My hand tightened on the throttle.
Ahead of me, Rocco, our VP lifted one fist, and the formation tightened like a living thing. San Diego didn’t scare easy. You didn’t ride under a Royal Bastards cut, especially out of our chapter, unless fear had already been carved out of you and replaced with something uglier.
But explosions changed the air.
They reminded men that metal, fire, and bad timing did not give a damn about pride.
Nate pulled up on my right, his bike growling beside mine. He tipped his chin toward the glow spreading behind a low ridge of brush and cactus.
“What the hell was that?” he shouted over the engines.
I looked past the road.
Smoke was climbing now, black against black, lit from beneath by fire. More light flickered behind it. Not one burst. Not one accident. Something else was burning.
“Could be a wreck,” Nate said.
Could be.
Could be cartel too.
That thought moved through me cold and fast.
We had seen enough along the coast to know fire was not always fire. Sometimes it was cleanup. Sometimes it was a message. Sometimes it was bodies, evidence, cargo, or people who had become inconvenient to men with no souls left to lose.
San Diego was headed for a sit-down with Santa Fe because too much had been moving lately. Shipments that weren’t supposed to exist. Girls disappearing from border towns and turning up nowhere. Men whispering about routes through desert land nobody watched closely enough until somebody started bleeding on it.
And now the night had split open in front of us.
Rocco signaled again.
Keep moving.
The main pack rolled on.
A meet was still a meet. Trouble ahead didn’t erase trouble waiting. If this was bait, the worst thing we could do was send the whole chapter chasing fire through the desert like fools begging for an ambush.
But my VP looked back once.
At me.
Then at Nate.
He didn’t have to say it.
Check it.
Don’t die.
Catch up.
I tipped my chin.
Nate cursed. “Of course it’s us.”
“You wanted excitement.”
“I wanted tacos after the meeting.”
