Chapter 2 Lock
LOCK
By the time I made it back to the clubhouse, my hands ached from how hard I’d been gripping the bars.
I didn’t remember half the ride. Just bits and pieces, the blur of trees, the road ahead of me, and the engine screaming under me.
None of it was loud enough to drown out the image of Saint on the ground, blood spreading under his head.
Or Rowan Roe leaning back in his chair like this was nothing and saying, “Must’ve been a misunderstanding. ”
Bullshit.
The Crimson Havoc compound came into view, and the prospects at the gate straightened like they could feel my mood from fifty feet away. One of them lifted a hand, half a wave, half a question.
I rolled past without returning it.
I killed the engine outside the main building and swung off the bike. My boots hit the gravel hard. I didn’t bother taking off my gloves as I pushed through the door.
The common room went quiet the second I walked in.
Eyes tracked me. Members at tables, a game frozen on the TV, someone with a beer halfway to his mouth. No one said my name, but I could see the questions all over their faces.
Is he okay? Is Saint? What happens now?
I didn’t have answers yet. That pissed me off even more.
“Prez?” one of the younger guys started.
“Later,” I said, not slowing.
They moved out of my way on instinct. I headed down the hall, trying to keep the tension in my shoulders from spiraling into something worse.
The framed photos on the walls watched me as I passed—Saint laughing with his helmet in his hand, the row of us lined up on patch night, faces of men we’d buried.
On a normal day, I’d slow down and let that shit anchor me.
Remind me why we built this club the way we did.
Why we had rules. Why we protected our own and why we had a hard line about omegas…
ours, theirs, didn’t matter. You don’t touch them, you don’t trade them, you sure as hell don’t look away when one of them is in trouble.
Not today.
Today it just reminded me how many men counted on me not to screw this up.
My office door was already open. Wraith—my VP—sat in the chair across from my desk. Arms folded. Dark hair pulled back. Face set in that cold, unreadable look he wore when he was braced for bad news.
“How bad?” he asked.
I shut the door behind me harder than I needed to. “Rowan’s a goddamn coward.”
“That bad,” Wraith muttered.
I pulled off my gloves and tossed them onto the desk. For a second I just stood there with my hands braced on the edge, head down. The room felt too small. Too quiet. I could still see Saint’s body jerking when that Reaper swung that heavy tire iron—good for lug nuts or skulls.
“He wouldn’t even say the guy’s name,” I said.
Wraith sat up a little straighter. “You told him what happened?”
“Every detail.” My teeth clenched. “Told him his patch was at the street race. Told him Saint wasn’t looking for trouble, just saw some asshole in a Reapers vest dragging an omega between cars. Saint stepped in, did what he’s supposed to do, and got his skull split for it.”
Wraith’s jaw tightened. “And Rowan?”
“Shrugged. Said if one of his men had done something that stupid, he would’ve heard about it.” I lifted my head and met Wraith’s eyes. “He called Saint reckless.”
I waited for the anger to hit Wraith’s face. It came slow, like always. Controlled. His nostrils flared, just a little. That’s how you knew he wanted blood.
“Saint’s lying in a hospital bed,” I went on, voice low, “tube down his throat, doctors saying ‘coma’ and ‘wait and see,’ and that son of a bitch couldn’t even pretend to care.”
Wraith blew out a breath through his nose. “So he’s not giving us the guy.”
“He’s not giving us anything. No name, no apology, no offer to make it right. He thinks if he stonewalls long enough, we’ll get tired and drop it.”
“He should know you better than that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He should.”
Silence settled between us. Heavy. The kind that comes right before someone throws a punch.
Wraith leaned forward, eyes locked on mine. “All right. What’s the play?”
Once, before we built this, back when I was young and dumber, I would’ve said we go loud. Roll up on the Reapers’ compound with half the club and take it apart brick by brick. That kind of thing feels good in your twenties.
Saint had outgrown that thinking. He always said I should, too.
“We can’t hit them blind,” I said. “He’s got numbers, home turf, and enough loose cannons to stack the street with bodies. I’m not giving him an excuse to paint us as the ones who escalated.”
“So we don’t escalate,” Wraith said. “We take something he cares about. Make him talk.”
I looked at him. He didn’t flinch.
“Rowan doesn’t admit weakness,” I said. “He protects his own even when they’re trash. No one in that clubhouse is going to hand us a name.”
“Everyone breaks, Lock.”
“Not his men. Not first.”
