Chapter 2
Darkness swallowed the diner.
I heard glass break.
Then Emily screamed again.
“DOWN!”
Cole’s voice cut through everything.
I dropped toward the floor and reached blindly behind me.
My hand found Emily’s jacket.
I pulled her against my chest.
Something heavy crashed near the entrance.
People shouted.
A beam of light flashed through the front window.
Not a flashlight.
Headlights.
One of the SUVs had driven onto the curb.
“Back exit!” Boone yelled.
The man I had pinned against the counter moved in the darkness.
I heard his shoes.
Then Emily cried out.
“He’s here!”
I drove my shoulder toward the sound.
My body hit someone.
We slammed against a table.
He cursed.
I grabbed fabric and swung.
My fist connected with his jaw.
He fell.
“Ray!”
Cole appeared with his phone light.
His face looked pale.
“Three outside. Maybe four.”
“Get the customers into the kitchen.”
“What about you?”
“I’m taking Emily out the back.”
Emily grabbed my vest.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“We’re moving.”
“My backpack.”
I saw it near the counter.
The stranger was reaching for it.
I crossed the distance before he could stand.
I kicked the bag toward Cole.
Then I grabbed the stranger by his collar.
“Who sent you?”
He smiled through blood on his lip.
“You really don’t remember us?”
The words froze me.
“What?”
He leaned close.
“You should’ve burned with the rest.”
A gunshot shattered the front window.
Everyone dropped.
That ended the conversation.
Cole seized Emily’s backpack.
“MOVE!”
We rushed through the kitchen.
The cook, Annie, had already pushed customers into the freezer hallway.
Boone and Mateo covered the back door.
I kept one arm around Emily.
My mind wouldn’t slow down.
Sarah alive.
A child.
My child.
Room 317.
Fourteen years of lies.
Boone opened the service door.
The alley looked clear.
Our motorcycles sat behind the diner.
Cole pointed toward his truck.
“Take mine.”
“You drive Emily.”
“No chance.”
I stared at him.
“If they know me, they’ll follow me.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be alone.”
Another gunshot cracked inside.
Mateo cursed.
“We’re out of time.”
We split.
Cole took Emily in his pickup.
Boone and Mateo followed on bikes.
I climbed onto mine.
The engine roared.
As we shot from the alley, headlights appeared behind us.
Two SUVs.
They had expected us to run.
Cole turned east.
I went west.
One SUV followed him.
The other followed me.
Exactly what I wanted.
I pushed the bike hard.
The highway blurred beneath me.
The SUV stayed close.
Fourteen years earlier, I would have enjoyed the chase.
That version of me had thought danger made him alive.
Now all I could think about was a ten-year-old girl shaking in a diner.
And Sarah.
Alive somewhere.
Maybe hurt.
Maybe waiting.
I cut through an old industrial road.
The SUV followed.
Too close.
I braked suddenly, turned sharply between two storage buildings, and accelerated through a gap barely wide enough for the motorcycle.
The SUV couldn’t make it.
I heard metal scrape concrete.
Then an angry horn.
I didn’t stop.
Twenty minutes later, I entered our clubhouse through the rear gate.
Cole was already there.
Emily jumped from his truck before he stopped moving.
“Ray!”
I got off the bike.
She ran to me.
For half a second, I didn’t know what to do.
Then I put my arms around her.
“You okay?”
She nodded into my jacket.
“Where’s Mom?”
The question cut deeper than anything else.
“I’m going to find her.”
“You promise?”
I hesitated.
Promises had ruined me before.
I had promised Sarah once.
Then left her in a burning warehouse.
But Emily needed something solid.
“Yes.”
I looked into her eyes.
“I promise.”
Inside the clubhouse, we locked every door.
Cole put the envelope and photograph on the table.
Boone asked the question everyone had been avoiding.
“Who’s Sarah?”
I sat down.
Emily watched me.
I realized I owed her the truth too.
“She was my girlfriend.”
Cole frowned.
“You never mentioned her.”
“Because I thought she died.”
Fourteen years earlier, Sarah had worked as a bookkeeper for a shipping company called Meridian Freight.
I was younger.
Reckless.
Running motorcycle parts across state lines and occasionally doing jobs I had no business doing.
Meridian hired our old club president to provide “security.”
What we didn’t know at first was that the company laundered money for people far more dangerous than us.
Sarah discovered it.
She stole records.
And she came to me.
“She said men were watching her,” I explained. “She wanted out.”
Emily sat opposite me.
“What happened?”
“I tried helping.”
My voice tightened.
“We hid her in an abandoned warehouse while I went to get cash and a vehicle.”
Cole’s face changed.
“Warehouse 317.”
I nodded.
“When I returned, the place was burning.”
I had tried getting inside.
The roof collapsed.
Police later found remains.
Sarah’s name appeared on the dead list.
I believed it.
Because guilt makes you believe whatever hurts most.
Emily slowly reached into her backpack.
“There’s another thing.”
I stared at her.
“You said the envelope was everything.”
“Mom told me not to show this unless we got somewhere safe.”
She removed a tiny digital recorder.
My pulse accelerated.
“When did she give you that?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Before school?”
Emily nodded.
“She hugged me really hard.”
My throat tightened.
“What did she say?”
“She said if she wasn’t home by breakfast, I had to leave school through the east gate and find the diner.”
She pushed the recorder toward me.
“She said only you could hear this.”
I pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Sarah’s voice.
I hadn’t heard it in fourteen years.
It nearly broke me.
“Ray, if Emily found you, then everything I feared finally happened.”
I closed my eyes.
Sarah continued.
“I’m sorry.”
Her voice shook.
“I’m sorry for every year you thought I was dead.”
Cole sat down.
Nobody spoke.
“You need to know why I disappeared. The warehouse fire wasn’t meant to kill me.”
A pause.
“It was meant to kill you.”
My eyes opened.
Sarah continued.
“Someone inside the Iron Saints betrayed us.”
Every man in the room became still.
“The people who took me knew exactly when you would return.”
My skin went cold.
“And Ray… the person who gave them that information is still in your club.”
Boone whispered a curse.
Emily looked frightened.
Sarah’s final words came through the speaker.
“Do not trust the patch alone.”
The recording stopped.
No one moved.
Then somebody knocked three times on the clubhouse door.
Our private signal.
Cole looked at me.
Boone looked at Mateo.
I slowly stood.
Another three knocks.
Then a familiar voice called from outside.
“Ray, open up.”
My blood turned cold.
Because the voice belonged to Victor Hale.
May you like
The president of the Iron Saints.
The same man who had been president fourteen years ago.
