Page 33 of Tater
He smiled.
“Soon, pretty thing. We finish what you started.”
He didn’t have to wait long to find one of Tater’s men.
The RBMC was predictable that way—honor before reason. They always circled back for their own.
The kid’s name was Finch. Barely patched, still too green to understand that loyalty can get you killed. Shadow found him limping out of a roadside bar before dawn, a bruised cut hanging off his shoulder.
The boy never saw him coming.
Shadow stepped out of the alley, quiet as a confession. The chain gleamed in his fist under the flickering neon.
“You ride with the Bastards?”
Finch froze. “Who’s asking?”
Shadow’s smile was all teeth. “Just a man looking for his girl.”
He moved faster than the kid could flinch—one strike, clean and surgical. The knife went in under the ribs. Finch gasped, the sound was small and broken.
Shadow caught him before he hit the ground, whispered against his ear, “Tell your president—she’s not his to save.”
He left him breathing, barely. Enough to deliver the message.
By sunrise, the chain was slick with someone else’s blood. Shadow cleaned it, hung it around his neck again, and rode north toward the ridge.
The dragon mark still burned in his memory, the one that flared gold across her throat the night she finally turned on him. He’d been dreaming of that glow ever since.
And now she’d led him straight to the man who thought he could keep her.
Perfect.
He twisted the throttle, grinning into the wind, rain already gathering on the horizon.
“Hold on to her, Tater,” he murmured. “Let’s see how long you last.”
CHAPTER 16
The Ridge
Rain hammered the ridge like the sky was trying to drown the earth.
The wind tasted like metal and old memories.
Shadow stood in the curve of the road, helmet still on, the chain gleaming under the lightning. She could see it — streaked dark where blood never fully washed away. Not hers. Not his. One of theirs.
Ren stopped ten paces from him, the knife loose in her hand. The dragon prowled under her skin, pacing, whispering for violence.
“You really want to do this here?” she called. Ren’s voice carries easy, steady, like the storm learned to speak through her.
He tilted his head, visor reflecting white fire. “You always did like theatrics.”
“I learned from the best.”
He took a step forward. “You left me to rot, Ren.”
“You earned it.”
