“Always,” Plug nodded.
I hopped on my bike and rolled out.The cool morning breeze was doing nothing to ease the weight sitting on my chest.The streets were still quiet, and Madison was not quite awake yet.But I could feel it buzzing under the surface.That tension.The kind that told you shit was brewing just out of sight.
When I pulled up to the clubhouse, it was already alive.Bikes lined the lot.Doors open.Voices low and clipped.
The clubhouse was buzzing by the time I walked in.Swift and Wheels were already in church, laptops out, papers spread across the table like a war room.The others trickled in, Gramps, Hodge, Podge, Magnum, Sully, Nugget, Chewy.Cord was still outside, standing watch.
“Everyone here?”I asked as I took my seat at the head of the table.
“Minus Plug,” Swift confirmed.
“Good.”
Wheels tapped his keyboard and flicked something to the big TV on the wall.A name appeared in bold: Elias Conover.
“Who the fuck is that?”Hodge asked, already scowling.
“Ex-politician,” Swift said.“Used to run a nonprofit for public safety initiatives.That was the surface layer.Underneath?Shady as hell.Shell companies, tax dodges, off-books donations.Money moved in circles.”
“Where is he now?”I asked.
“No one knows,” Wheels answered.“He disappeared five years ago.Didn’t die.Didn’t move.Just… vanished.”
“He’s tied to The Ledger?”I asked.
“We think so,” Swift said.“We’ve been digging through every whisper, every name connected to blackmail, coercion, and old city money.Conover’s been linked to three of the names that disappeared from city planning over the last decade.”
“They go missing?”Magnum asked.
“Two retired early.One died in a car accident that didn’t make sense,” Swift muttered.“Airbags were disabled.”
Silence fell across the room like a fucking guillotine.
“So we’re thinking The Ledger is tied to the old money here in Madison,” I said.“And this Conover prick might be the brains of it.And those two other fucks.”
“Could be,” Wheels said.“But there’s no face to the operation.No one public.Everyone’s acting through layers.”
Podge leaned forward.“Then we peel the layers.”
“Exactly,” I nodded.“We start leaning harder.Tap deeper into our network.We find people who owe us.Scare the ones who don’t.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”Hodge asked.
“Yeah,” Chewy agreed.“We don’t have anyone who owes us in Madison.”
“Then we set a trap,” Swift said darkly.“Make ‘em come to us.”
“First step,” I said.“Find the fucking birdies delivering these messages to Nick and Frank.Someone has to be the middleman.”
Wheels tapped his laptop.“I’ll start working on it.”
Ledger wasn’t just noise anymore.It was a system, quiet, organized, and deadly.The kind of shit that didn’t blink when it threatened to set a town on fire.
My fists clenched.
They could come at me.They could mess with our businesses.They could even rattle the club.
But if they laid one fucking finger on Tempi again?
