Chapter 1: The Sound of Metal on Bone
It was 2:14 PM on a Tuesday. I know the exact time because I was elbow-deep in the grease of a ’67 Shovelhead engine when my phone vibrated on the workbench. It rattled against a loose wrench, a harsh, metallic buzzing that cut through the classic rock playing on the shop radio.
Usually, I ignore my phone when I’m in the zone. The garage is my sanctuary, a place where the world makes sense, where things are broken only so I can fix them. But something about the persistence of the vibration, or maybe just a gut instinct honed by years of living a life on the edge, made me wipe my hands on a rag and pick it up.
It wasn’t a call. It was a text from a number I didn’t recognize. No words. Just a picture.
My stomach didn’t just drop; it vanished. It felt like the concrete floor of the garage had opened up and swallowed me whole.
It was Ellie. My little sister. The kid I raised after our parents died in that wreck on I-95 five years ago. I was twenty-two then, a prospect with no direction. She was eleven, a terrified little girl with braces and a stack of books she used as a shield against the world. I became a man that day because I had to be her father, her mother, and her protector.
In the photo, she was slumped on the speckled linoleum floor of the Northwood High hallway. Her glasses, the wire-rimmed ones she loved because they made her look like a writer from the 50s, were broken, lying a foot away from her hand.
But it was the trickle of blood that stopped my heart. Bright, angry red. It was running from her hairline, cutting a path through the foundation she barely knew how to apply, and pooling at her eyebrow. Her eyes were closed.
And in the background of the photo, slightly blurry but unmistakable, was a varsity jacket. Maroon and gold. The number 12 stitched in white leather. Walking away.
I didn’t wipe the rest of the grease off my hands. I didn’t lock the shop. I didn’t turn off the radio. I just grabbed my helmet.
Ellie is sixteen now. She’s quiet. She reads obscure sci-fi novels and paints watercolors of birds that look so real you expect them to fly off the paper. She doesn’t hurt people. She doesn’t start drama. She doesn’t care about popularity or prom courts. She’s invisible to most of that school, and that’s how she likes it. She’s the softest thing in my life, the only pure thing I have left.
But Number 12—Trent Stirling—decided invisibility wasn’t enough. He needed a target. He needed a prop for his ego.
I later learned the details. Trent was showing off for his girlfriend, making a scene in the hallway during the passing period. Ellie was walking to AP History, clutching her binders to her chest.
He shoulder-checked her. Hard. Not an accidental bump in a crowded hall. He put his full linebacker weight, all two hundred pounds of steroid-fueled muscle, into a hundred-pound girl who never saw it coming.
She flew sideways. Her head cracked against the vents of locker 304.
The sound, witnesses later told me, was like a gunshot. A sick, wet crack of bone hitting steel.
Trent didn’t stop to help. He didn’t gasp. He laughed. “Watch where you’re going, freak,” he’d said, stepping over her scattered books like they were trash.
I mounted my bike, a customized Road Glide that I built from the frame up. It’s painted matte black, stripped of chrome, and sounds like the apocalypse when I open the throttle. But I didn’t start it yet.
I pulled out my phone one more time. I opened our internal app, the encrypted channel the club uses. I hit the panic button. The one we reserve for “Code Red.” It’s used for officer down, federal raids, or threats to the family.
I typed one line: ELLIE. NORTHWOOD HIGH. HALLWAY ASSAULT. VARSITY CAPTAIN. NOW.
I’m the VP of the Iron Saints MC. We aren’t a gang in the way the movies show it—we don’t run drugs or guns. We’re mechanics, vets, ironworkers, welders, and fathers. We’re a family forged in fire and loyalty.
And Ellie? She’s the club’s little sister. She’s the one who helps serve turkey at the Thanksgiving charity drives. She’s the one who mended patches on vests when she was twelve because her small fingers were better with a needle than our calloused hands. She’s the daughter fifty men never had.
I turned the key. The engine roared to life, a guttural snarl that echoed off the garage walls. But as I pulled out of the lot, checking my mirrors, I realized I wasn’t alone.
From the east, the deep, rhythmic rumble of Big Dave’s cruiser. From the west, the high-pitched, aggressive whine of Jax’s Sportster.
And behind me, a thunder that you feel in your teeth before you hear it with your ears.
We didn’t plan a convoy. We didn’t have a pre-ride briefing. It just happened. Phones lit up in pockets across the city. Welding torches were dropped. Trucks were pulled to the side of the road. Meetings were walked out of.
Because you don’t touch family. And you definitely don’t touch Ellie.
Chapter 2: The River of Steel
The ride to Northwood High usually takes about twenty minutes if you obey the speed limits and yield to the soccer moms in their oversized SUVs.
We made it in nine.
There is a terrifying, beautiful physics to three hundred motorcycles moving as a single unit. We didn’t just occupy the road; we consumed it. We became a river of chrome and matte black steel, flowing over the asphalt with a roar that shook the windows of the storefronts we passed.
I was at the point of the spear. My hands were clamped onto the handlebars so tight my knuckles had turned the color of bone. The wind whipped past my helmet, but I couldn’t feel the cold. I was burning up from the inside out.
Every time I blinked, I saw that photo. The blood on Ellie’s forehead. The broken glasses. The captionless reality of my failure.
I had promised my mother, on a rain-slicked night five years ago, that I would keep Ellie safe. I had held my mom’s hand while the paramedics tried to cut her out of the wreckage, and I swore it. I swore I’d be the shield.
Today, the shield was broken. And now, I was the sword.
I checked my rearview mirror. The column of bikes stretched back as far as I could see, a serpentine beast of iron and resolve.
Big Dave was right on my flank, his massive frame hunched over his handlebars. Behind him was Jax, riding with the kind of reckless precision that made him our best scout. And behind them, a legion of welders, mechanics, vets, and fathers.
We blew through the intersection at Main and 4th. The traffic light was red. It didn’t matter.
Two of our prospects, “Blockers,” peeled off from the formation ahead of me. They slid their bikes sideways in the middle of the intersection, blocking cross-traffic with nothing but their machines and a glare that dared anyone to honk.
Cars slammed on their brakes. Tires screeched. People stared, mouths agape, phones instantly raised to capture the spectacle. They weren’t seeing a gang; they were seeing a force of nature.
We didn’t slow down. We thundered past the library, the post office, the quaint little coffee shops where the suburbanites ignored the rot in their own schools.
As Northwood High came into view, sitting on its manicured hill like a fortress of teenage judgment, my heart rate spiked. It wasn’t fear. It was the adrenaline of the hunt.
The school was sprawling, a mix of red brick and modern glass. It looked peaceful. It looked safe. That was the lie.
I cut the engine as I coasted into the main circular driveway, the one reserved for buses and faculty.
The silence that follows the shutdown of three hundred engines is heavier than the noise itself. One second, the world is screaming; the next, it’s holding its breath.
The birds stopped singing. The wind seemed to die down. The only sound was the tink-tink-tink of cooling metal and the crunch of heavy boots hitting the pavement.
“Stay with the bikes,” I commanded, my voice low but cutting through the silence. “Keep the engines warm. Block the exits. No one leaves until I say so.”
The prospects nodded, fanning out to cover the perimeter. They looked menacing, standing arms crossed over their cuts, staring down the confused parents who were arriving for early pickup.
“Patched members,” I said, unbuckling my helmet and hanging it on the handlebar. “With me.”
