Chapter 47: The Shadow Behind The Scene
Chapter 47
Sandra Reyes returned to the compound the next morning, laptop already open before she’d even taken a seat at the chapel table.
"I’ve been running background checks on everyone with compound access going back three years," she said. "Patches, prospects, sweet-butts, even the occasional contractor who’s done work here. If Marcus’s claim is true, someone with inside knowledge has been feeding information out for at least two years, which means whoever it is has deep enough roots that a surface check probably wouldn’t catch them."
"So how do we catch them?" Reaper asked.
"We stop looking at who’s suspicious," Sandra said, "and start looking at who’s had access to everything for the longest time, without a single mark against them. Sometimes the person who never triggers suspicion is exactly the one worth suspecting most."
She pulled up a spreadsheet, cross-referencing club roster history against security clearance logs, narrowing the list with methodical patience while the room watched in tense silence.
"Here’s what’s strange," she said finally. "Every single major security breach over the past two months—the chapel folder Rowe found weeks ago, the crossroads ambush, the mine location, even Coyote’s access to the medical bay the night he tried to hurt Elena—all of it required someone who knew not just schedules, but specific protocols. Lock combinations. Radio frequencies. The kind of institutional knowledge that doesn’t come from casual observation."
"That’s still half this club," Viper said. "Patched members know all of that."
"Half this club hasn’t had unrestricted, unquestioned access to every single one of those locations without a single patch member ever finding it odd," Sandra said. "I started looking at people whose job would explain that level of access, rather than people who simply had reason to be suspicious."
She turned the laptop around, and Rowe felt her breath catch at the name highlighted on the screen.
Frank Delgado.
The chapel went utterly silent.
"That’s not possible," Reaper said slowly. "Frank’s been our lawyer for years. He’s the one who’s helped us fight every single legal battle since this whole mess started."
"Which is exactly why he’d have access to everything," Sandra said grimly. "Trust documents. Property records. Client-privileged conversations about strategy, timing, vulnerabilities. He’s been in this compound dozens of times over the past two months alone, moving freely through areas most outsiders would never be allowed near."
"He’s helped us," Piper said, though her voice carried less certainty than the words suggested. "He got the emergency hearing scheduled. He fought Doc’s guardianship petition. He’s the reason we survived the courtroom at all."
"Or he’s been playing both sides the entire time," Sandra countered, "helping just enough to maintain trust and access, while feeding critical information to whoever’s actually been running this from two years back."
She pulled up another screen.
"I checked his financial records this morning, using the same forensic methods we used to trace Marcus’s shell accounts. There’s a payment history that doesn’t match his stated legal fees. Consistent deposits, going back nearly two years, from an account registered to a holding company called Sterling Vista LLC."
"Sterling," Rowe repeated slowly. "Same as the law firm that filed the competing trust claim. Sterling and Voss."
"Different entity, similar naming convention," Sandra said. "Could be a coincidence. Could be someone who likes reusing the same corporate branding across multiple shell structures because it’s easier to manage than inventing new names for every operation."
Reaper’s jaw had gone rigid, betrayal and fury warring visibly across his face.
"He’s been in every meeting. Knew about the tax lien before we did. Knew about Deborah’s trust before we found it ourselves."
"He led us to Deborah," Rowe said slowly, the pieces assembling with sickening clarity. "What if that wasn’t helpful? What if he was making sure we found exactly what he wanted us to find, at exactly the pace he wanted us to find it, while quietly steering the whole investigation toward whatever outcome actually benefits him?"
"We need to bring him in," Ghost said. "Now. Before the hearing, before he has any more chances to manipulate the outcome."
"Carefully," Sandra warned. "If he’s smart enough to have stayed hidden this long, cornering him without solid proof just gives him time to destroy evidence or disappear entirely."
Reaper’s phone buzzed sharply against the table, and he answered immediately, his expression shifting from grim suspicion to something colder as he listened.
"That was Okafor," he said, lowering the phone slowly. "Marcus’s lawyer just confirmed the deal with the DA’s office. Reduced sentence in exchange for the name."
"And?" Rowe pressed.
Reaper’s eyes found hers, dark with confirmation of everything Sandra’s research had just uncovered.
"Frank Delgado," he said. "Marcus just named our own lawyer as the man who financed the entire operation from the very beginning."
The room erupted into motion.
Viper was already reaching for his phone to coordinate with the club’s remaining loyal patches.
Ghost moved toward the chapel door with the particular urgency of a man ready to hunt.
Piper’s face carried the raw fury of someone who’d trusted the wrong person one time too many in this endless family war.
"Where is he right now?" Reaper demanded.
"Unknown," Okafor’s voice crackled through the speakerphone Reaper had activated. "His office called in sick for him this morning. Nobody’s seen him since yesterday afternoon."
"The hearing’s in ten days," Frank himself had said not two weeks earlier, standing in this very chapel, helping them prepare.
Rowe felt sick at the memory—at how completely they’d trusted him with every fragile piece of this family’s survival.
"If he’s the one who’s been financing this from the start," Piper said slowly, "then he’s not just some corrupt lawyer looking for a payday. He’s had two years to plan exactly what happens if his cover gets blown before the hearing."
"Which means," Reaper said grimly, already moving toward the door, gathering his cut and gun with the same lethal efficiency Rowe remembered from the earliest days of this war, "we need to find him before the hearing, or figure out exactly what he’s planning to do to make sure the truth never actually makes it into that courtroom."
Ten days remained until the hearing that was supposed to finally settle everything.
Rowe touched the ring on her finger, drawing strength from its weight, and felt the fragile peace of the past weeks harden back into the familiar resolve of a woman who’d already survived far worse than a single vanished lawyer.
"Then let’s find him," she said. "Before he decides disappearing isn’t enough, and figures out one more traitor’s worth of damage he can do before this family finally gets its justice."
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