Chapter 9 #2
"Marked and bound," I echo.
Creed wraps my hand in a rag and ties it tight.
"That scar's gonna remind you who you are every time you grip a throttle.
Every time you throw a punch. Every time you think about running.
" He leans in close, eyes bright with something that might be love or might be madness.
"You're family now. And family's forever. "
I believed him. God help me, I believed every word.
"Tiny." Torch's sharp, worried voice pulls me back.
I'm standing in the middle of the warehouse, staring at the mark like it's a ghost made solid. My right hand is out of my pocket, pressed flat against my chest like I'm trying to physically hold my heart inside my ribs.
How long have I been standing here? Seconds? Minutes?
"You see this?" Torch asks, moving closer. His hand's on his gun. It’s not drawn, but ready. He's scanning for threats, for the danger that put that look on my face.
But the danger isn't here anymore. It's in my head. In my blood. In the scar that won't stop burning. I can't answer. My mouth won't work. Words pile up in my throat and choke me. Because it's not just the style. It's the execution.
I taught other Hellhounds how to make the mark. But only Creed did it like this. Only Creed marked territory like he was signing his name in blood.
"Tiny," Torch says again, sharper now. "Talk to me, brother."
I force my lungs to work. Air scrapes in, tastes like metal and memory. "It's them."
"Who?"
"Hellhounds."
Torch's hand moves to his gun. "Thought they were dead. Club dissolved, what, five years back?"
"Six," I correct automatically. "They dissolved six years ago. After the Feds hit them for gun trafficking, and half the leadership rolled."
"But?"
"But some of them stayed loyal." My voice sounds hollow, like it's coming from the bottom of a well. "Some of them went underground and waited."
"For what?"
"For someone to pay them enough to come back."
I step closer to the wall. My legs feel too heavy, like I'm walking through water. The paint's still tacky. I press my thumb against the edge of the skull's jaw. It smears, leaving a print.
Fresh. Maybe six, eight hours old.
Creed was here. In this building. Half a day ago.
My stomach turns over. The heat, the smell of spray paint, the weight of the memory. It all crashes down at once like a building collapsing in slow motion.
I stumble back, my hand going to my chest again. My heart's trying to kick through my ribs. I can't breathe right. Can't think straight. The edges of my vision blur, darkness creeping in.
"Whoa, brother." Torch catches my elbow, steadies me. His grip is firm, grounding. "You good?"
"Yeah," I lie for the third time today. "Just the heat. I'm good."
But I'm not good because Creed doesn't just mark territory. He marks people. He marked me when I was seventeen and stupid and desperate to belong. Cut my palm, mixed my blood with his, and said, Family's forever.
And now he's working for Lattimer. The man who taught me how to be a monster is about to teach Lattimer how to burn my family to ash.
My right hand throbs. I look down, half-expecting to see blood. But it's just the scar—raised, white, angry. The one from that first spray can. The one Creed said would remind me who I was.
I flex my fingers. The scar pulls tight, burning like a fresh injury. Marked and bound.
"You sure you're good?" Torch asks, still holding my elbow. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Maybe I have," I mutter.
Dagger's voice crackles through the comm. "West side's clear. No movement. But I found fresh tire tracks of a heavy vehicle, probably a truck. Headed east."
"Copy," I manage. "Regroup outside. We're moving."
Torch studies my face for another second, then nods. "Let's roll."
He heads for the door. I follow, but I can't help looking back one more time. The mark watches me. Empty sockets. Snarling jaw. You can run, it seems to say. But I'll always find you.
We back out slowly. We regroup at the bikes. Dagger and Trigger converge from their perimeters, faces grim. Bones checks his phone, shaking his head.
"Empty," Trigger reports. "But there are more fresh tire tracks on the east service road. Heavy vehicle, deep treads. Left maybe two hours ago, judging by the dust settling."
"Same south," Dagger adds. "Someone was here. Recently. And they didn't care about covering their tracks."
They both look at me. Waiting for orders. Waiting for their Road Captain to make the call.
I should tell them. Right now. Point back at that building and say, "That's Hellhound work.
My old club. The one I ran from. They're here, and they're working for Lattimer, and the man who taught me everything I know about violence is inside our city planning to destroy us.
" The words sit in my throat like broken glass.
I can feel them cutting on the way up, taste blood before I even speak.
This is it. The choice.