Fifty men formed a phalanx behind me. We didn’t run. We didn’t shout. We walked with the slow, terrifying purpose of a storm front rolling in.
The main doors opened before we even reached them.
It was Miller, the school security guard. He was a retired cop, a good guy who had bought a used Sportster from my shop three years ago. He knew us. He knew we weren’t the villains the PTA whispered about.
He stepped out, one hand hovering near his belt, his eyes wide as he took in the sea of leather jackets filling his driveway.
“Mason,” Miller said, his voice tight. “Don’t do this. Not here.”
I didn’t stop walking. “Where is she, Miller?”
He stepped in my path, but he didn’t draw his weapon. He knew the math. He knew he couldn’t stop this tide.
“She’s in the nurse’s office,” Miller said quickly, his eyes darting to Big Dave, who looked ready to rip the doors off their hinges. “Paramedics checked her out. She needs stitches, Mason. But she’s conscious.”
“And him?” I asked, stopping inches from Miller’s face. “Where is the golden boy?”
Miller hesitated. He looked pained. “Mason, please. The Principal is already calling the district police. If you go in there—”
“Where is he?”
Miller sighed, his shoulders slumping. “The gym. Pep rally just started. They’re… they’re presenting the team.”
I felt a fresh wave of nausea. Ellie was bleeding in a sterile room while the kid who did it was getting a standing ovation.
“Move, Miller,” I said softly.
“I can’t let you hurt a student,” he whispered, holding his ground.
“I’m not here to hurt him,” I lied. “I’m here to teach him a lesson his daddy’s money can’t buy.”
I stepped around him. Miller didn’t grab me. He just keyed his radio and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
We breached the doors.
The smell hit me first—that distinct high school blend of floor wax, stale cafeteria food, and hormones. It smelled like anxiety.
The hallways were mostly empty, the student body packed into the assembly. But a few stragglers froze as we marched past. A kid at a locker dropped his books, the loud clatter echoing like a gunshot. He pressed his back against the metal, eyes popping as fifty bikers thundered past him on the linoleum.
“Dave, Jax,” I barked. “Go to the nurse. Get Ellie. Take her out the side exit to the van. Do not let her see what I’m about to do.”
“You sure, brother?” Dave asked, his eyes dark. “I want a piece of this kid.”
“Get her safe first,” I ordered. “That’s the mission. This…” I gestured toward the double doors at the end of the hall where the muffled sound of a marching band was booming. “…This is just cleanup.”
Dave nodded and peeled off, taking two guys with him.
I kept walking toward the gym. The noise grew louder. Drums. Cheering. The mindless roar of school spirit.
Principal Gantry appeared from a side office, looking flushed and panicked. He was a small man who wore suits that cost more than my bike but fit him worse.
“Mr. Neo!” he shouted, running to catch up with us. “You cannot be here! This is a secure campus! I demand you leave immediately!”
I didn’t even look at him. I kept my eyes on the gym doors.
“Mr. Neo!” Gantry grabbed my arm.
That was a mistake.
I stopped. I didn’t strike him. I just turned my head and looked at him. Really looked at him. I channeled every ounce of the violence I had buried deep inside, the darkness I kept hidden from Ellie, and let it surface in my eyes.
Gantry recoiled as if he’d touched a hot stove. He let go of my arm, stumbling back a step.
“My sister is bleeding in your nurse’s office because you let a bully run this school,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “You had your chance to handle this, Gantry. You failed. Now I’m handling it.”
“I’ve called the police!” he squeaked, his voice cracking. “They’re five minutes away!”
“Good,” I said, turning back to the doors. “They can handle the paperwork.”
We reached the foyer of the gymnasium. The doors were closed, but the vibration of the bass drums rattled the handles.
I looked at the men behind me. Forty-five of the hardest men I knew. Men who had seen war, prison, and loss. Men who would walk into fire for me.
“No weapons,” I said. “We don’t need them. We are the weapon.”
I placed both hands on the push bars of the double doors.
Inside, the announcer’s voice boomed over the PA system. “AND NOW! GIVE IT UP FOR YOUR VARSITY CAPTAIN! THE UNSTOPPABLE… TRENT STIRLING!”
The crowd erupted. Screams. Applause. Worship.
I pushed the doors open.
The light from the gym was blindingly bright compared to the hallway. The noise was a physical wall.
We walked in.
I didn’t stop at the edge. I walked straight onto the polished hardwood court.
The students in the nearest bleachers saw us first. The cheering in that section died instantly, replaced by a confused ripple of silence. It spread like a contagion. The cheerleaders at the bottom of the pyramid faltered, looking at us with wide, terrified eyes.
The band director, sensing the shift in the room, cut off the music with a frantic wave of his baton. The drums stopped with a chaotic clatter.
The silence that fell over the gymnasium was absolute. Two thousand students, teachers, and parents stared.
And there, at center court, holding a microphone, basking in the spotlight, was Trent Stirling.
He looked exactly like the type. Blonde hair gelled to perfection, the maroon and gold jacket too tight across his broad shoulders, a smile that said he owned the world.
He turned, annoyed that the music had stopped.
He saw me.
He saw the patch on my chest. The Iron Saints rocker. The skull and pistons.
Then he looked past me and saw the forty-five men fanning out behind me, lining up along the baseline of the basketball court like a firing squad.
Trent’s smile didn’t just fade; it collapsed. The microphone slipped in his sweaty hand, creating a sharp feedback screech that made everyone wince.
I walked toward him. My boots echoed on the hardwood. Thud. Thud. Thud.
I stopped ten feet away from him. I could smell his cologne. It was cheap and overpowering, trying to mask the sudden stench of his fear.
“Trent,” I said. I didn’t shout. I didn’t need to. In the silent gym, my voice carried to the rafters.
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He looked toward the sidelines for his coach, for the principal, for anyone to save him. But the coach was frozen, staring at the sheer number of bikers occupying his court.
“Who… who are you?” Trent stammered, his voice trembling over the PA system because he was still holding the mic.
“I’m the guy who picks up the trash you leave in the hallway,” I said.
A gasp rippled through the bleachers.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Trent said, trying to summon some of that varsity bravado. He puffed out his chest, but his eyes were darting around like a trapped animal. “Get off the court, man. You’re trespassing.”
I took another step. He took a step back.
“You knocked a girl down today, Trent. You smashed her head into a locker. You laughed.”
“She was in my way!” Trent blurted out, the excuse coming automatically. “It was an accident! She’s just some clumsy fre—”
He stopped. He realized what he was about to say.
“Say it,” I dared him. “Call her a freak again. I want everyone to hear it.”
Trent looked at the crowd. He realized the narrative was shifting. He wasn’t the hero anymore. He was the villain in a scene he didn’t understand.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Trent said, putting his hands up. “I’ll… I’ll buy her new glasses. My dad will pay for it. Whatever.”
I laughed. It was a cold, dry sound. “You think this is about money? You think you can write a check for the fear you put in her eyes?”
I reached into my vest pocket. Trent flinched, terrified I was pulling a gun.
I pulled out Ellie’s broken glasses. One lens was shattered, the wire frame twisted.
I tossed them at his feet. They skittered across the floor with a pathetic scratching sound.
“Pick them up,” I said.
“What?”
“Pick. Them. Up.”
Trent looked at the glasses, then at me, then at his teammates. They were looking down at their sneakers. No one was coming to help him.
Slowly, painfully, Trent bent down. He reached for the glasses.
