4. Razor
Razor
Dawn breaks cold and gray over the mountain, turning the forest into something out of a ghost story. I stand at the tree line, fifty yards from the cabin, watching for movement that shouldn’t be there. Listening for sounds that don’t belong.
I hear nothing except the wind through pine trees and the distant call of a crow.
I complete the perimeter check for the third time since we got here five hours ago. Every approach covered. Every sight line memorized. Old habits from my ranger days that kept me alive in places where one mistake meant a body bag.
The cabin sits in a small clearing, surrounded by dense forest on three sides and a steep drop-off on the fourth. One road in, one road out. Good defensive position. Hard to approach without being seen or heard.
But not impossible.
Nothing’s ever impossible if someone wants it badly enough.
I pull out my phone and check for signal. One bar. Enough to send a text, but not much else. I type out a message to Viper, our treasurer and the only person in the club besides Reaper who has half a brain.
All clear. No tail. Sitting tight.
Her response comes back within seconds.
Reaper’s asking questions. Buy you 24 hours max.
Twenty-four hours. Not even two days before the club president starts demanding answers about where we are and why we’re not answering calls.
And what we’ve done with the witness.
I pocket my phone and head back toward the cabin. The sun’s climbing higher now, burning off the morning mist. It’s going to be a clear day. Cold but clear.
Inside, I can hear voices. Hawk and Shadow, probably arguing about what the fuck we’re supposed to do now.
We kidnapped a woman. Someone’s daughter, maybe someone’s sister. Definitely someone who has people who’ll miss her and come looking.
This isn’t how we operate. Isn’t who we are.
But Hawk made the call in the moment, and now we’re all living with it.
I push through the front door. The cabin’s interior is exactly what you’d expect from a place nobody lives in full-time.
The main room has a couch that’s seen better days, a woodburning stove that actually works, and a kitchen area that’s more camp than home.
Stairs lead up to three small bedrooms and a bathroom.
Hawk and Shadow are at the kitchen table, coffee mugs in front of them, looking like they haven’t slept. Which they probably haven’t.
“Perimeter’s clear,” I report, helping myself to the coffee pot on the counter. Black, strong enough to strip paint. Perfect. “No sign of company. No vehicles on the access road.”
“How long do we have?” Hawk asks. His voice is rough, tired.
“Best guess? Forty-eight hours before someone finds this place. ATF will be tracking the bikes and checking club properties. Ruthless Saints will be doing the same.”
“And the woman?” I ask.
Shadow leans back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. He’s always been the pretty one of our trio, the one who can charm his way out of most situations. But there’s no charming our way out of this.
“Upstairs. Gave her water, cut the zip tie like you told me to,” Shadow answers. “She’s scared but holding it together.”
“She say anything?” Hawk’s watching him closely.
“Asked where she was, who we are, when we’re letting her go. Standard hostage questions.”
“And you told her?”
“That she’s safer here than out there. That we’re figuring things out.” Shadow sets his mug down. “She didn’t believe me.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Three men who’ve known each other for over a decade, who’ve ridden together, fought together, bled together. We don’t need a lot of words to communicate.
But this situation needs more than silence.
“Reaper’s going to order her eliminated,” I say, because someone needs to say it out loud. “The moment he finds out we’ve got a witness to a federal weapons sting, he’s going to give the order.”
“I know.” Hawk’s jaw tightens.
“So what’s the play here? We hiding her from the club? Going rogue?”
“If we have to.”
Shadow and I exchange a look. Going against club orders is serious. The kind of serious that gets your patch pulled and your ass beat. Or worse.
“You’re willing to burn your standing in the club for a stranger?” I ask Hawk.
“She’s not just a stranger anymore. She’s under my protection.” Hawk meets my eyes, and there’s something in his expression I haven’t seen in years. Determination. Purpose. “I made the call to grab her. I’m responsible.”
“We’re all responsible,” Shadow says quietly. “We were all there. We all agreed to bring her here.”
That’s true. In the chaos, in the moment, we all made the same choice. Grab the woman, get to safety, sort it out later.
Later is now.
“Ruthless Saints saw her,” I point out. “They’ll be looking for her too. They’ll want to eliminate the witness before she talks to the Feds.”
“Let them look.” Hawk’s voice is steel. “They’re not getting near her.”
“And Tyler?” I ask, watching his face carefully.
Hawk flinches. Just barely, but I catch it. “What about him?”
