6. REAPER
REAPER
By the time Knox found the blue sedan on a traffic camera, Maddie had been gone twenty-three minutes.
Twenty-three minutes was long enough to kill a man.
It was not long enough to lose her.
The camera showed the sedan heading west before disappearing near the old rail corridor.
Diesel and Axel checked the highway while Gunner pulled every address connected to Callie’s ex, but the bastard had spent years drifting between couches, cheap motels, and jobs he never kept long enough to put on official records.
Callie stood beside me in the preschool office, clutching Maddie’s stuffed dinosaur against her chest. Her face was white, but she had stopped crying.
She was thinking.
That made her useful.
Her phone rang.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Every man in the room went still.
Callie reached for it.
I caught her wrist. “Speaker.”
She nodded and answered. “Where is she?”
For several seconds, all we heard was breathing.
Then her ex spoke. “She’s fine.”
Callie closed her eyes.
“Let me talk to her.”
“I can’t.”
“You took my daughter from her preschool. You will put her on the fucking phone.”
“I didn’t want it to happen like this.”
My hand tightened around the grip of my gun.
Callie’s voice shook. “How did you want it to happen?”
“They said I only needed to bring her somewhere safe until you fixed this. You talk to the police, tell them you were confused about what you saw, and stop helping the Iron Flames.”
Viper’s voice sounded farther from the phone. “Tell her about the gun.”
Her ex swallowed. “You tell the police the biker planted it. You say Reaper threatened you into blaming the Black Thorns.”
“Ain’t happenin’,” I said.
Silence.
Then Viper laughed. “Reaper. Knew you’d be listening.”
“You threatened the wrong kid.”
“Not your kid.”
“Keep tellin’ yourself that.”
Callie gripped my arm. Her nails dug through the sleeve of my shirt, but I barely felt them.
“Let me hear Maddie,” she demanded.
There was movement on the other end of the call. A door opened, hinges squealing, and a train horn sounded in the distance.
Two short blasts.
Then Maddie’s frightened voice filled the room.
“Mommy?”
Callie broke.
“I’m here, baby. Are you hurt?”
“No. Daddy said we’re playing a game, but I don’t like it.”
“I know. I need you to be very brave for me.”
“I want Mr. Reaper.”
The words carved straight through my chest.
I leaned closer to the phone. “I’m comin’, little bit.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah. Promise.”
Viper took the phone.
“You have one hour to change the statement. After that, Rafe decides what happens to the girl.”
“You got about ten minutes before I find you.”
The call ended.
Gunner was already working with Hawk to trace it, but Callie had gone still beside me.
“I know where they are.”
Every head turned toward her.
“The train horn. There’s a crossing beside the Pine Ridge Motor Court, near the old lumberyard. Maddie’s father stayed there after he lost his apartment two years ago. The doors squeak like that because half the building is falling apart.”
Knox checked the map. “Seven miles west. Close to where the sedan disappeared.”
I was moving before he finished.
Callie followed me into the parking lot. “I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She needs me.”
“She needs you alive.”
“She will be terrified when you bring her out.”
“When I bring her out, you’ll be waitin’ somewhere safe.”
“You promised you wouldn’t take my choices away.”
“This ain’t about choices, sweetheart.”
“It is always about choices.” She stepped in front of me, pressing Maddie’s dinosaur into my chest. “You need somebody to keep her father calm if he panics. I know how he thinks, I know how to talk him down, and Maddie needs to hear my voice if something goes wrong.”
I wanted to lock her inside the clubhouse until it was finished.
I also knew she was right.
“You stay with Hawk at the perimeter. You do exactly what he says, and you don’t move till I put Maddie in your arms.”
“Fine.”
“Say you understand.”
“I understand.”
I opened the truck door. “Get in.”
***
Pine Ridge had been abandoned for years. Twelve motel rooms formed a broken horseshoe around a weed-filled parking lot, with the railway line running behind the rear fence. The blue sedan was hidden beside room eight, its broken taillight visible beneath a dirty tarp.
Hawk stopped two hundred yards away.
Callie caught my hand before I climbed out.
“Bring her back.”
Gunner and Knox approached from the eastern side while I crossed behind the rooms. One Black Thorns prospect watched the parking lot from inside the old office, but Gunner reached him before he could raise the alarm.
Room eight had one front door and a bathroom window covered with rotting plywood.
I removed the board without making a sound.
Inside, somebody was crying.
Not Maddie.
Her father.
“I didn’t know you were going to point a gun at her,” he said. “You told me nobody would hurt her.”