“Mason!”
The shout came from the gym entrance behind me. It was Principal Gantry, and flanking him were two uniformed police officers who had just burst through the doors, hands on their holsters.
“Step away from the student!” the lead officer shouted, his voice booming. “Hands where I can see them! Now!”
The crowd gasped. The tension in the room snapped tight as a bowstring.
I didn’t turn around. I kept my eyes locked on Trent. He was crouching on the floor, hand on the glasses, looking up at the police with sudden relief. He smiled. A nasty, triumphant little smirk returned to his face.
“You’re done,” Trent whispered to me, standing up and pointing a finger in my face. “You’re going to jail, biker trash. My dad is going to bury you.”
He felt safe now. He had the cops behind him. He thought the game was over.
He poked me in the chest. “Did you hear me? I said you’re do—”
I grabbed his finger.
It happened so fast the cops didn’t even have time to draw. I twisted his finger back, not enough to break it, but enough to bring him to his knees with a shriek of pain.
“Let him go!” the cop screamed, rushing onto the court.
But my men moved.
In a synchronized wave, forty-five bikers stepped forward, forming a living wall between the police and center court. They didn’t attack. They just stood there. A thousand years of combined prison time and bad attitude blocking the law.
“Back off!” Big Dave roared, appearing from the side door, his voice shaking the scoreboard.
I leaned down to Trent’s ear, ignoring the chaos erupting ten feet away. The police were shouting, students were screaming, but in the center of the circle, it was just me and him.
“The cops can take me,” I whispered, tightening my grip on his finger until he whimpered. “But they can’t take all of us. And they can’t be everywhere.”
Trent was crying now. Real tears.
“I’m going to let you go, Trent,” I hissed. “But every time you hear a motorcycle… every time you see a leather jacket… every time you think you’re alone in a parking lot… you’re going to remember this moment.”
I released him. He scrambled back, crab-walking across the floor, clutching his hand.
“Get on the ground! Now!” The police had pushed through the line. I felt a hand grab my shoulder.
I put my hands up, turning slowly. I looked the officer in the eye.
“I’m complying,” I said calmly.
But as they spun me around to cuff me, I saw something that made the handcuffs worth it.
Ellie was standing in the doorway of the gym, supported by Jax. She had a bandage on her head. She was crying, but she wasn’t looking at the floor anymore.
She was looking at Trent, who was cowering behind the Principal’s legs, weeping like a child.
She saw him for what he was. Small. Weak. Pathetic.
And for the first time since our parents died, I saw a spark in her eyes that wasn’t fear. It was justice.
The officer slammed me against the scorer’s table. “You have the right to remain silent!”
I smiled. “I think I’ve made my point.”
But as they dragged me out, the gym doors at the back—the emergency exits—crashed open.
I froze.
Through the rear doors, a man walked in. He was wearing a suit, tailored perfectly. He wasn’t a biker. He wasn’t a cop.
It was Trent’s father, the Mayor. And he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the Principal.
“Arrest them all,” the Mayor shouted, his face purple with rage. “Every single one of these animals. I want them buried under the jail!”
I locked eyes with Big Dave. He signaled the crew.
The engines outside roared to life again. The sound was deafening, drowning out the Mayor’s shouting.
We weren’t trapped. We were just getting started.
And then, I saw the one thing I hadn’t calculated.
Trent, emboldened by his father’s arrival, grabbed a metal chair from the sidelines. He wasn’t looking at me.
He was looking at Ellie.
He raised the chair.
“NO!” I screamed, ripping my arm free from the cop.
Chapter 3: The Sound of Breaking
Time is a funny thing. When you’re cruising on the highway at eighty miles an hour, it feels infinite. When you’re watching a metal folding chair swing toward your little sister’s head, it freezes.
I saw the muscles in Trent’s arms bunch up. I saw the cheap beige paint on the chair leg. I saw the absolute, unhinged malice in his eyes. He wasn’t trying to scare her. He was trying to erase the witness to his humiliation.
“NO!”
The word ripped out of my throat, raw and animalistic.
The officer holding my left arm wasn’t ready for the explosion of adrenaline that hit my system. I didn’t just pull away; I torqued my entire body, using the leverage of my hips to throw him off balance. He stumbled, his grip slipping on my leather vest.
I launched myself.
I didn’t run. I dove. I became a missile of desperation, flying across the gap between the scorer’s table and the doorway where Ellie stood frozen.
I hit Trent just as the chair reached the apex of its arc.
We collided in mid-air with a sickening crunch. My shoulder drove into his ribs, knocking the wind out of him, but the momentum carried the chair downward.
CRACK.
The steel leg of the chair slammed into my back, right over my left kidney. The pain was blinding, a white-hot spike that made my vision swim. But I didn’t let go.
We hit the hardwood floor hard. I landed on top of him, my weight pinning him instantly. The chair clattered away, sliding across the polished wood until it hit Jax’s boots.
Trent gasped, wheezing for air, his eyes wide with shock. He tried to scramble back, but I had a handful of his varsity jacket.
I raised my fist.
Every instinct in my body screamed to finish it. To mash his entitled face into a pulp. To make sure he never, ever looked at Ellie again.
“Mason! Don’t!”
It was Ellie’s voice. Small. Terrified. But clear.
My fist hovered inches from his nose. My knuckles were white. My breath came in ragged, painful gasps.
I looked up. Ellie was staring at me. She wasn’t looking at Trent. She was looking at me. And in her eyes, I saw the reflection of the monster I was about to become.
I lowered my hand.
“You’re lucky,” I whispered to Trent, my voice shaking with rage. “You’re so lucky she’s watching.”
Then the world exploded.
“GET HIM OFF! TASE HIM! TASE HIM NOW!”
The scream came from the Mayor.
I felt the prongs hit my back before I heard the pop.
The Taser charge locked every muscle in my body. It felt like being struck by lightning. My jaw clenched so hard I thought my teeth would shatter. I convulsed, rolling off Trent and onto the floor, twitching uncontrollably.
“Back off! Everyone back off!” Big Dave roared.
I heard the distinct sound of bodies colliding. The Iron Saints were moving. They weren’t attacking the cops, but they were forming a circle, a protective ring of leather and denim around me and Ellie.
“Don’t touch him!” Jax yelled, shoving a deputy who was reaching for his baton.
“Stand down!” The police sergeant was screaming, his hand on his holster but not drawing. He knew. He knew that if one gun came out, this gym would turn into a slaughterhouse.
I fought through the paralysis of the Taser. I rolled onto my knees, gasping for air.
“Ellie,” I croaked.
Jax was there instantly. He scooped her up, shielding her face from the chaos.
“I got her, brother,” Jax said, his voice hard. “She’s safe. We’re leaving.”
“Nobody is leaving!” The Mayor was purple with rage, pointing a shaking finger at us. “I want this gym locked down! I want every one of these thugs in cuffs! Assault! Battery! Trespassing! Rioting!”
The sergeant looked at the Mayor, then at the fifty bikers, then at his four deputies.
“Mr. Mayor,” the sergeant said, his voice tight. “We can’t arrest fifty men. We need backup. We need the state police.”
“Then get them!” the Mayor screamed. “Call the Governor if you have to!”
I stood up. My back was on fire. My kidney throbbed with a dull, sickening ache.
I held out my hands to the sergeant.
“Take me,” I said. “Let the girl go. Let my men go. You want a villain? I’m right here.”
