"We have vans in the motor pool," Tank confirmed.
"Team composition." Hawk looked at Diego. "Your call. You're operational lead."
Diego's eyes moved around the room. Quick, complete, the calculations happening behind the dark eyes at a speed that left most people behind.
"Tank, Declan, Irish, Ghost. Logan and me. Six riders, two vans, the truck." He looked at Hawk. "You hold the compound. If the Wolves figure out what we’re doing and hit Henderson while we're in Montana, the club needs its president and a defensive force."
Hawk nodded. The nod of a man who'd been about to give the same order.
"Axel stays with me," Hawk added. "Kai and Rosa prep medical. When you bring those workers south, they'll need triage before they need beds." He straightened, palms flat onthe table. "This is a rescue operation. Not a raid. You go in quiet, you extract the workers, you get out. If the Wolves are on site when you arrive, you handle it. But the priority is people. Understood?"
The room answered. Not in words. In the shift of posture, the tightening of jaws, the way armed men settled their weight when the mission was clear and the only thing left was execution.
These men didn't know my workers. They'd never met Tomás or Miguel or Sofía. They had no obligation to ride ten hours north into hostile territory for twelve strangers and a twenty-three-year-old foreman. But the decision had taken less than a minute, and the unanimity of it was in every face in the room.
"Wheels up in two hours." Diego's voice shifted from request to command. "Gear, weapons, medical supplies. Irish, you're on comms. Declan, tactical coordination. Tank, you're driving the lead van. Ghost, you ride with me."
The room emptied with purpose. The wiry kid everyone called Ghost was the first one through the door—out of his chair and gone before Hawk had finished standing, unable to contain whatever had been building in him since the press conference. Irish followed, already talking into his phone, coordinating frequencies. Tank's massive frame disappeared toward the motor pool.
Diego paused at the door. Turned back to me. The room empty now except for us and Hawk, who was studying the map on the wall with the deliberate focus of a man giving two people a moment by pretending not to.
"We're going to get them out." Diego's voice was low. For me. Not for the room, not for the club. For me. "Your workers. Your foreman. Your dogs. All of it."
"I know."
"I need you to believe it."
I looked at him. The lean frame, the tattoos, the knives on his belt. The man who'd walked away from me six years ago and was now standing in a doorway telling me he was going to ride ten hours north to save twelve strangers because they mattered to me, and anything that mattered to me mattered to him.
"I believe it."
He nodded. Turned. Disappeared down the corridor with the pace of a man who had two hours to prepare for war and intended to use every minute.
I stood in the room. The table scarred from years of fists and coffee mugs and the weight of decisions. The compound humming with the energy of preparation—engines being checked, weapons being loaded.
Two hours. Then we'd ride north. Ten hours of highway between here and the ranch, between the compound and the workers, between this room and the building on the north acreage where people might be locked in the dark, waiting for someone to open the door.
I went to the guest room. Packed my bag. Checked the Beretta. Thought about Compass and Rig and Juno, waiting on the porch. Thought about Tomás—if that was even his real name—nineteen years old, his branded shoulder inspected by a man who called him an asset.
Thought about Diego. The wordsooncarrying the weight of a promise and a future I hadn't dared to imagine and wasn't willing to let go.
8
BLOOD AND SOIL
BLADE
Ten hours on the highway with the throttle pinned and the night coming on.
The convoy moved north in formation: Tank's van in the lead, Declan's van behind it, Logan's blue F-250 bringing up the center, and three bikes flanking the column. Ghost on my left. Irish on my right. The engines harmonized into a single rumble that carried across the flat scrub where the road climbed toward Montana.
I rode in the lead. The headlight cut a tunnel through the dark, the wind pressing flat against my chest and face, the vibration of the borrowed Harley running through my hands and arms and into the core of my body. We rode toward twelve branded workers, a terrified foreman, and a building full of people who didn't know help was coming. And somewhere behind us or already waiting at the ranch, the Iron Wolves.
The replacement bike handled differently than mine. Heavier in the front end, the throttle response a fraction slower—thedifference registered in my hands the way a borrowed knife registered in my grip. Not wrong. Just not mine.
The sun had set two hours into the ride. Orange to purple to black in my mirrors, the stars appearing in clusters and then in sheets until the Montana sky was wide and bright and overwhelming.
I thought about my mother.
