Chapter 46: Thirty-One Days To Forever
Chapter 46
News of the engagement spread through the compound faster than any threat ever had, and Rowe found herself the recipient of gruff congratulations from patches who’d watched her fight her way into their world at gunpoint just two months earlier.
"Never thought I’d see the day," Ghost said, clapping Reaper on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him slightly. "Prez finally settling down. Your old man would’ve had something to say about that."
"My old man had a lot of things he should have said and never did," Reaper replied evenly. "I’m not too worried about his opinion anymore."
Ghost’s weathered face softened. "For what it’s worth, son, I think he’d have been proud of who you actually became. Not the man he tried to raise you into. The one you chose to be despite him."
Elena took over wedding preparations with the fierce, focused energy of a woman finally allowed to plan something joyful instead of surviving another crisis, dragging Rowe and Raven both into town for dress fittings despite Doc’s mild protests about overexertion still lingering from her recovery.
"Small," Rowe insisted, standing in front of a mirror while Elena and the shop owner fussed over fabric samples. "Compound, close family, nothing that requires eleven million dollars of legal wrangling to justify."
"Small doesn’t mean forgettable," Elena said, holding up a length of ivory lace against Rowe’s shoulder with a critical eye. "Your father would have wanted you to have something beautiful, whatever the scale."
Raven watched from a nearby chair, uncharacteristically quiet, and Rowe caught the flicker of something wistful crossing her sister’s face.
"You okay?" Rowe asked, settling beside her once Elena had wandered off to consult with the shop owner about veils.
"Fine," Raven said, then reconsidered at Rowe’s skeptical look. "I just never pictured this. Watching my sister get ready to marry someone who actually deserves her, surrounded by a mother who actually wants to help plan it." She shook her head slowly. "Growing up how I did, I never let myself imagine family could look like this."
"It can," Rowe said, gripping her sister’s hand. "It does now. For both of us."
The peace didn’t last uninterrupted, though Rowe had stopped expecting it would.
Frank called an emergency meeting eleven days before the scheduled hearing, his expression carrying a different quality of urgency than the property disputes and trust complications that had characterized the past two months.
"Marcus’s lawyer filed a motion this morning," he said, spreading paperwork across the chapel table. "Requesting a competency evaluation before trial. Claims his client’s been experiencing psychological deterioration since his arrest, possibly related to long-term stress from the operation he was running."
"That’s a stalling tactic," Reaper said flatly. "Trying to delay the hearing."
"Probably," Frank agreed. "Judge Ferreira’s likely to see through it, especially given the strength of the evidence against him. But there’s something else in the filing that concerns me more."
He pulled out a separate document, sliding it across the table.
"Marcus’s lawyer is claiming his client wants to make a statement. Full confession, apparently, in exchange for the competency evaluation being conducted by a doctor of his choosing."
"What kind of confession?" Rowe asked, dread already coiling in her stomach.
"He’s claiming he didn’t act alone," Frank said grimly. "Says there’s someone else who financed the original private investigation eighteen months ago—someone who approached him first with the secret about Elias, rather than the other way around."
The room went very still.
"Someone hired Marcus," Piper said slowly. "Before he even knew the secret existed. Someone who already had access to information buried this deep."
"That’s what he’s claiming," Frank confirmed. "Whether it’s true, or another manipulation tactic to buy himself leverage before trial, I genuinely can’t say yet."
Reaper’s jaw tightened, old wariness resurfacing despite the weeks of relative peace.
"Who’s he naming?"
Frank hesitated, clearly reluctant to be the one delivering this particular piece of information.
"He won’t say," Frank admitted. "Not without a formal deal in place first. His lawyer’s using the name as leverage, refusing to reveal it until the DA agrees to reduced charges."
"That’s outrageous," Piper snapped. "He’s manipulating a murder investigation to protect a co-conspirator."
"Or protecting himself from someone who’d retaliate the moment his identity became public," Frank said. "Either way, the DA’s office is taking it seriously enough to consider the deal. Which means, eleven days before this hearing finally settles everything, we might be looking at an entirely new suspect walking free while Marcus takes a reduced sentence in exchange for a name."
Rowe felt the fragile peace of the past weeks crack under the familiar weight of dread, old instincts sharpening despite months of relative calm.
"We need to know who it is," she said. "Before the hearing. Before we walk into that courtroom assuming this is finally over."
"I agree," Reaper said, already reaching for his phone. "I’m calling Detective Okafor directly. If there’s someone else out there who financed this whole conspiracy from the shadows, I want to know their name before they get the chance to disappear the way Marcus almost did."
Okafor arrived at the compound within the hour, her expression carrying the particular grimness of a detective who’d hoped a case was finally closing only to discover new complications threatening to unravel it.
"The DA’s considering the deal," she confirmed, settling into the chapel with the weary posture of someone who’d been fighting this exact battle all morning. "Marcus’s lawyer is playing it smart—dangling just enough detail to make the offer credible without revealing anything we could verify independently."
"What details?" Reaper pressed.
"He claims this person approached him roughly two years ago," Okafor said. "Before the eighteen-month timeline we’d already established. Someone with direct knowledge of the Kane family history, someone who’d apparently been sitting on suspicions about Elias’s murder for even longer than that, but lacked the resources or connections to act on it alone."
"Two years," Rowe repeated slowly. "That’s before Cade found anything. Before any of this became active."
"Which means," Piper said, her voice tight with dawning realization, "whoever this is has been patient even longer than Marcus. Watching this family for years before deciding the time was finally right to weaponize what they knew."
Okafor’s expression turned grave.
"There’s one more detail in the filing that concerns me. Marcus claims this person has direct access to Iron Reapers club information—meeting schedules, security protocols, patch assignments. Information that would be extremely difficult to obtain without an inside source."
The implication settled over the room like a physical weight.
"Another traitor," Ghost said hoarsely. "After everything. After Lila, Coyote, after we thought we’d finally rooted out every snake in this club."
"Or the same person who’s been feeding information this entire time," Reaper said grimly. "Patient enough to stay completely hidden through two separate purges, two separate betrayals already exposed and punished, while they kept working quietly in the shadows the whole time."
Rowe’s hand found the ring on her finger. The weight of it suddenly felt heavier than it had just hours earlier during Elena’s joyful dress fitting, and with it came the sick, familiar certainty settling back into her chest.
"Eleven days," she said quietly. "Eleven days until the hearing, and we still don’t know who’s really been pulling strings this entire time."
Reaper’s hand found hers beneath the table, gripping tightly, his expression carrying the same grim resolve she’d watched him summon through every previous crisis this family had survived.
"Then we have eleven days to find out," he said, "before whoever this is decides the hearing represents one final chance to make sure the truth never actually makes it into that courtroom."
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