3. First Strike
THREE
FIRST STRIKE
CRUSHER
The thing about instincts is that they never whisper. They scream, and right now, mine are howling like wolves in a forest fire.
There’s a twitch in the air this morning, crawling under my skin like static. I feel it before I even hear the damn name.
City’s voice cuts through the thrum of the garage speaker like a knife through Kevlar. “Crusher.” No greeting. No pleasantries. Just that tone. The one he uses when shit’s about to hit the fan.
I finish tightening the brake line on Rampage’s bike, then straighten slowly, wiping my hands on a rag. “What?”
“Nevaeh Dawn Humphreys.”
The name lands like a hammer to the chest. Every hair on my neck stands on end. “What about her?”
“Nevaeh Humphreys dropped that feel-good feature at The Narrative this morning, highlighting anonymous donors to the Mt. Pleasant Youth Restoration Fund.” He pauses. “Guess who made the cut.”
My heart slams once, twice. Cold sweat beads across the back of my neck even though the air in the garage is heavy with oil and heat. “She named us?”
“She named you, brother.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“She didn’t spell it out,” City says quickly. “Just a line. Something about an ‘Erik M. from Northside’ being a consistent donor. No club mention. No ‘Crusher’. But she’s sniffing around. That’s all I needed to hear.”
I toss the rag aside, heart pounding like a war drum in my chest. That fund was supposed to be clean. Quiet. Completely untraceable. Just good being done in the shadows, the way we operate.
“It was supposed to be off-grid,” I mutter, the words scraping out of my throat.
“I know,” City says. “But it ain’t anymore. You want me to dig deeper? Send a warning?”
“No,” I snap. “I’ll handle it.”
And I will.
The second I step into that glass-and-metal fortress she calls an office building, I want to turn around and walk out. It’s too bright. Too polished. Too… hollow. Like a place where people pretend truth lives in sound bites and headlines.
The receptionist stands when she sees me. “Sir, do you have an appoint…”
I blow past her with a growl. I’m not here for decorum. I’m not in the mood for pleasantries. I’m not in the mood for much of anything except shutting this down before it burns through everything we’ve built.
I spot her before she spots me. She’s sitting at a desk near the far windows, perched cross-legged in her chair, a spiral notebook balanced against her thigh. She’s scribbling furiously while her laptop blinks beside her. The streaming service is paused mid-scene. A vintage black-and-white movie.
That detail throws me.
She’s not what I expected. Not even close.
Dark curls piled high, tendrils escaping like they’ve got their own opinions. She’s not dressed like a buttoned-up reporter. She looks like the type who writes barefoot at two in the morning, with music too loud and a mug of something dangerous in her hand.
Elegant chaos. Damn, she’s stunning. For a second, just a second, I'm knocked off balance. That pisses me off even more than the article.
I stalk toward her, each step deliberate, heavy, and loud enough to draw a few heads. “Nevaeh Dawn Humphreys,” I growl.
She looks up slowly, calm as a still lake, and meets my gaze. There’s recognition in her eyes, but no fear. She doesn’t flinch or offer an apology. Just a cool interest, like she’s looking at a new puzzle piece she didn’t expect to show up.
“You are?” she asks, voice even.
“Erik Morrison.”
Her lips twitch like she already knows what’s coming.
“Crusher.” She says it like it means something.
Not a threat, not a joke. Like she sees the man beneath the cut.
For a second, I’m not just the VP of a club with blood on its books.
I’m Erik again. That’s dangerous. “Vice President of the Saints Outlaws MC. One of the key anonymous donors to the Mt. Pleasant Youth Restoration Fund. A ghost with a credit card.”
I lean down, hands on her desk, close enough to smell something warm and floral on her skin. A memory surfaces in the back of my mind of a bar years ago, where I smelled the same scent. It fades before I can grab ahold of it. “You’re playing a dangerous game, sweetheart.”
“Am I?” she replies, voice even. “Seems to me I wrote a story about generosity.”
“You tied my name to that place.”
“Your first name. A letter. And a general location. That’s hardly an exposé.” The fire in her bright blue eyes makes my body come to life.
“That’s a kill order in the wrong hands,” I growl. “You think I fund Mt. Pleasant because I want a damn plaque? You think I needed the world to know that some outlaw bleeds for those kids?”
“You didn’t need them to know. But maybe they did.” She says it with such calm conviction that it almost makes me pause. Almost.
“You wrote that piece like you know us. Like you understand what that money protects. You don’t,” I snap. “You see numbers and donors. We see bodies and bullet holes.”
“You’re angry because I noticed something you thought was invisible.”
“I’m angry because you didn’t stop to ask why it was kept invisible.”
