Chapter 11
JAX
B oots thudded down the hall, then Nitro walked in first, Pelican case in one hand and a grin in place like he’d been waiting for an excuse to play.
Edge followed, eyes sharp despite how early it was, and took the far wall like he owned the shadows.
Drift slid in quiet, all contained force, then Piston and Fury shouldered through—Piston with grease still under his nails from the garage, Fury with that slow-burn gaze that made people confess just to make it stop.
Kane didn’t bother with chairs. “Short version.” His voice filled the room. “Jax dug a federal well for an employee. Lark Whittaker. Turns out she’s WITSEC. Dig tripped more than marshals. He may’ve lit up eyes that’ve been hunting her for two years.”
The room went still, every man there processing. Nitro cracked his knuckles, grin crooked. “About time something blew up. I was getting fucking bored.”
“I’ll mention that to your old lady.” Drift grinned. “Sure she’d be more than happy to fill your time with more diapers to change.”
Nitro rolled his eyes. “My baby girl’s shit is still prettier than your face, asshole.”
Still leaning against the wall, arms crossed, Edge flashed me a smirk. “All this cloak-and-dagger shit just because Jax finally got laid?”
I lifted my middle finger without hesitation. “Go fuck yourself,” I snapped, though my lip twitched because this was who we were—razor edges, sharp mouths, and steely loyalty.
Nitro barked a laugh. “You walked into that one, brother.”
“Focus,” Kane cut in. “Assume they’ll come soft first—recon, cameras at the track, a car sitting two blocks off the compound. Bullshit like that. Then hard. Treat both like they’re happening already.” He looked at me. “You?”
“Everything digital,” I answered, hands in my back pockets so I didn’t punch a wall.
“Widen the sensor net, spin up temp cameras on the outer streets, piggyback off city traffic nodes within a mile of both gates. Burners are live. Watch for new IMEIs popping in range that don’t fit usual patterns.
Credit pings within twenty miles four days back to four days forward.
Set crawlers to scrape dark chatter for her real name and alias.
Anyone who blinks her in a forum gets flagged. ”
“Good. Nitro?”
Nitro popped his case and flipped through foam slots like a jeweler choosing a stone.
“Compound goes double-lock. Prospects on round-the-clock perimeter walk. I’ll seed the fence line with low-profile tremors—no fireworks, just a hum in my ear if something heavier than a squirrel touches wire.
Two trip-charges on the service road that’ll turn a tail around without giving us a news chopper.
Safe room gets stocked and checked. I’ll rotate codes twice a day.
And I’m gifting the guard shack a couple of pinhole cams and a silent panic paddle. ”
Kane’s brow lifted. “Message, not massacre.”
Nitro’s grin sharpened. “Copy. Loud is for the end of the party.”
“Edge,” Kane moved on.
Edge rolled his neck until vertebrae cracked, and he flipped his knife open and shut.
“Two bikes assigned to her every move outside the fence. One of ’em me.
I’ll run route sweeps an hour before she leaves, again twenty minutes out, then shadow the convoy.
Want two decoy runs a day—same departure times, different destinations.
If they’re hunting, we teach them to track the wrong rabbit. ”
“Drift?” Kane asked.
Drift’s knuckles flexed once, as if they could feel the work already.
“Walk the neighborhood around the compound at odd hours. If there’s a car that doesn’t belong, I’ll know the tire brand before they figure out how to adjust their mirrors.
Gonna post two at the tower when she’s at the track—eyes on the crowd, one on the pits.
We’ll circulate like civilians. Nobody will clock us unless they’re trained.
If they’re trained, they’ll meet me first.”
“Piston.”
“Armor a transport,” he answered. “Subtle. Nothing that screams convoy. Blacked-out 4Runner, fresh plates. A remote-kill relay and a decoy ignition in case someone’s feeling clever with a laptop. I’ll swap the plugs on the second gate truck too—turns over for family, not strangers.”
“Fury.”
He rolled his wrist, a lazy circle that didn’t match the intent behind his eyes.
“I’ll tap the off-duty roster—lawyers, bouncers, the quiet ones who owe favors.
Have ’em drift around the track in plain clothes, buy beers, smile, take note of anyone whose eyes don’t track the cars.
And I’ll have a conversation with a man who hears whispers I don’t like.
He knows something, he’ll give it to me or lose the teeth he uses to hold on to secrets. ”
Kane nodded once, satisfied. “Good. Tighten everything by sundown.” He turned back to me. “Can you keep her out of the pit tonight?”
