Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 39473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
When the raid hit, that precaution had saved us. With no recent surveillance footage of the club vehicles using the corridor, the Redline Kings had neatly sidestepped federal scrutiny. Everyone considered it a lucky coincidence.
Except me.
The more I reviewed the situation, the more clearly I saw the truth. Tripp hadn’t gotten lucky—he’d fucking known.
The prospect had recognized the surveillance before anyone else, pointed it out at precisely the right moment, and prompted Kane’s decisive action just before the raid. He hadn’t shown surprise when the operation hit. In hindsight, I realized Tripp had never reacted to the raid at all.
And the biggest red flag: despite clearly knowing federal authorities were involved, Tripp had never actually warned Kane directly.
I decided to dig deeper after my instincts kept nagging me. I noticed that Tripp had no long-term social footprint, which wasn't always a red flag because many of my brothers were very private. But he hadn’t been tagged or flagged in anyone else’s social media either. Ever.
After that, I tried to ask more probing questions, but Tripp would always subvert or distract with ease so I didn’t even realize he hadn’t answered until hours later.
Tripp was no prospect—he had to be undercover law enforcement. But the realization raised more questions than answers. Why would a federal agent protecting an investigation help the club evade suspicion instead of allowing surveillance to continue? Why discourage reckless behavior rather than quietly encourage it?
Nothing added up. Tripp’s actions contradicted his presumed purpose as an undercover operative. Everything I’d known and trusted suddenly blurred, leaving me conflicted, angry, and deeply unsettled.
I’d wanted answers, and I’d intended to get them. One way or another.
The thing that kept eating at me now was that my suspicions had started before the raid, but I’d made too many excuses, not wanting to be right. Then this morning all the connected pieces finally fell into place. And the longer I stood there in the hallway outside Jax’s office, the clearer every fucking detail became.
Tripp and I had left the compound shortly after sunrise to check one of the secondary routes Kane planned to use during an upcoming race weekend. A couple of reports had come in about unfamiliar vehicles hanging around the area, and while none of it had been enough to send the club into a full response, it was enough for Kane to want eyes on the corridor before expensive equipment, security crews, and race transport started moving through it.
We’d ridden the route, stopped at access points, checked sightlines, and talked through weak spots the way we’d done plenty of times before, with Tripp cracking jokes and giving me shit about taking notes when I had a photographic memory. I told him maybe if he paid attention, he’d learn something.
That was the part that scraped raw now. There were so many times when nothing about him had felt fake. Especially not this morning while we were out there. He’d been relaxed and irritating in the comfortable way a brother could be irritating when he knew exactly how far to push before getting punched. And despite being a prospect, he’d gotten away with pushing further than most because we’d built a deep friendship. Or so I’d thought.
When we were heading back toward Crossbend, we stopped near an abandoned service station to check a side road, and a group of riders rolled in like they’d been waiting for an excuse to start something. They weren’t locals I recognized, racers, or sure as fuck anyone with enough sense to understand whose territory they were sniffing around.
The argument had started with a couple of smart-ass comments, bruised egos, and men too stupid to realize being loud wasn’t the same thing as being dangerous. Tripp and I had remained calm and would have left them well enough alone if they hadn’t come at us with their bullshit bravado. They’d been itching for a fight. So eventually, we gave it to them.
A shove turned into a swing, the swing turned into bodies moving, and within seconds, the whole lot was nothing but boots grinding over gravel, fists cracking against bone, and curses ripping through the humid air. I drove one bastard backward into the rusted side of an old fuel pump hard enough to make the metal groan, then turned into another man coming at me from the left. Tripp fought beside me with his prospect cut shifting over his shoulders, and blood already smeared across one cheek from a split lip.
I never saw the knife before it went in. One second, I was throwing a punch, and the next, a heavy pressure punched deep into my side, followed by a hot, spreading burn that stole the air from my lungs.
At first, my body didn’t understand what had happened. Adrenaline kept everything sharp and distant at the same time, turning the noise around me into something muffled while my hand dropped instinctively to my ribs. When my fingers came away slick and red, reality settled fast. The wound wasn’t fatal yet, but it was deep enough that every beat of my heart pushed more blood through my shirt and into the palm I clamped against my side.