The sergeant looked relieved. He pulled out his cuffs.
“Mason Neo,” he recited, sounding tired. “You are under arrest for assault and battery…”
“No!” Ellie cried out, trying to push past Jax. “He was protecting me! That boy tried to hit me with a chair!”
“It’s okay, El,” I said, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. “Go with Jax. Go home. Lock the doors. I’ll be there soon.”
As the cuffs clicked around my wrists, cold and tight, I looked at Trent one last time.
He was sitting up, rubbing his ribs. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked small. He looked broken. But then he looked at his father, the Mayor, and I saw a flicker of something dangerous return to his eyes. He realized he still had the most powerful weapon of all: the system.
They marched me out of the gym.
The walk of shame was supposed to humiliate me. But as I passed the bleachers, something strange happened.
It was quiet. No one booed. No one cheered for Trent.
A kid in the front row—a scrawny freshman with glasses—looked me in the eye and gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
I had walked in a criminal. I was walking out a legend.
But legends don’t pay bail. And legends don’t stop corrupt politicians from destroying their families.
Chapter 4: The Cage and the Key
The holding cell at the county precinct smelled like bleach and despair. It was a concrete box with a steel bench and a toilet that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Nixon administration.
They didn’t put me in general population. They knew better. They put me in the “high risk” isolation block. Just me, the concrete, and the buzzing fluorescent light that flickered every four seconds.
My back was stiffening up. A massive bruise was forming where the chair had hit me, spreading across my lower back like a dark thunderhead. Every breath was a negotiation with pain.
I sat on the bench, leaning my head against the cold cinder block wall.
It had been three hours. No phone call. No lawyer. They were stalling.
“Hey! Neo!”
The voice came from the cell across the hall. I stood up and looked through the small, reinforced glass window in the steel door.
It was Big Dave.
They had arrested him too. Apparently, “refusing to disperse” was enough to get the Sergeant at Arms of the Iron Saints thrown in a cage.
“You okay, boss?” Dave shouted, his voice echoing in the empty block.
“I’m fine, Dave,” I called back. “How many did they take?”
“Just us two,” Dave said. “Jax got Ellie out. They’re at the clubhouse. The rest of the boys are… circling.”
“Circling?”
“You know how bees get when you kick the hive?” Dave laughed, a deep, rumbling sound. “They’re circling the precinct, Mason. Every block for two miles. The police scanner is going nuts.”
I closed my eyes. That was good. Pressure was good. But pressure could also make pipes burst.
“Tell them to hold the line,” I said. “No violence. We don’t give them a reason to call the National Guard.”
“They know the drill,” Dave said. Then his voice dropped. “But Mason… the Mayor is here. I saw him walk past with the Chief.”
My stomach tightened.
Ten minutes later, the heavy steel door to my cell block buzzed and clicked open.
It wasn’t a guard.
It was Mayor Henderson. Trent’s father.
He was wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my entire motorcycle shop. He walked with the arrogant stride of a man who owned the pavement he stepped on. Behind him, looking uncomfortable, was the Chief of Police.
The Mayor stopped in front of my cell. He looked at me through the bars like I was an animal in a zoo.
“Mr. Neo,” he said. His voice was smooth, oily. “You’ve caused quite a stir in my town.”
I stayed seated. “Your son assaulted a minor. I defended her. That’s not a stir, Mayor. That’s justice.”
The Mayor chuckled. It was a dry, humorless sound. “Justice is what I say it is, son. I run the judges in this county. I run the DA. And right now, the story isn’t ‘Brother defends sister.’ The story is ‘Violent biker gang terrorizes high school.’”
He stepped closer to the bars.
“I’ve seen your record, Mason. Or should I say, the lack of one? You’ve been careful. The shop is legit. The taxes are paid. You think that makes you safe.”
He smiled, and it was the same nasty smirk his son had worn.
“But here’s the thing about the law,” he whispered. “It’s flexible. Especially when it comes to the welfare of a child.”
I stood up slowly. The pain in my back flared, but I ignored it. I walked to the bars until I was inches from his face.
“What are you talking about?”
“Ellie,” he said. “Sixteen years old. Orphaned. Her legal guardian is a twenty-seven-year-old man with ties to organized crime, currently sitting in a jail cell for assaulting a minor and inciting a riot.”
The blood drained from my face.
“Child Protective Services has already been notified,” the Mayor said, checking his watch. “They’re on their way to your clubhouse right now. Emergency removal order. Unsafe environment.”
The world tilted.
“You don’t touch her,” I growled. My hands gripped the bars so hard the metal bit into my palms. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this!” The Mayor’s mask slipped, revealing the angry, vindictive father underneath. “You embarrassed my son! You embarrassed me! You think you can walk into my school, break my son’s ribs, and just ride away?”
He leaned in, his eyes cold and dead.
“I’m going to take her away from you, Mason. She’ll go into the foster system. Maybe a nice family two counties over. Or maybe a group home. Somewhere you’ll never find her.”
I slammed my fist against the bars. The sound rang out like a gunshot.
“I will kill you,” I said. It wasn’t a threat. It was a statement of fact. “If you take her, I will burn this entire city to the ground.”
The Chief of Police stepped forward, hand on his taser. “Back away from the bars, Neo!”
The Mayor stepped back, straightening his tie. He looked satisfied. He had found the button. He had found the one thing that could break me.
“Enjoy your night, Mason,” he said. “The social worker will pick Ellie up within the hour. By the time you make bail—if you make bail—she’ll be gone.”
He turned to walk away.
I felt a panic I hadn’t felt since the night the highway patrol knocked on my door five years ago. I was helpless. I was caged. I was failing her again.
“Mayor!” I screamed. “Mayor!”
He didn’t look back. The heavy door slammed shut behind him.
I sank to the floor. I put my head in my hands. For the first time in years, I wanted to cry. Not for me. For Ellie. She was terrified, and now men in suits were coming to drag her away from the only family she had left.
“Mason.”
Big Dave’s voice floated across the hall. Soft. Serious.
“Did you hear him?” I whispered.
“I heard him,” Dave said. “And so did the phone.”
I looked up. “What?”
“I still have my one phone call, brother,” Dave said. “I was on the line with Jax when the Mayor walked in. I left the receiver off the hook.”
I stared at the cell across the hall.
“Jax heard everything?”
“Jax heard everything,” Dave confirmed. “He heard the threat. He heard the CPS order. He heard the Mayor admit he owns the judges.”
“So what?” I asked, despair still clouding my mind. “It’s just hearsay. We can’t use it.”
“No,” Dave said. “But Jax isn’t a lawyer. And he didn’t call a lawyer.”
Suddenly, the lights in the cell block flickered.
A low, vibrating hum started to permeate the walls. It wasn’t the ventilation system. It was coming from outside.
It started as a buzz, then grew into a rumble, and then into a roar that shook the dust from the ceiling tiles.
I stood up and went to the small, barred window that looked out onto the back alley of the precinct.
My jaw dropped.
It wasn’t just the Iron Saints.
The alley was full. The street beyond was full.
I saw the patches. Not just our skull and pistons.
I saw the Reapers from the south side. I saw the Black Talons from the city. I saw the Vanguards, a club made up entirely of ex-military police.
Rivals. Enemies. Allies. It didn’t matter.
In the biker world, there are politics, and there are wars over territory. But there is one rule that supersedes everything else. One rule that unites every patch, every rocker, every outlaw on two wheels.
