Foxfire's Flame (Delta Destroyers MC #11)

Chapter One

The Delta sun was already hammering the blacktop when Foxfire pulled into Harmon's lot, and something was wrong before his boots hit the gravel.

Glass on the pavement. Shattered pieces catching the morning light like teeth scattered across the parking lot. Patty's truck sat crooked in its usual spot, two tires slashed down to the rims, and the diner's front window gaped open where plate glass used to be.

Foxfire killed his engine and swung off the bike, his hands already curling into fists.

Inside, Patty Harmon was sweeping glass out of her grits station with a broom in one hand and murder in her eyes. A shotgun lay across the counter beside the coffee maker, and the fury rolling off her filled the twelve-seat diner like heat from a summer storm.

"The hell happened?"

She didn't look up. Just kept sweeping, the glass scraping across the linoleum with a sound that set his teeth on edge.

"Brick." She jerked her chin toward the counter, where a chunk of red clay sat wrapped in paper. "Came through about four hours ago. Note says 'Mind your mouth.'"

Foxfire crossed to the counter and picked up the brick. The paper was cheap, the handwriting blocky and rushed. Mind your mouth. He set it down and scanned the room with the quick assessment that had kept him breathing through a hundred bar fights and back-alley scraps.

The pie case was intact. The stools were upright. The damage was targeted—window, tires, message. Not random destruction. A schedule.

"This connected to the two men who came through last week?"

Now she looked at him. Patty Harmon had broad shoulders, hands roughened from decades of cast iron, and a face that could make a trucker apologize for his language. Right now that face was set in lines that said she'd already decided how this was going to go.

"Those boys told me to keep my mouth shut about the trucks I've been seeing on the highway. I told them to get out of my mother's kitchen." Her grip tightened on the broom. "Guess they didn't like my answer."

"What trucks?"

"The ones running through here three, four times a week. Middle of the night, no markings, armed escorts in the lead and tail vehicles." She swept another pile of glass toward the door. "County deputy eats breakfast here every Tuesday. I might have mentioned what I was seeing."

Foxfire felt the familiar heat building in his chest. The heat that showed up right before he did something fast and probably violent.

"You told a deputy about armed convoys running through Destroyer territory."

"I told a regular customer about suspicious vehicles on a public highway." Her chin came up. "This is my mother's diner. She kept it open through two recessions and a stroke. I'm not shutting my mouth because some boys with trucks don't like being noticed."

The coffee pot sat on its warmer, full and steaming. Patty grabbed a mug—his mug, the one she'd been filling every time he walked in for a year—and poured without asking.

"Sit down. You're making the place look untidy."

He didn't sit. He pulled out his phone and dialed the compound.

Cottonmouth answered on the second ring. "Talk."

"I'm at Harmon's on the Vicksburg highway. Diner owner's got a brick through her window and slashed tires. Someone's running a smuggling corridor through our territory, and she made noise about it."

Silence on the line. The particular silence of a president calculating threats and responses.

"How organized?"

"Armed escorts. Multiple runs per week. They're escalating—tires yesterday, brick last night." Foxfire watched Patty sweep glass with the stubborn determination of a woman who'd been fighting her whole life. "This isn't going to stop at a brick."

"No," Cottonmouth agreed. "It's not. Get me details. Routes, schedules, anything she knows about who's running it."

"Already on it."

"And Foxfire?" The president's voice dropped. "That stretch of highway is yours. You know what that means."

"Yeah." His eyes found Patty across the diner, her broad shoulders squared against a threat she didn't fully understand. "I know exactly what it means."

He hung up and crossed to the counter, sliding onto his usual stool. The coffee was hot and strong, the way she'd been making it for him since his first ride through.

"You're not sitting down because I told you to."

"I'm sitting down because you pour good coffee." He wrapped his hands around the mug. "Tell me about the trucks. Everything you've seen."

Patty leaned against the counter across from him, the broom propped beside her, the shotgun within reach. She'd stopped sweeping, but the fury hadn't dimmed.

"Started about three months ago. First I thought it was just late-night freight running the back way to avoid scales. Then I noticed the escorts—trucks front and back, men with rifles visible through the windows." She shook her head. "Nobody runs armed convoy for legal cargo."

