Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
I didn’t blame him for the reaction. A biker’s motorcycle was sacred.
Practically holy ground. It was an extension of who we were, a piece of our soul made of chrome and steel.
You didn’t mess with another man’s bike.
Period. Then again, I had to wonder if Poseidon really expected anything less from his wild, unpredictable sister.
She had a talent for pushing boundaries and getting under his skin in the most creative ways possible.
She was a thief after all.
With no choice, Poseidon was forced to take one of the Brotherhood club vehicles, as we all pulled out and headed for Rapid City.
The rumble of motorcycle engines filled the air as our convoy rolled down the highway, a dozen bikes strong.
With the ledger recovered from Alex’s backpack, we had a list of businesses Arizona was syphoning money from to fund the Death Dogs.
The ledger contained a hell of a lot more than that.
Names, dates, transaction amounts, offshore account numbers, and what looked like coded references to shipments we couldn’t quite decipher yet, but for the moment, everyone hoped that one of the businesses might lead us to Arizona.
It was our only solid lead, and we were running out of time.
During the ride, I tried hard not to think of Alex and why she’d walked away.
The wind whipping past my helmet couldn’t drown out the memory of her turning her back on me, couldn’t erase the look in her eyes when I turned my back on her.
She made her choice, no matter how much that choice hurt.
No matter how many times I replayed our last conversation in my head, searching for something I could’ve said differently.
Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
I really didn’t give her a reason to stay.
I’d pushed her away more times than I could count, kept her at arm’s length when she was trying to get close, and now she was gone.
The second we hit the city limits, we broke up into groups and spread out.
Morpheus took Cerberus and Garrote to check the businesses on the north side.
A pawn shop and a check-cashing place that showed up repeatedly in the ledger’s transaction logs.
Carver and Scythe headed east toward a storage facility that had been flagged for irregular cash deposits.
Wanderer and Vortex went south to canvas bars and strip clubs where Arizona might have connections.
I got 4th Street, Apartment 3B. The address Alex had given us two days ago while kneeling on that basement floor, broken and desperate and begging me to look at her.
Poseidon rode in the club vehicle he’d been forced to take after Alex stole his bike.
He sat in the driver’s seat, silent and brooding, his jaw tight as he stared out the window at the passing streets.
When we pulled up to the apartment complex, he got out, slamming the door.
Walking up the stone path, he finally muttered, “She always did have a talent for making an exit.”
I didn’t respond. Didn’t know what to say.
She stole your bike because she needed to disappear. Because staying meant facing what I did to her. What we all did to her. But I kept that thought to myself.
The apartment building was a shithole. Four stories of crumbling brick and rusted fire escapes, wedged between a liquor store and a laundromat in a part of town where nobody asked questions. The kind of place where people came to disappear.
Perfect for someone like Arizona. The entrance was propped open with a cinder block, the lock long since broken. Inside, the hallway smelled like piss and mold. The walls were covered in graffiti and water stains.
“Third floor,” I hissed, my hand moving to the gun tucked into my waistband.
Poseidon nodded, his expression grim. We took the stairs slowly, our boots silent on the worn concrete. The building was quiet, too quiet. No sounds of TVs or arguments or crying babies. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant drip of water somewhere in the walls.
Apartment 3B was at the end of the hall. The door was closed. No light was visible underneath. I pressed my ear against the wood and listened.
Nothing. Poseidon met my eyes, and I nodded. He stepped back, and I tried the handle.
Unlocked.
Fuck.
I pushed the door open slowly, my gun raised, sweeping the room as I entered. Empty.
The apartment was small. A studio with a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a single window overlooking the alley. The furniture was minimal: a mattress on the floor, a folding table, and a chair. No personal items. No clothes. No food in the fridge.
It looked like someone had cleared out in a hurry.
“He’s gone,” Poseidon said from behind me, his voice flat.
I holstered my gun and moved deeper into the room, my eyes scanning for anything useful.
