“He ain’t dying,” he states like it’s a command.
I nod once. “Then help me to help your brother.”
His gaze drops to my hands, to the blood on the gloves. “You got five minutes,” he orders. “Then you start digging for that bullet.”
My stomach flips.
“Five minutes isn’t?—”
He leans in, voice low and deadly. “It is,” he says. “Or I make a call.”
My throat closes. I look back at Duke. His eyes are on me, hazy but aware. I can’t tell if he’s scared of dying or scared of what his own people are doing.
Maybe both.
I take a slow breath and steady my hands. If I have to do this, I do it as safely as I can. I ask for clean towels. I ask for the flashlight. I ask for someone to boil water—anything to increase sterility even a fraction.
They move, grumbling, but they move.
Because they want him alive. Because they want to believe they have some sense of control.
As I prep, my mind keeps reaching for Miles like a lifeline I’m not allowed to touch. Miles, with his rough hands and his steady gaze. Miles, who promised—without even saying it—that if I ever needed him, he’d show up. Miles, who is probably tearing up the world right now trying to find me.
The thought makes my eyes sting. Anger burns hot behind it. These men took me from him. From Grandpa. From Josie, Justice, and little Journey. From my life. From my future.
And they’re calling it necessity like it makes them righteous. I set my jaw. I don’t know how I’m getting out of here. But I know one thing with the same certainty I know how to start an IV in the dark, and I’m not dying in this room.
Not while I still have air in my lungs. Not while Grandpa might still be alive. Not while Miles might still be riding toward me.
I lean toward Duke, voice steady. “Okay,” I tell him. “Stay with me. I’m going to do everything I can, but it’s gonna hurt.”
Then, quieter, just for myself, I add the only promise that matters.
And I’m going to get home.
Seventeen
Miles
The clubhouse smells like smoke, old beer, and the kind of violence that’s been baked into wood over decades.
I can’t sit. I can’t lean. I can’t even breathe right.
Every second that passes feels like I’m letting her slip farther away, and my body doesn’t know what to do with that except vibrate like a live wire.
Wrath lays the photos out again, tapping the one with the hood up. “Whoever did this didn’t just pop a fuse or loosen a wire,” he shares. “They got into it. Everything planned too well.”
Grinder’s laptop is open on the bar, his fingers moving like they’re trying to outrun time. “Remote kill switch isn’t science fiction,” he mutters. “If they had access to the car’s system—aftermarket tracker, compromised OBD port, even a planted device?—”
“English,” Dove snaps.
Grinder doesn’t look up. “They planned it. They didn’t grab her on chance.”
“We’ve established that fucker,” I comment. “Who did it? Where the fuck is she? Why did they do it? And how the fuck do we end their entire fuckin’ bloodline?” I pace to the far wall, then back. My boots thud a rhythm I can’t stop. The faces around me blur—Hellions, Saint’s Outlaws, men I’d die with—but all I can see in my mind is Danae on the side of a road, tired eyes, hands on her phone, not even thinking to look over her shoulder because she shouldn’t have to.
Wrath’s voice cuts through. “We got people checking cameras on the routes out. We got folks walking the ditch line where the car sat, looking for tire tracks, footprints, anything.”
“Anything?” I ask, and my voice comes out too rough.