You do not touch the kids.
The Mayor had threatened a child. He had threatened to use the system to destroy a family. And Jax, God bless him, had put out the call.
The roar outside was deafening now. Thousands of engines revving in unison. It was a siege.
The door to the cell block flew open again. The Chief of Police ran in. He looked terrified. His face was pale, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Neo!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “What the hell is going on? There are two thousand bikers outside! They’ve surrounded the building!”
I looked at the Chief. The fear in his eyes was real. He realized that his Mayor had just written a check his badge couldn’t cash.
I walked to the bars. I smiled.
“You might want to unlock this door, Chief,” I said calmly. “Before they unlock it for you.”
Chapter 5: The Siege of Precinct 9
The sound of two thousand motorcycles idling outside a brick building is not a noise you hear. It is a vibration you feel in the marrow of your bones. It rattled the coffee mug on the booking sergeant’s desk. It shook the dust from the fluorescent light fixtures. It was a low-frequency growl, like the earth itself was clearing its throat.
I stood at the bars of my cell, my hands loose at my sides. The fear I had felt five minutes ago—the crushing, suffocating terror of losing Ellie—had evaporated. In its place was a cold, hard resolve.
I wasn’t alone.
The Chief of Police, a man named Miller who usually carried himself with the weary authority of a twenty-year veteran, looked like he was about to have a stroke. He was pressing a radio to his ear, his knuckles white.
“What do you mean ‘all of them’?” he shouted into the receiver. “We can’t have the Vanguards and the Reapers on the same block! They’ve been at war for a decade!”
He listened for a second, his face draining of color.
“They’re parking next to each other?” Miller whispered, horror dawning in his eyes. “They’re shaking hands?”
He lowered the radio slowly. He looked at me.
“You did this,” he said, his voice trembling. “You called down the thunder.”
“I didn’t call anyone, Chief,” I said calmly. “You and your Mayor threatened a child. You broke the one law that matters.”
“The Mayor wants you held,” Miller said, trying to regain some semblance of control. “He wants you processed. Fingerprinted. Arraigned.”
“If you don’t open this door,” Big Dave called out from the cell across the hall, his voice booming like a cannon shot, “those boys outside are going to open it for you. And they won’t use a key.”
Just then, a uniformed officer burst into the cell block. He wasn’t wearing his hat. His tie was askew.
“Chief! You gotta see this!” he yelled. “Turn on the TV! Channel 5!”
Miller scrambled to the small television mounted in the corner of the guard station. He fumbled with the remote, his hands shaking so bad he dropped it twice. When the screen finally flickered to life, the image made the air leave the room.
It was a live shot from a news helicopter hovering over the precinct.
The streets surrounding the station were a sea of black leather, chrome, and denim. It wasn’t a mob; it was an army. The bikes were parked in perfect formation, row after row, blocking every exit, every alley, every approach.
And in the center of the crowd, standing on top of a flatbed truck that had been pulled up to the front steps, was Jax.
He was holding a microphone connected to a massive PA system usually used for outdoor concerts.
“Turn it up,” I commanded.
Miller obeyed.
Jax’s voice crackled through the TV speakers, tinny but clear.
“…citizens of Northwood,” Jax was saying, his voice vibrating with rage. “Mayor Henderson thinks he owns this town. He thinks he can use the police like his personal security guard. He thinks he can hurt a sixteen-year-old girl and get away with it.”
The camera zoomed in on Jax. He held up his phone.
“This is a recording from inside the jail, taken ten minutes ago,” Jax shouted. “Listen to your Mayor.”
He held the phone to the mic.
The audio was fuzzy, but the voice was unmistakable. It was the Mayor, speaking to me in my cell.
“I run the judges in this county… Child Protective Services has already been notified… She’ll go into the foster system… somewhere you’ll never find her.”
The recording ended.
On the TV screen, the crowd of bikers—and now, hundreds of regular citizens who had gathered on the sidewalks—erupted. It wasn’t a cheer. It was a roar of outrage.
“He threatened to kidnap a child to cover up his son’s assault!” Jax screamed. “We aren’t leaving until Mason Neo walks out those doors! We aren’t leaving until Ellie is safe!”
The Chief turned off the TV. The silence in the room was heavy.
“He’s finished,” Miller whispered. “The Mayor is finished.”
“That’s politics,” I said, gripping the bars. “I don’t care about his job. I care about my sister. Open the door, Miller.”
Miller looked at the door, then at me. He pulled the keys from his belt.
“If I let you go,” he said, jamming the key into the lock, “you have to disperse them. You have to get them out of my city. We can’t have a riot.”
“Open it,” I said.
The lock clicked. The heavy steel door swung open.
I didn’t wait for paperwork. I didn’t wait for my property bag. I walked out of the cell, my boots echoing on the concrete.
Big Dave was released a second later. He grinned at me, a wolfish, predatory smile.
“Told you they were circling,” he grunted.
We walked through the precinct. Every cop we passed looked at the floor or pretended to be busy with paperwork. They knew they were on the wrong side of this fight. They knew the Mayor had used them.
When we pushed open the front doors of the station, the noise hit us like a physical blow.
Two thousand engines revved at once. It was a salute. A wall of sound that vibrated in my chest.
I stood on the top step. I raised my fist.
The noise stopped instantly. Two thousand men and women went silent, waiting.
Jax jumped down from the truck and ran up the steps. He looked frantic.
“Mason,” he said, breathless. “We played the tape. The news is running it.”
“I saw,” I said. “Good work, brother. Now let’s go get Ellie.”
Jax’s face fell. He didn’t move.
“What?” I asked. The ice in my stomach returned.
“Mason… when I got to the school to pick her up… she wasn’t there.”
The world stopped spinning.
“What do you mean she wasn’t there?” I grabbed Jax by his vest, lifting him onto his toes. “You texted me she was safe!”
“I thought she was!” Jax stammered. “The nurse said her aunt picked her up. But Mason… you don’t have an aunt.”
“The Mayor,” I whispered.
“The CPS order,” Dave growled from behind me. “They didn’t wait for the paperwork. They took her straight from the school nurse’s office. They bypassed the house.”
“Where is she?” I roared.
“We tracked the van,” Jax said, pulling out his phone. “One of the prospects saw a county transport van with a police escort leaving the school via the back service road ten minutes ago. They’re heading for the Interstate.”
“They’re taking her out of the county,” I realized. “If they get her across the county line, into the state system, I’ll never find her. The paperwork will bury her for months.”
I looked out at the sea of bikers.
“I need a bike,” I said.
“Take mine,” a voice said from the front row.
It was the President of the Reapers. A man named ‘Ghost’ who I had fought in a bar brawl three years ago. We hated each other.
He climbed off his custom chopper—a beast of a machine with a stretched frame and a massive engine—and kicked the kickstand down.
“She’s full of gas,” Ghost said, tossing me the keys. “Go get the girl.”
I caught the keys.
“Why?” I asked him.
Ghost spit on the ground. “Because nobody touches the kids, Mason. Not even the damn Mayor.”
I mounted the bike. It felt different than mine, heavier, meaner. I turned the key. The engine roared to life.
“Dave,” I shouted over the noise. “Get the boys. We need to shut down the Interstate.”
“Which way are they headed?” Dave asked, climbing onto a borrowed bike.
“South,” I said, revving the engine until the tachometer redlined. “Toward the state orphanage.”
