Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
RYDER
Grant Holloway makes his biggest mistake three nights later. He touches the club. The prospect they grab is barely twenty. Good kid. Loyal. Still stupid enough to think he’s invincible. They take him during a gas run fifteen miles outside town.
By the time Beast drags one of Grant’s men into the clubhouse bleeding and half-conscious, every brother in the room is ready for blood. The guy spits teeth onto the floor.
“Grant says the girl comes back,” he rasps, “or the kid dies screaming.”
Silence. Deadly silence. Elena stands near the stairs wrapped in one of my hoodies. Her face goes white. “No.” I’m moving before thought catches up. I grab the guy by the throat and slam him into the wall hard enough to crack plaster.
“Where?”
He grins through blood. Bad choice. I tighten my grip.
“Where?”
Bishop’s voice cuts through the room. “Ryder.”
Barely controlled warning. I force myself to loosen my hand enough not to crush the bastard’s windpipe. The man laughs weakly.
“Warehouse. Route Nine.” Knuckles is already typing furiously.
“Industrial district,” he says. “Old shipping building. Cameras dead three days ago.”
Planned. Of course it was planned. Beast cracks his knuckles beside me.
“Bout time.”
The clubhouse erupts into motion instantly. Weapons cases open. Maps spread across tables. Engines roar outside. War room. My natural habitat. That realization should bother me more than it does. Bishop looks toward me.
“You lead entry.”
I nod once. No hesitation. Because this tactical planning, this controlled violence, this hunt, is the one thing I know better than breathing.
“Elena stays here,” I say immediately.
“No.” Every head turns. She steps forward, trembling slightly but upright.
“I’m done sitting quietly while people get hurt because of me.”
My chest tightens painfully. “Elena.”
“He took someone to get to me.” Her eyes shine with fury. “I’m not hiding from that.”
Bishop studies her carefully. “She doesn’t go near the warehouse,” he says finally. “But she stays in church where she can hear updates.”
It’s the compromise we’re getting. I look at Elena. “You stay here.” She nods once.
Then catches my hand before I can move away. The room falls strangely quiet around us. Her fingers tighten around mine. “Come back to me.”
Christ. The words hit harder than bullets ever did. I cup the back of her neck gently. “Always planned to.” But the truth is uglier than that. Because I’ve ridden into impossible situations before without fear. Tonight? I’m terrified. Not of dying. Of leaving her behind.
The warehouse sits dark against the desert outskirts an hour later. Four entrances with two visible guards. One sniper position on the roof. Sloppy is what it is. Grant hired muscle, not soldiers.
I crouch beside Beast behind an abandoned truck while the others spread out across the perimeter. “Prospect’s alive?” Beast mutters.
“Probably.”
“And Holloway?”
I slide my knife free slowly. “Hopefully not for long.”
Beast grins. Terrifying expression. Knuckles crackles through the comms in my ear.
“Thermal confirms six inside. One tied to chair.”
Good. I study guard patterns carefully. The routes they take, any blind spots and their timing. The old instincts settle into place smoothly. This is what the military made me into. Ghosts move through wars easier than men do. Bishop’s voice comes low through comms.
“Ready?”
I glance toward the warehouse one final time. Then toward the wedding band on my hand. Mine and Elena’s. Something vicious settles inside my chest. Grant threatened my family. Now he learns what kind of monster that creates.
“Move,” I say. And the Sons of Havoc descend on the warehouse like hell itself.