Page 118 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
23
ROMAN
The lodge is quiet.
Cara settles the twins.
Isla’s laugh drifts once then fades.
Deacon checks the south door twice.
Cruz stacks extra wood by the hearth, hands slow and thoughts faster.
Marisa stands in the kitchen for a long time with her ribbon in her pocket and sugar on her sleeve.
I look at her once, then take the stairs down.
The basement smells like cold concrete and old pine.
One bulb, one desk, three monitors.
I sit and keep my face calm.
My hands are steady.
Inside, everything narrows to a point.
Something has been wrong for weeks.
Not just the notes and the footprints.
Money moving strangely.
Deliveries misrouted.
A push that never looks like a shove until you line up the angles.
I start with what Deacon sent an hour after we got back.
A folder namedWINTER.
Inside are screenshots, logs, and two short clips from a courier forum we used to monitor during the charter war.
He pulled them off a dark board that should be dead. It never is.
Clip one is a thread titled Ravenwell fun.
A user called Kingsley posts a “wink and a tip” about a pastry competitor.
The language is oily and careful.
Twenty bucks to “accidentally” knock a flour bag.
Fifty to swap a paring knife for a child’s spreader.
A hundred to kill a power strip for five minutes.
No names, just “the girl with the orange bread.” The timestamps match the hiccups at her station.
