Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Shadow
I'm sitting in the truck, engine idling, hands gripping the steering wheel tight enough that my knuckles are white.
Banshee's in the passenger seat, checking his phone, checking his gun, doing everything except saying what we're both thinking.
This doesn't feel right.
Through the windshield, I can see the abandoned lot stretched out in front of us.
Industrial wasteland—rusted equipment, broken concrete, weeds growing through the cracks.
The kind of place nobody comes to unless they're looking for trouble.
Perfect for a meet.
Perfect for an ambush.
Phantom's bike is parked twenty feet ahead, Damon beside him.
The rest of the brothers are spread out in a semicircle—twenty-three armed men on motorcycles, waiting.
Thunder and Blaze are on the left flank.
Dixon and some Reapers brothers are on the right.
Shiver and Rogue are watching our backs.
An army.
And we're waiting for an enemy that isn't coming.
"They're late," Banshee says, breaking the silence.
"Yeah."
"How late?"
I check my phone. "Fifteen minutes."
Banshee shifts in his seat, and I hear the leather of his cut creak. "Could be tactical. Make us wait. Make us nervous. Get us on edge."
"Or it's a trap."
"That too."
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Text from Grace, sent twenty minutes ago, right after we left the compound.
Stay safe. I love you. Come back to me.
I should text back. Should tell her I love her. Should tell her this will be over soon and we can go home.
But something in my gut is screaming that things are about to go sideways.
I look out at the empty lot again.
Nothing. No movement. No headlights in the distance. No sound of approaching bikes.
Just silence.
And that wrongness getting louder in my head.
Phantom walks over to the truck, Damon beside him.
Both men look grim in the headlights, their shadows stretching long across the cracked pavement.
I roll down the window, and the desert air hits my face—cold, dry, carrying dust.
"This doesn't feel right," Phantom says without preamble. His voice is tight, controlled, but I can hear the edge underneath.
Damon nods, arms crossed over his chest. "Could be they're running late. Could be they're setting up an ambush from a distance, waiting for us to drop our guard. Or—"
My phone rings.
Siren.
My blood turns to ice. Goes from hot rage to cold terror in the space of a heartbeat.
Siren wouldn't call unless something was wrong.
She's supposed to be at the compound with Grace. With Sakura. Safe. Protected.
With Grace.
"Answer it," Phantom says, his voice tight.
He hears it too—the wrongness of this call, the timing, what it could mean.
I answer, put it on speaker with shaking hands. "Siren?"
Her voice comes through panicked, breathless, breaking: "They took her. Copperhead Kings. They came to the compound. We couldn't—there were ten of them—Shadow, they shot one of the prospects—Flint took Grace—"
The world stops.
Everything goes silent except for the rushing in my ears, like I'm underwater, drowning.
Grace.
They took Grace.
"Say that again," I hear myself say, and my voice sounds far away. Detached. Like it's coming from someone else's mouth.
"Copperhead Kings ambushed the compound," Siren's crying now, words tumbling over each other, frantic.
"Flint—he had ten brothers with him—we tried to stop them but they had guns—they shot Pope in the shoulder—Grace tried to run but they grabbed her—knocked her out—put her on a bike—Shadow, I'm so sorry, we tried—"
I'm out of the truck before I realize I'm moving.
The door slams behind me, the sound distant and muffled.
Can't breathe.
Can't think.
Just this roaring in my head—Grace, they took Grace, they have my wife, Flint has her, the cage—
Phantom grabs my arm, his grip like iron. "What happened? Shadow, what the fuck happened?"
I can barely get the words out past the rage, the terror, the absolute certainty that I'm about to burn the world down to get her back.
"Copperhead Kings took Grace." My voice is raw, broken. "From the compound. Flint has her."
Phantom goes white.
I watch the color drain from his face, watch his eyes go wide with shock, then narrow with fury.
Then red.
Then absolutely, lethally deadly.
"When?" His voice is pure ice. Pure command. The Prez voice that makes brothers snap to attention.
I look at my phone, at the time stamp on the call. The call came in at 9:17. Grace was taken before that. "Twenty minutes ago. Maybe twenty-five."
Damon's already moving, shouting orders that echo across the empty lot. "Everyone mount up! We're heading back to the compound! Now!"
Brothers scramble for their bikes, chaos ensuing around me.
Engines roar to life, headlights flaring.
Phantom's still staring at me, and I see it in his eyes—the same terror I'm feeling.
The same rage.
The same desperate need to find her, save her, kill everyone who touched her.
