Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Aero
The night air is thick with anticipation as we roll up to the edge of the port at the designated meeting spot.
We cut the engines one by one, gravel crunching beneath the weight of our bikes as we park in a shadowed line near the edge of the docks.
The two prospects roll up in beat-to-hell vans, tail lights flickering, engines rattling as they idle.
They are a piece of shit but completely untraceable back to the club.
I swing off my bike and glance around at my brothers, Grizzly, Surge, Backdraft, Padre, Crank, Rancor, Tango, Pike, and Hashtag.
Each one a seasoned warrior, ready to do what needs to be done.
We take cover while we run recon. I crouch low behind a stack of rusted drums, peering out at the rows of containers stretching like a damn maze across the shipping yard.
Grizzly shifts beside me, his bulk hidden under black denim and leather. “Whole place is crawling,” he mutters, low.
Even this late, there’s a lot of movement. Steel groans overhead as a massive crane shifts a container, its chains rattling my bones. Sodium lights hum above us, casting everything in that washed-out orange glow, while the bay water slaps gently against the hulls of freighters.
“Our target should be on the bottom row. Far end.” Hashtag informs us all through the shared comms in our ears.
“Two guards in the back by the fence.” Surge whispers in my earpiece from his look out point.
I scan the fence line spotting them lazily circling the lot. Not pros, but they’re strapped. One’s got a shotgun racked across his back.
“This is it, boys,” I say, my voice low but firm. “You know what to do. No mistakes.”
“Prez, the cameras are patched, but I can only loop for twenty minutes at a time before their system flags the feed.”
“Copy that,” I whisper back. “Clock starts now.”
I rise into a crouch and signal the others forward.
Crank’s the first to move. He’s fast, twitchy, always three seconds ahead of himself.
He darts between shadows like he’s got afterburners in his sneakers seeking out the first guard.
Rancor’s close behind, heading toward the second guard.
He’s all brute muscle and brute silence.
Padre moves with surprising grace for a man pushing sixty, his gray hair tucked under a skullcap, expression carved from stone.
Tango trails them with a black bag of clean-up tools slung over his shoulder, just in case this goes sideways.
There isn’t anything that man hasn’t seen.
The rest of us follow toward our target. The container yard smells like diesel, salt, and old sweat. I don’t like it. Don’t trust it. It feels staged, like a scene in a movie right before all hell breaks loose.
Backdraft lingers at the rear of our group, pacing like a coiled wire. He’s got a duffel bag full of explosives. We brought them in case we need a distraction. But if I know him, he’s itching to light up the night just for the thrill of it.
“Don’t get twitchy,” I warn him. “This ain’t a fireworks show.”
He grins. “It could be.”
We snake through the maze of containers, every sense on alert. I can see the target up ahead, Delta-9436, its identification stenciled in faded white. It’s locked tight, shipping tags still zip-tied to the latch.
I signal the others into position as the clock approaches twenty minutes. “Make yourself shadows.”
The thunder of my heart beats in my ears as I wait for Hashtag’s confirmation. After several beats he gives us the all clear. Another twenty on the clock.
Grizzly posts up to watch our backs. Tango and Pike take the flanks. I kneel at the lock, my fingers brushing cool metal. “Hashtag, confirm.”
“Yep. That’s your girl. Tag matches the shipment manifest we intercepted. Should be rifles, crates of ‘em.”
I reach into my bag for the bolt cutter. Just as the blades press down…
“Movement. Southeast corner.” Surge’s voice snaps across the comms like a whip. I freeze.
“Dock Worker?”
“Nope. Moving like he’s casing.”
“Eyes open,” Padre whispers. “That guard’s not watching his route. He’s watching us.”
Shit.
“We’ve been made?” Surge asks.
“Not yet,” I say. “But someone knows we’re here.”
“Abort?” Crank asks.
“No.” My hand tightens on the cutter. “We came for guns, we’re leaving with ‘em.”
The lock snaps. The sound punches through the air, sharper than I wanted. We pull the doors wide. Darkness inside. My flashlight clicks on, the beam of light slicing through the black.
Crates. Wooden. Marked in Cyrillic. Packed tight.
Surge starts prying one open while the others form a loose perimeter. Inside, clean steel glints under oily packing cloth. AK variants. Maybe a dozen in this box alone.
“That’s a good payday,” Grizzly mutters.
“Start loading. Quick and quiet.”
Tango and Pike begin dragging crates out and stacking them near the fence for the Prospects to load into the van.
“Fuck,” Surge growls. “Footsteps. East flank.”
We go still.
Backdraft, of course, is already palming a detonator. “Wanna make a little noise?”
“No,” I start, but then we hear gunshots from the shadows.
One of the guards collapses, blood blooming across his chest. The other one’s screaming into a walkie, ducking behind a forklift.
Too late now.
“All in!” I yell.
Weapons come out. Padre drops to one knee and returns fire with a short-barrel shotgun, blasting the second guard off his feet. Grizzly moves like a damn tank, shielding Pike as he pushes another crate out of the container.
“We gotta move,” Tango barks. “No way we get the rest before more show.”
“Backdraft.” I turn to him. “Make some noise.”
He grins like I just gave him Christmas morning. “With pleasure.”
He darts off into the darkness, toward a stack of abandoned containers marked for scrap. He’s about to detonate a surprise over there. Something to pull eyes and ears in the opposite direction.
“Fifteen seconds,” he says into the comms.