I dropped the clutch. The rear tire smoked, screaming against the asphalt.
I didn’t look back. I knew they were following.
The hunt was on.
Chapter 6: Highway to Hell
The speedometer on Ghost’s chopper read 110 miles per hour. The wind was trying to rip my head off, but I was tucked low, chest to the tank, merging with the machine.
We were on I-95 South, a ribbon of concrete that cut through the suburbs and into the dense pine forests of the state line.
Behind me, the highway was a solid wall of light. Thousands of headlights. It looked like a river of lava flowing in the dark.
The police had tried to set up a roadblock at the on-ramp. Two cruisers parked sideways, lights flashing.
They didn’t stand a chance.
The Vanguards—the ex-military club—had taken the lead for that part. They didn’t ram the cars; they just didn’t stop. They split the lane, riding onto the grass shoulders, jumping the curbs with the precision of a cavalry charge. The cops had dived into the ditch for safety.
Now, the road was ours.
“Jax!” I shouted into the Bluetooth comms unit Ghost had rigged in the helmet. “Do you have eyes on the van?”
“Prospect drone is up,” Jax’s voice crackled in my ear. “They’re five miles ahead. White Ford Transit. Two squad cars flanking it. They’re doing ninety.”
“They know we’re coming,” I said.
“Yeah, they know,” Jax said. “State Troopers are mobilizing at the county line. That’s ten miles out. If they get past the troopers, Mason… it’s over. We can’t fight the State Police. That’s a federal offense.”
“Then we stop them before the line,” I said.
I twisted the throttle. The engine screamed. 120 mph.
I weaved through the evening traffic. Terrified commuters swerved out of the way, honking, but I didn’t see them. I only saw the road ahead.
I saw the taillights.
A mile ahead. The distinct light bar of police cruisers.
“I see them!” I yelled.
“We’re with you, brother,” Dave’s voice came on the line. “On your six.”
I pushed the bike harder. The vibration was numbing my hands, but I didn’t care.
As I closed the gap, the rear police cruiser noticed me. The officer inside must have seen the lone headlight approaching like a missile.
He swerved into the center lane, trying to block me.
I didn’t brake. I feinted left, then cut hard right, dropping the bike so low the footpeg scraped sparks off the asphalt. I shot past him on the passenger side, inches from his bumper.
I was alongside the van now.
I looked into the window.
It was dark, tinted. But I could see a silhouette. A small form huddled against the metal mesh of the safety partition.
Ellie.
Rage, hot and blinding, flooded my vision.
I pounded on the side of the van with my fist.
“PULL OVER!” I screamed, though I knew they couldn’t hear me over the wind.
The driver, a woman in a CPS uniform, looked terrified. She was gripping the wheel, eyes wide. The police officer in the passenger seat was shouting into his radio.
He rolled down his window. He pointed a gun at me.
“BACK OFF!” he mouthed.
I saw the muzzle flash.
He didn’t shoot me. He fired a warning shot into the air.
At 120 miles per hour, that was a declaration of war.
“They’re shooting!” I yelled into the comms.
“Clear the lane!” It was Ghost’s voice. “Reapers coming through!”
I looked in my mirror.
Three riders from the Reapers MC were surging forward. They were riding modified heavy baggers, built like tanks.
They didn’t care about warning shots.
They pulled up alongside the rear police cruiser—the one that had tried to block me. One of the Reapers kicked the cruiser’s front fender.
It shouldn’t have done much. But at high speed, physics is a delicate thing. The cruiser wobbled, overcorrected, and spun out. It slid across three lanes of traffic, tires screaming, before coming to a rest in the grassy median.
One down.
The lead cruiser—the one in front of the van—saw this. He hit his brakes, trying to box the van in to protect it.
That was his mistake.
Slowing down gave us the advantage.
I cut in front of the van. I risked everything. If the driver didn’t brake, I was dead. I was roadkill.
I squeezed my brake lever, watching the van’s grille fill my mirrors. It got closer. Closer. I could see the rust spots on the bumper.
The driver panicked. She slammed on the brakes.
Smoke poured from the van’s tires as it locked up, fishtailing wildly.
I matched its speed, slowing down gradually, forcing it to a crawl.
Behind the van, fifty bikers swarmed, boxing it in from the rear and sides. The remaining police cruiser was completely cut off, surrounded by a wall of angry steel.
We brought the convoy to a halt right in the middle of Interstate 95.
Silence returned, except for the idling of engines and the distant wail of sirens approaching from the south.
I kicked the kickstand down and jumped off the bike before it had even fully stopped.
I ran to the side door of the van. It was locked.
“Open it!” I screamed, pounding on the glass. “Ellie!”
Inside, I saw her face press against the window. She was crying, screaming my name, her hands flat against the glass.
The passenger door opened. The cop who had fired the shot stepped out, his weapon raised and leveled at my chest.
“Get on the ground!” he was shaking. He was young, maybe twenty-five. He was terrified. “Get away from the vehicle!”
I didn’t get on the ground. I walked toward him.
“You have my sister,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. “And you have three seconds to put that gun down before my friends decide they don’t like you pointing it at me.”
The cop looked around.
He was surrounded. Three hundred bikers had dismounted and were forming a tight circle around the van. No weapons were drawn, but the threat was implicit in every crossed arm, every glare, every tire iron held loosely in a gloved hand.
“This is a lawful transport!” the cop squeaked. “We have a court order!”
“I don’t care,” I said.
I took another step. The gun barrel was two feet from my chest.
“Shoot me,” I said. “Go ahead. But look around, officer. If you pull that trigger, do you think you’re making it home to your family tonight?”
The cop’s eyes darted from me to Big Dave, then to Ghost, then to the endless sea of bikers stretching back down the highway.
His hand wavered.
“Put it down, son,” Big Dave said gently. “Nobody has to die today. Just give us the girl.”
The cop looked at the CPS driver. She was sobbing.
“Let her go,” the driver whispered. “Just let her go. I didn’t sign up for this.”
Slowly, the cop lowered the gun. He holstered it. He put his hands up.
“I’m just following orders,” he whispered.
“Wrong orders,” I said.
I pushed past him. I grabbed the handle of the sliding door. It was locked.
“Unlock it!” I shouted at the driver.
Click.
I ripped the door open.
Ellie flew at me. She didn’t walk; she launched herself into my chest.
I caught her, wrapping my arms around her so tight I thought I might break her. I buried my face in her hair. She smelled like fear and antiseptic.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered, tears finally stinging my own eyes. “I’ve got you. I’m never letting you go.”
“They said you were in jail,” she sobbed into my vest. “They said I was never going to see you again.”
“They lied,” I said.
I pulled back and looked at her. The bandage on her forehead was fresh. Her eyes were red. But she was safe.
“We have to go,” Dave said, stepping up beside me. “State Troopers are two minutes out. We have to get her to sanctuary.”
“The clubhouse?” I asked.
“No,” Dave said grimly. “They’ll raid the clubhouse. They’ll have a warrant within the hour.”
“Then where?”
“The border,” Ghost said, stepping forward. “My club has a compound across the state line. It’s on a reservation. Tribal police jurisdiction. The state cops can’t touch you there without federal approval.”
I looked at Ghost. My enemy. My savior.
“You’d do that for us?”
“For the girl,” Ghost corrected. “Now ride. We’ll block the road.”
I nodded. I lifted Ellie onto the back of Ghost’s chopper.
“Hold on tight,” I told her. “Do not let go.”
