Chapter 14 The Chase #2
"Don't!" Tyler's voice cut through the roar of engines, sharp as a blade. "We need him breathing!"
He was right. Goddamn it, he was right. We needed to know what Vince had told Cross, what Cross was planning, where the next attack would come from. A dead informant was useless. My fingers uncurled from the grip, and I forced my attention back to the chase.
Vince fired twice more—wild shots, panic shots, the aim of a man whose attention was divided between shooting and riding.
The first went wide by ten feet. The second sparked off a boulder near Tyler's front wheel.
Tyler ducked low over his handlebars, presenting less of a target, his Sportster eating up the distance between them.
The track narrowed ahead, funneling between two rock formations into a passage barely wide enough for a single bike.
Vince saw it, recognized it as his escape route—through there, and we'd have to pursue single file, losing our advantage of numbers.
He leaned forward over the Honda's tank and opened the throttle.
Tyler peeled off without warning.
I saw what he was going to do a split second before he did it—a shortcut I hadn't even noticed, a narrow channel between two boulders that would spit him out ahead of the passage.
Dangerous as hell, barely room for the Sportster's handlebars, the kind of risk that would have made him freeze with terror a month ago.
The Sportster's taillight vanished into the gap. For three endless seconds, I couldn't see him, couldn't hear anything over the roar of my own engine, could only imagine his bike going down in that narrow space, metal scraping against rock, his body crushed—
Then his headlight blazed out on the other side, directly in Vince's path.
The Honda's brakes screamed. Vince laid the bike down rather than collide—a controlled slide that sent sparks showering across the rock as the Honda scraped to a halt. He was off before it stopped moving, gun still in hand, swinging toward Tyler.
"Don't." The word came out of me low and dangerous, barely recognizable as my own voice. My Harley rolled to a stop, blocking the only remaining exit. "You twitch that barrel one more inch, and I'll put three rounds in your spine before you can blink."
Vince's gun hand trembled. The barrel wavered between Tyler and me, then slowly—agonizingly slowly—lowered toward the ground.
"Smart choice." Tyler's voice was ice wrapped in velvet, the FBI agent fully surfaced now. "We don't need you fully intact. Just alive enough to talk."
Something cracked behind Vince's eyes—the first real fracture in his composure. He looked at Tyler, then at me, at the two headlights pinning him like a specimen on a board. His tongue darted out to wet his lips.
"Off the bike." My boots hit the dirt, and I kept my hand near my weapon. "Slow. Any sudden moves and we find out how much blood you can lose and still answer questions."
Vince's leg swung over the downed Honda with the careful deliberation of a man who understood exactly how close he was to dying.
The bike's engine sputtered beneath him, coughed once, and fell silent—the sudden absence of sound almost as loud as the roar had been.
He straightened slowly, hands visible, palms out.
Tyler stayed mounted on his Sportster, engine idling in a low growl, positioned to cut off any escape attempt. We'd fallen into a rhythm without discussing it—complementary movements, covering each other's blind spots. Like we'd been doing this together for years.
"On your knees. Hands behind your head."
Vince sank into the dirt, gravel crunching beneath his knees, his fingers lacing behind his skull.
Up close, he looked even younger than I'd thought—mid-twenties at most, with a forgettable face that had let him blend into the background of compound life for months.
Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead, and I could see a scrape along his jaw from the slide—blood black in the moonlight.
"How long?" I asked.
"How long what?"
"How long have you been feeding Cross information?"
A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Six months. Since before I started prospecting."
Six months. That meant Cross had planned this from the beginning—planted Vince as a long-term asset, waiting for the right moment to activate him.
"You were never trying to become a Phoenix." Tyler's voice had gone flat, analytical—the FBI agent fully surfaced beneath the man I'd come to know. "You were always a spy."
"Cross pays better." Vince's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "And he doesn't make you spend years earning a patch that might never come."
I wanted to hit him. Wanted to feel his face break under my knuckles, wanted to make him pay for every piece of information he'd passed along, every life his betrayal had endangered. But Tyler was right—we needed him talking, not bleeding.
"Get up." I grabbed his arm, hauled him to his feet. "You're coming back to the compound. And you're going to tell Hawk everything."
