"Getting away from them. All of them." He looks up at the mountain where Savannah's being held. "There’s something you need to know about—" But he suddenly quits talking.
"About what," I sneer. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Let me just say this, " Colt replies, his voice just as low and threatening as mine. "This isn't just Cash being a protective brother. It's not just Marcus being a jealous fiancée. It's fucking business, Legion."
"She's not property," I growl.
"To them, sheis. Savannah is the key to forty-seven thousand acres of Ashby land. This is anempire, Legion. A legitimate American dynasty on the line here and Savannah has control of all of it. Every fucking square inch. Water rights are worth more than gold, you know that much." He looks me dead in the eye. "You think they're going to let her run off with some ex-con biker because she's inlove, Legion? Fuck no. They'll break her first."
My knuckles go white around the gun. "I'll kill them all."
"And end up back in prison, leaving Savannah with no one." Colt shakes his head. "That's exactly what they want. Why do you think they let you out a day early? Why did Cash pick you up instead of your club?"
"To fuck with me."
"Toisolateyou. Set you up. They've been playing chess this whole time. It's all been planned." Then he pauses. And this pause here is what makes me go pale now. Because he finishes up with, "You don't even know the half of it."
We stare at each other for a few moments, all three horses getting anxious. Stomping their feet.
Colt cuts away first, swings up onto his horse. "You're out of your depth here, Kane. You need my help. I'm not asking you to be nice about it or even grace me with a fuckin' thank you because Savannah ismy sister.Myblood. And we both knowhow you'd act if it was your blood on the line. You'd forgive an ex-con biker if your sister loved him."
I don't say anything back because… he's right. But I don't want to admit that either, so?—
"Can you evenride, Legion?" Colt asks, sneering down his nose at me from atop his horse.
I spit blood into the dirt. "I'll fuckin' manage."
Then I swing up too, he grabs Cassia's lead, and we bolt down the mountain.
The horses move like ghosts beneath us, silent across Ashby land. Colt leads, I follow, my body a temple of pain and my mind a slaughterhouse of revenge. Every step jolts my broken ribs. Every heartbeat pounds inside my head.
The north ridge rises against the twilight, a black shape cutting into purple sky. The cabin sits nestled in pines, windows glowing yellow.
"No horses," Colt whispers as we dismount. "Cash and Wyatt aren't here."
Good. Two less bodies to put in the ground.
We tie the horses. My hands shake—not from fear but from something darker. Something rising. I've spent three years in a cage learning to control it, but now I feel the lock breaking.
"Legion," Colt grabs my arm. "Remember what I said."
I shake him off without agreeing to shit.
We don't waste time with stealth. The door splinters under our combined weight, wood cracking like bones. Inside, the smell hits first—antiseptic, sweat, and something medicinal.
And there she is.
Savannah lies on a bed, wrists bound with plastic ties cutting into flesh. Her eyes are wide, unfocused, drugged buton the verge of alert. Her dress—the same one from the silo—is wrinkled and stained.
Marcus stands over her with a fucking syringe.
Our eyes lock. His widen with recognition, then fear.
"You're not supposed to be?—"
I don't let him finish. My body becomes a weapon, launched across the room. I hit him with the force of every dark day in Whitefall, every night I dreamed of her voice, every second she's been in this nightmare.
We crash to the floor. Something snaps beneath us—his arm, maybe his collarbone. The sound feeds something primal in me.
