She ate up the road, low over the bars, blonde hair beating the wind where it slipped from the tie at the nape of her neck. Her cut snapped against her back. Shore Vipers patch centered.
My bike hummed under me, steady and familiar, but everything else felt wrong. Wrong sky. Wrong streets. Wrong patch leading the way.
Miami was somewhere behind us, in a hospital on lockdown, half held together by screws and stitches. I should have been there. I should have been in the hallway waiting for another suit with a gun, not chasing some stranger into her territory with a war manual on my back.
The backpack was a constant reminder of what I was really riding with. It felt heavier with every mile. Not just leather and paper. Bolivar. Vincino. Russians. Yakuza. Steel Serpents. All crammed into one book that shouldn’t exist.
If Miami hadn’t pulled it from that bike,it would still be hidden in metal and bolts. Unknown. Safer maybe. Or maybe we would all be dead already.
I didn’t know which version of that future scared me more.
No phone. No way to call home. No way to tell Blackjack I was still breathing. He had heard gunshots and then my line had cut. For all he knew I was still sprawled on a hospital floor with a bullet in my skull and the ledger in a stranger’s hands.
The thought twisted my gut.
Focus. Task in order. I had to get somewhere safe enough to breathe, then find a way to reach him. Until then, the mission was simple. Keep riding. Keep the bags contents safe. Stay alive.
Harder than it sounded.
The landscape shifted as we moved farther north. Quieter streets, smaller businesses, more traffic. Mom-and-pop shops with bars over the windows. Old diners. Murals of saints and lost boys spray painted on brick. Women on porches smoking. Kids on bikes who stopped pedaling to watch us pass.
I could feel the line when we crossed it. No sign or marker, just a tightening in the air.
Valkyrie slowed only when we approached a fenced-in compound at the edge of an old industrial strip.
Big metal gate. Razor wire on top. Old “NO TRESPASSING” signs shot up and rusting. Beyond the fence I saw a spread of buildings that had once been a machine shop or a small warehouse. Now they held bikes, a front yard of scrap, and the low thrum ofmusic pulsed under it all.
Two women stood just inside the fence line. Both armed. One had a shotgun resting over her forearms like it weighed nothing. The other leaned on a baseball bat with nails driven into the top, nose ring glinting, shaved sides of her head inked with waves and serpents.
They watched Valkyrie approach. They watched me even harder.
Valkyrie flashed a hand signal, something between military and street. The gate rolled aside with an ugly metal groan.
I followed her in.
Eyes tracked us from all directions. Upper windows. Shadows near the side doors. The compound was awake even if the world outside was still waking up.
Valkyrie cut her engine in front of the biggest building. I parked a few feet back, keeping the entrance in my periphery. The backpack felt even heavier when I swung my leg off.
I took my helmet off and hooked it on my bars. No reason to hide. The cut on my back already shouted who I was.
A door in the front of the building slammed open so hard it bounced against its stopper.
Lady Liberty stormed out like she was leading a charge. I knew who she was immediately just from how she carried herself and her stature.
Was she petite? Yeah. But she wasthe kind of small that looked like it was carved from iron. Long black hair spilled from beneath a bandana tied over her head. Tattoos climbed her throat and wrapped around the sides of her face. One arm, from fingertips to shoulder, was completely blacked out, a solid ink sleeve. The other was a riot of color and lines. Black tank under her cut. Black shorts and black tights. Boots. Eyes that had seen more than I wanted to think about.
She had a phone pressed to her ear and a look that said someone was about to bleed.
Her gaze landed on me and held. It was like being pinned to a wall without being touched.
“He’s here,” she said into the phone. “Alive. Looks to be in one piece.”
Her lips curled a little on the last part, like she was disappointed.
She stalked down the steps toward me, stopped close enough that I could see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, formed from squinting into the sun and glaring at idiots.
“Here,” she said.
