Chapter 65 Surveillance
Ryder's POV
"We need you at the clubhouse. Now. Both of you.” These were Jaxon's words as soon as I picked up his call.
"What happened?"
"Just get here. It's important."
He hung up without explaining further, which told me something was seriously wrong.
I looked at Sage. "Jaxon needs us at the clubhouse."
"Did he say why?"
"No, but he sounded serious."
We grabbed our jackets and headed for my bike, and the whole ride to the clubhouse my skin crawled with awareness. Every car that got too close felt like a threat, and every person on the sidewalk was a potential danger I needed to assess and categorize.
Sage's arms tightened around my waist like she could feel my tension radiating through my body.
When we pulled into the parking lot, I saw more bikes than usual lined up and realized Jaxon must have called everyone in management in for this meeting. We walked inside to find the main room packed with brothers, and they all turned to look at us when we entered. Some faces were sympathetic while others looked angry, and the atmosphere was thick with tension.
Jaxon stood near the bar with a folder in his hands. "Thanks for coming."
"What's going on?" I asked, already dreading the answer.
"We got a delivery this morning, another anonymous package left on the front steps." He held up the folder. "Inside was this."
He pulled out photos and spread them across the bar, and my blood turned to ice as I looked at them. They were surveillance photos, dozens of them showing Sage leaving the house, Sage at the grocery store, Sage in my arms after the kidnapping attempt. But the worst one showed us in her bedroom through the window, clearly together in a way that left no doubt about what we were doing.
"Someone's been watching her," Tommy said quietly. "For weeks, maybe longer."
"And they wanted us to know about it." Jaxon looked at me. "They want to send a message that nowhere is safe."
"What message?" Sage asked, her voice shaking slightly.
Jaxon pulled out one more photo from the folder and this one was different, not surveillance at all. It was a formal portrait of Diego Vasquez in an expensive suit, smiling at the camera like he didn't have a care in the world.
On the back the person had written a message in that same blocky handwriting from the threatening letters.
"Three weeks, Sage. Then you're mine whether you want to be or not."
The room erupted with brothers shouting, some demanding we go to war immediately while others argued we should hand over whoever was leaking information to Diego. But I couldn't hear any of it over the roaring in my ears as rage built in my chest.
So it was likely a brother who had been in Sage's yard, standing at her window and watching us together in our most private moments. And Diego knew everything. He had been collecting evidence for weeks and building a case to use against us.
My hands clenched into fists as the violence building in my chest needed an outlet before I exploded and did something we'd all regret.
"Ryder." Sage's hand on my arm pulled me back from the edge. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't do whatever you're thinking about doing. Don't make this worse."
"This can't get worse. He's been stalking you, violating your privacy, now he's threatening you with these photos."
"I know, and we'll deal with it, but not like this and not by losing control."
She was right. As much as I wanted to tear Diego apart with my bare hands and make him pay for every moment of fear he had caused her, that would only escalate things and give him exactly what he wanted.
But I couldn't just sit here and do nothing while he sent creepy surveillance photos and countdown messages like this was some kind of twisted game.
The main door burst open and Snake ran in with his face pale and breathing hard. I wondered why he was absent from the meeting but assumed he was running late.
"We've got a problem. The store clerk at Morrison's Pharmacy just got beat to shit and he's in the hospital."
"What store clerk?" Jaxon demanded.
Snake looked at me. "The one who helped Sage pick up her prescription last week, the one who smiled at her."
My stomach dropped as the implications hit me.
Snake and I were there when it happened and watched the young guy behind the counter be friendly and helpful. We watched him smile at Sage when he handed her the prescription. And I wanted to slam his face into the counter for looking at her too long, but I didn't do it. I walked away and let it go.
So someone else had done it for me.
"They left a message," Snake continued. "Written on the wall in the guy's blood. Said 'She's taken. Look away or die next.'"
The room went silent as everyone processed this new information.
Then every eye turned to me.
"I didn't do it," I said. "I was with Sage all week and never left her side."
"Someone did it for you then," Diesel said, his voice hard. "Someone who thinks they're helping by attacking anyone who shows interest in her."
"Or someone who's hell bent on marrying her," Tommy countered.
"This is becoming more serious though, isn't it?" Sage's voice cut through the arguing and she looked at me with something like fear in her eyes. "Isn't it?"
I couldn't answer because she was right.
My protectiveness had become obsession, and now someone was using that against us, either by acting on it themselves or by making it look like I was capable of this level of violence. Either way, we were running out of time and options fast.
Diego had surveillance photos proving our relationship, a beaten store clerk with a message written in blood, and threatening messages that made his intentions crystal clear.
And in three weeks, he expected Sage to walk down the aisle and marry him.
Unless we found another way out first.