Chapter Two
The compound buzzed with the easy chaos of a Tuesday afternoon—brothers working on bikes in the garage, prospects hauling supplies, kids chasing each other across the grass while their mothers pretended not to watch from the porch.
Vice sat on the clubhouse steps, nursing a beer he didn't really want and watching the controlled mayhem with the detached assessment that had kept him alive through four tours.
Threat level: zero. Damage potential: skinned knees, maybe a bruised ego when Maverick's kid inevitably tackled Wraith's.
Resources needed: band-aids and somebody's mom voice.
Normal. Safe. Boring as hell.
He'd been patched into the Steel Sentinels for three years now, and the quiet still felt wrong sometimes.
His hands knew how to field-dress wounds under fire, how to drag a bleeding brother to cover while returning shots, how to make impossible choices about who to save when there wasn't enough time or supplies for everyone. They didn't know what to do with peace.
"Vice."
He looked up to find Jenna crossing the yard toward him, Titan's old lady moving with the particular purpose of a woman on a mission.
She'd been claimed for years now, ran the compound's domestic operations with an iron fist wrapped in velvet, and Vice had learned early that when Jenna wanted something, smart men listened.
"Got a minute?"
He raised his beer in acknowledgment. "Got nothing but."
She settled onto the step beside him, close enough to talk quietly but not so close anyone would read anything into it. Compound politics. Even the women played them.
"My friend Sandra—her daughter goes to this daycare on the east side. Little Sprouts." Jenna's jaw tightened. "Someone's been targeting the place. Sabotage, harassment, fake complaints to licensing. The owner's drowning and she doesn't even know who's coming after her."
Vice's attention sharpened. "Targeting how?"
"Pipes burst. Electrical problems. Three anonymous complaints this month, all bullshit, but each one takes hours to refute.
Sandra says Diana—that's the owner—looks like she hasn't slept in weeks.
" Jenna turned to face him fully, her eyes hard.
"There are twelve kids in that daycare, Vice.
Ages two to five. Whatever's happening, they're caught in the middle. "
Something cold settled in his chest. Kids. Always fucking kids.
"Anyone know who's behind it?"
"That's the problem. Diana doesn't have enemies. Pays her bills, minds her business, runs a daycare out of a converted house on Maple Street. There's no reason for any of this—unless someone wants that building for something else."
Vice's mind was already turning over possibilities. Systematic sabotage. Pressure campaign. Someone with resources and patience, willing to play a long game to push out an owner who wouldn't leave voluntarily.
"Property angle," he said.
Jenna nodded. "That's what I thought too. But Diana's got two years left on her lease. Legal eviction would take forever."
"So they're making her want to leave."
"Or making it impossible for her to stay." Jenna stood, brushing off her jeans. "I told Sandra I'd ask around. See if anyone could look into it."
Vice drained his beer and set the bottle aside. "I'll check it out."
"You sure? It's probably nothing the club needs to get involved in—"
"Twelve kids," he said flatly. "Someone's threatening a place with twelve kids in it. I'll check it out."
Jenna's expression softened into something almost like approval. "Pickup's at five-thirty. Most parents are gone by six."
Vice nodded and headed for the garage to grab his keys. Behind him, the compound continued its peaceful chaos—kids laughing, brothers bullshitting, the rumble of a bike being tested somewhere out of sight.
He didn't belong to that peace. Never had.
But maybe he could make sure twelve toddlers got to keep theirs.
Little Sprouts looked exactly like what it was—a house converted into something warmer, painted cheerful yellow with a hand-lettered sign out front and a wooden playset visible in the fenced backyard. Vice pulled the club's SUV to the curb across the street at 5:20 and settled in to watch.
The first parents started arriving at 5:25.
Minivans and sedans, tired adults emerging to collect small humans who apparently had more energy at the end of the day than the beginning.
Through the front windows, he could see movement—a woman's silhouette, bending to help a kid into a jacket, crouching to tie shoelaces, lifting a toddler onto her hip with the ease of long practice.
Diana Marsh.
He'd done a basic search before heading over. Thirty-three. Former elementary teacher. Owned the daycare outright, leased the building, had two part-time assistants who'd worked with her for years. Clean record, good reviews, nothing that explained why someone would bother destroying her life.
The last parent pulled away at 5:52, a harried-looking woman with a squirming toddler who'd clearly missed the memo about car seats. Vice waited another five minutes, watching the building's windows, before he got out of the SUV and crossed the street.
The front door was locked—good—but he could see her through the glass, straightening tiny chairs with movements that had gone mechanical. He knocked.
She startled badly enough to knock over a stack of books, then froze when she saw him through the window. He watched her calculate—stranger, male, large, leather jacket, not a parent she recognized—and brace herself before approaching the door.
Smart woman. Scared woman.
She opened it three inches, the chain still engaged. "Can I help you?"
Her voice was steady, but Vice had spent years reading people under pressure. The tension in her shoulders, the way she gripped the door frame, the faint tremor in her hand—she was running on fumes and fear, holding herself together through sheer force of will.
"Jenna Reeves sent me." He kept his voice low, non-threatening. "Said you might have a problem that needs looking into."
