Chapter 21
CARTER
The desert hums with heat and waiting. The Royal Harlots are at war. The vote’s been made, the plan is set in motion. Bait duty belongs to Rebel. Shadow duty belongs to me.
By the time the sun burns through the haze, the lot outside the clubhouse looks like a staging ground. Bikes lined in formation, engines ticking, leather gleaming under morning light. The air smells like oil, heat, and gunmetal, a prayer dressed as violence.
Rebel checks her weapons with quiet precision. No wasted movement, no hesitation. Her cut hangs loose over a black tank and jeans, hair braided tight. She looks calm, but I’ve learned that’s what she does when she’s ready to bleed.
Allura’s voice carries over the engines. “We run the route clean. Rebel rides point in the van. Carter follows. Divine’s got eyes on the grid. French and Raven are ghosting the perimeter.”
“Copy that,” Rebel replies.
Sloane smirks. “You don’t get to die today.”
Rebel’s mouth tilts. “Wouldn’t dare.”
I fall in behind her as the gate opens. The sun climbs higher, painting the asphalt gold. The van rolls out first. It’s a matte gray, nondescript, moving target with a heartbeat. I keep a thirty-second gap between us. Close enough to cover, far enough not to eat shrapnel if it blows.
For twenty minutes, the run is smooth. Too smooth.
Divine’s voice crackles through the comms. “Traffic’s thin. No tails. You’re clear up to Alameda.”
“Copy,” Rebel answers.
Then static hits.
Not noise, but static. Layered, rhythmic, like a signal trying to eat itself.
“Divine?” I call.
Nothing.
“Rebel, hold position.”
The explosion cuts me off.
The van jolts sideways, back tire shredding in a blast of dust and glass. Metal screams. I gun the throttle, closing the distance as another shot punches through the side panel.
“Rebel!”
Smoke swallows the road. I skid the bike sideways, dismount, and run. The van’s front end crumples against a light pole, steam hissing. My lungs burn with gasoline and panic.
The driver’s door is open, swinging.
Empty.
A trail of boot prints leads toward the underpass. A smear of blood and the echo of distant engines.
I sprint. The world narrows to pulse and pavement. The tracks split near the drainage ditch. Tire marks, heavy tread, tactical pattern.
A black SUV roars out of the shadows ahead, tinted windows, no plates.
I raise my gun. They’re too far away, moving too fast. The SUV fishtails, throwing dust, and disappears down the access road before I can fire a clean shot.
“Divine!” I bark into comms. “Rebel’s down! Van is hit and empty. She’s taken!”
Static. Then Divine’s voice slams through, shredded with panic. “I lost her tracker! The feed’s dead!”
I spin toward the wreck, scanning, thinking. The van’s cargo doors are still closed, riddled with bullet holes. No sign of her gear, no sign of her phone.
Only one thing was left on the asphalt. Her cut. I grab it off the ground, blood streaking the skull patch, heat biting my palm. Alex died in front of me. Now his sister’s gone the same way, into smoke and silence. The universe really knows how to aim low.
Too late, Bishop. Always too late.
The next six hours blur into fury and asphalt. We sweep every back road east of downtown. Raven and French run recon, Divine hijacks every street cam she can find. Allura’s voice over the comm is steady steel, but I can hear it fray at the edges.
Still no trace.
Then Divine finds something. A partial ping off an old Vultures network node, bouncing between shuttered warehouses and the outskirts of the desert.
“They’re moving her,” Divine says through the comms. “East, toward the dry basin. Looks like they’ve got a compound out there. Guard rotation’s military-grade.”
I grip the handlebars so tight my gloves creak. “Drop me a pin.”
“Carter.”
“Do it.” I interrupt.
Allura cuts in. “You’re not going alone.”
I stopped following orders the second she got in the van. “Then who the hell else is left?”
The silence stretches long enough for an engine to fade in the distance. Then Divine speaks, quieter this time. “There might be one person who can get you inside.”
I know who she means before she says it.
“Bones,” I mutter.
“Last sighting put him near Long Beach docks two nights ago,” Divine explains. “Somebody saw a man matching his build trading with a crew that runs guns to Baja. He’s not wearing his patch, not clean, but he’s alive.”
Allura exhales. “If you find him, don’t kill him. Yet.”
“Copy that.”
The city’s underbelly smells like diesel, brine, and regret.
The Long Beach docks stretch out under flickering lights, cranes frozen like skeletal giants. A half-sunk freighter groans against the pier. I kill the engine, roll the bike into the shadows, and move on foot.
There’s a bar tucked behind a row of abandoned containers. The Rusted Anchor. The kind of place where men sell lives for cash and forget names for whiskey.
Inside, it’s dim. Neon beer signs sputter, voices low and mean. I spot him instantly.
Bones sits at the back booth, hair longer, beard rougher, eyes hollowed by something that looks like guilt. No cut. No colors. Just a bottle and a thousand-yard stare.
He looks up before I can speak. “Well,” he rasps. “Didn’t expect the Harlots’ pet soldier to find me first.”
“Didn’t expect to find you breathing,” I fire back.
He smirks, humorless. “Guess we’re both full of surprises.”
I toss Rebel’s cut onto the table. The blood on it is dry now, but the sight of it punches him in the chest.
“She’s gone,” I say. “Vultures took her.”
His hand tightens on the bottle. “Where?”
“Somewhere east of the basin. Compound, heavy guard, Cartel ties.”
Bones leans forward, eyes gone dark. “You got a plan?”
“Find her. Kill everyone who touches her.”
Bones downs the rest of the bottle in one swallow, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You think I’ve been hiding,” he mutters. “I’ve been waiting for a reason.” He studies me for a long, quiet beat. Then he stands, tucking a knife into his belt. “Then we'd better move.”
I arch a brow. “Just like that?”
“She’s not just your war,” he says. “She’s mine too.”
We walk out into the night without another word. The engines roar to life. Mine and his, side by side again for the first time in too long.
Two men who hate each other. Two ghosts chasing the same fire. For Rebel Slade.