Page 44 of Heresy
That was not a master giving an order to a servant. That was a transaction. A conspiracy.
The paranoia that has infected this clubhouse, the reason they are all hunting for a scapegoat... it's not coming from a terrified prospect acting alone. He is working with a patched member. With Grizz. The rot in this kingdom goes deeper than even the king suspects.
I sit in the buzzing silence of the clubhouse, the weight of this new, deadly knowledge settling upon me like a physical shroud. I have found the traitor. I have found the source of the rot.
But what do I do with it?
The question is a double-edged blade. If I tell Hex, I am placing my trust, my life, in the hands of my captor, the man who branded me. He could see it as a trick, a lie from a desperate prisoner, and kill me for it. Or worse, he could believe me, and I would become a valuable asset—a tool to be used and discarded, chaining me to him even more securely.
But if I keep it to myself... if I stay silent and let the traitor continue his work... I could let the club rot from within. A kingdom at war with itself is a kingdom on the verge of collapse. And in that chaos, a ghost might just find a way to slip through the cracks.
The choice is paralyzing. Trust the monster to save myself now, or let the rot spread and hope I can survive the inevitable implosion?
I am no longer just a prisoner in their game. I am now the holder of a secret that could burn their entire kingdom to the ground. And I have to decide which side I want to see left standing in the ashes.
TWENTY
THE QUEENS’S GAMBIT
HEX
The air in the church room is thick with the ghosts of old smoke and the sharp, clean scent of gun oil. It's late. The only light comes from the single fixture hanging low over the massive oak table, illuminating the map spread across its scarred surface. It’s the night before the gambit. The night before we burn a piece of our own kingdom to the ground to save the rest.
Rook, Zero, and I are the only ones left, going over the final, minute details. The atmosphere is tense, but it's the clean, controlled tension of a predator before the strike. We are one step ahead of Cain. For the first time in weeks, I feel a semblance of control.
"The trackers are in place," Rook says, his voice a low rumble. He taps a point on the map marking the ambush site for our own shipment. "The prospects assigned to the decoy truck are the ones we vetted. They're clean. They'll follow their orders, make a show of a fight, and go down without getting themselves killed."
"The snatch team is on standby," Zero adds, his voice flat. "Once the decoys are taken and the Trojan Horse is on the move, Glitch will have the trackers live. We'll know where Cain is sleeping within the hour."
The plan is perfect. A cold, sharp thrill runs through me. We are using their own treachery as a weapon against them. We will find the rat. We will find Cain. This is how a king wages war.
But even as I nod, my eyes drift from the map to the corner of the table where I had Glitch set up a small, secondary monitor. A single, grainy, black-and-white feed. The view into her cell.
She's on the cot, asleep, or pretending to be. A small, still figure. She is the one variable I can't solve, the nagging, persistent ghost in my own machine. She is the one who saw the rot I refused to see, the one whose ruthless philosophy now underpins this entire desperate operation. I should be focused on the map, on the war, on the brother we are about to avenge.
But I am watching her, a king distracted from his own battle plans by the prisoner in his tower. A fatal, unforgivable weakness.
The airin the room compresses first, a sudden, violent pressure change that feels like being shoved underwater. My ears pop, a wet, painful crunch. Before my brain can even process the sensation, the sound hits—a deafening, bass-heavyCRUNCH-BOOMthat vibrates up through the concrete floor and slams into my bones. It feels like the hand of God has picked up the entire clubhouse and smashed it back down onto its foundations.
The solid oak table jumps, bottles exploding in a shower of amber liquid and shattered crystal. The power is cut, plunging us into absolute darkness.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, there is nothing but the high-pitched ringing in my ears. Then, through the darkness,Zero's voice cuts through the ringing, his tone not panicked, but cold and analytical—the voice of the combat vet he is.
"RPG," he says, the single word a chilling diagnosis. "West wall. That was a shaped charge. They're coming through."
The floor heaves beneath my boots, and a fine dust rains down from the ceiling, thick and choking in the sudden, ringing silence that follows the blast.
Then, darkness. Absolute. The power is cut.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, there is nothing. Then, the hellish, battery-powered red of the emergency lights kicks in, bathing the room in a bloody, pulsing glow.
That’s when the gunfire starts. Not from one direction, but from all of them. A deafening, coordinated roar of automatic weapon fire from outside the walls, chewing through wood and brick. Bullets punch through the heavy oak door, splintering it into pieces. This isn't a raid with flashing blue and red lights. This is a military assault. This is an execution.
My perfect gambit, my intricate plan—it’s all incinerated in an instant. The realization hits me with the force of the explosion itself. They weren't waiting for our trap tomorrow night. Thiswasthe trap. Cain didn't just know our plan; he used it against us. He waited for us to deploy our best men for the decoy, waited until our fortress was a hollowed-out shell, and then he struck the heart.
They're not just at the gates. They are inside the fucking walls.
Pure, cold shock gives way to a single, horrifying realization that cuts through the chaos. An attack this coordinated, this precise... it's impossible without help from the inside. The traitor didn't just leak information about a shipment.