"You get a look at any faces?"

"One. Big guy, heavy, drives the lead escort most runs. Stopped in here once for coffee before he knew I was paying attention. Treated my counter like a truck stop bathroom." Her lip curled. "Hasn't been back since I told him what I thought of his manners."

Foxfire filed the description. Heavy, aggressive, lead escort. That was someone with authority in the operation.

"The two men who came in last week—they threaten you direct?"

"Told me the highway was none of my business. Told me to stop talking to my regulars about what I saw." Her jaw tightened. "I told them my mother kept this diner open twenty-two years by knowing everything that happened on her stretch of road, and I wasn't about to stop now."

"And they left?"

"After I showed them the door." She nodded toward the shotgun. "They didn't like being shown."

Foxfire felt the grin building on his face. The sharp, fast grin that showed up right before things got interesting.

"You ran them off."

"I told them to get out of my mother's kitchen. They decided to listen." She poured herself coffee, her hands steady despite everything. "Guess they came back with a brick instead of an argument."

The morning light was streaming through the broken window, catching the glass still scattered across the floor.

In a few hours, her regulars would start arriving—the deputy on Tuesdays, the highway workers who came for eggs, the old-timers who'd been sitting at this counter since Patty's mother was alive to pour their coffee.

A smuggling operation couldn't afford witnesses. Couldn't afford a loud-mouthed diner owner telling a county deputy about armed convoys on a public road.

Tires yesterday. Brick last night.

Fire came next.

"You got somewhere else to stay?" he asked.

"I've got a diner to run." She met his eyes with the flat certainty of a woman who'd made up her mind. "Five AM to eight PM, same as always. I'm not closing because some boys with trucks don't like my conversation."

"They're not going to stop at conversation."

"Neither am I."

Foxfire looked at her—the broad shoulders, the cast-iron hands, the fury that hadn't faded since he'd walked in.

A woman who'd been running a twelve-seat diner alone since her mother's stroke, paying nursing home bills and equipment repairs from what she pulled across this counter.

A woman who'd told armed smugglers to get out of her kitchen and meant it.

The Delta had shaped him. Gave him nothing as a kid, made him fight for everything he had, taught him that speed and fists were the only things a man without a name could count on. The club had given him a patch and a purpose, made him something more than a street kid with knife scars.

This stretch of highway was his. Harmon's Diner sat on a road he'd been running for years, in territory the Destroyers had bled to protect. And the woman behind the counter had just painted a target on herself by refusing to bow to men who thought they owned the corridor.

He pulled out his phone again. Typed a quick message to Cottonmouth: Smuggling op using our highway. Armed. Escalating. I'm handling it.

The response came fast: Keep her breathing. Church tomorrow.

Foxfire pocketed the phone and finished his coffee. Patty watched him, waiting for whatever came next.

"I'm going to need that description of the big guy in the lead escort. And the times you've seen the convoys run."

"You're going to do something about this?"

"The Destroyers are going to do something about this. That highway's been ours since before either of us could ride it." He stood, dropping bills on the counter. "You've got a smuggling operation running through club territory, bricking women who talk. That's not going to stand."

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime, you keep that shotgun close and you call me if anyone comes through that door who shouldn't." He wrote his number on a napkin, slid it across the counter. "Day or night. Anything feels wrong, you call."

She took the napkin. Looked at it, then at him.

"You've been drinking coffee at my counter for a year. Never said more than ten words at a time."

"Never needed to before."

"And now?"

Foxfire felt the heat in his chest settle into something harder. Something certain.

"Now someone put a brick through your window because you wouldn't shut up about what you saw. Someone slashed your tires in broad daylight. Someone's running armed convoys through Destroyer territory like they own the road."

He moved toward the door, then stopped. Turned back.

"I'm the fastest man in the Destroyers. I've been running this highway since the club gave me a patch. And the next person who touches this building—the next person who comes at you with a brick or a threat or anything else—is going to learn exactly what that means."

The sharp grin crossed his face again. The one that showed up right before the worst part.

"They're going to learn what Foxfire means."