Page 4 of My Reckless Biker

Her jaw tightens slightly, barely visible but I catch it. First crack in her composure. She doesn't like being told what to wear, doesn't like the implicit command in how I said it.

Good. I don't like being assigned to babysit Victor Crane's daughter while pretending she's something she's not.

"Fine," she says, and her voice is cooler now, the first hint of real emotion breaking through the control.

Clint nods to the prospects. "Take her upstairs. Second room on the left. Someone on the door at all times."

They move to escort her out and she walks between them without looking back, without hesitation, spine straight like she's walking into a business meeting instead of what might be a very comfortable prison.

The door closes behind her and I'm left standing in the common room with my brothers and the taste of something wrong in the back of my throat.

Cain's already back on his laptop, eyes scanning whatever he's pulled up. "I'll start verification. Cross-reference what she said with what we know about Marrow's operations, see if the details match up."

"Do it fast," Clint says. "We need to know what we're dealing with before tonight."

Tate looks at me, and I can see the question in his face before he asks it. "You really think she's lying?"

I head for the door because I need air that doesn't smell like motor oil and suspicion and the faint trace of whatever she was wearing that I noticed when she walked past me. "I think she's Victor Crane's daughter. Until I know otherwise, that makes her the enemy."

Outside, the heat hits like a wall, August sun baking everything white and still. The cicadas are screaming in the trees past the fence line, that constant summer sound that gets inside your head if you let it. Dust rises where a brother's pulling his bike out, heading for a run or town or anywhere that's not here dealing with this.

I light a cigarette and lean against the building, letting the sun press into my shoulders through the cut, feeling the leather heat up until it's almost uncomfortable.

Victor Crane's daughter. Two years of documentation on her father's operation. Perfect timing. Perfect information.

And a body I noticed despite every intention not to, which means if this is a play, if she's here to manipulate us, she's starting with an advantage I didn't want to give her.

I take a drag and exhale smoke into air that's too thick to carry it away, watching it hang and dissipate slowly.

Eight o'clock. The Anchor. Make it visible, make it real enough that word gets back to Crane fast.

I'll play the role Clint assigned me. I'll take her out, touch her like she's mine, make it look real to anyone watching. And while I'm doing it, I'll watch her for the slip, for the moment her mask cracks and shows me what she really is. I'll find the proof that this is exactly what I think it is, what it has to be.

A trap.

And when I do, when I catch her in whatever lie she's selling, I'll make sure Clint knows before anyone else gets hurt.

The door opens behind me and Holt steps out, pulls his own cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lights it with the easy motion of someone who's done it ten thousand times.

"You good?" he asks.

"No."

He nods like that's the answer he expected, like he would've been more worried if I'd said yes. "For what it's worth, I don't think Clint would put you on this if he thought you'd actually get compromised."

"I won't."

"I know." He takes a drag, exhales slowly. "But it's still a shit assignment."

"Yeah."

He heads for his bike without saying anything else because there's nothing else to say, and I'm alone again with the heat and the cicadas and the image I can't get out of my head.

Her standing in that room, fingers pressed together too tight, saying her father's name like it didn't scare her even though it had to.

Either she's the bravest person I've ever met or the best liar, and I'm going to find out which.

And if it's the second, if this is Victor Crane's play and she's here to get inside our operation and feed information back to Marrow, if she's using that body and that fear and that controlled composure to manipulate us into trusting her?