Chapter 8-Sawyer
We’re a few hours out from the ranch, and the road’s a black ribbon under a low, watchful moon.
The night tastes like metal and impending storms—heavy, ready, and dangerous.
My gut has been tightening for miles. These roads don’t get quiet for no reason.
They get quiet because something’s waiting in the dark.
Diego nearly didn’t get up last time. Crash almost wrecked his arm, shredded my damn peace of mind.
That’s why I’m here tonight—because whatever’s been sabotaging my runs is getting bolder.
Because someone’s trying to scare me off.
Because I don’t like being pushed around, and I don’t like people who think they can hurt my people and walk away.
The unregistered pistol sits in the passenger seat within reach. Knives ride under my flak, tucked in a chest rig I never thought I’d wear again.
My hands on the wheel feel like they belong to someone else—steady, spare, ready.
Rooster pulls up beside me, leather and chrome, engine screaming.
He leans over and shouts, “We got company!”
I don’t need him to tell me twice.
“I know the plan,” I shout back.
Falcon already ran the plan. DEMC—Destiny’s Enforcers MC—goes dark, pulls ahead to split and attack the road, push these assholes to the edges, create chaos and then close.
Risky as hell, but it’s the best shot we’ve got.
Rooster cuts his lights a heartbeat before I do. Black.
The truck disappears into the night as I kill the headlights and let the diesel purr lower.
I tap the brakes—hard, measured—enough to slow the trailer without making it fishtail.
The world goes mute but for engine and breathing, then they hit.
A few loud bangs sound into the night as whoever was catching up behind me crashes into the back of the truck.
Fucking assholes deserve it.
Headlights flare up down the road—too many of them, coming fast.
The Hellbound Heathens cut through the night like a swarm.
They’re running loose, patches glinting, guns ready.
The first bike tries to jackknife around us, and the rider skids wide into the ditch and hits the dirt.
They start shooting.
The crack of gunfire is ugly and immediate.
Falcon’s boys are back on us in a heartbeat, roaring forward like a wall.
Metal and leather crash together.
I see a couple attackers try to wrench the trailer door open as one of the Heathens slams his bike into the guardrail, thrown from his seat.
I jump down before the truck’s fully stopped—no time for finesse.
Bullets zing past, snapping gravel. I meet the asshole who skidded off the road before he can get up, plant my fist under his jaw and let my training take over.
His head snaps back, mouth bleeding.
I hit him again and again.
No gun. No theatrics.
Just flesh and blood and anger.
“Sawyer! The load!” Rooster’s voice cuts through the noise.
I wipe blood from my knuckles and look at the trailer. A skinny bastard’s working the latch, grinning like this job’s already won him a free payday.
Not today.
“Fuck.”
I charge. Heals grind, boots eat gravel. I don’t draw steel—I don’t want to go loud in a metal box that’s holding the prize—but my shoulder takes him as I ram into his side, and my forearm knocks his hand off the latch.
Both biker clubs are going at each other, but DEMC has the advantage, picking off enemy riders with steady, trained shots.
Bullets fly, so do curses as more tires scream, trying to get away.
The attackers pull back—disorganized, bleeding, beaten. The Heathens break like wet paper, riding away into the dark they came from.
I breathe. The world rattles in my chest, but the freezer alarm reads steady.
Temperatures haven’t spiked. The straws are intact. Brentwood’s load is still ours.
I slam my palm against the trailer door, the clap of impact echoing, taste of copper on my tongue.
My knuckles ache, but nothing important is broken.
For a beat, I just stand there and look at the blood on my hand and the metal and bodies left on the pavement.
It’s ugly proof of what I’m willing to pay to keep what’s mine.
We move the bodies, call for a cleaner.
Then, as the engines restart and I jump in the truck, I hear Benji radioing for a status check.
Something slow and feral rolls through me—protective, territorial—and I allow it a moment to linger before answering.
“A swing and a miss. Coming to you now,” I tell him.
“Copy that,” he replies.
The adrenaline burns clean now that I’m away from the immediate heat of battle.
I feel a colder, steadier flame. It’s the idea of her back at Jersey Iron Ranch.
Lil Bit, all safe and sound, laughing at the sight of a bull grazing in a pasture like he’s a big old lapdog.
That image steels me more than the rage ever could.
Micah checks in this time over the radio, “All good, hoss?”
I reply, “Yep.”
And I mean it.
The truck eats miles like punishment now, each one bringing me closer to the thing I didn’t know I needed.
Tonight could have gone sideways. It didn’t.
We made sure it wouldn’t.
And somewhere under the diesel and the pain, in a place I don’t often let anyone reach, I swear I’m not just hauling frozen straws of bull semen down a highway.
I’m hauling a promise.
A chance at a future.
A reason to come home.
Because whatever waits for me at Jersey Iron Ranch—a woman, a kiss, a heartbeat—I know it’s worth the fight.