Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aero
I step out onto the clubhouse porch, half-drunk and half-dead from the inside out, but I don’t care. Not with the rage still burning in my gut and the ache of Lacey’s absence clawing at my ribs.
The night air, thick with humidity and sharp with salt from the bay, hits me like a punch. Sweat’s already slick down my spine, whiskey still warm in my blood. Atlantic City’s glowing in the distance, all neon lies and broken dreams.
Boots creak behind me. Grizzly, Surge, Crank and the rest of my brothers, moving in tight formation like wolves hungry for the kill.
I clench my jaw and descend the steps. Gravel crunches under my boots like bones snapping.
Hashtag’s already pulled the tech van around.
Rancor tosses his gear in the back while Padre double-checks weapons with the reverence of a man preparing for war.
“Gear’s loaded,” Pike mutters. “All mags are full.”
“Let’s finish this,” I say, swinging a leg over my bike.
Our engines fire one by one, coughing up hell into the air. The ground shakes. Streetlights flicker overhead like they’re scared to stay lit.
I glance back at the clubhouse and think about how empty it feels now.
Then I twist the throttle, pushing the thought away and lead us out.
Tires peel as we rip through backroads. The summer heat follows us, clinging to our skin.
The wind whips past, but it doesn’t cool me.
It doesn’t touch the fire crawling under my skin.
Every mile is another one closer to the men who think they can take what doesn’t belong to them.
Who think women are currency. The world narrows to taillights and the red glow of brake lights ahead of me.
We ride through the outskirts of the city, past shuttered gas stations and old strip malls.
Hashtag’s van cuts off into the woods at a predetermined point, circling around for higher ground.
The rest of us follow the road another five miles before we veer off onto a gravel road barely visible to civilization.
We kill the engines a mile out, leaving the bikes behind, hidden beneath the trees.
Padre shoulders the duffel full of extra ammo and holy rage.
We hike in silence, the darkness swallowing us whole.
No headlights. No voices. Just the sound of boots crunching dirt and the low click of weapons being checked in the dark.
We’re tucked into a shallow ridge line just north of the lot.
Not much elevation, but enough to see without being seen.
We move quietly through the tree line, hugging the ridge until we hit the advantage point Hashtag scouted out. The meatpacking plant comes into view through the trees. We stop at the ridge, crouching low in the overgrowth.
Hashtag’s already patching into surveillance feeds from the van, tracking movement patterns.
I drop to a knee beside Grizzly. Padre tosses down a pack and stretches his neck.
Crank sets the long-range scope on a tripod while Pike loads extra mags into the side pockets of his cut.
Rancor, Tango and the rest fan out around us, eyes sharp.
Backdraft lets out a low growl. “I’m gonna enjoy burning this place to the ground.”
“Focus,” I bark. “We’re not here to be noticed, we’re here to erase a problem.”
That earns me a few glances, the kind that say we’re watching you, Prez. Padre’s one of them, like he’s weighing whether there’s anything left of my soul under all the shit piling up.
“You talk like this is just another job,” Surge shifts beside me, his voice a low growl, “Like we’re not about to go to war over something personal.”
His words land like a gut punch. Not because he’s wrong, because he said it out loud.
All eyes flick to me. Even Grizzly freezes, waiting for my fist to fly.
I step toward Surge, slow and quiet, until we’re chest to chest.
“You wanna say that again?”
He doesn’t back down. “I said maybe if you hadn’t shoved Lacey out the door, you wouldn’t be walking around looking like you’re already halfway dead and possibly getting us killed.”
My fists twitch. Then Padre’s between us, a wall of muscle and patience I don’t have.
“Not the time,” he says. “We’ve got bodies to put down. Sort your shit later.”
“Later,” I echo, dragging my glare off Surge. My throat’s tight. My fists tighter.
He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean I won’t crack his fucking jaw if he pushes me again. I return to my position near the edge of the ridge, and rest my forearms on my knees.
“What do you see? I grumble to Hashtag through the comms.
“Nothing,” he answers from the tech van. “Plant’s empty. No heat signatures. No motion. No guards.”
The woods shift with the wind, thick with scrub pine, twisted oak, and tension.
The kind that sits in your gut and doesn’t move.