Wraith’s eyes narrowed. “Then we don’t start with them.”
I let that sit there, between us.
Rowan Roe cared about three things: his position, his club’s reputation, and his family. I couldn’t touch his patch or his pride without lighting a match we weren’t ready for.
That left the third.
Wraith watched my face and saw the shift. “Don’t say it,” he muttered.
“He made it obvious,” I said. “You saw him at last year’s run. The way he kept his kid behind a wall of bodies?”
“Kellan,” Wraith said quietly. “The omega.”
I ignored the way that word hooked in my chest. “Only thing Rowan ever looked soft over. Only thing he left early for. Only time he turned on his own men—when they got too close to the kid.”
“That’s a line, Lock.”
“So was cracking Saint’s skull and leaving him in the dirt.”
The room went still.
Wraith dragged a hand over his mouth, thinking. “You’re talking leverage. Not… permanent damage.”
“I’m talking about making Rowan feel even a fraction of what Saint’s family felt when they got that call from the hospital.”
He met my gaze, steady. “You really think taking his kid is the only way?”
For a second, I almost said no. Kidnapping an omega, even his, went against everything we stood for.
We built this club on the promise that we protected omegas, didn’t use them.
Not as currency. Not as shields. Not as weapons.
But Saint’s face in that dirt wouldn’t leave me alone.
If Rowan wouldn’t listen to reason, he’d listen to fear. And I was running out of options.
“Yes,” I said finally. The word felt heavy. “I do.” The answer came out before I could soften it, because I’d already chewed it over on the ride back. Every angle that didn’t touch Kellan Roe ended in a wall. “He’s shut every door. This is the only one he left open.”
Wraith closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. Whatever argument he’d been building faded. That was the thing with him, he’d call me on my shit, but once I made a decision, he was all in.
“Then we do it clean,” he said. “No mess, no loose ends, no extra bodies. We get in, take him, get out before they know what hit them.”
“That’s the plan.”
“And if he fights you?”
Kellan’s face flashed in my memory…wide eyes, his fingers squeezing that tray like he wasn’t sure what to do with it, nerves all over his scent.
“If he’s anything like his father,” I said, “he will.”
Wraith tipped his head. “Then we go in ready.”
I exhaled slowly, the decision settling in my bones like lead.
Rowan wanted to pretend nothing happened?
Fine.
I’d take the one thing he couldn’t ignore.
I wasn’t proud of it. If Saint were awake, he’d probably call me an idiot and tell me to find another way.
But he wasn’t awake. And every hour that passed with no answers made it harder to sit on my hands and play nice.
This wasn’t about breaking an omega. It was about breaking a man who thought he could hurt one of ours and walk away.
After Wraith left the office to rally the others, I stayed where I was for a minute. Palms flat on the desk. Breathing through the worst of the anger so I didn’t take it out on the wrong person.
Saint should’ve been here.
He should’ve been pacing this room, ranting, throwing ideas at the wall. Instead he was hooked up to machines, and I was planning a kidnapping.
I pushed off the desk and scrubbed a hand over my face. No turning back now.
When I stepped into the hallway, the clubhouse felt different. Tighter. Hushed. Word always moved fast in a club like ours. Maybe they didn’t know the plan yet, but they could read the signs.
No drinking. No music. No shit-talking over pool. Everyone was at half-volume and full alert.
Grim, our Enforcer, stopped me halfway down the hall, leaning against the brick with a folder under his arm.
“Got the hospital update,” he said quietly. “Saint’s stable. Still out.”
I nodded once. Jaw tight. “Thanks.”
“Doc says next forty-eight hours matter most.” Grim studied my face. “We doing this tomorrow?”
“Prep starts now,” I said. “We leave tomorrow night.”
He nodded. “Alright, then.”
“I know it’s tight but there can be no mistakes.”
“No mistakes.” Grim didn’t ask for any more details. He just peeled off toward the meeting room to get his team aligned.
As I kept walking, a prospect almost ran straight into me, juggling a crate of kitchen supplies and dropping a bag of tortillas at my boots.
“Shit, sorry, Prez,” he blurted, scrambling to pick them up.
The smell of whatever they were making—tacos, probably—floated out from the kitchen.
On another night, there’d be music, guys crowding the bar, someone yelling about hot sauce.
Tonight, the salsa station was quiet and everybody was moving like we were already halfway to war.
But my guys needed to know that they were protected…that we had each others backs always. That was what this was about, not just showing Rowan that he couldn’t fuck with us and get away with it.