Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Chapter 12
Nita
I knew something was wrong the moment the email alert popped up on my phone.
I was three hours into paperwork hell in my DC office—cold coffee, fluorescent lights buzzing, my jacket draped over the chair because I hadn’t bothered going home the night before—when the alert hit my inbox.
I told myself I was taking this shit off my phone. I was going to learn to unwind, have balance. No need to read every work email as soon as it came in. Prioritize my personal time. Yet here I was on overtime and checking every ping that came through.
SUBJECT: Hampton Stanley Status Update
Person of interest currently unaccounted for. Local authorities reporting disappearance. Further coordination pending.
I stared at the screen like it might blink first.
Unaccounted for.
That was bureaucratic speak for someone fucked up.
My stomach dropped hard enough that I had to brace my palm on the desk. Hampton Stanley wasn’t supposed to disappear. He was supposed to be arraigned. Charged. Prosecuted. Sentenced. I had spent weeks tracing money, favors, shell accounts, kickbacks tied to disaster relief funds meant for families who had lost everything. I had followed the paper trail clean and quiet, the way you do when you know the man at the end of it has friends who like shadows.
And I had done it right. In the ways that would stick.
I brought the warrant personally to North Carolina. I’d made damn sure every “i” was dotted, every “t” crossed, every piece of evidence sealed so tight even the dirtiest defense attorney couldn’t wriggle him free.
Stanley was going to prison.
That was the deal.
Now he was gone.
I didn’t bother calling my supervisor. Not yet. I already knew what they would say, You were the last federal agent embedded in that file. You were the one with personal history there. You were the one tied to—the Saint’s Outlaws Motorcycle Club
Yes, I was guilty even if I didn’t want to be.
In my research on Hampton Stanley, I had learned a lot about the tiny town of Dreadnought, North Carolina. It was a town, not a city. Cities have life, and Dreadnought had Saint’s Outlaws, some mountains, a lot of trees, period. Every bit of the place was controlled by them. And because of him, I was tied to them.
Dante Verdone.
Once a cop, now an outlaw.
And he was the only way I could get the answers to save my job. I shut my laptop, grabbed my coat, and walked out without another word.
In a few hours, I was packed with a short term rental books on my way south. Dreadnought, NC was one of those places that never changed.
Same cracked highways cutting through pine and rust. Same low-slung buildings with peeling paint and stubborn pride. Same air that smelled like woods, crisp and clean, not a bit of smog or city scents around. Fresh.
Thirteen years had hardened me in ways this town couldn’t touch, that Dante couldn’t touch. I wasn’t the same Juanita Banks he left trying to sort where it all went wrong. I was a woman who refused to simply survive, I was determined to thrive.
DC had taught me how to smile while dismantling men twice my size. How to stay calm while careers burned down around me. How to hold my temper until the right moment—and then use it like a scalpel. The moment I crossed into town, my phone buzzed.
I ignored it.
I already knew where I was going.
The clubhouse was a unique place perfect for outlaws. An old bank. Heavy doors. A vault perfect to contain firearms. A parking lot with fresh pavement. Flags snapping in the wind. Bikes lined up like a dealership but not one of them was for sale.
The Saint’s Outlaws Motorcycle Club.
Dante Verdone’s family now. His whole world.
Yes, I did my research on him. I was curious and no smart woman needed to be dancing with a ghost without having all the fact before getting tangled up in someone dangerous even if once upon a time, he was safe.
I parked, cut the engine, and sat there for a long breath. I wasn’t scared. I was furious.
Composing myself, I climbed out of my car and made my way to the front of the building. The door opened before I reached it.
Burn leaned against the frame, arms crossed, eyes sharp. “Well I’ll be damned,” he stated, “The fed herself has returned. Loco is gonna eat this shit up.”
“Move,” I snapped.
He studied me a second longer, then stepped aside.
The common room smelled like leather and coffee that had been sitting too long. Men looked up as I walked in—some curious, some wary, some openly hostile. Cuts. Ink. Scars. Men who’d buried bodies and called it loyalty.
And there—at the table near the back—was Dante Verdone. Time had aged him well. The dark hair he once had was now salt and pepper with mostly gray. The sharp lines of his jaw only enhance his face while his tone body was not hidden by the shirt that fit him like a second skin under his cut.