The air’s heavy with summer heat, thick enough to choke on.
Sweat slides down my back, clings to my collar, and settles between my shoulder blades.
Insects hum around us, a low, constant buzz that grates on already frayed nerves.
Somewhere in the distance, the faint hiss of expressway traffic bleeds through the trees, normal life still rolling by while we sit out here on the edge.
My fingers tighten on the grip of my rifle. I think about the girls. What they’ve survived. What could have happened if we didn’t intervene. My stomach turns.
Then I think about Lacey. I picture her face, just for a second, lips parted like she’s about to cuss me out. Perfect. Fierce. Mine.
We wait. Forty-seven minutes of stillness. Just the hush of leaves and the sound of our own breathing in the dark.
I grit my teeth.
“Come on,” I mutter under my breath. “Show your face already.”
Because the longer we sit here, the more I unravel.
The stillness breaks with headlights. One pair first. A beat-up truck, crawling slowly along the gravel. Its engine wheezes, tires crunching loud enough to make every one of us tense. We sink lower into cover as the truck winds its way up the drive.
Grizzly shifts beside me. “That him?”
I adjust the scope, track the jittery movement behind the wheel. Narrow shoulders. Hands like a methed-out raccoon. The same coward who ran back at their clubhouse and left his brothers to die.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “It’s Cholla.”
He stops outside the rusted bay doors. The engine cuts off and the doors creak open. Cholla slithers out first. Two others follow. Bloody Scorpion cuts still clinging to their backs like it means something.
I watch Cholla pace, shoulders hunched, muttering something to the other two. He’s nervous. Real nervous. Guy’s damn near vibrating out of his skin. Just rats trying to stay alive one more night.
“Guess they’re not bikers anymore,” Crank jokes.
“Yeah,” Backdraft responds. “Because they ran like cowards and left their brothers to burn.”
I don’t laugh. I don’t even blink. Because the second wave’s rolling in.
Three black vans follow shortly after, smooth and silent across the gravel. Windows tinted so dark they could be hearses. And behind them a car. Blacker than the night around it. Expensive. Rims polished like glass. It slides into place with a kind of arrogance only money can buy.
“Got ’em,” Hashtag mutters through the comms. “Plates, faces. Sending them to a ghost box now. If we don’t make it back, these assholes’ll still burn.”
The vans stop. The doors slide open and six, maybe eight, men spill out all dressed in black. All armed, weapons at their sides but not drawn. Their movements are coordinated. Not a single wasted motion. They carry themselves like they don’t expect anything to go wrong. They don’t expect us.
The rear door of the car opens next and a man dressed in a tailored suit and black button-down shirt steps out with a cigarette between his fingers. He’s not tall, not bulky, but something about him carries weight. The way the others shift when he moves. The way he takes his time.
He doesn’t speak. Not right away. Cholla walks up first, all jitter and sweat. I swear I can see his knees shaking from here.
Hashtag tweaks the gain on the long-range mic allowing us to catch pieces.
“The shipment… it was hit.” The man in the suit doesn’t flinch. “We—we don’t have the product. We didn’t know you’d come for it this fast.”
Cholla stammers on, something about getting the product back. His voice pitches higher the more he talks.
The man in the suit takes a final drag of his cigarette, then flicks it near Cholla’s boots. His eyes drift to one of his own men and he gives the faintest nod. Two others step forward. One raises a pistol.
Crack
The gunshot echoes up the valley like thunder.
One of Cholla’s guys crumples, his brains painted across the front quarter panel of the truck. No warning. No threat. Just a message delivered in blood.
Cholla backpedals like a dog that just realized its leash snapped. The other freezes.
The man finally speaks, his patience is gone. “You had one job. No product, no profit. That makes you useless.”
Three of his men break off and head toward the plant. Weapons drawn. I can only assume they’re going in to see if Cholla’s bullshit checks out.
Grizzly shifts beside me, his fingers twitching near the grip of his rifle.
“Say the word, Prez,” he growls. “I’m ready to end this.”
“Not yet,” I murmur. “Let them see the empty nest, Then we take them.”
I watch Cholla squirm.
The three men reappear minutes later and say something to the boss. Can’t make it out, but the body language’s clear, they’re confirming the stash is gone. No girls. No guns.