His daughter. His baby girl.
"This was a diversion," Phantom says, his voice shaking. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, knuckles white. "They sent us here—got us away from the compound—while Flint took her."
"I should've been there." The words rip out of me, tearing my throat. "I should've fucking been there. I should've stayed. Should've left more brothers. Should've—"
"Get in the truck," Phantom orders, cutting me off. "Drive. Fast. We need to get back. NOW."
I'm already moving, Banshee scrambling into the passenger seat behind me.
I drive like a man possessed.
Eighty. Ninety. A hundred miles per hour through Vegas streets.
The truck's engine screaming, the speedometer buried, the world outside blurring into streaks of light and shadow.
Running red lights. Swerving around cars. Laying on the horn. Not caring about anything except getting back to that compound.
To Grace.
Who isn't there anymore.
Who's with Flint.
Who's been taken by a man who threatened to cage her like an animal.
Banshee's braced against the dashboard, white-knuckled, gripping the handle above the door.
But he doesn't tell me to slow down. Doesn't say a word about the near-misses with other cars or the way I'm driving like death doesn't matter.
Because right now, it doesn't.
Nothing matters except Grace.
"Shadow—"
"Don't." My voice is raw, broken glass. "Don't tell me it's going to be okay. Don't tell me we'll find her. Don't tell me she's strong or she'll hold on or any of that shit because I can't—I can't fuckin’ hear it right now."
"I was going to say you need to breathe before you pass out and crash this truck."
I realize I'm holding my breath, my chest tight, my vision starting to tunnel at the edges.
Force myself to inhale. Once. Twice.
It doesn't help.
Nothing helps.
Grace is gone. Flint has her.
Is she awake? Is she hurt? Is she terrified?
My wife. My Grace. The woman who marked herself with my name.
Who chose me. Who trusted me to protect her.
And I left her.
"We'll get her back," Banshee says quietly, his voice steady despite the chaos of my driving.
"I left her." My hands are shaking on the wheel, making the truck wobble. "I fucking left her there with three prospects and two women. Against ten Copperhead Kings. What the fuck was I thinking?"
"You were thinking Flint would be at the meet. That the threat would be there, not at the compound. That's what any of us would've thought."
"I should've known better." I take a corner too fast, tires screaming, the truck tilting dangerously. "He called her. Threatened her directly. And I still left her. I should've stayed. Should've kept her with me. Should've—"
"Shadow, if you'd been there, you'd be dead." Banshee's voice is harsh now, cutting through my spiral. "They had ten armed men. They came specifically to take her. You standing in front of her just means they'd have shot you first, then taken her anyway. You being dead doesn't help her."
The logic penetrates through the haze of panic and rage.
He's right, but it doesn't make the guilt any less crushing.
My phone rings again, the sound shrill in the enclosed space of the truck.
Phantom.
I answer, keep one hand on the wheel. "Yeah?"
"How far out are you?" His voice is tight, controlled, but I can hear the fear underneath. The same fear I'm feeling.
"Ten minutes. Maybe less if I don't get pulled over." I blow through another red light, horns blaring behind me.
"Siren said they headed west. We need to figure out where they're taking her. Get GPS tracking, traffic cameras, anything. Every second counts."
West. West from Vegas. That's California. Desert. Mountains. National forests. A thousand places to hide someone.
To cage someone.
To hurt someone.
"I'm going to kill him," I say, and my voice is dead calm now.
Past the rage. Past the terror. Into something cold and focused and absolutely certain.
"I'm going to kill him slowly. Make him suffer for every second she's scared.
For every second she's been in his hands.
For every bruise on her body. For every tear she's cried. "
"Get in line," Phantom says, and his voice is just as cold, just as certain. Then he hangs up.
Banshee's looking at me, his expression unreadable in the dashboard lights.
"You good?" he asks.
"No. But I will be once she's safe."
"And once Flint's dead?"
"Then I'll be better."
I screech into the Reapers Rejects compound twelve minutes later, the truck's tires leaving black marks on the pavement.
The scene is pure madness.
Brothers everywhere, bikes scattered at odd angles like they were abandoned in a hurry. The prospect—Pope—sitting against the wall with Sakura kneeling beside him, wrapping his shoulder with gauze that's already soaked through with blood.
He's pale, sweating, but conscious. Alive.
Siren's pacing near the clubhouse entrance, phone to her ear, furious tears streaming down her face as she talks to someone—probably another Reapers charter, trying to get eyes on the roads.
And Charlie.
Grace's dog is going insane.