“Tyler’s going to know about the woman. He’s going to know his father’s club was involved in a gun deal gone bad. You really think he’s not going to use this?”
“Tyler can go to hell.”
There’s history there. Bad history. Hawk doesn’t talk about his son much, but when he does, it’s with the kind of regret that comes from knowing you fucked up as a parent and there’s no fixing it.
Shadow clears his throat. “So what’s the plan? We can’t keep her here indefinitely. She’s got a life. People who’ll miss her.”
“We need to figure out who’s a bigger threat—the Feds or the clubs,” I say. “And we need to do it fast. Every hour we keep her here is another hour someone’s looking for her.”
“I’ll reach out to my contact,” Shadow offers. “See if I can find out what the ATF knows, whether they got any IDs from last night.”
“And I’ll handle Reaper,” Hawk says. “Buy us some time.”
“What about her?” I nod toward the stairs. “She’s going to try to run the first chance she gets.”
“Then we make sure she doesn’t get the chance.” Hawk stands, draining his coffee. “Someone needs to watch her at all times. Shifts.”
“I’ll take first,” I volunteer. Not because I want to play babysitter to a terrified woman, but because someone needs to, and it might as well be me.
Shadow nods. “I’ll scout the access road, make sure we’re still clear.”
We break, each moving to our assigned tasks. Shadow grabs his jacket and heads out. Hawk starts making phone calls, his voice low and controlled as he navigates club politics.
I refill my coffee and head upstairs.
The woman—Jade, Shadow called her—is in the first bedroom on the right. The door’s closed but not locked. We don’t have locks on the interior doors. Never needed them before.
I lean against the wall opposite her door and settle in for watch duty.
This is familiar territory. Waiting. Watching. Staying alert while everything else is quiet. I did this for months in Afghanistan. Perimeter security. Guard duty. The hours where nothing happens, but you can’t let your guard down because the moment you do is the moment everything goes to shit.
PTSD’s a bitch. Most days, I can manage it. Some days it manages me.
Today feels like it’s going to be one of the managing days.
I close my eyes and practice the breathing techniques the VA shrink taught me. In for four, hold for four, out for four. Repeat until the tightness in my chest eases.
When I open my eyes, I notice the bathroom door is closed. Wasn’t closed a minute ago. I would’ve heard it open—I hear everything, hypervigilance courtesy of too many years in combat zones.
I move quietly down the hall. The bathroom door is shut tight. No sound from inside.
Then I hear it. Soft scraping. Metal on metal.
She’s probably trying the window.
This will be fun.
I ease the door open just a crack. Just enough to see Jade standing on the toilet, working at the window crank with both hands. She’s gotten it partially open, maybe six inches of gap. Not enough for a person to fit through yet.
But she’s trying.
She’s wearing the same clothes from last night.
Tank top and jeans that fit her like they were custom-made.
As she stretches up to work the crank, her tank top rides up, exposing a strip of pale skin at her lower back.
Her jeans pull tight across her ass, and I have a perfect view of the curve of it, the way the denim hugs every line.
She’s petite but not fragile. There’s muscle definition in her arms, her shoulders. This is a woman who’s used to physical work, used to taking care of herself.
She gets the window open another few inches and starts trying to squeeze through headfirst.
Jesus Christ.
Her top half goes through first, hips catching on the frame. She wriggles, trying to work herself through the narrow opening. Her ass is up in the air now, shifting back and forth as she tries to find the angle that’ll let her through.
I should stop this. Should end it right now.
She needs consequences. My hand flexes at my side—the impulse is there, immediate and specific. I could walk up behind her right now, pull her back, put her over my knee and make sure she understands what happens when she tries shit like this.
This woman needs a thorough spanking. The kind that leaves her ass pink and warm, the kind that makes her squirm and gasp and maybe—if she’s the type—get wet from it.
I bet her ass would look beautiful with a rosy glow.
Bet she’d make the prettiest sounds, that mix of protest and pleasure that means you’ve found exactly the right spot.
Bet she’d fight it at first, all that fire and attitude, and then melt into it once she realized fighting wasn’t getting her anywhere.
My cock twitches, interested in this line of thinking. Interested in the woman currently trying to escape through a bathroom window.
This is wrong. She’s a hostage. She’s terrified. And I’m standing here having fantasies about her ass like some kind of pervert.
I’m a piece of shit.
But I still don’t move.