Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78329 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
My chest squeezes. “How’s he holding up?”
Josie’s breath shakes. “He’s blaming himself.”
I shut my eyes. “Tell him it ain’t on him,” I reply, voice hoarse. “Tell him she’s coming home.”
Josie goes quiet, then: “Miles, please be careful. And please bring her home safe.”
I open my eyes and stare at the far wall like I can burn a hole through it. “I can’t promise to be careful,” I admit. “But I’ll move the whole Earth to get her back.”
“I know,” she says softly. “Just don’t die because Danae couldn’t live after that. She loves you, Dixon.”
I don’t reply because when I admit my feelings I want it to be to Danae not anyone else. I end the call and stand there for half a second with the phone still pressed to my ear, like I can keep her voice with me if I don’t move.
Smoke watches me.
Wrath watches me.
Everyone watches me.
Because I’m shaking now, not from exhaustion. From the rage that is consuming me.
They have her. They threatened her grandfather. They’re using her like leverage, for what I don’t know.
Every part of me wants to start tearing down doors until one of them happens to be the right one.
Wrath speaks again. “We split. Two-man teams. Outlaws run the backroads and known stash spots. Hellions take the highways and hit every place a van could hide. Grinder stays here and works the tech angle with Dove.”
“I’m not leaving?” Grinder questions automatically. He isn’t used to being tabled from the action.
“You’re not leaving,” Wrath agrees. “We need your eyes.”
Country Boy steps to my side. “You’re riding with me.”
Smoke’s lips curl. “Like hell.”
I turn my head, eyes meeting Smoke’s. He looks eager for the fight, hungry for the chaos. And the most dangerous thing of all, Smoke isn’t afraid to die and feels like he has nothing to lose. But behind it, there’s something else—loyalty in his own way.
Smoke jerks his chin. “He came in with me. He rides with me.”
Country Boy doesn’t flinch. “You ain’t the one in love with the girl.”
Smoke’s expression hardens.
I look at Wrath. Commitment unspoken between his club and me. Wrath’s gaze holds mine a long moment.
Then he nods once. “Smoke rides with you. Country Boy takes two Outlaws and runs the perimeter. Everybody else moves.”
A dozen men start shifting, grabbing keys, checking weapons, moving like an organism.
Wrath catches my arm before I can walk out. “Miles.”
“What,” I snap, then regret it instantly because Wrath isn’t my enemy.
He doesn’t take offense. “When you find her,” he states, voice low, “you call it in. You don’t go hero. My territory, my vengeance. My rules and my way.”
My laugh is sharp, humorless. “You don’t know me.”
Wrath’s eyes don’t waver. “I know men like you. And I know what love does to you.”
My throat tightens.
Wrath squeezes my arm once, hard. “Bring her home. That’s the mission. Not revenge. You got my word I’ll end any man who touches your woman, but that shit doesn’t taint you or touch what you got buildin’ with her.”
I nod, but make no promises because if I speak I might break something.
We hit the road.
The Arkansas air is colder now, wind cutting through my clothes. My bike’s engine feels like an extension of my heartbeat—fast, relentless.
Smoke rides beside me, slightly back, scanning the world like he’s looking for a reason to shoot it. We start where the van could have gone.
Warehouses. Storage units. Back lots behind closed diners and feed stores. Dirt roads that curve into woods. Places that like to hide secrets. We stop at gas stations. Ask questions with eyes that don’t invite lies.
“White cargo van,” Smoke shares at one stop, voice flat. “Dent in the rear.”
The attendant shakes his head too fast. “Don’t know.”
Smoke leans in, just a fraction reading the man the same way I am. “You sure?”
The attendant’s Adam’s apple bobs. “I ain’t seen nothing.”
We don’t waste time calling it in for Grinder and Dove to hack the security feed there. We keep moving. My phone stays in my jacket pocket, heavy. Every time it buzzes, my whole body flinches.
It’s never her.
It’s updates.
Nothing solid.
Then, an hour into the search, Grinder calls.
I answer on the first ring. “Talk.”
“I got a hit on the second prepaid,” he begins, voice quick. “The one the burner called. That second phone lit up again ten minutes ago.”
My breath catches. “Where?”
“Tower ping near a rural pocket—twenty minutes northeast of you,” he says. “Sparse area. Few houses. Some hunting cabins. One abandoned property listed under an LLC.”
“Send it,” I snap.
“It’s already on your phone,” he says. “Miles—listen. It pinged for twelve seconds. It might not ping again.”
“Then we go now.”
“Now,” Grinder agrees. “And Miles—”
“What.”
“I pulled local chatter. There’s been tension between an outlaw support crew and another club running through here. Not Outlaws. Not Hellions.”
My blood runs colder.
“Who.”
Grinder hesitates half a beat. “I’m still confirming.”