“She ain’t hurt,” Viper replied. “Not yet.”
I looked through the gap in the bathroom door.
Maddie sat on the edge of the bed, her knees pulled to her chest. Her father stood beside the window, pale and shaking, while Viper held a gun pointed toward the floor near Maddie’s feet.
She was scared.
She was alive.
That was all I needed.
I slipped through the bathroom and positioned myself behind the wall. Gunner would be outside the front door by now, and Knox would have the rear road blocked.
Viper checked his phone. “Callie’s got forty-five minutes.”
“You can’t keep her here,” her father said.
“We keep her till her mother does what she’s told.”
“And then?”
Viper smiled. “Then Rafe decides whether either of you is useful.”
The father finally understood.
He had never been taking his daughter somewhere safe. He had delivered her to men who planned to remove every witness.
I stepped into the room.
“Let the kid go.”
Viper swung the gun toward me.
Maddie gasped. “Mr. Reaper.”
“Hey, little bit.”
Viper grabbed her arm and dragged her off the bed. “Drop the gun.”
I kept mine aimed between his eyes. “Ain’t happenin’.”
“I’ll shoot her.”
“No, you won’t.”
“You want to test me?”
“Already know what you are. Men who hurt kids don’t warn people first. You’re scared, you’re cornered, and you’re hopin’ I’m more afraid of you than you are of me.”
His grip tightened on Maddie.
She whimpered.
The need to tear him apart burned through me, but anger did not control my hands. Maddie was watching. One careless move would put her in the path of his gun.
I lowered my weapon slightly.
Viper smiled. “There you go.”
“Close your eyes, little bit.”
Maddie looked at me.
“Remember what I told you about monsters?”
She nodded.
“They know my name. Close your eyes.”
Her eyelids squeezed shut.
Viper looked down at her for half a second.
It was enough.
Maddie’s father lunged, grabbing Viper’s wrist and knocking the gun away from her. I fired once.
The shot struck Viper in the chest.
Gunner came through the door before the body hit the floor, kicking the fallen gun out of reach while Knox pulled Maddie’s father against the wall and restrained him.
I holstered my weapon and went to Maddie.
Her eyes were still closed.
“Hey, little bit. It’s over.”
“Can I look?”
“Yeah.”
She opened her eyes and threw herself at me.
I caught her against my chest, lifting her away from the bed and turning her face into my shoulder before she could see Viper on the floor.
“You came,” she whispered.
“Told you I would.”
Her small arms locked around my neck. “Daddy said he was sorry.”
I looked at the man Knox was holding.
He had tears running down his face.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “I owed them money. Viper said they’d clear the debt if I brought her to him. He swore they only wanted Callie to change her statement.”
“You took a kid to pay your debt.”
“I’m her father.”
“No.” My voice dropped. “You’re the bastard who handed her to a man with a gun.”
I wanted to kill him.
He had abandoned Callie, drifted in and out of Maddie’s life, and finally used his own daughter to save himself. There was no punishment harsh enough for that.
Then Maddie moved against my chest.
I felt her breathing.
Hurting him in front of her would make this room worse than it already was.
“Get him out before I change my mind,” I told Knox.
Maddie’s father began apologizing again as Knox dragged him through the door. I did not listen.
Viper was dead.
Callie’s ex would face the police.
Rafe Maddox was still out there.
But Maddie was safe in my arms.
I carried her outside.
Callie broke away from Hawk the second she saw us. She ran across the parking lot, and I lowered Maddie into her arms before she crashed into me.
“My baby.”
Maddie clung to her, both of them crying while Callie checked her face, hands, and every inch of her body.
“I’m okay, Mommy. Mr. Reaper scared the monsters.”
Callie looked at me over Maddie’s shoulder.
She reached for me with one hand. I stepped closer, and she pulled me against both of them.
I had spent most of my life believing I was useful because I could hurt people. I enforced the rules, protected the club, and removed threats. That was what I understood. Violence had a purpose, and I had never needed to be anything softer.
Then Maddie’s hand curled into my cut.
Callie pressed her face against my chest.
For the first time, being dangerous didn’t feel like the only thing I had to offer.
Hawk approached from behind us. “Viper’s dead, but Rafe wasn’t here. His phone’s wiped.”
“Means this ain’t over.”
“No. But it’s over for today.”
Callie lifted her face. “Come home with us.”
I looked at the woman holding her daughter and asking me to step into a life I had no business wanting. Maddie held out one hand to me.
“Come on, Mr. Reaper.”
I took it.
“Yeah, little bit. Let’s go home.”