“That too.” #3
The number rings twice before a rough voice answers. No greeting. No name. Just, “Yeah.”
“Crossed over,” I say.
There’s a beat of silence. “Keep moving.”
Then the line goes dead.
I toss the phone onto the passenger seat and keep driving.
By the third hour, the road has flattened into that endless southern stretch where the scenery changes just enough to keep you from falling asleep but not enough to entertain you. I crack the window, let hot wind push through the cab, and eat half a bag of jerky without tasting it.
Around hour four, I start thinking less about what I’m picking up and more about why Logan chose me specifically.
That answer is easier.
I don’t ask questions when it counts. I don’t panic. I don’t spook easy. And if what I’m bringing back is breathing, I’m not likely to make it worse by saying too much.
That feels deliberate too, like he didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing in front of the wrong ears. There are always ears around a clubhouse, even ours. Prospects, old ladies, kids, members coming and going. People hear more than they should.
I can respect that. Doesn’t mean I enjoy being kept half blind.
By the time I’m fifteen minutes out from the address, I’m running on caffeine, nicotine, and a curiosity that’s sharpened into something close to impatience. I make the second call. This time the same voice answers before the first full ring.
“Fifteen out,” I say.
“We’ll be ready.”
Again, dead line.
Friendly bastard.
I pocket the phone and turn down a narrower road lined with trees and old fencing.
The address leads me farther out than I expected, away from anything crowded, the kind of place you’d choose if privacy matters more than convenience.
The Louisiana chapter’s property comes into view around a bend, the gate set back from the main road, clubhouse sitting farther in with outbuildings scattered around it.
I slow as I approach, give my name to the prospect waiting by the gate, and get waved through after a quick check that suggests they were told exactly who to expect.
No surprise there.
I park where another prospect points me, kill the engine, and step out into the thick heat. Louisiana feels heavier somehow, the air dense enough to drink, and by the time I shut the truck door my shirt is already sticking between my shoulders.
A couple men are watching from the porch, not hostile exactly, but alert enough to remind me I’m on someone else’s ground. Fine. I’d do the same.
I grab the file from the seat, slam the door, and head up the walk without hurrying.
Grinder, the chapter president is waiting just inside the open clubhouse doors.
Mid-fifties maybe, broad through the shoulders, weathered in the way men get when life and leadership have both taken their cut.
He doesn’t waste time with fake warmth. He steps forward, offers a hand, and says, “Joker.”
I take it. “That’s what they call me.”
His mouth almost moves. “Heard.”
That makes two of us.
He jerks his chin deeper into the clubhouse. “Come on.”
No offer of food. No drink. No small talk.
I follow him down a short hall, every instinct I’ve got locking in tighter with each step. Whatever I expected when I left Bartsville this morning, it wasn’t this feeling building under my skin, like the world is leaning just slightly before a hard turn.
He stops outside a closed door and looks at me for a long second. “You get them back there without incident, and we’re square.”
Them.
There it is.
I don’t say anything, because Logan told me not to ask questions till I’m back and because suddenly I don’t trust my voice not to come out rough with irritation.
Grinder opens the door. And whatever shape I thought this day was taking changes all at once.
Because it isn’t a package waiting inside. It isn’t cash or intel or weapons.
It’s a woman. And a little girl.
The woman rises from a chair near the window the second I step in.
She’s wearing a baseball cap low over a cheap-looking blonde wig that doesn’t sit quite right, oversized t-shirt swallowing her frame, one hand tight around the strap of a worn purse.
The kid beside her can’t be more than three, small fingers wrapped in the woman’s jeans, huge eyes lifting to mine with the kind of quiet wariness that shouldn’t live in a child that little.
For one suspended second, nobody moves.
Then the woman looks at me fully, and even under all that disguise I can tell one thing immediately.
She’s beautiful.
Not in the polished, showy way some women know how to weaponize. Not even close. This is something sharper. Stranger. Amber eyes too big with exhaustion and fear, mouth pressed tight like she’s holding herself together by force, tension wound through every line of her body.
The little girl clings harder.
And I understand, with sudden brutal clarity, that whatever Logan sent me to pick up is not something.
It’s two someones.
I just don’t know yet that by the time I get them back to Bartsville, the shape of my whole damn life will already be shifting under my feet.