Chapter Twenty-Three
There have not been many things I’ve feared in this life. I learned young that life does what it does, and you either move with it or get buried under it. Fear was a luxury I couldn't afford, and eventually I stopped feeling it.
Until her.
My obsession. My stalker. The thing beating in the center of my chest that I didn't know was missing until she put it there.
Now, the one thing I fear above everything else is unfolding right before my eyes, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it because I’m too far away.
The exact second I got the emergency ping from Storm’s phone alerting us that they were under active ambush, I stopped breathing.
Everything inside of my chest just completely froze over.
It hardened in a way I’ve never felt before, a cold, unyielding armor locking down over my organs.
In a twisted way, the chill helped to clear my mind.
It sharpened my vision, slicing through the terror so I could think straight enough to do what needs to be done to save my woman.
We couldn’t find Damon because the bastard had already been planning his next strike.
But how the hell has he stayed so far under the radar in a city we know like the back of our own hands? It doesn’t fucking make sense. Could someone inside our own circle be feeding him intel? Someone we know?
I fucking hope not, because this club has had enough goddamn betrayal to last us ten lifetimes. If there's a rat in the ranks, I'll skin them myself.
From miles out, I spot thick black smoke curling into the coastal sky. Whatever waits for us ahead is going to be ugly, and every instinct screams that I am already too late.
She’ll be gone by the time my boots slap the asphalt, no matter how hard I gun the throttle or how fiercely my pipes blaze. The certainty gnaws at my bones, a sickness rooted deep in my soul, and all I can do is grit my teeth and keep moving.
My jaw locks, my teeth grinding together until the bone aches the moment I get my first actual glance of the wreckage.
Storm is resting heavily against his dropped bike, his bloody hand pressed tight against his stomach.
His pistol is gripped firmly in his other hand, resting against his thigh, ready to take out any other threat that dares to cross the line.
We swing off our bikes, Patch darting past me to kneel beside Storm and check his wounds.
Down the road, King’s bike is twisted beyond recognition against a heap of concrete.
King himself sprawls nearby, lifeless atop a spreading pool of blood.
I don’t need to check for a pulse. We’ve lost another brother.
My fists ball so tight my knuckles turn white, my soul screaming for the brother we just lost. I choke back the raw agony clawing at my throat. Every part of me wants to collapse on the asphalt and scream at the sky, but I shove it down. Grief can wait. Right now, I’m a hunter.
Marigold’s bike is completely fucking destroyed. Shattered pieces of the custom fairings are scattered like shrapnel along the pavement, the heavy frame lying uselessly on its side near the dirt edge of the road.
Then, my eyes snag on the matte black and hot pink helmet resting a few feet away from her machine.
Rage and terror hammer at the icy wall I’ve built inside, but the cold holds, locking out any feeling that might slow me down.
Broken asphalt and glass crunch under my boots as I stride to the helmet, yanking it from the ground. My numbness nearly shatters when my fingers trace the deep, jagged crack running straight down the middle of the protective shell.
Fuck.
That means she hit the ground hard enough to split the fiberglass. Hard enough that she could be seriously, profoundly concussed.
Now she’s in the grip of a psychotic, sadistic bastard who could make Pope seem like a saint on his best day.
Just thinking about it sends me into a wild, blinding rage.
The last piece of my sanity crumbles to dust when I imagine the hell my little shadow is suffering through right now.
“We need to get him to a real hospital right fucking now. His injuries are way more than what I can treat out here without medical equipment,” Patch says, his hands slick with crimson when I walk back over to them, Marigold’s cracked helmet tucked tightly under my arm.
“Damon...” Storm croaks, his lips turning blue, his chest heaving as he tries to force the intel out.
I shake my head, cutting him off gently. “Save your energy, brother. We already know exactly who took her. You did good out here. Just breathe.”
Storm’s eyes drift closed in exhaustion just as Hannibal screeches to a violent halt in the cage. Patch, Butcher, and Manic hurry to carefully load Storm into the back, leaving Pope and me standing alone in the middle of the smoking carnage.
“We need to get King out of here. He deserves a hell of a lot better than to be lying out on the pavement like yesterday’s trash,” Pope states, his voice hard as iron as he nods toward our fallen brother’s body.