Tell the truth and risk everything I've built. Or lie and keep the past buried. Protect the fragile peace I've carved out over six years of trying to be better. Stay the hero a little longer. Keep the family I've built from burning because of the family I ran from.
My right hand flexes. The scar burns. Creed's voice echoes in my head: You're a Hound now, Tiny. Marked and bound. Forever.
"Spray paint," I hear myself say. The words come out steady, calm, like they're true. "Gang tags inside. It could be anyone. Los Demons sometimes run this far south. Could be independents marking new territory." The lie tastes like ash.
Dagger's eyes narrow. He doesn't believe me. Not fully. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens, the way his gaze flicks from me to the warehouse and back.
"Could be," he echoes slowly, carefully. Testing the weight of my words like a man testing ice before stepping onto a frozen lake.
Trigger's already pulling up a sat map on his phone, fingers flying across the screen. "I'll flag it for Red. Have him run imaging on the area. Cross-reference with known gang activity."
"Good," I say, voice steadier than I feel. "Let's roll. Capone will want a full report."
Bones mounts up first, engine roaring to life. Then Trigger. Then Torch.
Dagger hesitates. He's still watching me, reading me, and I know, I know, he's caught the scent of something wrong.
Dagger's got instincts like a hunting dog, and right now those instincts are telling him his Road Captain just lied to his face.
He doesn't call me on it. Not here. Not in front of the others.
He just nods once, slow and deliberate, and swings onto his bike. "Copy that, Cap."
We mount up. Engines roar to life, a symphony of chrome and fury. The warehouse shrinks in my mirrors as we ride north, swallowed by heat shimmer and distance.
But I can still see it. That mark. Creed's signature burned into my retinas like I stared at the sun too long.
And I can still feel the weight of the lie I just told. The first crack in the foundation of everything I've tried to become.
The desert flies past. Scrub brush. Faded highway signs. Miles of nothing punctuated by everything I'm trying to forget.
My right hand grips the throttle too tightly. The scar pulls, burns, screams.
Marked and bound, Creed's voice echoes in my memory. You're a Hound now, Tiny. Forever.
I twist the throttle harder, trying to outrun a ghost that's riding shotgun in my own head.
The wind tears at my cut, at my face, at everything I've built in six years of bleeding myself clean. But it doesn't blow away the memory. Doesn't cool the burn of the lie.
No one speaks until we reach open road again, engines roaring loud enough to drown out the thoughts that are beginning to eat away at me. The farther we ride, the harder it is to breathe.
When we clear the last checkpoint heading back north, Dagger pulls even with me. “You gonna tell me what that look was back there?”
“What look?” I swallow hard through the lie.
Dagger’s eyes narrow. “The one that said you just saw a ghost with your name on it.”
The engine hums under us. Sweat runs down my neck. I can’t meet his eyes. “Drop it, Dag.”
He looks at me for a second, then nods. “Fine. But don’t start locking us out. We’ve got your back.”
I want to believe him. I do. But there are things I can’t bring home, not even here.
By the time Los Angeles rises on the horizon. A skyline glittering like broken glass in the afternoon sun, I've told myself a dozen times that I made the right call.
The lie protects them. Keeps them safe. Buys me time to figure out what Creed wants, what Lattimer's planning, and how deep this goes.
The lie is strategic. Tactical. Necessary. But it still tastes like betrayal.
By the time we roll through the compound gates, the sun's bleeding into the horizon, orange and red like the world's on fire.
The brothers are already gathering. Blayze at the porch rail, eyes tracking our approach.
Torch is checking his bike with the careful attention of a man who's seen too much today.
Red with his laptop balanced on a toolbox, screens glowing in the dying light.
And Capone is standing dead center of the lot, cigarette burning between two fingers, eyes tracking our approach like a predator counting prey.
He doesn't move. Doesn't blink. Just watches us roll in with the stillness of a man who's already calculated every possible outcome and prepared for all of them.
We kill the engines.
Silence extends. The kind of silence that means someone's about to bleed.
"Report," Capone says. No preamble. No greeting. Just command, flat and final.
Trigger steps forward first, always the professional. "Warehouse near 214 South. Abandoned structure, signs of recent activity. Fresh tire tracks of heavy vehicles, probably a truck or van. Oil stains. Disturbed dust patterns indicating movement within the last six hours."
"Who?"