Page 27 of Sinner’s Torment

The corruption—if you could even call it that—wasn’t random. It wasn’t the disorganized mess I’d expected. It was structured. Organized. The kind of pattern you only saw when something was deliberately placed, carefully encrypted, designed to look like corruption but absolutely, unmistakably intentional.

My breath caught. I leaned closer to the screen, my eyes tracking the strings of hidden code that cascaded down the display. They didn’t make sense. They weren’t supposed to be there at all. I scrolled through them, feeling the weight of something heavy settling in my chest.

L-A. L-C. H2. PREG. DORMANT.

The letters and numbers meant nothing to me in this context. They looked like variables, like shorthand for something larger, something designed to be hidden from plain sight. I muttered under my breath, “That’s not corruption. You motherfucker. What the hell did you do to my database?”

My fingers moved instinctively, pulling up deeper diagnostics, trying to trace the source code back to its origin. I had root access to everything. I’d written most of this system myself, back when George motherfucking Stone decided he needed better record-keeping. I knew every back door, every failsafe, every line of code that powered this digital fortress.

Which was precisely why I froze when the system locked me out.

ACCESS DENIED

The words blazed across my screen in aggressive red lettering, and I felt all the blood drain from my face. That wasn’t possible. I had root access. I had written the root access protocols. Nothing—not encryption, not firewalls, not security protocols I hadn’t personally designed—should have been able to lock me out of my own system.

But it had.

I tried again. Same result. ACCESS DENIED. My mouth went dry. My hands were shaking as I reached for my phone, then stopped. Who the hell would I even call? Montana? Tell him what—that someone had deliberately embedded encrypted code into our DNA database and then locked me out of my own system? That there were variables I didn’t understand, strings of data that looked like abbreviations for things that made my blood run cold?

L-A. L-C. H2. PREG. DORMANT.

I didn’t understand what they meant. But I understood, with perfect, crystalline certainty, that whatever was hidden in that database had nothing to do with routine corruption and everything to do with something much, much darker.

CHAPTER NINE

Brandy

Two days later...

I’d been waiting for this moment since King sent the DNA sample to Bane. Two long, agonizing days of sitting in my room at the clubhouse, staring at the same four walls, trying desperately not to think about what the results would say. Two days of Grace checking on me every few hours, her face creased with worry, bringing me food I couldn’t even look at, let alone eat, asking if I needed anything when all I needed—all I wanted—was answers. Two days of pacing the small room like a caged animal, wearing tracks in the carpet, counting the cracks in the ceiling at three in the morning when sleep wouldn’t come. Two days of my mind spinning in endless circles, imagining every possible outcome, every possible scenario, until I couldn’t tell what was anxiety and what was just exhaustion playing tricks on me.

Two days of wondering if Torment even cared enough to think about me, about us, about what might be growing inside me. Two days of replaying that final night with him over and over in my head—the way he’d touched me, looked at me, whispered things that made my heart race. Two days of questioning whether any of it had meant something or if I’d just been another warm body to him, another notch on his belt, another meaningless hookup before he rode back to New York and forgot I existed.

The knock on my door came just after noon on that second day.

I jumped at the sound, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack straight through bone and burst out of my chest. The book I’d been pretending to read—the same page for the last hour—slipped from my numb fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud that seemed to echo in the tense silence.

For a second, maybe two, I just sat there on the edge of my bed, completely frozen, unable to move or breathe or think. My hands gripped the comforter so tightly my knuckles turned white, my nails digging into the fabric like it was the only thing tethering me to reality.

Then the knock came again, softer this time, more hesitant, almost apologetic.

“Brandy?” Grace’s muffled voice came through the door, gentle and careful. “Honey, can I come in?”

I forced myself to stand up, my legs shaky and uncertain beneath me, smoothing down my shirt with trembling hands—a nervous habit I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried—and walked slowly to the door, each step feeling heavier than the last. My hand hovered over the doorknob for a moment, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps, before I finally turned it and pulled the door open.

When I opened it, Grace stood there in the hallway, her expression calm but serious, her eyes searching my face with that motherly concern that always made me want to cry and feel safe all at once. Behind her was Cash, the Silver Shadows’ VP, his broad shoulders filling the doorway, his muscular arms crossed over his chest, his weathered face completely unreadable. His presence alone told me this was official club business, not just a friendly check-in.

“Bane called,” Cash said simply, his deep voice matter-of-fact, no emotion betraying what the results might be. “King wants you in his office. Now.”

My stomach dropped like a stone thrown into deep water, plummeting down, down, down into an abyss.

I nodded, not trusting my voice, not sure I could speak even if I wanted to. My throat felt like someone had wrapped their hands around it and squeezed.

Grace reached out and took my hand in hers, squeezing gently, her warmth seeping into my cold fingers. “Come on, honey. Let’s go.”

I followed them down the hallway, my legs moving on autopilot, my mind blank with fear and anticipation. The clubhouse was quiet today, most of the brothers out working or handling club business. Their absence made everything feel more ominous, more final. The silence felt oppressive, suffocating, like the walls were slowly closing in around me, pressing down on my chest. Our footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors, each sound sharp and too loud in the empty corridor. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the low hum of voices, the clink of bottles, the rumble of motorcycles outside—normal clubhouse sounds that seemed surreal and distant, like they were happening in another world entirely.

Grace kept hold of my hand as we walked, her thumb brushing over my knuckles in a soothing, rhythmic pattern that should have calmed me but didn’t. Nothing could calm the storm raging inside me. The terror and hope and dread all twisted together into something unrecognizable.