I'd been digging for hours.
I was only able to share the first part of my findings in Bear's office. Everything else needed to be handled at church.
It wasn't just hospital files anymore—those were already flagged, tagged, and marked for eradication the second Bear gave the green light.
Tonight I went deeper.
Schools. Principals. Mandated reports. Attendance logs. Everything Sunny had ever touched that required paperwork.
And the deeper I dug, the angrier I got.
By the time everyone gathered in the old school's chapel—the room the MC converted into church—I had enough evidence to burn a dozen men and half a damn school district to the ground.
I plugged my laptop into the projector. The screen glowed across the dark wood paneling. The pews were full: Bear, Rook, Saint, Tank, Blondie, Hawk, Chains. Ace sulking in the back row. Joker spinning in his chair like he had the attention span of a squirrel.
And Mudd—always close—leaning against the wall beside Ace, nodding at every low, bitter comment Ace muttered under his breath. Feeding the fire. Quiet. Supportive. Exactly how a snake behaves before it bites.
Bear hit the gavel, the sharp crack echoing. "Church is in session."
He gave a quick rundown of local business—our fronts that kept money pouring in. The repair shop. The tattoo parlor. The bar. The diner. And the "other things" we kept our hands in that made us more money than we'd ever admit on paper.
Then he shifted.
Sunny.
Everyone straightened.
That was my cue.
I stepped forward, clicked the first slide, and said, "Everything I told Bear earlier was just the surface. I didn't have time to share the rest before he called church."
I cleared my throat, staring out at thirty men who'd bleed for each other without hesitation.
"Alright," I said. "I've got more."
The room went dead silent.
Even Ace stopped breathing through his nose like an angry bull.
I pulled up the first file: the principal's portrait—smiling like a politician with dead, shark-flat eyes.
"Principal Harold Brenton," I said. "He's been Sunny's administrator since fifth grade. At first, nothing looked out of place… until I compared her discipline log with her attendance records."
I switched to the next slide.
"She's twelve. In ninth grade. Gifted. Legit genius-level testing—top percentile in everything. But despite that, he's labeled her as a habitual fighter. Five suspensions for violence. Her attendance is atrocious, but she somehow kept straight A's."
Bear frowned so hard the vein in his temple pulsed.
"Have you seen her? A wet paper bag weighs more than her. Sunny hasn't fought a day in her life."
"Exactly." I clicked again. "Video files for every 'incident' are missing. Deleted by Brenton under emergency admin privileges. And he dismissed multiple mandated reports from teachers—bruises, limping, refusing to sit down in class."
A few curses hissed through the pews.
"There's also a list of girls who were…" I lifted my fingers in sarcastic air quotes, "her victims. Every one of them from powerful families. Some with ties to the Death Riders. One of them was the principal's own daughter."
A dark ripple went through the room.
Tank muttered, "Son of a bitch."
"And he's connected to the Death Riders," I continued. "Financial deposits. Meetings logged on district servers. Emails with their sergeant. They paid him. He kept Sunny's injuries quiet and her grades high enough to avoid outside eyes."
Bear's voice came low. "They used her as leverage."
He looked sick. Like a man trying to hold back rage that could level the whole damn town.
I pulled up the list I'd compiled—names, positions, affiliations—each one a failure, a coward, or a criminal.
"This," I said, "is everyone who let this happen."
The projector flicked through the list:
Doctors.
Nurses.
Social workers.
Admin staff.
The principal.
Students.
The stepfather.
A school security guard.
"And there seems to be a connection to the mob," I added. "Vincent Calone is listed as her godfather. Her paperwork was… altered. Protected. Buried."
Nineteen names total.
The room vibrated with anger.
Rook leaned forward, voice like carved granite. "We intervene. Start taking them down, one by one..."
"We need to be smart." Mudd's voice cut clean across the room, smooth as oil on water. He didn't raise his tone, but it pulled every head his way. Even Rook's brows tightened.
Ace shifted beside him—hungry for validation, and Mudd fed it to him with a small nod.
Ace exploded.
"We're going to war over her?!"
He shot to his feet, fists clenched. "A girl none of us even knew existed until TODAY?"
A growl rippled through the pews—men ready to tear his throat out for disrespecting a kid who'd been through hell.
Bear didn't move.
Didn't blink.
"That girl," he said quietly, "is my daughter."
Silence swallowed the room whole.
Ace's lip curled, defiant, but Saint stepped in before the kid could set the whole chapel on fire.
"She's the first MC princess we've had in years," Saint said, steady as a priest delivering gospel. "Born into the club whether she knew it or not. And we protect our own."
Joker chimed in, shrugging. "Besides… you've SEEN her. Kid's tiny. Looks like she'd lose a fight with a strong breeze."
A few men snorted, tension cracking just a little.
Ace didn't soften.
His jaw flexed, a pulsing knot of resentment and jealousy.
Ace's nostrils flared.
Mudd leaned back in the pew, face unreadable, but the corner of his mouth twitched with the smallest hint of satisfaction.
I hated mudd, but what can you do. He is my brother and I would die for him, but he is just a large pain in the ass.