“Copy. Everyone else, prepare to fall back.”
The air goes electric.
Then—
BOOM.
The explosion rips through the night like a bomb dropped from God’s own hand. Fireballs mushroom into the sky. The ground shakes under our boots. It’s more than we expected. Bigger. Hotter. Something in those scrap containers must’ve been volatile.
The sound tears across the bay like thunder. Lights flip on across the port. Sirens wail. Alarms scream.
Hashtag yells, “Phones lighting up. Port authority’s calling everyone in. You’ve got maybe five minutes, tops!”
We grab what we can.
Crank and Rancor each haul two crates. Grizzly takes one. I grab another and sprint after the others. Padre holds the line behind us, his shotgun barking in steady rhythm.
We reach the fence. The Prospects are waiting near a gaping hole in the chain-link. The vans are already running, engine growling low.
“Go, go!” I shout. Quickly returning to the container for another.
We reach the halfway point, five crates out, two more to go. I bend to grab the edge of the next box when I hear a sound that makes me pause.
A whimper. Soft. Fragile.
I freeze, blood cooling in my veins.
The others keep moving, unaware, but I shift my flashlight toward the back of the container. Push aside the last row of crates. And there wedged in the shadows behind the weapons is a girl.
Young. Dirt-smudged across her face. Wild eyes glaring at me. Her hands tremble where they clutch her knees to her chest.
She’s not alone. Three more women crouch behind her, backs pressed to the wall like they’re trying to melt into the steel. One of them has a gash above her brow, dried blood caked into her hair. The one in the middle looks barely eighteen.
Jesus Christ.
“Grizzly,” I snap, my voice tight. “Eyes on.”
He swings his flashlight around, jaw locking as it lands on them. “What the hell?”
“There’s people in here,” I grit. “Women.”
“Trafficked?” Surge mutters, storming up behind me.
“Looks like it.”
The girl closest to me flinches as I step forward, so I hold out my hand slow and steady.
“We’re not here to hurt you.”
She doesn’t answer, just stares with wide, tear-streaked eyes.
Hashtag comes back on the line. “Guys… I’m picking up a second signal. Cameras just rebooted without my command. Someone’s watching from inside the network.”
“Shut it down,” I hiss.
“I’m trying—”
Backdraft’s voice crackles in my earpiece, too loud, too fast, cutting off Hashtag. “Fire’s spreading. Whole southeast corner going up like a damn bonfire. We need to bounce. Now.”
Flames lick the sky, casting grotesque shadows across the shipping containers. The explosion Backdraft set off was supposed to be a distraction, but it’s become a beacon, drawing every eye in the port to our location.
“Move!” I shout, my voice hoarse over the comms. “We need to get the girls out now!”
Hashtag’s shouting too. “Local PD’s been pinged. We’ve got maybe two minutes before this place is crawling.”
But I don’t move. Not yet. I crouch low, looking these girls in the eyes, then scan the rest of the container. No chains. No cages. Just tears and fear.
“They were shipped with the guns,” Padre says behind me, quiet, grim. “Like cargo.”
My stomach twists. I stand, slam the crate lid shut. “We’re not leaving them.”
Surge blinks. “What?”
“You heard me. Load the rest of the crates. Get them in the van. Then we take the girls too. Put them on top of the crates if you have to.”
Rancor steps in, lifting one of the women like she weighs nothing. “On it.”
Grizzly doesn’t argue. Neither does Padre. No one does.
Because this is who we are. Bastards, maybe. But not monsters.
Suddenly, headlights pierce the darkness from over the water. Speedboats roar into the port less than one hundred feet from us. For a split second, panic sets in but then I see the patches: Royal Bastards MC, Philadelphia chapter.
Cable, their president, jumps out first. His eyes lock onto mine, a silent understanding passing between us.
“Need a hand?” he asks, already moving toward the van.
“Yeah,” I nod, relief washing over me. “We’ve got unexpected cargo.”
He raises an eyebrow as he spots the women, but doesn’t question it. His crew fans out, providing cover. I feel a flicker of hope. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll make it out of this.
Gunfire erupts from the far end of the port. More guards, drawn by the explosion, are closing in.
“Hold them off while we get everyone out!” I order.
Bullets whiz past us, pinging off metal containers. The air is thick with smoke, screams, and the acrid scent of burning fuel.
Crank and Rancor are already loading the last of the crates into the van. Padre gently guides the women, their faces pale and eyes wide with terror, toward the vehicle. Grizzly covers our six, his weapon trained on the chaos unfolding around us.
Backdraft appears beside me, a manic grin on his face. “Got another surprise if you need it.”
“Do it,” I say, giving the order without hesitation. My gaze flicks toward the chaos unraveling in the distance. “My guy’s clearing you a path to make your exit.”
Cable nods. “Didn’t know what the hell we were getting into when we heard the blast. Shook the whole damn river. When we hacked into the security feed and saw it was your crew, we hauled ass.”
“Good thing you did.” I grip his hand, firm. “We’d have been fucked six ways to Sunday if you hadn’t.”
He drops his arm. “Get those girls out. We’ll run interference.”
“Appreciate it, brother. Ride safe.”
Moments later, another explosion rocks the other end of the port, sending a shockwave through the ground.
“Go!” I shout to the others. “Now!”
The vans peel out, tires screeching. Cable and his crew provide cover as our chapters retreat in opposite directions, the port a blazing inferno behind us.
“Hashtag, get me a line to Quinn. Now.”