“You return fire?” Mason asks.
“Twice. Might’ve clipped one.”
Dagger nods once. “Think it’s random?”
“No,” I say flatly. “This was deliberate.”
Ghost glances at the bike. “Son of a bitch,” he mutters. “Tank’s gonna cry.”
Blade huffs a quiet laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Load it,” Mason says.
The guys move fast. Two of them lift the back end of the bike while Dagger and Ghost steady the front. It takes muscle and a few curses, but they get it upright enough to roll it toward the truck. Metal grinds and something drags, but nobody complains. They guide it up the ramp and into the bed, strapping it down tight like they’re handling a body.
Ghost turns back to me. “You riding or you sitting?”
“I’ll sit,” I admit, because I’m not stupid enough to try balancing a bike with one arm half-numb.
Mason studies me for a second longer. “You sure you’re steady?”
“I’m steady.”
He nods once. “Good. Then we move.”
Blade and the prospects mount up again. Ghost climbs into the driver’s seat of the truck. Dagger stays close to me as we walktoward it, not hovering, not crowding, just there in case my knees decide to argue.
“You think this is tied to her?” Dagger asks quietly, low enough that the others won’t catch it over the engines.
“Yeah,” I answer without hesitation.
Mason hears it anyway.
His jaw tightens slightly, but he doesn’t argue.
“Then this just stopped being simple,” he says.
I climb into the passenger side of the truck and shut the door. Ghost pulls out first, bikes flanking us like a moving wall.
My shoulder throbs in time with the rumble of the engine, and I stare out at the dark stretch of road disappearing behind us. Someone just tested us and we’re about to answer.
I’ve beenin my office for over an hour trying to get a lead on who the fuck thought they could come after me. Phone calls. Texts. Names pulled from old lists that should have stayed buried. Right now I’m coming up with options I don’t like. We handled our Russian problem when we took down Volkov. So why the fuck are there more Russians circling? Retaliation? A cousin. A brother. Some ghost from his organization looking to make a statement? Or does this have something to do with Anya? Do they want her back? The thought hits harder than the bullet did. Fuck. I won’t let anything happen to her.
I push back from my desk before I punch a hole through it. The walls feel too close, the air too thick with old leather and gun oiland frustration. I need space. I step out of the office and head for the back door, and of course my brothers fall in behind me without a word. Blade. Rev. Switch. A silent wall of ink and loyalty. No questions. Just presence.
The back lot is dim, security lights throwing long shadows over cracked asphalt and oil stains that have been there longer than some of our prospects. I pull a cigarette from the pack in my cut and light it, the flame steady even though my hand isn’t.
My shoulder is burning under the bandage, a deep, pissed off throb that reminds me every time I move that I got lucky. The graze is clean, but it’s angry. My bike is wrecked, twisted metal and shattered glass hauled off to the side like a body.
But I’m still standing.
That matters.
Because the part of me that wants to sit down and let the pain catch up is the same part that would start replaying it. The crack of gunfire splitting the night. The sting ripping through my arm. The way the road rushed up when I lost control for half a second.
I am not giving my head that kind of room tonight.
The guys spread out around me in a loose perimeter, backs to brick, eyes scanning the dark beyond the fence line. No one relaxes. Not really. Perdition is still roaring on the other side of the building, bass bleeding through metal and concrete, the pulse of it steady and defiant.
