Chapter 4

The fallout was immediate and catastrophic. The journalist' s story went viral, a firestorm of digital outrage. Every news outlet in the state, then the country, picked it up. The raw footage from the cannery played on a loop: Andrew and Brian screaming for Molly, the nail gun, the knife, the pliers, the railroad spikes.

Their political careers didn't just end; they imploded. They were stripped of their committee positions within hours. Calls for their resignation echoed from every corner of the political spectrum. An official investigation was launched, not just into their actions at the cannery, but into their entire political and financial history. The Scott and Hughes family names, once symbols of old-money power, were now synonymous with disgrace.

Panicked, Andrew and Brian tried to flee. They packed bags, drained accounts, and made a run for a private airfield north of the city. They never made it.

The Iron Totems were waiting for them on a lonely stretch of highway. It wasn't a violent ambush. Just a wall of motorcycles blocking the road, silent and imposing. Rufus and Caleb stood in front, their arms crossed.

They brought the two disgraced politicians back to the clubhouse. Not to the medical bay where we were recovering, but to the grimy workshop out back, a place that smelled of oil and steel.

Gabrielle and I were there, waiting. We were in wheelchairs, still weak, but our eyes were clear and hard. The pain was still there, a constant, throbbing reminder, but it was being forged into something else now. Resolve.

Andrew saw me and had the audacity to look relieved. "Jocelyn! Thank god. You have to tell them! It was a misunderstanding. We were under pressure. We were trying to protect everyone!"

Brian rushed toward Gabrielle. "Gabby, please. I love you. You know I do. Molly manipulated us. It was all her!"

We just stared at them, our silence more damning than any accusation.

"Love?" Gabrielle finally said, her voice quiet but sharp as broken glass. "You call that love? Tearing a piece of my family's history from my body and tossing it in the dirt?"

I looked at Andrew. "You carved a part of my soul away to save your reputation. You crippled us and left us for dead. Don't you dare speak to me about love."

Rufus stepped forward, dropping a heavy duffel bag on the floor. It clattered with the sound of recording devices and hard drives. "We have everything," he said, his voice a low growl. "Financial records, witness statements, backroom deals. Enough to make sure you two never see the outside of a prison cell again."

The color drained from Andrew's face. He knew it was over. All the power, all the money, all the influence was gone.

We didn't want them dead. That would be too easy. We wanted them broken. We wanted them stripped of everything they held dear, just as they had tried to strip us of our heritage and our dignity.

The evidence the MC had gathered was irrefutable. Conspiracy, aggravated assault, misappropriation of campaign funds. The trial was a formality. They were sentenced to the maximum term, their faces pale and drawn as they were led away in handcuffs.

Molly Johns fared no better. The video of her willing entry into the cannery destroyed her. Her influential family, desperate to save face, publicly disowned her. She became a social pariah, her name a punchline in the very high-society circles she was so desperate to conquer. Her punishment was to live the rest of her life as a nobody, the one thing she feared most.