Diana's eyes narrowed. "Jenna? Sandra's friend Jenna?"
"That's the one. I'm Vice. I work with her husband." Close enough to true. "She mentioned someone's been causing you trouble."
For a long moment, Diana just stared at him. Assessing. Deciding. He let her look, keeping his hands visible and his posture relaxed, giving her time to conclude whatever she needed to conclude about whether he was safe.
Finally, she unlatched the chain and opened the door wider.
"Come in. But if you're here to cause more problems, I should warn you—I've got a panic button connected directly to the police and I will use it."
Vice's mouth twitched. "Understood."
He stepped inside, and the smell hit him first—finger paint and graham crackers, that particular combination of chaos and innocence that only existed where small children gathered.
Tiny chairs. A craft station with drying artwork.
A reading corner with beanbags and picture books.
Everything cheerful and bright and designed for people under four feet tall.
Diana closed the door behind him and leaned against it, arms crossed, chin lifted. The defensive posture of someone who'd been fighting alone and didn't trust backup when it showed up.
"What exactly did Jenna tell you?"
"Pipes burst. Electrical problems. Anonymous complaints." Vice turned slowly, taking in the space with eyes trained to spot vulnerabilities. "Someone wants you gone."
"I noticed." Her voice was dry, but underneath it, exhaustion. Bone-deep. "What I don't know is who or why."
"That building across the street—empty storefront. Who owns it?"
Diana blinked at the change of subject. "I don't... I don't know. It's been vacant since I moved in."
"And the property on your other side?"
"The Hendersons. They've lived there forty years. Jim brings me tomatoes from his garden every summer."
Vice filed the information away. "Your landlord. Any changes lately? New management, sale of the building, anything?"
"Nothing. My lease runs another two years. The management company handles everything—I've never even met the actual owner."
"That might be worth looking into."
Diana's arms tightened across her chest. "Who are you, exactly? Jenna's husband—Titan, right? He runs that motorcycle club on the south side. The Steel Sentinels."
"You know the club."
"I know of it. Everyone in this town does." Her eyes swept over his cut, the patches, the symbols she probably couldn't read but understood well enough. "You're an outlaw."
"Yes."
He didn't dress it up, didn't offer justifications. Either she'd accept help from men like him or she wouldn't. Her choice.
Diana stared at him for a long moment, something shifting behind her eyes.
"Why do you care?" she asked finally. "A daycare on the east side—what's that to a motorcycle club?"
Vice thought about lying. Thought about offering some line about community protection or territorial interest or any of the dozen explanations that would make sense to an outsider.
Instead, he told her the truth.
"There are twelve kids who walk through that door every morning." He held her gaze, letting her see whatever she needed to see. "Someone's threatening the place that keeps them safe. That's enough."
Something cracked in her expression. Not breaking—more like a wall developing a fissure, pressure finding a weakness.
"I don't—" She stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I don't know what's happening. I've run this daycare for four years without a single problem, and then three weeks ago everything started falling apart. The complaints are lies. The sabotage is real. And I can't—"
Her voice broke. She pressed a hand over her mouth, eyes squeezing shut, and Vice watched her fight for control with the desperation of someone who'd been holding everything together alone for far too long.
"I'm so scared," she whispered. "Not for me. For them. For the kids. If someone's willing to flood the building, tamper with the electrical—what else are they willing to do? What if one of the children gets hurt because I couldn't figure out who's doing this fast enough?"
Vice crossed the room before he'd consciously decided to move. He stopped two feet from her, close enough to see the tears she was refusing to let fall, far enough that she didn't have to feel cornered.
"You won't figure it out alone," he said. "That's not what alone is for."
Diana looked up at him, brown eyes swimming with exhaustion and fear and a fierce determination that hadn't dimmed despite everything.
"And you can help?"
"I can find out who's coming after you." He made it a promise. "And I can make them stop."
She studied him for another long moment—this woman who'd built something beautiful, who protected children for a living, who was terrified but still standing. Still fighting.
Vice had seen a lot of fighters in his life. Soldiers who gave up, civilians who crumbled, people who let fear make their choices and regretted it forever.
Diana Marsh wasn't any of those.
She was someone who'd been carrying too much weight for too long, alone in a battle she didn't understand against enemies she couldn't see. Someone who needed backup.
Someone worth protecting.
"Okay," she said finally. "Where do we start?"
Vice looked around the cheerful daycare one more time—the tiny chairs, the finger paintings, the pink sock still abandoned under the reading nook—and felt something settle into place.
"You start by telling me everything. Every detail you can remember, no matter how small." He pulled out a chair from one of the tiny tables and sat, folding his large frame into the ridiculous furniture without hesitation. "And I'll start by listening."
Diana's laugh was watery but real. "You look absurd in that chair."
"Had worse seats in worse places." He gestured to the chair across from him. "Talk to me."
She sat. And she talked.
And Vice listened to every word, cataloging details and patterns and suspicions, while something in his chest he'd thought long dead flickered to life.
A woman fighting alone, refusing to break.
He knew that feeling. Knew what it cost.
She wouldn't have to carry it by herself anymore.