“Church,” Cruz calls out, which is to be expected after Austyn just dropped the bomb. In all honesty, they took it better than I thought. I mean, hell, only one flipped table; that’s pretty damn good for the club.

I eye my woman from across the room. She’s sitting with Emery and her mother. When I catch her eye, I lift my chin. She gives me a smile in recognition.

Making my way into church, I feel all their eyes scanning me, searching for answers. This should be fun.

Cruz calls attention. “What else do you know? And is that the reason you had Breaker take pictures of those assholes and send them to you?”

I lean back in my chair on a sigh. “That’s all I know. Everything is out in the open. As for the pictures, I showed them to Austyn so she could identify all four of the assholes who touched her. Fuck, she killed two of them herself.”

Cruz runs his hands through his hair, pain searing his expression. He loves his girl. There hasn’t been one time I saw him with her when he didn’t have his arm around her or laughing with her. Cruz is one scary motherfucker, but his wife and kids are his world. This is tearing him up.

“You’re fuckin’ sure all those assholes are dead?” Cooper asks from next to his father, while Deke stares at me, waiting for the answer.

“She ID’d them clear out. Even trembled when she did so. It’s them. This shit is over with, and Austyn wants it laid to rest. That’s why she told you. She doesn’t want this shit hanging over her head. It’s done. Over.”

“Fuck, I want to crush that motherfucker.” Deke clenches and unclenches his fists on top of the table. There’s no doubt he’s feeling like his retribution didn’t get finished. JK fucked with his life by getting him addicted to drugs then threatening the kids of the Ravage MC if he didn’t leave. When Deke did leave, it caused a horrible rift between him and his father. Deke wanted to be the one to put the bullet in JK. I can’t blame him.

“Know that, but Austyn got there first, even if I want to fuckin’ strangle her for it.”

Deke’s brows go up, as does Cooper’s. Cooper is the one to speak.

“So, you’ve been attached to her fuckin’ hip for the last, hell, I don’t even know how long, and you let her slip through?”

I knew this was coming.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I say, “Got out of the shower and heard the door shut. Lucky for me, it took her a minute, fumbling with her keys to get the door locked. I got dressed, let her get in her car, and followed her. Called you guys, and the rest, you know.”

“I’m just fuckin’ glad the asshole’s gone,” Cooper says.

“Not fuckin’ me,” Rhys puts in. “I could’ve had a hell of a fun time with him.” He pulls out his knife and runs the blade over his fingertips.

“No shit,” Cruz says, slapping his hands down on the table. “Is she okay?”

Inhaling deeply, I let it out. “No, but she will be. It’s a rush for all this to come out. Brother, she was going to keep it to the grave, and if JK hadn’t said anything about it bein’ his baby, I would’ve never picked it up. But it’s over. We all know everything, and it’s done with. Let’s move the fuck on and don’t look back.”

“Right, so you’re off duty and need to be back at the shop,” GT cuts in. “It also means you can move out of my niece’s place.”

I flex my fingers. “Right, like that’s gonna happen.”

“Right,” Cruz says, standing up and holding the gavel. “Better not hurt her or I’ll rip your heart out and feed it to the wolves.” The gavel slams down in finality.

I have no doubt what he says is true. Good thing I don’t ever intend on hurting my woman.

“Now go get her. We have to all talk to her about what she did.”

I’ve been dreading this for a while now, knowing it was coming. She hacked into Ravage’s computers, which is something that isn’t done. Might as well get all this shit done in one go.

“I’ll be back.”

I move out in search of my woman, knowing that, no matter what happens in that room, I’ll protect her. I find her sitting at a bunch of tables with her mother and some of the other ol’ ladies, including Emery.

She smiles as I approach, but it falls when she sees the look on my face. I’m not sure what it is, but she’s hesitant about it.

“They want to talk to ya.”

Panic flashes in her eyes, but she quickly masks it and rises.

