Page 23 of Fang

“Vapor’s not willing to commit club resources to extracting your brother.” My stomach clenches when our eyes meet, so I drop my gaze. “Not yet, anyway.”

Mina’s eyes narrow slightly as she processes the implications. “But you asked him.”

“I presented everything I found. Your brother’s condition, the cartel’s threats, the financial trail.”

“And he didn’t believe you?” There’s a dangerous edge to her voice now.

“He believes that you work for the cartel,” I clarify, leaning against my desk. “What he doesn’t believe is your motivation.”

Mina stands abruptly, pacing the floor between my bed and the bathroom door. In my oversized clothes, she should look diminished, but somehow, she fills the space with a controlled energy that reminds me of a CPU running at full capacity—powerful, but at risk of overheating.

“Why not?” she demands, stopping to face me. “What more does he need?”

I meet her intensity with blunt honesty. “I don’t know what it will take to convince him.”

A bitter laugh escapes her. “Nobody trusts anybody in this world.” She resumes pacing, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“Can you blame him?” I ask. “The cartel bombed our previous clubhouse. They killed a bunch of our members, some prospects, and a few club girls too. As long as we’re at war, no one’s safe. We don’t trust anyone, and for good reason. Baiting us with a woman sounds exactly like something they’d do.”

Mina nods, her eyes distant. “They like to keep their methods varied. Makes patterns harder to track.”

There’s something in the way she says it—clinical, detached—that makes me study her more carefully. She’s seen and done things that have required her to compartmentalize. It’s a skill I recognize because I’ve developed it myself.

“But you believe me, don’t you?” she asks.

“I do. Everything you’ve told me checks out. I’m good at sorting through information. If there was any kind of red flag, I would have found it. But… Why try to get out now? Why not last week or last month or last year?”

Her pacing stops so abruptly it’s as if I’ve hit her pause button. Her back is to me, shoulders suddenly rigid beneath the borrowed t-shirt. When she turns, there’s something different in her eyes—a crack in her defenses that reveals something raw and wounded beneath.

“Two weeks ago, I was running system maintenance on their main server,” she begins, her voice controlled but tight. “I found a folder that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was labeled ‘insurance’.”

She moves to the edge of the bed, sitting down heavily. Her hands rest on her knees, and I notice a slight tremor in her fingers.

“I thought it might be blackmail material they had on politicians or cops,” she continues. “Something I could use as leverage someday. So, I opened it.”

The tremor in her hands intensifies, and she curls her fingers into fists to hide it. I remain silent, giving her space to tell the story at her own pace.

“It wasn’t blackmail,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It was documentation. Photos and videos of what happens to people who cross the cartel. Not just rivals or enemies—families. Children.”

She looks up at me, her face pale beneath the overhead light. “I’ve always known what they were capable of. You don’t work for men like that without understanding the consequences. But seeing it…” Her voice falters. “There was a little girl who couldn’t have been more than six. They made her parents watch while they…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence; doesn’t need to. Her shoulders curve inward as if trying to protect her vital organs from a beating.

“After that, I knew I couldn’t keep making excuses. Every system I built for them, every security protocol I implemented,” she shakes her head, “it all enables these monsters. I’m complicit.”

My chest tightens with an uncomfortable fusion of empathy and guilt. I understand the weight of complicity, the way it hollows you out from the inside. For years after Tommy disappeared, I wondered if my refusal to walk home with him had made me responsible for whatever happened to him. That question still haunts me, still drives me to search for missing people in my spare time.

“After I saw that video, I started planning,” Mina continues. “I needed a way out that wouldn’t leave Rory vulnerable. When I heard rumors that your club was moving against the cartel, I saw an opportunity. A mutual enemy could become a temporary ally.”

“That’s why you were poking around in my system,” I say.

“I needed to know if you were good men, or if you were just as bad as the cartel. You were clean, as was everyone else connected to your club.” She looks at me directly, her green eyes clear and challenging. “That’s the truth. Believe it or don’t.”

“I’m going to help you,” I say simply. “Without the club’s official backing.”

Surprise flickers across her face, quickly followed by suspicion. “Won’t they kick you out? Why would you risk that?”

I could give her the technical answer—that her skills could help us dismantle the cartel’s entire operation, that the strategic value outweighs the risk. But what comes out instead is something closer to the truth.

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