Page 31 of Open Road

“We traced Pure Ventures at the time,” Winchester continues. “Couldn’t get past the Delaware registration. Fingers couldn’t get into the accounts without more.” He nods toward the laptop. “Now we have more.”

Fingers pulls up a second file, a transaction ledger, two years deep. “Pure Ventures has been moving money for a gun operation running through Jacksonville. Same operation the Rivet Knights were providing muscle for. Same distribution routes, same cartel disbursements.” He looks up over his glasses. “Craig Dawson has been laundering the payments.”

“Hector’s operation,” Creed says.

“Was Hector’s operation.” Fingers nods once. “The structure’s the same, same ledger, effectively, Dawson’s name on the cover instead of Hector’s. When Hector went down, somebody kept the machine running.” He closes that file, opens another. “Axel Vane.”

Scout says something under his breath.

“The Rivet Knights didn’t dissolve after Hector died,” Fingers says. “Vane took over the financial side. Pure Ventures was already in place, already clean, already moving money. Dawson didn’t know what he’d built before Hector had a new owner. Or if he knew, he didn’t ask questions.” A beat. “Either way, he’s been running the books for Vane’s operation for at least four months.”

“And Vane knows about the ledger,” Reaper says.

“Has to.” Winchester pushes off the wall. “Craig knows she took a drive. He’s been working his contacts trying to find her.She doesn’t know what’s on it, thinks it’s divorce material and property records she could use against him. But Vane would have told him what to keep locked. When Craig reports the drive missing, Vane will put it together.”

“Rock needs to hear this,” Winchester says. “He asked us to vet Pure Ventures. He’s going to want to know what his buyer was running.” A pause. “I’ll make the call after Church.”

“So Vane isn’t just coming for us over Hector,” Creed says. “He’s coming for the ledger.”

“They converge on the same point,” Winchester says. “Craig wants her back because control is everything to him, and Janie walked out with something. Vane wants the ledger because it’s evidence connecting him to two years of illegal operation. Neither knows the other is looking, but both trails end here.”

The silence at the table is a different kind of silence than before.

Fingers closes the laptop and folds his hands on top of it. He has done his part. The rest is above his pay grade, and Fingers has always known the difference between the technical and the tactical.

“She has no idea what she’s carrying,” Scout says.

“No.” Winchester’s voice is flat. “Thought it was financial records for a divorce case. Something that might help her lawyer.”

“It’ll do more than help a lawyer,” Reaper says. “That ledger puts Vane away. Puts Dawson away. Puts three of their distribution contacts away.” He looks at Creed. “It also connects back to the Rock call, which connects back to us.”

“Which is why it doesn’t go to law enforcement.” Creed’s statement is not a discussion.

Reaper nods. “Our cop handles it quietly. The ledger dismantles Dawson’s world without a war, divorce proceedings,fraud charges, or accounts seized.” A pause. “Vane is a separate problem.”

“Vane was already a separate problem,” Winchester says.

The table sits with that. The wood grain is worn at the edges. Years of hands resting there, decisions made, the weight of the club pressing down decade after decade. My seat at this table is newer than most. The road gave me a lot of things, and this is one of them.

Twenty feet down the hall, there’s a woman who packed an emergency bag over six months ago with everything she couldn’t replace. She built herself an exit with the patience of someone who had learned to move carefully inside a house that wasn’t safe—grabbed the drive at the last minute on instinct. Didn’t know what was on it. Walked out of that office carrying the one piece of evidence capable of burning Craig Dawson and Axel Vane to the ground.

Creed’s eyes are already on me when I look up.

He reads it the way Creed reads things, without asking, without performing the act of reading. Been doing it since I was twenty-five and still learning what this table means. The look he gives me now is the one he reserves for moments when what I haven’t said yet is already visible.

“She gets told,” he says. “Tonight.” Not a request. “She has a right to know what she’s carrying.”

There is no softness in it. No heat either. Creed is seldom wrong about what people are owed. The code is the code, and a person doesn’t get protected from the truth about what’s putting them in danger. Not in this house.

“Yeah,” I say.

Creed nods.

Winchester reaches across and slides the laptop toward me. “You’ll want her to see it herself. She’ll recognize the property names in the first directory. Once she’s oriented, she’ll read thesecond one faster than you think.” He pauses. “She’s been living inside his system for years. She’ll know what she’s looking at.”

“Janie will have questions,” I say.

“Very specific questions,” Reaper says. Not unkindly. “Let her ask them.”