Page 127 of Nash
By one-thirty, the clubhouse is ready. Every member, every partner, briefed through a chain of texts and whisperedconversations that East hasn't intercepted because East is in the yard with both twins, trying to wrestle Declan into the tiny leather cut Darla had made during her pregnancy. PROSPECT stitched across the back in miniature lettering. Rowan is in the carrier on the picnic table. James sits beside her with his coffee.
Rider's bike pulls through the gate at one forty-five. Ruby climbs off the back, helmet in hand, and the new outfit is everything she promised. Fitted jeans, a dark top that sits on her shoulders in a way that makes my hands want to remove it, and boots she bought to replace the ones East ordered in a size eleven. She crosses the lot toward me. My grip tightens on the doorframe.
She reaches me at the clubhouse door, then grips my cut and pulls me down. Her mouth brushes my ear.
"I'm wearing very pretty, very lacy things underneath this," she says. "Consider it your reward for what's about to happen."
My hand slides from her hip to her ass. I grip, pulling her into me, my index and middle finger pressing between her thighs from behind. Her breath catches against my neck. She holds for a beat, her body arching into my hand, before I release her.
"Sit in the main room," I say. "Past the half wall. Stay quiet."
"I'll be a ghost."
"You've never been a ghost in your life."
"Today I am a ghost with a front-row seat and a vindictive heart." She kisses my jaw and disappears past the half wall into the main room.
Two o'clock. War room.
Knox has the photographs spread across three screens. The originals from Lawrence's folder, the surveillance shots Phoenix's network pulled from the pipeline's communication channels. Eight images of Ruby total. Six taken at the clubhouse. Two outside the Leighton house.
Malachi sits at the head of the table. Knox to his left. I take my spot to his right. East is across from me with Declan asleep against his chest in the tiny cut. Victor sits beside East, arms crossed with the particular focus of a man whose own history with the pipeline runs deeper than most. Kyle and Rider stand by the door. Arden leans against the back wall. James sits in his chair with coffee.
"Same photographer," Knox says. He zooms in on the partial reflection in the Amaranth shop window. "Every shot, same angle, same lens distortion. One guy."
James' instruction runs the framework. Trace the threat. That person is local, active, and close enough to find.
Knox walks through the evidence. Diner security camera. White pickup on three occasions. Partial plate cross-referenced against Lawrence's sealed records.
"Dale Whitmore," Knox says, highlighting the name on screen. "Last known address: trailer outside Batesville. Courier for the Gulf pipeline before the Blackwell takedown. Low-level. His name appears in one of Lawrence's sealed files as a peripheral witness who was never called."
"Connected to Alice?" Malachi asks.
"Two degrees removed. When the network fractured after Blackwell, the muscle was left without a chain of command." Knox pulls up Whitmore's file. Heavy man. Weathered face. Neck tattoo done in a kitchen. "He's executing a playbook that nobody's running anymore."
"A soldier without a general," James says.
"Dangerous because he's isolated," Knox adds. "No handler means no restraint. He's making his own decisions about escalation."
"The apartment break-in?" Malachi asks.
"Matches his profile. Solo entry, nothing taken, designed to send a message."
My jaw sets.
"Location?" I ask.
"The trailer's been abandoned. But the diner footage shows a pattern. He returns to the same three positions every four to five days. Next rotation puts him at the laundromat bench within forty-eight hours."
"Greg, what's your read on the financial trail?" Malachi says in a flat voice aimed at East.
East opens his mouth. Closes it. His hand stills on Declan's back.
"Did you just call me Greg?"
"The financial trail, Greg. Focus."
East looks at Knox. Knox's face is neutral. East looks at Kyle. Kyle's face is neutral. East looks at me.
