Furnace's Fury (Route 66 Outlaws MC #10)

Chapter 1

He'd been riding back from a supply run to Tucumcari, the kind of errand that didn't need conversation or company—just him, the bike, and three hundred miles of empty highway under a sky that hadn't decided if it was night or morning yet.

The wind carried red dust and the smell of distant cattle, and Furnace had been thinking about nothing, which was the only way he knew how to think.

His phone buzzed in his cut. Tornado's name on the screen.

"Got a problem on the west side." Tornado's voice was flat, the way it got when calm was covering something worse. "Trucker under our protection called in from a coffee shop called Redline. Says there's men inside breaking things and a woman who won't back down."

"I'm twenty minutes out."

"Make it fifteen."

Furnace made it twelve.

Redline sat on a corner lot where the west side of Amarillo started giving up on itself—boarded storefronts, sun-bleached FOR LEASE signs, the kind of block that used to mean something before the interstate sucked the life out of it.

The coffee shop was the only building with lights on, warm yellow spilling through windows onto cracked sidewalk.

The front window had a cinder block through it.

Furnace killed his engine a half-block out and approached on foot, his boots silent on pavement still cool from the night.

Through the jagged hole in the glass, he could see them—four men in work boots and hard hats, the kind of construction muscle that showed up when someone needed a building emptied the fast way.

They'd already flipped two tables. Coffee pooled on the floor.

Broken ceramic crunched under their boots.

And behind the counter, a woman stood with a steam wand aimed at the biggest man's face like it was a weapon.

Which, Furnace realized, it was.

She was maybe five-six, auburn hair pulled back, flour dust on her apron and murder in her eyes. The man in front of her—thick-necked, iron-worker build, HADLEY stitched on his shirt—was nursing his forearm where the skin had already gone red and blistering.

"I told you to get out," the woman said. Her voice didn't shake. "I'm not telling you again."

Hadley laughed. It was an ugly sound. "Lady, you don't seem to understand what's happening here. Sledge wants this building. You can sell it nice, or you can sell it after we're done with it. Either way—"

"Either way, you're leaving with that burn or worse." She adjusted her grip on the steam wand. "Your choice."

Furnace had seen enough.

He pushed through what was left of the front door—glass crunching, the bell overhead making a sad broken sound—and grabbed the nearest enforcer by his hard hat.

The man had maybe half a second to register surprise before Furnace slammed his head into the reclaimed-wood counter hard enough to split the edge.

The enforcer dropped.

Everything after that happened fast.

The second man came at Furnace with a crowbar, swinging wild. Furnace caught his wrist, twisted until something popped, and drove his elbow into the man's throat. The third tried to run—smart—but Furnace caught him by the collar and threw him into a table that hadn't been flipped yet.

That left Hadley.

The big man spun toward the commotion, which meant his back was to the woman with the steam wand. She didn't waste the opportunity. Steam hissed as she pressed the nozzle to the back of his neck, and Hadley screamed—high and shocked—and stumbled backward.

Directly into Furnace.

Furnace caught him by the shirt, spun him around, and studied his face for exactly one second. Memorizing it. Then he threw Hadley through what was left of the front door and onto the sidewalk outside.

The glass shattered. Hadley rolled. The other three were already scrambling for the exit, dragging their unconscious friend between them.

"This isn't over!" Hadley shouted from the sidewalk, cradling his burned arm and neck. "Sledge will hear about this! He'll—"

Furnace stepped into the doorframe and stared.

He didn't speak. Didn't need to. His shoulders filled the space, and his eyes said everything his mouth didn't bother with. Come back. See what happens.

Hadley got the message. He stumbled to his feet, and the four of them retreated to a white construction truck parked down the block. Doors slammed. Engine roared. They were gone.

The silence that followed was broken only by dripping coffee and the woman's breathing.

Furnace turned to face her.

She'd lowered the steam wand but hadn't let go of it—smart woman, not trusting the fight was over just because the bodies had left.

