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.”
