5. Sniper
five
Sniper
I sat at the head of the table, shoulders squared, boots planted, the room lined up in front of me like a firing squad.
To my right, Bruiser, my club VP, his face set to the default: skeptical, unimpressed, and hungry for a reason to argue.
Around the rest of the table, the officers—Fang Johnson, my road captain; Bo Nelson, my club treasurer; and Buck Mason, my club secretary—each with their own brand of alertness.
Blaze never blinked. Fang fidgeted, chewing the insides of his cheeks to ribbons.
Bo and Buck exchanged a wordless running commentary, every glance a full paragraph.
I didn’t hold it against them. My job was to keep them from bleeding each other out faster than the enemies outside the wire.
We’d been at the table for an hour, working through the usual: logistics, discipline, cash flow, rumors from the north, who might be flipping, and why.
The meeting was supposed to be routine, and it would have stayed that way if my phone hadn’t started vibrating across the wood like it was possessed.
It was the third time in fifteen minutes. I clocked the number—Kingman PD, direct line. I didn’t look at anyone, just picked up and walked into the hall, closing the office door behind me with a click.
The carpet in the hallway was original to the building: blue, threadbare, a crime scene of old coffee and beer. I leaned against the drywall, pinched the bridge of my nose, and answered.
“Yeah.”
On the other end, Chief Mitchell Briggs. Voice like he gargled gravel every morning. “Marcus. Sorry to bother you. We got a situation I thought you’d want to hear straight from me.”
“Let’s hear it.” My hand went flat against the wall, fingers splayed. No nerves, just old habit.
Briggs drew out the pause, either searching for the right words or making sure I braced for impact. “Jasmine’s car was found out on the 93. Abandoned. Eighteen miles north of town. Driver’s door wide open. Phone on the seat, purse on the floorboard.”
I waited.
He went on. “No blood. No sign of a fight. But there’s tire tracks—two sets. Looks like another vehicle pulled up next to her. She’s not in the area.”
A ringing in my head, but not from the phone. I pictured the SUV: silver, paint starting to oxidize, all the little quirks she’d bitched about until they became in-jokes. I’d gotten her that car two years ago. She’d made fun of it for a month, then wouldn’t let me trade it for anything.
“How long?” I said.
“Best guess, she’s been gone about three hours. Nobody called it in until thirty minutes ago. My guy on the scene says nothing looked forced. It’s like she stepped out and just…” He trailed off, voice running out of script.
“You keeping it off the books?” I said.
“Absolutely,” Briggs said, a little too fast. “No APB yet. I wanted you to handle it your way.”
I hung up.
The hallway was cold, the AC doing overtime. I stood there, counting backward from ten, then from a hundred, until my breathing evened out. The wall was cool under my palm. I pressed harder, staring at the pattern of cracks in the paint.
I thought about Jasmine’s last words to me, the black heart emoji, the way she never gave an inch in an argument. I thought about the phone on the seat, the purse on the floor, the way the world could close in around a person before they even realized what was happening.
The door behind me creaked open. Bruiser’s voice, low: “Everything all right?”
I kept my eyes on the wall.
He didn’t move, just waited. After a second, he said, “You want me to clear the room?”
“No,” I said. “Bring everyone in. The entire fucking club.”
We walked back in together. The officers looked up. Bo stopped mid-joke, mouth hanging open. Blaze uncrossed his arms and leaned in, curious. I sat at the head again, phone still in my hand, and laid it face up on the table.
I spoke without raising my voice. “Jasmine’s car was found on the 93. Eighteen miles out. Door open, phone on the seat. Purse on the floor.”
Nobody spoke.
I kept going. “No blood. No fight. Two sets of tire tracks. Second car, unknown make. Three-hour window.”
Still nothing. Even Buck shut up.
I locked eyes with each of them, one by one. “Whatever’s on the board for the next 24 hours? Cancel it. Full focus is on Jasmine.”
Bruiser nodded. His eyes were wet, but not from weakness. “You want us to hit the roads, or work the phones?”
“Both,” I said. “You know the drill. Out of sight, but thorough. If anyone so much as sneezes out of place, I want it on my desk in ten.”
There was a crackle of static from the phone’s speaker in the center of the table, the kind you got when a call was waiting. I tapped it, and Bram’s voice came through, low and steady as a freight train.
“Marcus.” Just the name. Nobody called me that in public. Nobody called me that unless the world was ending.
“Yes,” I said.
“Stay calm.” He didn’t shout. Didn’t need to. “Rage is noise. You need to be quiet right now.” Briggs had called him first.
My hands were flat on the table, knuckles gone white. I said, “I’m calm.”
“I’ll send people. Don’t make this a war until you know who you’re fighting.”
“I know who I’m fighting,” I said, voice so even it scared even me.
Bruiser watched me with the eyes of a man checking a pressure gauge on a boiler. Buck stared at the tabletop. Blaze and Fang looked at each other, then at me, then down again.
Bram’s voice cut in again, softer. “You love her?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
He just said, “Then bring her home.”
I ended the call, left the phone on the table.
For a minute, nobody moved. It was the stillness you got right before the first shot in a firefight, the sense that every man in the room was waiting for an order to go lethal.
I stood, chair scraping hard. “Meeting adjourned. Bruiser, with me. Blaze, bring the book. Everyone else—work your lists.”
They stood, disciplined, in sync. It was why the club had survived every test so far. When it counted, the noise dropped to zero, and the work got done.
I walked outside, sun blasting the parking lot, the world too bright to see straight.
The SUV was parked in my mind, a ghost image on the blacktop.
I thought of Jasmine’s hands on the steering wheel, the way she drummed her fingers when she was pissed off, how she’d never, not once, left her purse anywhere unless she meant to.
Bruiser followed, boots crunching on gravel. “You want backup?”
“I want you running the comms and the cameras. Call every eye in town. No street rumor too small. Anyone with a problem gets handled, but quiet.”
He nodded. “Copy that.”
I stripped off my cut, turned it in my hands, and slid it on.
The leather was old, broken to the shape of my shoulders, patches cleaned and restitched so many times they were more thread than fabric.
I zipped it, snapped the collar, and walked over to the bike.
The Road King was already out of the shade, paint hot to the touch.
I thumbed the starter, felt the rumble in my bones, and watched the gate drag open on its chain.
I rolled out slow, nothing showy. Deliberate, every move counted. I didn’t look back.
Past the razor wire, past the two prospects in the lot, past the scorched earth of this shit town, I pointed the bike north, up the 93, and cracked the throttle.
The engine drowned out every other sound.
And all I saw was the world narrowing to a single point of focus, cold and clean, with no room left for rage.