Page 23 of My Knight

I didn’t look at him, but I could feel the grin in his voice. He’d been half-joking, but the tension in the room said we were all hoping one of those names—Boone, Gibbs, Russ, Stretch—was about to be laid out like meat on a table.

Yarder nodded toward Compass.

Compass opened the thick leather notebook in front of him and flipped through a few pages before pulling out a loose sheet of paper.

“I’ve been digging,” he said, and held the paper up between two fingers. “Trying to run down anyone who’s got beef with Boone or Gibbs—friends, enemies, anyone with a reason to talk. Or someone who wants to just help.” He slid the paper onto the center of the table. “This is Brynn Maranga. Now Banachi.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Did you just say Maranga?” Fade asked and leaned forward. “As in Guy Maranga?”

Compass nodded once.

Fade let out a low whistle. “Are you saying we’re getting connected to the Maranga? That’s not just any name—they’re like the fucking mafia.” He looked around the table, eyebrows raised. “Everyone in the world knows that name.”

And he wasn’t wrong.

Every guy here gave some sort of nod, grunt, or eyebrow raise of agreement. Even Dice, who joked about everything, looked dead serious.

“How?” I asked and leaned forward slightly. “You’re not telling me we’ve got some kind of secret handshake with the Maranga. What’s the connection?”

Compass smirked slightly like he’d been waiting for someone to ask that. “Alice,” he said.

There was a collective blink around the table.

“Wrecker’s ol’ lady?” Dice asked with his brow furrowed.

“The chick who talks about cows?” Throttle added and tilted his head.

Yarder chuckled. “The one and only.”

“Wait, wait,” Dice said, holding up a hand. “Are you telling me the woman who proudly claims to wear cowprint onesies is our connection to the Maranga?”

“Basically,” Compass said. “She’s friends with Meg. Meg is the ol’ lady of the prez of the Devil’s Knights.”

Everyone nodded.

“Well,” Compass continued, “a member of the Devil’s Knights’ ol’ lady is the sister of Leo Banachi. Leo married Brynn Maranga. Brynn was married to Guy Maranga before he passed, and after his death, she took over.”

My brain did a double-take.

That was a damn twisted line of connection, but it was perfect for us.

“So, let me get this straight,” Smoke said. “Through Alice… who’s friends with Meg… whose man is in the Knights… who one of the other member’s ol’ lady is Banachi… who is the sister of Leo Banachi, who married Brynn Maranga—we now have a path to Maranga?”

“Yep,” Compass said. “And Brynn and Leo are going to be the ones to help us.”

I leaned back slightly and absorbed everything.

Brynn Maranga was now Brynn Banachi, and she ran the show. We weren’t talking about biker clubs anymore. Wewere talking power. Deep, generational, fear-in-your-gut kind of power.

I didn’t care how we got to Maranga.

I cared that we could.

“Leo and Brynn will be here next Thursday,” Yarder said, his voice steady. “They’re meeting with us as a favor to the Devil’s Knights.”

Smoke leaned forward. “So we’re going to be in debt to the Devil’s Knights?”

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