet of broken asphalt and bad decisions.

Recognition hit him in stages. He looked at my clothes, my body, and finally, my face under the streetlight's sickly glow.

"Gabe?" The name came out strangled, disbelieving. His gun hand wavered, caught between pointing at his brother and pointing at a threat. "What the fuck are you—"

"Data transfer complete," Dex's voice cut through the moment with surgical precision. "We're good."

I didn't wait to see which way Alex's internal war would tip. Love versus paranoia, brotherhood versus betrayal—that calculation could happen after we were gone. I turned and ran, tactical retreat executed with the same precision as the infiltration.

Behind me, Alex's voice rose in a cocktail of rage and something that might have been grief. "You fucking—GABE! You piece of shit! You took her, now you're taking this?"

The first shot cracked through the night as I reached the van, Tank already gunning the engine. The bullet sparked off the reinforced rear door—wide right, emotional shooting instead of aimed. More followed as I dove through the open side door, Tank peeling out before I even got it closed.

"Phoenix is secure," Thor's voice rumbled through the earpiece, professional calm over what had to be his own adrenaline spike. "Little shaken but unharmed. En route to shop three."

I allowed myself one moment—forehead pressed against the van's ridged floor, breathing like I'd run miles instead of yards.

"You solid?" Dex had closed his laptop, the data already uploaded to secure servers, backed up in triplicate, ready to be anonymously delivered to the Serpents' leadership.

"Yeah." I pushed myself up, found my seat as Tank took corners at speeds that threatened physics. "The data?"

"Beautiful." His grin held the sharp edge of a job well done. "Your brother's been very naughty. Skimming nearly twenty percent off the top, sometimes more. Keeping two sets of books through different wallet addresses. The Serpents are going to shit themselves when they see this."

Twenty percent. In the outlaw world, skimming five percent might get you beaten. Ten percent might get you exiled. Twenty percent was a death sentence written in neon.

"How long until the package arrives?" I kept my voice steady, clinical. This was mission wrap-up, not family drama.

"Anonymous email goes out at sunrise," Dex confirmed. "Gives us time to establish alibis, make sure our people are accounted for. By the time the Serpents verify the data and mobilize, we'll have been visibly elsewhere for hours."

“Just—hold it for now,” I said. “I don’t want Alex dead. Twenty percent is just . . . crazy.”

“You sure, the plan was to let them deal with their own.”

“I’m sure. Please, he’s my brother—I don’t want his blood on my hands.”

“Understood."

Shop three materialized out of the darkness—an abandoned warehouse the Heavy Kings maintained for exactly this purpose. Vehicle switches, temporary storage, a place to disappear one thing and reappear as another. Thor's truck was already there, Kiara's small form visible through the windshield.

The relief at seeing her safe hit like a physical blow. I was out of the van before Tank fully stopped, crossing the space between vehicles in long strides. She met me halfway, launching herself into my arms with enough force to drive the breath from my lungs.

"You came for me." Muffled against my chest, the words barely audible. "The plan was to let me run, but you came."

"Always." I held her tight enough to feel her heartbeat through both our clothes. "The second he hurt you, the plan changed."

Thor approached, all business despite the concern in his scarred features. "She did good. Held it together, followed exit protocol perfectly. Natural operator, this one."

"Never again," I said firmly, the words for Kiara but my eyes on Thor. "This was a one-time thing."

"Agreed."

We switched vehicles quickly, efficiently. The van would be stripped and abandoned two states over. Our cars had been elsewhere all evening, alibis solid as bedrock.

Now I just had to decide if to condemn my brother to certain death. But it could wait—I’d let him stew for a few days.