Page 55 of Heresy
Doc is sitting on a stool next to Rook’s bed, his head in his hands, a picture of pure exhaustion. He looks up as I enter, his eyes bloodshot. "He's awake," he murmurs, his voice a dry rasp. "Asking for you."
I move to the bedside. Rook looks like a ghost. His skin is a pale, waxy gray against the white sheets, and an IV line snakes into his arm. But his eyes, when they find mine, are clear and sharp as ever. The king is wounded, but he is awake.
"Brother," he breathes, his voice weak but steady.
"I'm here," I say, my hand resting on his shoulder, careful to avoid the bandages.
We don't waste time on sentiment. We are kings of a fallen kingdom, and there is work to be done. "The butcher's bill?" Rook asks, his gaze intense.
I give him the report, my voice flat, each word a stone dropping into a well. "We lost four patched. Preacher and Talon at the barricade. Anvil and his prospect in the initial blast. Three others are critical. The clubhouse is a ruin. Serpent Cycle Works... a total loss. I disbanded the prospects."
Rook closes his eyes for a long moment, absorbing the catastrophic losses. When he opens them again, the grief has been replaced by the cold, hard fire of a strategist. "How?" he rasps. "How did they get through the main gate? Our protocols..."
I take a breath, the next words tasting like poison. "We had a traitor. He didn't just leak intel. He opened the door for them."
Rook's face tightens. "Who?"
"Grizz," I say, and the name hangs in the sterile air between us, a testament to our failure.
Rook stares at me, his expression a mask of pure, shocked disbelief. "Grizz? Are you sure? How the hell do you know?"
This is the hardest part. The admission of who saw the truth when I was blind. "The girl," I say, my voice a low growl. "Vera. She saw him with a prospect. A whispered exchange. A burner phone. She saw the rot before any of us did."
The information lands on Rook like a physical blow. He processes it all—the betrayal of a brother, the fact that oursalvation came from a captive. His strategic mind, even clouded by pain and morphine, begins to connect the pieces.
"Grizz never had the brains for this kind of play," Rook says, his voice an urgent whisper. "He was a hammer, not a strategist. If he was the leak, someone was telling him exactly what to do. Cain was playing him like a puppet."
A cold dread crawls up my spine as he voices my own deepest fear.
"Which means the rot goes deeper," Rook finishes, his eyes boring into mine. "Grizz wasn't the mastermind. He was a pawn. There's another traitor, Hex. Someone who knows how we think. Someone who is still in this club."
Rook’s wordshang in the sterile air of the medical bay, a chilling, undeniable truth.There's another traitor.The paranoia, which had been a low hum, now screams in my head. I am a king ruling a kingdom of snakes.
I give Rook’s shoulder a final, firm squeeze. "Rest, brother," I say, my voice a low command. "We'll handle this."
I walk out of the medical bay and up the stairs, pulling out my burner phone as I move. I don't go back to the bedroom where she is. I go to the empty living room of the safe house, the anonymous furniture a stark backdrop for the decision I am about to make. I dial Zero's number. He answers on the first ring.
"Talk to me," I say, my voice all business.
"Perimeter is secure," Zero's voice crackles, all static and exhaustion. "We've accounted for our dead. The city cops have been circling like vultures, but they haven't moved in yet."
"Good," I say. I look out the window at the quiet, peaceful suburban street, a world away from the ruin he's standing in. "The clubhouse is a tomb. It's a symbol of our failure, and it's a compromised location. Cain didn't just hit it; he owns it now. He knows its every weakness."
The line is silent for a moment as Zero processes the implication.
"What are your orders, Prez?" he asks, his voice flat, ready.
This is a painful, brutal, but necessary decision. I am abandoning my throne. I am abandoning the church room where I broke my own brother's hand. I am abandoning the scarred table that holds our history. I am abandoning the ghost of Abel. All of it, to ensure the club itself survives. It's a purely pragmatic move, the act of a king who knows when to sacrifice a castle to save his army.
"Strip it," I command, my voice cold and absolute. "I want every weapon, every bike, every ounce of product, every dollar, and every piece of intelligence out of that building in the next two hours. What you can't carry, you burn. When you are done, I want that place to be nothing but a hollowed-out, empty shell."
"And the men?" Zero asks.
"There's an old shipping warehouse we own down by the Gowanus," I say, a new, grittier fortress already forming in my mind. "It's ugly, it's cold, and it's a hell of a lot easier to defend. Move everyone there. That's our new den. That's our war room until this is over."
"Done," Zero says, the single word a promise of absolute obedience.
I hang up the phone. I have just ordered the abandonment of our home, the erasure of our history. I am forcing myself back into the role of the cold, decisive king. But as I stare out at the manicured lawns of this quiet neighborhood, I feel like a man without a kingdom, a ghost without a home.