For the first time, genuine fear flickered in Vince's eyes. "Hawk? No, you don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." I yanked my belt free, wrapped it around his wrists and cinched it tight, the leather biting into his skin. "You betrayed the club. You helped Cross try to kill our people. And now you're going to answer for it."
"You don't know what Cross has planned—"
"Then you'd better start talking."
Vince's mouth snapped shut. Whatever he knew, he wasn't ready to share it with us. Fine. Hawk would get it out of him. Hawk always did.
Tyler dismounted, coming to stand beside me. His shoulder brushed mine—a small contact, barely noticeable, but I felt it like a brand.
"Nice riding." The words came out rough, inadequate for what I actually felt.
He glanced at me, and despite everything—the adrenaline, the rage, the weight of what we'd just done—the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
"Learned from the best."
The ride back took longer with a prisoner.
We'd secured Vince on the back of my Harley, his bound wrists attached to a cargo strap that made escape impossible without falling off and being dragged.
Not comfortable, but I wasn't feeling particularly concerned about his comfort.
Tyler rode beside us, close enough to intercept if Vince tried anything.
The compound gates loomed ahead within the hour, security lights cutting harsh circles against the darkness. Members had been trickling back all night, empty-handed and frustrated, and faces turned toward us as we rumbled through.
Hawk was waiting in the lot.
He stood like a monolith in the center of the concrete—six-foot-four of coiled muscle and barely contained fury, arms crossed over his massive chest. The security lights threw sharp shadows across his face, turning his features into something carved from obsidian.
His eyes fixed on Vince with the kind of intensity that made hardened men confess their sins.
"You found him."
"Tyler found him." I cut the engine, hauled Vince off the back of the bike. "He was heading for the old silver mine. Probably had extraction planned."
Hawk's gaze shifted to Tyler, something like approval flickering beneath the cold fury. "Good work."
Tyler just nodded.
"The basement." Hawk's voice left no room for questions.
Two prospects appeared—the ones who'd taken over gate duty since Vince's position had become suddenly vacant—and grabbed the prisoner's arms. Vince struggled briefly, instinctively, but one look from Hawk stilled him like a rabbit under a hawk's shadow.
"Cross knows you caught me." Vince's voice rose as they dragged him toward the clubhouse, an edge of desperation cracking through. "He'll know something's wrong when I don't check in. He has plans—"
"Then you'd better tell me what they are."
The clubhouse door swung shut behind them, cutting off whatever Vince was going to say next.
Axel appeared at Hawk's shoulder. He moved with the same coiled readiness as Hawk—shoulders squared, jaw set, the stance of a soldier preparing for an unpleasant duty.
"I can help with the interrogation." His voice was low, pitched for Hawk's ears only, but I was close enough to hear. "We did this kind of thing in the teams. I know the techniques."
Hawk's jaw tightened. For a moment, something passed between them—old memories, maybe, from whatever unit they'd served in together. Whatever Hawk saw in Axel's face made him shake his head slowly.
"No. This one's mine." He turned toward the clubhouse, then paused. "Keep everyone out of the basement. No matter what you hear."
He walked inside without looking back.
The compound went quiet.
The hours crawled past. Tyler and I retreated to my room, but sleep was impossible.
The compound was on edge—members clustered in small groups, speaking in low voices, everyone waiting for Hawk to emerge with news.
Nobody knew what was happening in the basement, and the not-knowing was almost worse than knowing would have been.
From somewhere deep in the clubhouse, sounds rose that I tried not to hear. Tried not to think about. Hawk did what needed to be done. He always had, since our military days. Some questions only had ugly answers.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, my body wired with adrenaline that had nowhere to go.
Tyler was beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him, but not quite touching.
We'd showered—separately this time, out of necessity rather than preference—and changed into clean clothes. Now we were just... waiting.
"You did good out there." My voice sounded rough, unused. "The shortcut. The positioning. All of it."
Tyler shifted, turning onto his side to face me. The afternoon light caught the fading bruise on his cheekbone—a souvenir from the extraction that I'd barely noticed until now. "I remembered what you taught me."
"I taught you how to ride. The tactical stuff—that was all you."