“I saw patterns,” she replies evenly. “Repeated donations from the same encrypted accounts. I traced the source because it didn’t make sense. Good money in this city never comes without a price tag. I was trying to find out who was paying the price.”
“And you thought it’d be a headline?”
Her eyes flash. “I thought it would be a story. Not one about you, but about hope.” She rises to her feet, meeting my glare with her own. The air tightens between us, tension thick enough to choke on.
I shake my head. “You have no idea who’s watching that fund. The Echelon Syndicate watches. Dirty cops. Rivals who think charity is a sign of weakness. That article made you a blip on their radar.”
She swallows, just a flicker, but enough. The color drains slightly from her face.
“Then tell me what I missed,” she says, quieter now. “Tell me why you donate under the shadows. Tell me what you’re protecting.”
I clench my jaw. My fingers curl into fists.
You.
I want to say it. I want to scream it. But that kind of vulnerability? It gets people dead.
Her eyes harden. “I don’t write to protect shadows, Mr. Morrison. I write to expose them.”
“And what if those shadows are the only reason kids still have a roof? What if the monsters you think you’re chasing are the only ones keeping worse ones at bay?”
“You think you’re the exception?” she asks. “Because you give quietly? You think that gives you the right to decide what stays hidden?”
“I think it gives me the right to warn you that publishing names doesn’t just sell papers. It signs death warrants.”
That makes her flinch. But she doesn’t back down. Her eyes narrow. “Are you threatening me?”
“No,” I say, voice low. “I’m warning you.”
“You don’t get to decide what the world knows just because you wear leather and ride fast.”
I lean in closer. “And you don’t get to decide who lives or dies because you need a byline.”
That hits her. She flinches just slightly. But she holds her ground.
“I don’t print recklessly,” she says. “I dig because the truth matters and people deserve to know. You think I don't know the world has shadows? I just don't believe in letting them run unchecked.”
She means it. I see it in her eyes. There’s fire there. Not just ambition, but conviction.
“Why the hell do you care so much?” I ask, not even sure if I’m asking about the story or something else.
She shrugs, but it’s not casual. “Because someone I loved once hid in the shadows, too. And no one saw them until it was too late. Because someone’s always trying to silence the people who help from the shadows. And maybe you’re not the monster I expected. But I still don’t trust you.”
“I’m not asking for trust,” I say. “I’m asking for silence.”
Her mouth parts like she’s about to argue, but she doesn’t. Instead, she sits again, her eyes following me like she can still feel the heat I left behind.
She folds her arms, eyes blazing. “Then maybe those people should tell me their side instead of barging into my workplace and throwing threats around.”
“I’m not threatening,” I say, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. “I’m begging you not to be the spark that ignites a fuse you don’t understand.”
Silence pulses between us. Finally, she says, “Then maybe you should tell me what I’m lighting.”
I stare at her. I mean, really look. She’s not just bold. She’s brave, and brave gets people killed.
“I can’t,” I say roughly. “Not without dragging you into something you can’t walk away from.”
“Then don’t lecture me about what I printed,” she snaps. “Because you’re not giving me the choice to understand what’s actually at stake.”
“Your laptop gets hacked. Your notes get leaked. They’ll come for you first.”
“I can handle myself.”
“You can’t,” I bark. “You think this is about journalism and public good? These men don’t sue. They don’t argue. They erase.”
She goes still. I step back from the desk. The silence between us hums like power lines about to snap.
“Maybe I’m already in it,” she murmurs.
That thought shakes something loose in my gut.
“You shouldn’t have written it,” I say, my voice lower. Regret coils around every word. “Even if your editor overrode you. Even if you meant well. It’s too late.”
She watches me, something unreadable in her eyes. “Then what happens now?”
“Now?” I step toward the door. “Now I pray they come for me first.”
I turn to leave, not trusting myself to stay another second in her space. But just before I walk out, I stop at the glass door and speak without looking back.
“If you run another story,” I say, “you’re not just putting my name out there. You’re lighting a fuse. One you can’t put out.”
Silence. “I’ll redact what I have before the article is published. Once you give me permission to print, I will.”
I turn without another word, push through the glass doors, and step into a world that suddenly feels louder than it did this morning.
My bike waits at the curb like it always does. But for the first time in a long time, I don’t fire it up and peel out right away. I sit.
The engine’s cold. But I’m burning up. Burning from the inside out.
This was supposed to be a warning. A line in the sand. But I walked into that building and met a woman who didn’t flinch, didn’t run, didn’t break.
I could’ve told her everything. Just laid it all bare. But people like me don’t get the luxury of soft landings. Only crash zones.
She’s a threat. But she’s also a spark.
And the worst part?
For the first time in years, I wonder what it would feel like to burn.