Page 61 of The Biker's Second Chance
Shit happens fast when there's a plan to follow. I have to be careful. If I I play this wrong it could all go bad. The last thing I want to do is lose another brother. The sting of losing Zero is still too fresh.
Right now, everyone is still focused on what we are going to do about Xavier, I don't think anyone has really let it sink in that Zero is gone.
I know if someone else goes down, the despair could literally breaks us.
I am halfway to the door when she steps in front of me.
Jayne plants herself in the hallway, hair mussed from sleep, my shirt hanging off one shoulder. Her eyes are swollen as if she were just crying, but there is steel under the softness. The clubhouse is a low hum behind us. Boots thudding. Metal clacking. Guns being checked. It smells like oil, coffee, and nerves.
“Move, Jayne.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend.
“Make me,” she says, chin up. “You are not leaving me behind.”
I drag a hand through my hair. I want to argue. I want to put her back in my bed and barricade the door. But my brothers are already loading up, and Leo is looking at me like time is gasoline and I am holding a match.
“ Do you have any idea what we’re walking into,” I squint my eyes at her. I don't know how much she knows.
“Yes. And I know what we are walking out with.” She reaches for my kutte, fist hooked in the leather like she dares me to shake her off. “Those women will not trust a swarm of armed men in leather and guns. They will trust me. You need me.”
She is right and I know it.
I move closer, lower my voice. I need her to understand how serious this is. If I'm worried about her I'm not going to be able to do what I need to do. “You ride in the trucks. Rumble in the first, Tella in the second. You do not get out until I say. If bullets start flying, you drop to the floorboard and keep your head down. I swear to God, Jaynie, if you do not follow my lead tonight I will handcuff you to my bed and throw away the key.”
Her mouth twitches. “Promises, promises.”
“Not a promise. A warning.”
Her palm presses flat to my chest. My heart kicks under her hand like a beast trying to get out. She always brings out the deepest parts of me. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
“Then give me one promise. You do not die on me.”
I take her wrist and squeeze. “I do not plan on it.”
She nods once. “Then let’s go save some girls.”
Out in the lot, engines crack to life. The night air is cold enough to bite. Leo eases up to my shoulder as we mount. “You sure about this, brother?”
“No. But waiting is killing us faster.”
He studies me for one beat, then grunts. “Then we ride.”
We roll out in a staggered column. Bikes up front. Two box trucks behind with the back doors pulled down, Rumble drivingthe first, Tella the second, Jayne riding shotgun with Rumble. I catch a glimpse of her in the side mirror, hands white-knuckled on the dash, lips moving like she is praying or cussing or both.
***
The road thins into the port district. Cranes loom like iron skeletons against a dark-blue sky. The shipyard is a maze of corrugated warehouses and stacked containers stenciled with numbers and rust. It smells like salt, diesel, and rotten fish.
I lift a hand. The column fans out and idles in the shadows.
“Last chance to rethink this,” Leo voice cracks through my in helmet headset.
“We are done reacting,” I answer. “We hit hard. We hit fast. Then we get the hell out with whoever is breathing.”
Silence. Then the clicks of mics opening one by one. Lash. Creek. Torch. Virus. Rumble. Tella.
Ready.
“Move.”
