I turned around. A woman in a navy-blue suit was stepping out of a Prius. This was Linda, the court-appointed guardian ad litem for Maya’s case. She held a clipboard like a shield. She had been tasked with evaluating if a “reformed” outlaw could actually provide a safe environment for a high-profile witness.
“Linda,” I said, nodding. “You’re early.”
“I like to see how people live when they aren’t expecting me,” she said, her eyes scanning the dilapidated house. “This is… quite a project, Jax.”
“I’m a mechanic,” I said, wiping grease from my hands onto a rag. “I know how to fix things. The roof is solid, the plumbing is new, and I’ve already started the nursery… I mean, the bedroom for Maya.”
Linda walked up the porch steps, the wood creaking under her weight. “You realize the opposition you’re facing? The state attorney is arguing that Maya is a national security asset. They want her in a witness protection facility, not a fixer-upper in the sticks.”
I followed her inside. The house smelled of fresh sawdust and white paint. I’d spent the last three weeks working twenty-hour days. My hands were blistered, and my back was a map of pain, but the interior was beginning to look like a home.
“She’s not an asset,” I growled, my voice still carrying that gravelly edge. “She’s a little girl who saw her father murdered. She doesn’t need a ‘facility.’ She needs a porch. She needs a dog. She needs someone who isn’t going to look at her through a two-way mirror.”
Linda stopped in the hallway and turned to face me. “And you think you’re that person? A man who spent thirty years in a motorcycle club known for international violence? A man who was involved in a shootout with a private military firm only six months ago?”
“I didn’t start that fire,” I said, stepping closer. I didn’t loom over her—I was trying to be “civil”—but my presence filled the small hallway. “I finished it. I saved her life when your ‘system’ was busy taking bribes from the man who kidnapped her.”
Linda didn’t flinch. She’d spent twenty years in the trenches of family court; she’d seen it all. “The ledger you leaked… it did more damage than you know, Jax. Senator Sterling is rotting in a cell, but the people he worked for? The ones whose names were hidden in the secondary encryption? They haven’t forgotten you. If Maya stays with you, you’re putting a target on her back.”
“That target is already there,” I replied. “Difference is, I’m the only one who knows how to shoot back.”
We walked into Maya’s room. I’d painted the walls a soft blue—the color she’d told me she liked when we were sitting on the ridge at the Fortress. There was a new bed, a desk for her schoolwork, and a bookshelf filled with the “Star Quest” series I’d tracked down at a used bookstore in Columbus.
On the nightstand sat the silver winged-skull pin, polished until it shone like a mirror.
Linda looked at the pin, then at the books. Her expression softened, just for a second. “She asks about you every day, you know. She’s in a group home in Toledo. She’s refusing to speak to the therapists. She told them she’ll only talk if her ‘Dad’ is in the room.”
The word hit me like a physical blow. I had to look away, focusing on a loose piece of trim on the window.
“How is she?” I asked, my voice thick.
“She’s surviving,” Linda said. “But she’s fading. She needs a reason to hope, Jax.”
“I’m working as fast as I can,” I said. “I’ve got the job at the local machine shop. I’m attending the ‘anger management’ classes the court ordered—which is a joke, by the way. I’ve stayed clean. No contact with the club for six months.”
That was the hardest part. The Hells Angels were my blood. Big Mike, Hammer, Preacher—they were my brothers. But to win Maya, I had to be a ghost to them. I hadn’t seen a single Harley in half a year. I missed the roar of the engines. I missed the brotherhood. But every time I felt the urge to ride to the Fortress, I looked at the photo I’d tucked into my wallet—the one Sarah had taken of Maya smiling in the infirmary.
“I’ll submit my report,” Linda said, heading back toward the door. “But don’t get your hopes up. The hearing is in ten days. Sterling’s lawyers are still trying to argue that the evidence was obtained illegally. If they win that motion, the whole house of cards falls down, and Maya becomes a ‘ward of the state’ again.”
“They won’t win,” I said.
After Linda left, I sat on the porch and watched the sunset. The quiet of the town was unnerving. I felt like a hunter waiting in a blind, but I didn’t know if I was the hunter or the prey.
That night, the silence was broken.
I was in the garage, working on an old 1970 Sportster I was planning to sell to cover the next mortgage payment. A low hum began to vibrate through the concrete floor. It wasn’t a car. It was the synchronized thunder of multiple V-twin engines.
I stood up, my heart racing. I grabbed a crowbar from the workbench. I’d promised no contact, but if Sterling’s people had found me, the promise didn’t mean a damn thing.
The lights of four bikes swept across the garage door. They cut their engines in unison.
I walked out into the driveway.
It wasn’t the Unity Group. It was Big Mike, Hammer, and two other brothers from the Dayton chapter. They weren’t wearing their vests. They were in “civilian” clothes—hoodies and jeans—but you couldn’t hide the way they carried themselves.
“I told you guys to stay away,” I said, though I couldn’t help the feeling of relief that washed over me.
Big Mike climbed off his bike, his boots heavy on the gravel. “We didn’t come for a beer, Jax. We came to warn you.”
“Warn me about what?”
“The ledger,” Mike said, his face grim under the streetlamp. “Dave’s been monitoring the dark web. Someone just put a two-million-dollar bounty on the USB drive. They don’t just want it back; they want everyone who touched it erased. And Jax… they know where Maya is.”
I felt the world tilt. “Toledo? The group home is supposed to be a black site.”
“There are no black sites when you have two million dollars to throw around,” Mike said. “Hammer caught a whisper at a dive bar near the border. A team of contractors—not Unity, these are freelancers—is moving on the home tonight. They’re going to stage a fire, kidnap the girl, and disappear.”
I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t care about the court hearing or Linda’s report. I ran into the house, grabbed my cedar chest, and pulled out my leather vest. I slid it on, the weight of it feeling like a long-lost limb. I grabbed my Smith & Wesson and tucked it into the small of my back.
“Jax, if you go there, you break your probation,” Mike said. “You’ll never get legal custody.”
“If I don’t go there, she’ll be dead or in a cage in a foreign country by morning!” I roared. “I’m not losing her, Mike. Not now.”
“We’re with you,” Hammer said, slamming a fresh mag into his sidearm.
“No,” I said. “You guys stay back. If the FEDS see a pack of bikers, they’ll open fire. I go in alone. I’m just a ‘concerned father’ checking on his kid.”
“Alone? Jax, it’s a tactical team,” Mike argued.
“I’ve got an advantage they don’t,” I said, mounting my Sportster.
“What’s that?”
“I’ve got nothing left to lose but her.”
I kicked the Sportster to life. It didn’t have the weight of the Electra Glide, but it was fast and loud. I tore out of the driveway, the wind screaming past my ears. I had two hours to get to Toledo.
As I rode, the “Iron Jax” persona took over. The mechanic, the house-painter, the anger-management student—they all withered away. I was the Enforcer again. I pushed the bike to its absolute limit, weaving through traffic like a ghost.