“I never will,” she whispered.
I swung a leg over the bike.
But before I could start the engine, a black SUV came screaming down the emergency lane, bypassing the traffic jam. It screeched to a halt ten yards away.
The doors opened.
It wasn’t the police.
It was four men in tactical gear. No badges. No uniforms. Private security.
And stepping out from behind them, holding a megaphone, was Mayor Henderson.
He looked unhinged. His tie was gone, his shirt unbuttoned. He looked like a man who knew his life was collapsing and was desperate to take everyone down with him.
“STOP!” the Mayor screamed into the megaphone.
The four security guards raised assault rifles. Real ones. Military grade.
The bikers flinched. We had tire irons and knives. We didn’t have automatic weapons.
“You think you’ve won?” the Mayor shrieked, his voice cracking. “You think you can embarrass me? You kidnapped a ward of the state! That is a felony! That is kidnapping!”
He pointed at the guards.
“Take the girl,” the Mayor ordered. “If they resist… shoot them. All of them.”
The guards hesitated. Shooting unarmed civilians on a highway was a death sentence.
“I SAID SHOOT THEM!” the Mayor screamed, foaming at the mouth. “I will pay you double! Triple! Kill these animals!”
One of the guards leveled his rifle at me. At Ellie.
I shielded her with my body. There was nowhere to go. We were boxed in.
“Close your eyes, Ellie,” I whispered.
The guard’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Then, a sound cut through the air. A sound louder than the bikes. Louder than the shouting.
THWUP-THWUP-THWUP-THWUP.
A spotlight from the sky blinded us all.
A black helicopter descended from the darkness, hovering low over the highway. The wind from its rotors knocked the Mayor’s megaphone from his hand.
It wasn’t a news chopper. And it wasn’t the police.
On the side of the fuselage, in gold letters, were the words: FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.
A voice boomed from the helicopter’s PA system, shaking the ground.
“THIS IS SPECIAL AGENT REYNOLDS. DROP YOUR WEAPONS. ALL OF YOU.”
The Mayor looked up, his face turning the color of ash.
He didn’t see a rescue. He saw his end.
But as the dust swirled and the guards lowered their guns, I felt Ellie grip my waist tighter.
“Mason,” she whispered. “Look.”
I looked where she was pointing.
Behind the Mayor’s SUV, in the shadows of the overpass, a figure was standing.
It was Trent. The Mayor’s son.
He was holding a handgun. A small, silver pistol he must have stolen from his father’s desk.
He wasn’t looking at the FBI. He wasn’t looking at the bikers.
He was looking straight at me. And he was crying.
He raised the gun.
Chapter 7: The Bullet and the Badge
The sound of a helicopter rotor wash is deafening, but the silence of a gun pointed at your little sister is louder.
It drowned out the wind. It drowned out the sirens. It drowned out the chaotic shouting of the FBI agents rappelling down ropes onto the highway asphalt.
Trent’s hands were shaking. The silver pistol—a .38 snub-nose that looked like a toy in his varsity grip—was wavering back and forth between me and Ellie.
He was crying. Snot ran down his face, mixing with tears of pure, unadulterated panic. He wasn’t a killer. He was a boy who had been told his whole life that he was a king, and now that his kingdom was burning, he didn’t know how to be a man.
“It’s your fault!” Trent screamed, his voice cracking hysterically. “You ruined everything! My dad… the school… everyone is laughing at me!”
“Trent, put it down,” I said. My voice was calm, but my blood was turning to ice. I stepped slowly in front of Ellie, shielding her completely with my body.
“Don’t move!” Trent shrieked. He took a step closer. He was fifteen feet away. At that range, even a shaking hand doesn’t miss.
Behind him, the Mayor was on his knees, hands on his head, screaming at the FBI agents who were cuffing him. He didn’t even look at his son. He was too busy bargaining for a lawyer.
“Look at your dad, Trent,” I said, taking a small step forward. “He doesn’t care about you. He’s only worried about saving his own skin. Don’t throw your life away for him.”
“Shut up!” Trent wiped his nose with his sleeve, the gun dipping dangerously for a second before snapping back up. “You think you’re so tough? You think because you have a bike you can do whatever you want?”
“I’m not tough,” I said softly. “I’m just a brother. Like you’re a son. Put the gun down, Trent. We can walk away from this.”
“No one walks away!” he screamed. “It’s over!”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
I saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
Time didn’t slow down; it stopped. I saw the physics of the moment with terrifying clarity. The angle of the barrel. The position of Ellie behind me. The distance.
I didn’t have time to tackle him. I didn’t have time to reach him.
I did the only thing I could do. I made myself bigger.
I threw my arms out wide, expanding my chest, covering every possible inch of space between the gun and my sister.
“NO!”
The gunshot was a pop. A small, insignificant sound amidst the roar of the helicopter.
But the impact was like a sledgehammer.
It hit me in the left shoulder, just below the collarbone. It felt like being punched by a freight train. The force spun me around, my boots skidding on the asphalt.
I didn’t fall. I couldn’t fall. If I fell, Ellie was exposed.
“Mason!” Ellie’s scream tore through my eardrums.
I stumbled back, grabbing her, pulling her down to the pavement with me. I covered her with my body, burying her under the weight of my leather vest and the blood that was already soaking through my shirt.
“Stay down!” I gasped, the taste of copper filling my mouth.
I looked up.
Trent was standing there, the gun smoking in his hand. He looked shocked. He looked at the gun like it was a foreign object that had just appeared in his palm. He hadn’t meant to shoot. Or maybe he had. It didn’t matter now.
“Drop the weapon! Drop it now!”
The FBI agents weren’t rappelling anymore. They were on the ground. Three of them, clad in heavy body armor, rifles raised.
Trent didn’t drop it. He raised the gun to his own temple.
“Don’t!” I yelled, trying to push myself up, but my arm collapsed under me.
“DO NOT DO IT, SON!” An agent screamed.
But before Trent could pull the trigger, a shadow moved.
It wasn’t the police. It wasn’t the Feds.
It was Ghost.
The President of the Reapers had moved with a speed that belied his size. He didn’t tackle Trent. He didn’t punch him.
He simply walked through the space between the police line and the boy, ignoring the FBI agents screaming at him to stand down.
Ghost reached out one massive, tattooed hand and grabbed the barrel of the gun. He put his thumb behind the hammer, blocking it from firing.
Trent looked up at him, terrified.
“It’s done, boy,” Ghost rumbled, his voice deep and final. “You hurt one of ours. You don’t get the easy way out.”
Ghost twisted the gun out of Trent’s hand like he was taking a toy from a toddler. He tossed it to the ground.
Then, with a movement almost too fast to see, Ghost backhanded Trent across the face.
The boy crumpled to the ground, unconscious before he hit the asphalt.
“Secure him!” the FBI agent shouted.
The swarm descended. Agents on the Mayor. Agents on the private security guards. Agents on Trent.
And then, hands on me.
“We have an officer down! Or… civilian down!” An agent was kneeling beside me, cutting away my shirt.
“I’m okay,” I wheezed, trying to sit up. “Ellie? Is she hit?”
“I’m here, Mason! I’m here!” Ellie was right in front of my face, her hands pressing against my shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. Her hands were shaking, covered in my blood. “Please don’t die. Please, please, please.”
“It’s just a scratch,” I lied, though the edges of my vision were turning gray.
I looked around.