Up close, she was younger than he'd thought, maybe mid-thirties, with lines around her eyes that came from squinting into early morning sun and a jaw set hard enough to cut glass.

"You're Route 66." It wasn't a question. Her eyes had found his cut, the patches, the three-piece rocker that announced exactly who he was and what he represented.

"Furnace." He stepped over a broken chair. "Tornado sent me. We got a call from a trucker who said there was trouble."

"Big Eddie." Something in her expression shifted—not softer, exactly, but less sharp. "He was in here when they showed up the first time. Told me he knew people."

"He does."

She finally set down the steam wand, and Furnace noticed her hands were steady. No tremor, no shaking. Either she'd done this before or she'd been too angry to be scared. He wasn't sure which was more impressive.

"Bonnie Tate." She wiped her hands on her apron. "This is my place. Was my place." She looked at the broken window, the overturned tables, the coffee soaking into floorboards she'd probably sanded herself. "Guess it still is. For now."

Furnace walked to the window and examined the cinder block lodged in the frame. The throw had cracked the header beam—he could see the split in the wood, the structural damage that wouldn't fix itself.

"You know who those men work for?"

"Sledge. Warren Sledge." Bonnie crossed her arms. "He's been buying up the block for six months. Gutted two storefronts already. I'm the only one who won't sell."

"Why not?"

The question seemed to surprise her. Most people didn't ask. Most people assumed a woman alone in a dying neighborhood should take the money and run.

"Because I built this." Bonnie's voice went hard.

"Every plank in that counter is reclaimed wood I hauled myself.

Every tile behind the bar I laid with my own hands.

I bought the lease with everything I had and turned a profit for three straight years on five-dollar cups and kolaches I bake at 4 AM.

" She met his eyes, and the fire there could've melted steel.

"This isn't just a building. It's mine. And I don't let anyone take what's mine. "

Furnace felt something shift in his chest. A recognition.

He knew what it was to build something from nothing. Knew what it cost to pour yourself into work that other people thought was worthless. His father's lunch pail sat in his saddlebag right now, empty, because throwing it away would mean admitting the mills weren't coming back.

Some things you didn't let go of. Some things you fought for.

"Sledge runs a laundering operation," Furnace said. "Construction front for drug money. Buys properties, guts them, flips them through the books inflated. We've been watching him."

"So he's worse than a real estate asshole."

"Much worse."

Bonnie was quiet for a moment. Then: "What does club protection mean, exactly?"

"Means Sledge's men don't come back without going through us first. Means you've got brothers watching your back. Means—" He gestured at the broken window, the cracked header beam, the mess that had been her morning. "This doesn't happen again."

"And the cost?"

"You're on our stretch. You serve our truckers. That makes you ours to protect." Furnace shrugged. "We don't charge for what we're supposed to do."

Bonnie studied him the way she probably studied every plank of wood before deciding if it was worth salvaging. Looking for cracks. Testing for strength.

Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her.

"Fine." She walked behind the counter, stepping over broken ceramic, and reached for a cup. "Club protection it is."

She pulled a lever on the espresso machine.

The familiar hiss of steam, the dark stream of coffee filling a cup that had somehow survived the chaos.

She didn't ask how he took it—didn't ask if he even wanted it—just poured and slid it across the counter with the certainty of a woman who'd been reading customers since before sunrise.

Furnace wrapped his scarred fingers around the cup. The ceramic was warm. The coffee was dark, strong, exactly how he would've asked for it if she'd bothered to ask.

She hadn't.

Something about that settled in his chest like a weight he didn't mind carrying.

"Drink up," Bonnie said, already reaching for a broom to start on the glass. "You're going to need it. Sledge doesn't give up easy, and neither do I."

Furnace watched her sweep, her movements efficient and angry and absolutely unbroken, and lifted the cup to his lips.

The coffee was the best he'd had since Ohio.