Under an Endless Moon: Chapter 6

It was nearing evening when I rolled my motorcycle to a stop in front of Cash’s cabin which was about twelve miles farther up the mountain than my place. I had the job to do tonight, and I needed the information he had to go along with it.

Our homes were on the opposite side of Moonlit Ridge. Sitting on the far south end of the lake where another range of mountains hugged the town in a deep valley.

Cash’s place was so secluded and remote that you couldn’t see it by road or air since it was two miles off the main drag and covered by the foliage of the deep, dense woods.

The road to get here was nothing but a bumpy dirt trail carved of tires, forever overgrown since there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic that took the winding path.

His cabin was as rugged as the man.

He was already sitting out on the porch, and he stood from the rocker with a file folder in his hands, his dog, Duke, right at his side.

He ambled down the four steps to the ground while Duke came bounding my way, wagging his golden tail in the air.

I swung off my bike and leaned down to give Duke a scratch behind his ears, though my attention was on Cash as he approached. Wavy brown hair and keen brown eyes and dressed more like a cowboy than a biker, though he sported just as much ink as the rest of us.

“Hey, man, how’s it goin’?” I asked.

“Decent,” he told me in his rough grumble. Dude was as surly as they came. More suspicious and suspecting than anyone I’d ever met. Probably had a lot to do with the fact he knew firsthand how to undercut. How easy it was to twist and manipulate.

As Sovereign Sanctum’s hacker, he could break into about anything and reconfigure it into whatever he wanted it to be.

He was mostly in charge of creating new identities, but he also had a knack of wiping out histories that we never wanted to be found.

As a little bonus? He did a whole ton of stealing, too. Wiping out the accounts of the pricks who thought their money and position gave them the right to beat their wives into submission. The ones who held them so under their thumbs they couldn’t breathe. The ones who wielded their power with cruelty and inhumanity.

It was how we funded what we did. How we supported ourselves and the families that we set up, though the cover businesses we’d started here in Moonlit Ridge had all begun to flourish, which only gave us the opportunity to help more victims.

But what I’d asked of him was entirely different, and he gave me a look that warned he knew exactly what I was up to, just like he had last night at Kane’s.

Sure my request was less than honorable.

As far as I was concerned? Justice was honorable. Justice for the innocent. Justice for the one person I’d loved more than anyone who’d been stolen from me.

I had sworn him to secrecy. The last thing I needed was the rest of our crew getting a whiff of this, which I was certain he counted that as confirmation that I was up to some shady shit.

“Did you get me an address?” I asked.

I’d been hunting for years and had never picked up a trace. And finally—fucking finally—I’d had a lead. I’d come to Cash with it because he was the only one who had the skills to crack it.

He arched a brow. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

I let go of a low chuckle to cover the rage that boiled inside me. “Was sure that you would. Why do you think I came to you?”

“Because you want to put me in a bad position with the rest of our crew?”

“Nah, man. This is just something no one else needs to worry about. Something I have to handle myself.”

“And it’s the way you plan on handlin’ it that concerns me.”

“Don’t need you to be worried about me.” I said it as easy and as cocky as I could muster. Like this was no big deal when I was heading toward the depraved.

I reached for the file that held the information I’d asked for.

He ripped it out of my reach before I could grab it. “You think I’m not gonna worry? You think I don’t know exactly what you’re thinkin’?”

Anxiety had me shifting on my boots.

Cash’s brown eyes dimmed with concern. “It was a long fuckin’ time ago, Otto. You need to let it go.”

Let it go?

After what they’d done?

I forced a casual grin. “Just checkin’ on things, Cash. Seeing what the old crew is up to.”

Such bullshit.

Cash knew it.

“Just be careful, man. Know what it’s like to want revenge, but you gotta know what you mean to this family. To all of us.”

Without saying anything else, he slammed the folder against my chest. “Mean it, Otto. Be careful. Know you think you need to go this alone, but we’re a family. We’ve always fuckin’ been. You get in too deep? You come to us. Everyone will understand.”

A hot blade of grief cut through my being.

I knew they would. But this was on me. Something I had to do. The risk I had to take. Wasn’t about to drag any of them into it.

The nod I gave him was reticent as I took the folder. “Know it. But I’ll be fine.”

Without saying anything else, Cash turned around and bounded up his steps, Duke right at his side as they disappeared into the cabin.

It was probably the most he’d said to me in two years, though I knew that didn’t mean he cared any less. It was just his way.

Which I hoped to fuck meant he wouldn’t say anything to the rest of the crew. That he’d keep it between us the way I’d asked him to.

I got his concern, but like I’d said, it was on me to handle it.

And this revenge was going to be so fuckin’ sweet.

Bittersweet, yeah, because there was nothing I could do to bring my sister back.

But the motherfuckers who’d stolen her from me? They were finally going to pay, and it was going to start tonight.