11. Chapter 11
Colt
The Austin facility had been exactly what I needed. Three weeks of intensive therapy, group sessions, psychiatric evaluation, and medication adjustment. Three weeks of being forced to confront the parts of myself that I'd been running from since coming home.
By the time Ditch picked me up to bring me back, I felt like I'd been reconstructed from the inside out. Not fixed. Healing wasn't about being fixed. It was about understanding the broken pieces and learning to function with them instead of pretending they didn't exist.
Ditch didn't ask how I was doing when I got in the truck. Just turned up the radio and drove, giving me space to settle back into the reality of club life. That was the thing about Ditch—he understood that sometimes the best support was just presence.
"Prez wants you back in rotation," he said after we'd been driving for about an hour. "Nothing heavy. Just enough to remind you that you're still part of the machinery."
"What kind of rotation?"
"Transport operation tomorrow. Lords safehouse network. We're moving a group of survivors—women and children—from one location to another. Ghost is leading the convoy. You'll ride security."
Transport operations were routine. Drive, watch for threats, arrive safely. Simple. Structured. The kind of work that didn't require processing emotion or confronting trauma. It was pure presence and awareness.
Exactly what I needed.
I got maybe four hours of sleep that night. Not because of nightmares or anxiety, but because my nervous system was still recalibrating from three weeks of intensive treatment. By the time Ditch picked me up the next morning, I was wired and ready.
Ghost was waiting at the safe house with a small convoy.
Three vehicles total. The front vehicle had two Lords members I didn't recognize.
The middle vehicle was a van carrying the survivors—a mix of women and children being relocated to a shelter in Dallas.
The rear vehicle had me, Ghost, and one other brother.
Ghost was our security and tech guy, one of the few who worked closely with both the Serpent Sinners and the broader MC network. He was solid. Quiet. The kind of guy who noticed details. He must have been doing these things in my stead.
We pulled out at six in the morning when traffic was still relatively light.
The first hour was uneventful. I watched the road and the traffic patterns and the way the other vehicles maintained their positioning.
My hypervigilance had always been useful in situations like this.
Now, after three weeks of therapy, I was learning to distinguish between hypervigilance that served a function and hypervigilance that was just PTSD firing at ghosts.
But around mile sixty, I started noticing things.
A black motorcycle appeared in our rear view around the same time we entered a stretch of highway with minimal traffic.
It kept distance—far enough back that it wasn't obviously following, but close enough to remain visible.
The bike changed lanes when we changed lanes.
Maintained distance through the next town.
I mentioned it to Ghost. "Vehicle at six o'clock. Black motorcycle. Been there for about fifteen minutes."
Ghost glanced in the mirror. "I see it. Probably just heading in the same direction."
"Maybe."
But he'd noticed it. Which meant he was tracking it too.
The motorcycle fell back about ten miles into the next town, then reappeared just as we were exiting onto a smaller highway. Same distance. Same pattern.
"It's back," I said.
Ghost's expression tightened. "Yeah. I see it."
The black SUV showed up about thirty minutes later.
It appeared at a rest stop where the convoy pulled over for a ten-minute break.
Pulled in behind us. Sat in the far corner of the parking lot.
By the time we were ready to leave, the SUV was gone, but I could feel the weight of it. The intention behind it.
Someone was watching.
"We're being tracked," I said to Ghost as we pulled back onto the highway.
"I know."
"Front vehicle?"
"Doesn't seem to be aware. I'll notify them once we're closer to destination. No point creating panic if we're not sure what we're dealing with."
The motorcycle disappeared around mile one-thirty. No black SUV. Nothing obvious. But the feeling didn't leave. The sensation of being observed. Of having people's attention for reasons that weren't friendly.
By the time we arrived at the Dallas safe house, I was completely wired. The adrenaline of the mission combined with the medication I was taking created a strange clarity. Everything felt sharp. Visible. Real.
Ghost pulled me aside as the survivors were being transferred.
"You were right," he said quietly. "Security footage confirms the motorcycle followed us for the first eighty miles. The SUV appeared on three different traffic cameras—all within proximity of our route. Someone definitely had eyes on this convoy."
"Who?"
"Nobody knows. Plates were obscured on the SUV. The motorcycle didn't have visible identifying markers. But it wasn't random. This was intentional."
I felt something settle inside my chest. A sense of purpose I hadn't experienced since before my capture. A threat existed. A threat could be analyzed, tracked, countered. That felt infinitely easier than processing trauma or learning to live with the damage I'd sustained.
"We need to brief Prez," I said. "And we need to increase security protocols for the next transport."
"Already planning it."
We drove back to McAllen in silence. Ghost was strategizing. I was alive for the first time in weeks.
Not the self-harm alive I'd been in the boxing ring. But genuinely alive. Needed. Useful.
As we pulled into the club, Ditch was waiting. He took one look at Ghost's expression and then at mine, and he understood immediately that something had happened.
"Surveillance during transport," Ghost said. "Coordinated. Multiple vehicles. Someone's actively watching our movements."
Ditch's expression hardened. The VP shifted into tactical mode. "I'll notify the Lords. We need to figure out who and why. In the meantime, all transport operations are suspended until we understand the threat."
Walking into the club house, I felt the weight of responsibility settle back onto my shoulders. I was SGT at Arms. This was my job. This was what I did.
And for the first time since returning home, I felt equipped to do it.