“I’ll get in touch with the Chief of Police right now and get our cleanup crew on the scene.
” He looks down the highway, where a few civilian cars are idling behind our line of bikes, waiting patiently to take this route through town.
Pope eyes them and lets out a heavy, dark sigh.
“I’ll go redirect traffic myself. The locals have had enough shit to deal with after this motherfucker slaughtered that tourist at the marina.
If we don’t take control of the narrative right now, they’re gonna fucking riot against the club, and the last thing I need is a war with innocents. ”
He glances over at me, a grim, lethal expression settling over his face.
“Take as many brothers as you need to find your ol’ lady, Tomcat. They fuck with one of us, they fuck with us all. Saints never surrender, Outlaws never die, baby.”
We smack our forearms together, sealing the vow, and take separate paths. He heads out toward Butcher and Pretty Boy to handle the perimeter, while Manic, Joker, and the rest of the club’s officers instantly fall into formation at my side.
They stand in a silent, heavy circle, waiting for me to speak.
“I don’t know where the fuck Damon is holed up yet,” I tell them, my voice cutting through the cool air like a blade.
“But somewhere in our fucking city, he has my ol’ lady.
We lost a brother today. King gave his life protecting what was mine.
We don’t sleep, we don’t eat, and we don’t stop until we bring her back.
And when we find the bastard? We make him wish he’d never heard of the Saint’s Outlaws. ”
Behind me, my brothers tilt their heads back, unleashing a collective, deafening howl to the sky. The raw, guttural sound of their grief for our lost brother filters through the air, echoing off the surrounding tree lines.
I let my cold eyes sweep over the men who are ready to march straight into hell to bring my woman home and destroy anyone standing in our way. “Saints never surrender. Outlaws never die.”
“Saints never surrender! Outlaws never die!” they roar back in unison, violently smacking their forearms together.
“We already have scouts deployed across every sector of the city,” I continue.
“Cypher is currently combing through every live street camera and traffic feed. We continue tearing through Coral Cay, brothers. Ride hard. Ride safe. Stay alert. We don’t know exactly how many men Damon has on his payroll, but judging by the firepower left on this asphalt, he has enough. ”
The cleanup crew rolls in as I finish, scrubbing away every trace of the firefight while Pope keeps the civilians at bay.
When the highway is finally ours, the brothers gather around King’s body.
I spot faint, bloody streaks on his face, the mark of someone who gently closed his eyes before he slipped away. My gut says it was Marigold.
We fall silent, honoring our fallen comrade, every muscle coiled with a volatile blend of rage and sorrow. The air grows heavy, charged with the raw hunger for outlaw justice.
For six relentless hours, we rip through Coral Cay, chasing every lead our scouts and Cypher throw our way.
Each of Damon’s men we corner drags us closer to my woman.
Blood stains the streets behind us, bodies falling as we wring the city for answers.
We look more like monsters than men, tearing through neon-lit avenues.
Onlookers shrink back, clearing our path, while the older locals nod in grim approval, understanding exactly why the Saint’s Outlaws prowl the city tonight.
By midnight, we’re paused at a secluded gas station on the edge of the county line, filling our tanks, refueling with cheap food and energy drinks, and washing the worst of the grime off in the back bathrooms.
I press my weight into the cold brick wall, eyes sweeping the darkness for any hint of danger. Horrific images of what Marigold might be suffering claw at the mental cage I’ve forced them into. The memory of her surviving Damon’s hell once already threatens to shatter what’s left of my sanity.
But I can’t let that happen. That cannot happen. She needs me whole if I'm going to find her alive.
Even if it felt like a huge part of my soul had disappeared the moment I learned she was gone.
The shrill ring of my phone rips me from the darkness in my mind. Pope’s name blazes on the screen, and I answer before the sound can even die.
“We found where a stash of his men is camped out,” Pope says, his voice vibrating with a dangerous mix of relief and fury.
“We couldn’t find them before because they’ve been hiding out in the deep woods right at the western edge of the city line.
I don’t know why the hell we didn’t think to look there at first, Tomcat.
It’s so dense that I didn’t even consider that anyone would actually navigate through it to set up camp.
That’s entirely on me. I fucking failed you, brother. ”