“If I have to,” I answered, hating how right he was. “She won’t like it.”
“She’ll like fucking breathing,” Edge muttered.
I shot him a glare that would’ve melted asphalt.
Kane ignored us.
“Jax.” I met his eyes. His mouth tipped, the barest suggestion of amusement under the steel. “Ordered the vest.”
Heat slid through my chest, relieved and grateful all at once. “Good.”
“Let’s keep her alive long enough for you to give it to her. Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed the rest. The room didn’t need my heart on the table, it needed my hands on the keyboard. Or a gun. The second option was quickly becoming my preference.
“Move.” Kane dismissed the crew. He hooked my elbow as the others filed out. “Jax.”
I turned toward him with a raised brow.
“You didn’t fuck this up. You did what you do. Now do the next thing.”
Alanna’s words flickered through my mind again. That’s what you do. You break shit. You fix shit. And when the whole world goes to hell, you stay standing.
I jerked my chin up, then followed my brothers out of the office.
Nitro peeled toward the armory with Fury in tow, already arguing about whether prospects could be trusted with new radios.
Edge fell into step beside me for three paces, the two of us moving in an old rhythm that didn’t need words.
At the end of the corridor, he clapped the back of my neck, hard enough to sting.
“Don’t get dead,” he ordered.
“Same,” I grunted.
Edge snorted a laugh. “Death’ll have to catch me first. And I don’t lose races.”
Then he was gone in another direction.
I glanced at my watch and frowned, torn between going back to check on Lark or getting straight to work. It was early, and she hadn’t had much sleep, so I was guessing that I had a couple more hours before she woke.
In my office, the servers were already awake, fans whispering, and LEDs blinking like a city at night.
I sank into my chair and let the world narrow to code, cameras, and the yawning hole I needed to seal around her.
Fingers flew. I cloned the compound feeds into a second cold store the feds could never subpoena because they’d never know it existed.
I wrote a quick-and-dirty pattern matcher keyed to men who wore tactical shoes to public events—no civilians in Crossbend needed Vibram soles and straight-leg cargo pants.
I added gait recognition tuned for men who trained to clear rooms, not stroll grandstands.
The net tightened in my head as much as on the screens.
Then I pulled out an old phone from the bottom drawer—the one with five numbers on it and no contact names. Favors, not friends. Currency I’d hoarded like other men hoarded cash. I scrolled to the first number and hit Call.
“Yeah,” a voice answered that sounded like gravel and cigarette smoke.
“It’s Jax.”
A pause that said he was well aware of why I’d called. “Cashing in a favor?”
“Knocking one off the list of…how many?” We both knew it was pointless to try to count.
“What do you need?”
“Information.” I gave him some coordinates and a time window. “If a vehicle parks in any of those spots between now and dawn, I want the plate and the face of every person who steps out of it.”
“And if they don’t smile for the camera?”
“Make ’em.” I hung up and hit the next number.
By the time I killed the fifth call, a map blossomed across my middle screen—pins where new eyes just opened. I tied each to a signal path in the net and smiled without humor. Come on, motherfuckers. Blink for me .
Messages popped up on my phone.
Nitro
Strobed the tremor line and sent me the graph. Fury dropped a list of names that smelled wrong in the past month around Brake Point. Piston texted a photo of the 4Runner—sleek, anonymous, and ours.
Another ping.
Edge
North alley behind the tower has a blind. Lens two. Fix it.
Me
On it.
I fired my response back, rolling my chair to the secondary console, swapping the dead eye with a spare already married to the system. The feed came up sharp—dumpsters, chain-link, and a black cat that looked like an omen of bad luck.
Minutes bled into hours. I worked, breathed, and thought about the woman sleeping in my bed and the way she lived under everything I did.
The instinct to go back and sit in a chair by the door until she woke was a weight I carried between clicks.
But if I wanted her in my bed permanently, I had to keep her alive first.
She was bound to be up soon, though. And if I wanted to keep her out of this shit as long as possible, I needed something to keep her occupied while I worked.
An idea formed, and I picked up my normal cell and called Kane’s wife, Savannah.
“Hey, Jax. How’s my favorite hacker?”
One side of my mouth hitched up. She loved calling me that because she knew I hated that word unless I was using it to needle someone. It reduced years of genius-level skill to a cheap-ass label associated with basement criminals.
“Cute. But we both know I’m the guy they call when a hacker fucks up.”