7

The world is a blur of wet asphalt and screaming wind.

I bury my face in Drakon’s leather cut. The smell of him—rain, old tobacco, and the metallic tang of adrenaline—fills my nose, drowning out the stench of the alley. His back is a wall of muscle against my chest, hard and unyielding.

We aren't driving. We’re flying low to the ground. Drakon weaves through traffic like a needle through fabric, cutting margins so thin I squeeze my eyes shut.

My thighs burn from gripping the bike. My arms ache from holding onto him. But I don't let go. If I let go, I fall. And if I fall, the Reapers are waiting.

Hold on tight, Thalia.

His command echoes in my head.

We leave the city lights behind. The road turns darker, winding up into the industrial hills where the zoning laws stop and the questions aren't asked.

The Compound.

I haven't been here since the funeral. Six months ago, I stood in the courtyard in a black dress while fifty men revved their engines in a final salute to a liar.

Drakon slows down. He doesn't stop.

Ahead, twelve-foot concrete walls rise out of the darkness, topped with razor wire that gleams wet under the security lights.

Two men step out from the guard shack. Prospects. No patches on their vests. Just eager faces and shotguns held across their chests.

They see the bike. They see Drakon.

One of them scrambles for the gate controls.

"Open it!" Drakon roars over the engine.

The heavy iron gates groan, sliding back just fast enough. We shoot through the gap before it’s fully open.

Drakon kills the engine in the center of the courtyard. The silence that follows is ringing and sudden.

He kicks the kickstand down and swings his leg over in one fluid motion. He doesn't wait for me to dismount. He grabs my waist and lifts me off the bike like I’m a ragdoll.

My boots hit the wet concrete. My legs wobble.

"Can you walk?" he demands.

"I think so."

"Think faster."

He grabs my hand. His grip is crushing. He drags me toward the main building—a converted warehouse reinforced with steel doors and blacked-out windows.

"Drakon!"

A voice calls out from the shadows. A man with a long beard and a cut covered in road dust steps into the light. "We heard shots in the city. Scanner is going crazy. What the hell is—"

"Not now, Riker," Drakon snaps. He doesn't break stride. "Lock the gate. Full perimeter. Nobody comes in. Nobody goes out. If a car so much as slows down out front, put a round through the engine block."

"The cops?" Riker asks, eyeing me.

"Worse."

Drakon pushes through the steel doors.

The inside of the clubhouse hits me like a physical blow. The air is thick with smoke, loud rock music, and the smell of beer. A dozen men are scattered around pool tables and the bar. Women—club girls, "sweetbutts"—hang off them or dance near the jukebox.

The music cuts out the second Drakon storms in.

He’s dripping wet. There’s blood on his knuckles. And he’s dragging the dead President’s widow through the room.

Every eye locks onto us.

I shrink into my jacket. I feel the weight of their stares. Judgment. Confusion. Lust.

"Eyes front!" Drakon barks.

The men look away. The women whisper.

He marches me past the bar, past the curious faces, straight to the back of the room.

The double oak doors.

The Chapel.

This is sacred ground. Only patched members are allowed inside. Old Ladies enter by invitation only.

Drakon kicks the doors open.

The room is cold. A massive oval table dominates the space, carved from a single slab of redwood. The Wolves logo—a snarling wolf head—is burned into the center.

High-backed leather chairs surround it.

Drakon drags me to the head of the table.

The President’s chair.

It’s high, imposing, and empty. It has been empty for six months. A memorial. A ghost’s throne.

"Sit," Drakon commands.

I freeze. "I can't sit there. That’s... that’s Nikos’s chair."

"Sit down, Thalia."

"Drakon, the rules—"

"I am the rules right now."

He puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me down. I land in the leather seat. It’s too big for me. I feel small. Surrounded.

He leans over me, planting his hands on the arms of the chair, trapping me. Water drips from his hair onto the table.

"You stay in this chair," he says, his voice low and vibrating with intensity. "You don't move. You don't stand up. You don't speak unless I tell you to."

"Why?" I whisper.

"Because right now, this is the only spot in the city where a bullet can't reach you."

The doors bang open again.

I jump.

A man storms in. He’s huge, nearly as big as Drakon, with a shaved head and a beard that reaches his chest. A scar runs from his ear to his jaw.

Leon. The Sergeant-at-Arms. The man responsible for club security and discipline.

He looks at Drakon, then at me sitting in the President's chair. His eyes narrow.

"Drakon," Leon says, his voice a deep rumble. "What the hell is going on? Riker says you ordered a lockdown. And why is she in that chair?"

"Close the door, Leon."

Leon hesitates. He looks at me again. I grip the arms of the chair, my knuckles white. I expect him to drag me out. To throw me onto the street for disrespecting the patch.

Leon closes the door. The latch clicks. It sounds like a prison cell locking.

He walks to the table. "Talk to me, brother. You disappeared for a week. Now you come back with a broken nose, a hot gun, and the widow."

Drakon reaches into my jacket. I flinch, but he’s not going for a weapon.

He pulls out the ledger.

He throws it onto the table. It slides across the polished wood and hits Leon’s hand.

"Read it," Drakon says.

Leon opens the black book. He scans the first page. He frowns. He flips to the middle. Then the end.

His face goes pale. Then red. A vein bulges in his forehead.

"This is Nikos’s handwriting," Leon says. It’s not a question.

"Yes."

"These dates... these amounts." Leon looks up, confusion warring with anger. "Deposits? From who?"

"Look at the margin," Drakon says. "May 15th."

Leon looks. "S.R."

The silence in the room stretches, heavy and suffocating.

"Savage Reapers," Leon breathes. He looks at me. "He was gambling with Reapers?"

"He wasn't gambling," I say. My voice is small in the big room.

Drakon shoots me a look, but he doesn't stop me.

"He was selling," I say, the words tasting like bile. "Routes. Safe houses. Names."

Leon slams the book shut. The sound echoes like a gunshot. "That’s impossible. Nikos was President. He loved this club."

"He loved money," Drakon spits. "And he loved saving his own skin."

"He’s dead, Drakon. You can't put this on a dead man."

Drakon walks around the table. He stops behind my chair. He puts a hand on the headrest, right behind my neck. A claim. A shield.

"He’s not dead."

Leon freezes. "What?"

"I was at her apartment," Drakon says. "Mick was there. I handled him. Then I found this." He points to the ledger. "And then she got a phone call."

Drakon reaches into his pocket. He pulls out the burner phone—the one I had shoved in my bra. He flips it open and slides it across the table.

"Read the text," Drakon says.

Leon picks up the phone. He reads it. He drops the phone on the table like it burned him.

"Deliver the girl," Leon reads.

"He didn't just sell routes," Drakon says, his voice ice cold. "He sold his wife."

Leon looks at the empty chair at the head of the table. Then at me sitting in it. Then at Drakon standing guard behind it.

"So we have a dead President who’s alive," Leon says, his voice rising. "Who is a rat. And we have his wife, who is the price of admission."

"Yes," Drakon says.

Drakon looks down at me, then up at Leon. His eyes are dark, possessive, and terrifyingly calm. He announces it to the room, letting the words hang in the air like smoke.

"Nikos is alive," Drakon says. "And he’s a rat. And the Reapers want her as payment."