Page 34 of Cold Hard Truth

Doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters anymore.

Especially when I’m chasing ghosts through this haunted house, still not sure why the fuck Kane sent us here. I’ve been so wrapped up in missing Lyla lately that I haven’t been paying attention like I used to. Kane’s been stressed about whoever is trying to oust him as president while trying to figure out who would betray the club. It’s all white noise at this point. A lot of yelling and not much action.

At least tonight I can do something. Anything is better than sitting in my thoughts.

“Retrieve the package. Whatever the price.”

Whateverthe packageis. If I had to guess, Satan’s Reapers are trafficking drugs in our territory again. And even if the Twisted Kings do some morally grey shit, we have our limits. Weed, coke, guns. But Kane won’t touch heroin or meth, which has made it easy for Satan’s Reapers to take control of that market.

Worse than that—they’ll traffic women.

I just hope what I find downstairs is bricks of powder and not humans.

Dad disappears once he reaches the staircase, and I make my way to the basement door. It creaks on its hinges, so if anyone is down there, they’ll be ready.

I spot a light switch but leave it off. Between the old creaky floorboards and rattling walls, it’s already difficult enough to mask my movements.

Starting down the staircase, I keep my back to the wall. My gun in position for whatever might meet me at the bottom, so I’m slow and careful. I’m halfway down when I hear a soft whimper, and I can’t tell if they’re crying or in pain.

All I know is I pick up my pace.

Kane and the rest of the Council didn’t fill me in on the details of the mission, which is one of the downsides of being a prospect. It doesn’t matter what they need, I just have to do it.

Taking another step, I try to quiet my boots. To steady my breathing. To focus on the mission ahead of me.

No matter what I find at the bottom of the staircase, I need to keep it together. But then that whimper starts up again, and my gut’s in knots.

I’ve seen gnarly shit working at the clubhouse. Cleaning up the horse stalls for years means I’ve just about seen it all. But something about that sound coming from the basement feels like a bad omen, and I don’t fucking like it.

An echo of metal scraping concrete has my blood raking my veins with every pump of my heart. And even if I’ve never given much weight to intuition like Lyla’s always talking about, in this moment, I almost sense what she meant by it.

This is the problem with following orders. One demand, and I’m no longer in control of what happens.

Gut instinct, fear—it all goes out the window.

This is a sacrifice for the club if it comes down to it.

Keeping my gun up, I make my way down the staircase one step at a time, as quiet as I can be.

When I reach the bottom, I press my back to the wall when something shuffles on the other side. Someone is moving things around the basement. They’re humming, tapping, shifting objects.

In the darkness, everything is amplified.

And if it wouldn’t give away my position, I’d call up to my dad to let him know I’ve found what we came here for. But I can’t risk it.

I keep my back flat to the wall for a moment, staying hidden and out of sight to see if whoever is down here will come to find me.

They don’t.

So I measure my breathing to the haunting sobs coming from the other side of the wall. Quiet and barely there. Broken. Guttural, like every breath rips a piece of them away. It drowns out every other noise except for the blood pumping between my temples.

I don’t know how many Satan’s Reapers are down here ready to make Swiss cheese out of my chest when I turn the corner. But that soft crying turns my insides to iron, and there’s no turning back.

Get it done.

An order.

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