Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47714 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47714 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Jaxton shook his head with a laugh. “Tell me you’re a psychology major without saying you’re a psychology major.”
Kane’s lips quirked into a grin. “She’s definitely your sister with a brain like that.”
“She’s fucking amazing,” Chance murmured.
Kane gave him a loaded look, and Chance got to his feet and settled me on mine. “Give us a few minutes, beautiful.”
I bristled at being dismissed, especially since I thought we were just getting to the planning part of our discussion. But the mix of apology and resolve in his gaze stopped me cold.
“Club business.”
My parents might’ve kept me away from Jaxton as much as they could after he became a Redline King, but I knew what that phrase meant. If I wanted to be with Chance, I had to accept that some parts of his world came with locked doors.
“Fine.” I stood, trying to ignore the worry knotting in my stomach. “I’ll go take a shower.”
“And put on some of your own damn clothes while you’re at it,” Jaxton growled.
The shorts I grabbed before I headed into the bathroom were mine…but I made sure the shirt was one of Chance’s. Just to needle my brother because that was what little sisters did best.
19
DRIFT
Thirty minutes later, the door shut behind them with a low, final thud. I slid the bolt into place and leaned my shoulder against the frame, listening to the engines fade down the gravel road until nothing was left but the distant crash of waves. The beach house settled—old wood creaking and the faint hum of the generator thrumming through the floor. Outside, the wind carried the smell of salt and wet sand. Inside, the air still felt charged, like gunpowder after a shot.
Kane’s words replayed in my head. “We’ll bait him.”
A fake drop, where one of their servers rerouted through an intercept node Jax had designed. Ethan would think he was uploading to his handler at the tech-broker hub—one of those deep-web middlemen that ferried stolen data through layered uplinks—but the packet would reroute straight into our hands.
Once that happened, Jax would trace it through the encrypted uplink, and lock down the broker hub before those bastards could cover their tracks. A quick and lethal setup, the kind we were built for.
After laying out the plan, Kane growled, “Intercept the upload. Find the hub. Erase every name tied to it.”
And that meant every dirty broker who’d ever sold out a student, a scientist, or a whistleblower for a paycheck.
Jax had stood there with his arms folded across his chest, his jaw tight, still working through the last of his temper. “Ethan’s gonna take the bait. He’s too desperate not to.”
“Desperate men make mistakes,” I murmured. “That’s when we hit them.”
Kane nodded, then met my gaze. “Get her back to the clubhouse. We’ll have everything in place by tonight.”
I didn’t argue. If I had to be away from her, the clubhouse was the safest place. The moment Ethan’s uplink went live, anyone tied to him might start tying up loose ends—and Alanna was at the top of that list.
Now the quiet pressed in. There was only the wind moving through the cracks in the siding. I dragged a hand over my jaw, feeling the dull throb where Jax’s punch had landed. The ache helped, it grounded me. Reminded me that we’d made it through the worst of that fight—at least the kind that left bruises.
Outside, the tide was coming in, slow and relentless, waves curling against the sand like they didn’t give a damn about the chaos waiting inland. The sunlight was harsh, turning the dunes into a glare of white and gold. This was the calm before the next storm.
I pushed away from the door and crossed to the counter where my cut hung over the back of a stool. The leather was warm from the morning light, the edges soft against my fingers, and the patches worn smooth from years of rides and blood and weather. I slid it on, the weight settling over my shoulders like armor. Something in my chest eased. This was who I was. What I did.
In the reflection of the window, the man staring back wasn’t the one who’d woken up tangled around Alanna hours ago. That man had been warm, almost human. The one I saw now was the Redline Kings’ ghost again. Cold, patient, and methodical.
A sound from the bathroom broke me from my thoughts. Alanna was going to protest being locked in another cage. She’d try to argue, maybe even offer to help with the mission. Brave, stubborn woman that she was. But her place wasn’t on the line tonight—it was behind steel gates, where I knew she’d be breathing when I got back.
I grabbed the truck keys off the counter and shoved them into my pocket. It was time to move.