Princess stares at us. I just lift my chin, letting her know I’ll take care of my girl.

Out of earshot, I tell Austyn, “They know you hacked into the Ravage computers. I actually knew a long time ago, but we were letting you ride.”

She gasps, pulling away from me, eyes as wide as saucers.

“You’re gonna go in there with your head held high and deal with whatever is said.”

She clasps her throat. “I’m in trouble?” she whispers.

“Not as much as you’d think, but yeah. They want to talk to you.”

We make it to the door.

“As much as I’ve been in this room, I should just be a patched member.” She gives a little chuckle, letting me know she’s okay. She may be a little scared, but she’s going to be alright.

I knock once then enter. Everyone turns their heads as I lead Austyn to the front.

Cruz rises and wraps his arms around her, kissing her on the head.

“Looks like I’m in the principal’s office again,” she jokes, and the room chuckles. That’s better than how I thought this would be. Ravage doesn’t take this shit lightly. She knows this just as well as I do.

The air in the room turns serious as I take my seat, my eyes glued to my woman. She looks nervous but is holding herself together, not even biting her thumb. I’m impressed. However, my thoughts are up in the air on how this could go.

“Tell me,” Cruz says as he sits back in his chair.

Having Austyn on display in front of everyone is a tactic we often use in interrogation.

“The night of one of the parties, I went into Buzz’s room and saved all the information you had on JK onto my flash drive. I took it home and looked through it all.” She breathes out her words, almost coming out as a long paragraph without any breaks.

“So, you stole from Ravage,” GT, the vice president and her uncle, says.

Her eyes shift. “I thought of it as sharing information.”

Buzz clears his throat. “You know that shit is encrypted with so many obstacles that no human or other computer should be able to get into it.”

“Um …”

Buzz continues, “And you were able to do it and put shit back to a point I had to really search to find out what exactly you took and when.”

This time, she says nothing.

“And you picked my fuckin’ lock.”

Austyn closes her eyes then opens them, clasping her hands in front of her. “I’m sorry. I needed to find JK before any of you did. I wanted my revenge, and I wanted him to stay quiet about everything that happened. I didn’t think of it as stealing from any of you. I’m sorry if you do. I was blinded by vengeance.” She blows out a breath, her hair going up with it then back down to her face.

“What do you think we should do about it?” Cruz asks conversationally. If this were anyone else for any other reason, he’d be in a face-off with them, no questions asked.

“You can have the money. It’s millions, Dad. It’s all JK’s. I rerouted it to an account I set up. It should be there by now. I’ll wire it to Ravage.”

“The money you hopped around went into an account for you?” Buzz asks.

Austyn nods while I lean back in my chair. I guess there was another secret I didn’t know about.

“It was payback for what he did to me. I thought I could donate some of it, and then live comfortably on the rest. But I did wrong, and as my penance, I’ll wire all the money to Ravage’s accounts.”

Cruz looks around the room. Austyn has been here her whole life. Been through more than any woman deserves. Still, I know they can’t fully let it go. There has to be some consequences or it will happen again, and that can’t happen.

“Half. Half the money dumped into Ravage’s accounts. Buzz will help you with it.”

Austyn nods, looking down at her hands.

“The rest of it, you start over—fresh. That fucker has no more pull on you. No touch. He doesn’t exist. Understood?”

“Yes,” she replies.

“Since that’s done,” Buzz says, slamming his hand on the table, “you and me are gonna have some sessions in front of the computer, because you’re going to show me how you did everything so I can make the system stronger.”

“Of course. But Tug’s the one who taught me the locks.”

“Pft!” Buzz chimes out, looking over at Tug. “That shit’s child’s play. Computers are the answer.”

“Fucker,” Tug says on a laugh, and it’s done.

Cruz gets up and hugs his daughter, along with everyone else in the room. When she gets to me, I don’t let her go. Even when she transferred the money over and talked to Buzz, she did it on my lap.