“You show up empty-handed, and still expect to breathe?” The boss says, his voice more lethal than his gun.
That’s our cue. I signal with two fingers and rise.
Backdraft tosses a flash bang between the vans. The blast sears the dark with white light and thunder. Then the field ignites.
We move like a pack of wolves cutting through the brush. I rush down the slope, boots tearing through gravel, rifle up.
Grizzly’s the first to fire a suppressed round to the temple of the man closest to the car. He drops without a sound.
Padre drops a second one before they regroup. Pike and Rancor sweep wide, cutting off their escape.
One of them fires back with military precision, nearly tagging Surge before Pike takes him out from the flank.
I slide between the vans as one of them lifts his gun too slow. I raise mine first and put two rounds in his chest. I feel the kick of the recoil in my bones. He jerks back, blood spraying across the van as he crumples. I shove his body aside and move on. My eyes hunting for the next target.
These men trafficked women. Tortured them. Sold them like cattle. They don’t get mercy.
What’s left of the men scatter, but they’re boxed in. Pike opens fire with the AR, cutting down two by the van doors. Rancor finishes another with a knee to the throat and a bullet to the chest.
The buyer’s trying to crawl toward his car, dragging a shattered leg behind him. Surge catches up. No words. Just a boot to the face. Bone cracks.
Grizzly tackles a man in a tailored suit beating him with the butt of his rifle until the guy stops twitching.
Silence follows. Bodies lie everywhere.
They never saw us coming but they sure as hell knew we arrived.
I see Cholla running. Again. Of course he is.
I lift my gun, put him in the scope. But I don’t fire. Not yet. This piece of shit doesn’t get to die easy.
He doesn’t get far. Tango and Rancor catch up to him, bleeding from a hole in his shoulder. He screams when they drag him back. Trying to fight. Kicking like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
It’s pathetic.
They haul him back into the clearing and drop him to his knees in the dirt, right there between the still-smoking vans and the men he sold his soul to.
Rancor spits beside him. “Where’s that tough guy act now, huh?”
Cholla’s shaking. His eyes darting from face to face. He knows there’s no saving him. Not from us.
“Please,” he gasps. “I didn’t know they were gonna take the girls, I…”
I step in front of him, gun still warm in my hand. “Don’t.”
His mouth snaps shut. I kneel in front of him, slow. Calm. He won’t see rage on my face. What he gets is something colder.
“You knew what they were doing. You helped them.”
“I just provided transport. It was just for money. I didn’t…” He starts sobbing. “I didn’t know what they were gonna do.”
“You knew enough.”
I glance over my shoulder. Backdraft’s pacing, fists clenched. Grizzly hasn’t said a word, his jaw is locked tight, like if he opens his mouth, he might rip the man apart with his teeth.
“You ran when we hit your clubhouse,” I say. “Left your brothers to burn.”
Cholla’s face crumples. “I didn’t.. p… please..”
“I’ve heard the prayers of men like you before.” Padre snaps, “You don’t get forgiveness. You don’t get mercy.”
Cholla screams again when Tango and Rancor haul him up and shove him against the side of the truck. His boots scrape the gravel, his heart racing loud enough I can feel it.
I take the pistol from my belt. No need for anything fancy. Just one round.
Padre mutters a low prayer behind me. I raise my gun, putting it to Cholla’s kneecap, and pull the trigger.
Cholla shrieks. Drops. Blood splatters across the dirt in thick streams. He curls in on himself, but we don’t let him go anywhere. He’s dragged back upright.
I step closer. Real slow.
“This is for every girl you handed over to those monsters,” I say. “For every one who didn’t make it out.”
Cholla tries to say something else. I don’t care. I put the gun to his head and pull the trigger.
The sound echoes out across the lot, then fades into silence. His blood pools at our feet.
We don’t say a word as we leave him there slumped beside men just as vile as he was. Let the buzzards have what’s left.
I step over the buyer’s body, yank his phone from his pocket for Hashtag to work his magic later.
Tango lingers behind, wiping down surfaces, collecting shell casings that belong to us. When the cops find this mess, it’ll look like a deal gone sideways. One crew trying to screw the other.