Page 45 of Heresy
He opened the goddamn door. We're not just being attacked. We are being slaughtered.
The world is red light,choking dust, and the deafening roar of gunfire. Chaos erupts. My ears are still ringing from the blast, but the instincts of a President at war take over.
"Armory! Get the heavy shit!" I roar, my voice cutting through the din. "Barricade the front! Hold the main floor!"
The brothers move, a surge of leather and violence. Zero is already a lethal shadow, shoving a rifle into one man's hands, pointing another toward a defensive position. He is in his element, a creature of pure combat. Rook is beside me, his face grim in the pulsing red light, shouting orders, trying to turn a rout into a defense.
My mind should be a clean, cold map of the battlefield. It should be on entry points, fields of fire, the status of my men.
But it's not.
My eyes keep flicking to the corner of the table, to the dead, black monitor that, moments ago, held her image. A cold dread, separate from the adrenaline of the fight, cuts through me. She's on the fourth floor. Trapped in a concrete box. Alone. In the middle of a fucking firefight.
She is the one unsecured asset. The one piece on the board I can't account for. The splinter, lodged not just under my skin, but in the very heart of my fortress as it burns.
"Prez, the west wall is compromised! We need you here!" Rook shouts, his hand gripping my arm, trying to pull my focus back to the battle. "We have to hold the main floor or they'll push us all the way to the basement!"
He's right. His logic is perfect. The club's survival depends on a coordinated defense, and I am the commander. My place is here, leading my men, holding the line.
But the thought of her—alone, trapped, at the mercy of a stray bullet or a breach team—is a hook in my gut, pulling me away from duty, away from all tactical sense. I have to know she's contained. I have to know she's not a part of this. I have to see her.
It's not a choice. It's a compulsion.
I shove a fresh magazine into my pistol, the click of the metal a definitive sound. "Hold this ground," I snarl at Rook, shrugging off his hand.
"Hex, what the hell are you doing?!" he yells as I turn from the main battle.
I don't answer him. I am no longer a king defending his kingdom. I am a man driven by a single, irrational obsession. I lower my shoulder and charge toward the staircase, fighting my way through the smoke and chaos, toward the fourth floor. Toward her.
The staircase is a deathtrap.Dust and smoke billow down from the upper floors, so thick I can barely see. The air is acrid with the smell of gunpowder and burning insulation. I take the stairs two at a time, my pistol up, my senses screaming. A burst of automatic fire from below chews a line of splinters from the wall next to my head, and I flatten myself against the steps, waiting for a lull before pushing upward again.
I reach the fourth-floor landing, my lungs burning. The hallway is a long tunnel of pulsing red emergency light and swirling smoke. I fumble for the key to her cell, my adrenaline-slick fingers struggling with the lock. For a horrifying second, it sticks. I slam my shoulder into the heavy steel, and it finally gives way.
I throw the door open, expecting to find her screaming or crying, a broken mess in the corner.
Instead, she’s on the floor, crouched beneath the high, barred window. Not in terror, but in observation. Her face is a mask of terrifying, analytical calm as she watches the firefight erupting in the street below, the flashes of muzzle fire reflecting in her wide, dark eyes. She is a strategist watching a battle unfold.
The sight of her, so contained amidst the chaos, sends a fresh jolt through me.
"We have to move! Now!" I yell over the roar of gunfire, grabbing her arm. "The building's not secure!"
She doesn't resist, but her eyes snap to mine, clear and sharp. "It was never secure," she shouts back, her voice cutting through the noise. "Your men have been betraying you."
"What the hell are you talking about?!" I snarl, dragging her toward the door. We don't have time for this.
"I saw it!" she says, digging her heels in, forcing me to stop and look at her. "In the clubhouse. The big one with the red beard, Grizz. He was with the prospect who had been bringing me food."
Her words are fast, precise, the details of a photograph being described. "He leaned in and whispered something. I couldn't hear the words, but it wasn't an order. It was an exchange. A moment later, I saw the prospect reach under the table they were at and retrieve a small burner phone that had been taped there. He palmed it and walked away."
She looks me dead in the eye, her voice dropping with chilling certainty. "It was a secret. A conspiracy."
Her words hang in the smoke-filled air between us, an accusation so profound it feels like a physical blow. My first instinct is to reject it. To snarl at her, to call her a liar. The thought is a venomous whisper in my mind:She's playing you.This is a trick. A seed of paranoia planted by a Bratva-trained operative to make you turn on your own.
My men do not conspire. They do not break the hierarchy. Not a patched brother. Not Grizz. The laws of the club are absolute, the chain of command forged in blood and iron. To believe her is to believe that the very foundation of my kingdom is rotten.
My mind flashes with suspicion, playing tricks on me. Is this her game? Is this the move she's been waiting to make on the board?
But then, another image cuts through the smoke and suspicion. Her, standing before me at the bar, a clean rag in her hand, her face a mask of calm focus as she tended to the gash on my arm. The rooftop conversation, her voice steady and sharp as she spoke of burning down rotting kingdoms. Her defiance. The fire in her eyes that was not the practiced deception of a spy, but the raw, honest fury of a survivor.