The standoff was over. The Mayor was in cuffs, screaming about jurisdiction. His son was being loaded onto a stretcher. The private security goons were face down on the pavement.
And standing in a circle around us, ten deep, were the bikers.
Reapers. Iron Saints. Vanguards.
They had formed a perimeter. The FBI agents looked nervous, their rifles held at the low ready, eyeing the three hundred men who refused to back down.
Special Agent Reynolds, the man from the helicopter, walked into the center of the circle. He was a tall man with graying hair and eyes that had seen too much. He looked at the Mayor, then at the bikers, then at me bleeding on the ground.
He holstered his weapon.
“Let the paramedics through,” Reynolds ordered his men. “Stand down.”
He looked at Big Dave, who was standing over me like a guardian gargoyle.
“You boys made a hell of a mess on my highway,” Reynolds said.
“We cleaned up yours,” Dave growled.
Reynolds looked at the Mayor being stuffed into the back of a black SUV. He cracked a small, grim smile.
“Yeah,” Reynolds said. “Maybe you did. RICO case. We’ve been building it for six months. Mayor Henderson was laundering cartel money through the school district construction contracts. We were waiting for him to make a move. We didn’t expect him to kidnap a kid.”
He looked down at me.
“You took a bullet for her, son.”
“I’d do it again,” I whispered.
“I believe you,” Reynolds said. He tapped his radio. “Clear the road. Get this man to St. Mary’s. And… let the bikes escort him.”
“Excuse me, sir?” a state trooper asked, looking confused.
“You heard me,” Reynolds said, turning his back. “Official escort. They aren’t going anywhere until they know he’s safe. Let them ride.”
Chapter 8: The Iron Code
Hospitals usually smell like bleach and sickness. But when I woke up in recovery room 404, it smelled like leather and exhaust fumes.
I blinked my eyes open. The pain in my shoulder was a dull throb now, muffled by heavy painkillers. My arm was in a sling, strapped tight to my chest.
The room was crowded.
Ellie was asleep in the chair next to the bed, her head resting on the mattress, her hand clutching my good hand. She looked exhausted, but clean. The blood was washed off.
Standing by the window was Big Dave. Sitting in the corner was Jax. And leaning against the doorframe, looking out into the hallway, was Ghost.
“You’re alive,” Dave said, his voice surprisingly soft.
“Try not to sound so surprised,” I croaked. My throat was dry as a desert.
Ellie’s head snapped up. Her eyes went wide.
“Mason!”
She jumped up, careful not to jostle the bed, and kissed my cheek. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes.
“You stupid, stupid idiot,” she whispered. “You got shot.”
“Varsity aim,” I smiled weakly. “He missed the important stuff.”
“Through and through,” Ghost said from the doorway. “Clean shot. Missed the artery, missed the bone. You’ll have a nasty scar and a stiff arm when it rains, but you’ll ride again.”
“What happened?” I asked, trying to sit up. “The Mayor? Trent?”
“Gone,” Jax said, stepping forward with a cup of water. “Federal custody. No bail. The FBI threw the book at them. Kidnapping, attempted murder, corruption, racketeering. The Mayor is looking at twenty years. Trent is being charged as an adult.”
“And us?” I asked. “The club?”
“That’s the interesting part,” Dave chuckled. “Agent Reynolds had a little chat with the District Attorney. Seems like the ‘official’ story is that a concerned citizens’ group assisted federal agents in stopping a fleeing felon.”
“Concerned citizens’ group?” I laughed, which hurt my shoulder.
“We’re basically Boy Scouts now,” Ghost grunted. “Don’t get used to it.”
Ghost pushed off the doorframe and walked over to the bed. He looked down at me. This was a man I had fought in bars. A man who led a rival club. A man I was supposed to hate.
He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a patch. It wasn’t a Reaper patch. It was a generic patch, black with white stitching. It simply said: FAMILY.
He tossed it onto the blankets.
“We’re square, Neo,” Ghost said. “You ride south, you ride safe. My boys won’t touch you.”
He looked at Ellie.
“You got a hell of a brother, kid. Keep him out of trouble.”
With that, Ghost turned and walked out. I heard the distinct rumble of his chopper starting up in the parking lot below a minute later.
“We have to go,” Dave said, checking his watch. “Visiting hours ended two hours ago. The nurses are terrified of us, so they let us stay, but we shouldn’t push it.”
“Take Ellie home,” I said. “Lock the shop. Feed the cat.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ellie said stubbornly, sitting back down. “I’m staying right here until you walk out.”
Dave smiled. “She’s got the stubborn gene, Mason. Nothing I can do.”
He patted my leg. “Rest up, brother. The road will be there when you’re ready.”
They left us alone. The room was quiet, save for the beeping of the monitor.
I looked at Ellie. She was tracing the lines on the palm of my hand with her finger.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked up, confused. “For what? Saving my life?”
“For bringing this to your door,” I said. “I promised Mom I’d give you a normal life. This… this isn’t normal. Bikers, guns, FBI raids. You should be worrying about prom, not prison.”
Ellie stood up. She walked to the window and looked out.
“Come here,” she said.
“I can’t walk yet.”
“Yes, you can. Come here.”
I gritted my teeth and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The room spun for a second, but I steadied myself. I walked over to the window, leaning on her shoulder for support.
We looked down into the parking lot of St. Mary’s Hospital.
It wasn’t empty.
The parking lot was full. The street outside was full.
Hundreds of bikes. Iron Saints. Reapers. Vanguards. Independent riders.
They were sitting on their bikes, keeping a vigil. They were smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, talking quietly. They weren’t revving their engines. They were just… there.
“You think normal is better than this?” Ellie asked, gesturing to the sea of chrome below.
“Normal is safer,” I said.
“Normal is lonely,” Ellie corrected. “That boy, Trent? He was normal. He was popular. He had a rich dad and a big house. And he was alone. When he fell, no one caught him.”
She looked up at me, her eyes fierce and proud.
“You have an army, Mason. And because of you, I have an army too.”
She leaned her head against my good shoulder.
“I don’t want normal,” she whispered. “I want family. And we have the biggest one in the world.”
I looked down at the bikers. I saw Big Dave laughing with a nurse. I saw the prospects bringing coffee to the Reapers. I saw a community forged not in blood, but in oil and loyalty.
I realized she was right.
I put my arm around her.
“Okay,” I said. “No normal. Just us.”
“Just us,” she agreed. “And three hundred uncles on Harleys.”
I laughed. It hurt, but it felt good.
Three days later, I walked out of the hospital.
The sun was shining. The air was crisp.
My bike was waiting at the curb. Big Dave had fixed the dent in the tank and polished the chrome until it blinded me.
I swung my leg over the saddle. It was difficult with the shoulder, but I managed.
Ellie climbed on the back. She put on her helmet—a new one, painted with a phoenix rising from the ashes. She wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Always,” she said.
I turned the key. The engine roared to life, a heartbeat of steel and fire.
Behind me, three hundred engines answered.
We pulled out onto the main road. The wind hit my face, smelling of freedom and gasoline. We weren’t running from anything anymore. We were just riding.
The Mayor was in a cell. The bully was a memory. And my sister was safe.
I shifted into second gear, the vibration of the bike soothing the ache in my bones.
We are the Iron Saints. We are the outcasts. We are the broken toys of society.
But if you touch one of us, you touch us all.
And if you ever, ever touch the kids…
God help you.
Because we won’t.
END