The table had a laptop charger plugged into the wall, but no laptop. A coffee mug sat beside it, still half-full, the liquid inside cold and filmy.
He left recently. Maybe hours ago. Maybe less.
“Check the bathroom,” I said as Poseidon disappeared through the narrow doorway while I crouched beside the mattress, running my hands along the edges, checking for anything hidden underneath.
Nothing. But when I lifted the corner of the mattress, I found it.
A burner phone. Cheap, disposable, the kind you bought at gas stations with cash. I powered it on, waiting as the screen flickered to life.
No password.
Sloppy.
I scrolled through the call log. Most of the numbers were blocked or showed up as unknown. But there was one that appeared repeatedly—a local number, called multiple times over the past week. I memorized it, then checked the text messages.
Empty. Deleted. But the photo gallery wasn’t as I opened it, and my blood went cold.
Photos. Dozens of them. Surveillance shots of Brotherhood members.
Firestride outside the hospital. Ravage at a gas station.
Indigo as he walked into a diner, and Eros leaning against his bike.
All of them were taken in the days leading up to the Diamond Creek attack.
He was watching them. Planning it. Coordinating it.
And then I saw the last photo. A group shot. Five men standing outside a warehouse, their faces partially obscured by shadows. But I recognized one of them immediately.
Arizona. And beside him, another man I didn’t recognize. Older, maybe mid-forties, with graying hair and a scar running down the side of his face. The man’s hand was on Arizona’s shoulder, and they were both smiling.
Who the fuck is that?
“Nano.”
I looked up to find Poseidon standing in the bathroom doorway, holding something in his hand. A piece of paper. He walked over and handed it to me, his expression dark. It was a receipt. From a storage facility on the east side of town. Unit 47. Paid in cash two weeks ago.
“Think he’s there?” Poseidon asked.
“Maybe,” I said, pocketing the burner phone. “Or maybe he’s already gone, and this is just another dead end.”
But I didn’t believe that. Arizona was careful. Methodical. He wouldn’t leave a burner phone behind unless he was in a hurry. Unless something or someone had spooked him.
Did he know we were coming? Did someone tip him off?
The thought made my jaw tighten. If there was a leak, if someone had warned Arizona we were hunting him, then this entire operation was compromised. I pulled out my own phone and texted Morpheus the address of the storage facility, along with a photo of the receipt.
His response came back almost immediately.
Morpheus: On our way. Don’t move until we get there.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and looked around the apartment one last time.
This place told a story. A man living off the grid, moving money, coordinating hits, staying one step ahead of everyone hunting him.
But he’d made mistakes. Left traces. And now we had them.
The burner phone. The surveillance photos.
The receipt. It wasn’t much. But it was enough.
“Let’s go,” I said, heading for the door.
Poseidon followed, and we made our way back down the stairs and out into the cold afternoon air.
As we walked back to the vehicle, I couldn’t stop thinking about the photo on the burner phone.
The man with the scar. The way he had been standing with Arizona, like they were partners. Like they were working together.
Who is he? And how deep does this go? The Society wasn’t just a threat anymore. It was a network. A coordinated effort to take down the Biker Federation one brother at a time, and Arizona was just one piece of it.
By the time we reached the vehicle, my phone buzzed again.
Morpheus: Carver and Scythe found something at the storage facility. Meet us there. Now.
I showed the message to Poseidon, and he nodded grimly. “Let’s finish this,” he said.
I started the engine and pulled out onto the street, heading east toward the storage facility.
Toward whatever the fuck Carver and Scythe had found.
Toward the next piece of this fucked-up puzzle and as I drove, I couldn’t stop thinking about Alex.
About the way she’d stolen Poseidon’s bike and disappeared without looking back.
About the way she chose to leave instead of staying and facing what we had become.
She’s made her choice.
And I made mine.
I chose the Brotherhood. The war. I chose duty over her and now I had to live with that.
Even if it killed me.