Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
“Good. Nitro?”
Nitro popped his case and flipped through foam slots like a jeweler choosing a stone. “Compound goes double-lock. Prospects on round-the-clock perimeter walk. I’ll seed the fence line with low-profile tremors—no fireworks, just a hum in my ear if something heavier than a squirrel touches wire. Two trip-charges on the service road that’ll turn a tail around without giving us a news chopper. Safe room gets stocked and checked. I’ll rotate codes twice a day. And I’m gifting the guard shack a couple of pinhole cams and a silent panic paddle.”
Kane’s brow lifted. “Message, not massacre.”
Nitro’s grin sharpened. “Copy. Loud is for the end of the party.”
“Edge,” Kane moved on.
Edge rolled his neck until vertebrae cracked, and he flipped his knife open and shut. “Two bikes assigned to her every move outside the fence. One of ’em me. I’ll run route sweeps an hour before she leaves, again twenty minutes out, then shadow the convoy. Want two decoy runs a day—same departure times, different destinations. If they’re hunting, we teach them to track the wrong rabbit.”
“Drift?” Kane asked.
Drift’s knuckles flexed once, as if they could feel the work already. “Walk the neighborhood around the compound at odd hours. If there’s a car that doesn’t belong, I’ll know the tire brand before they figure out how to adjust their mirrors. Gonna post two at the tower when she’s at the track—eyes on the crowd, one on the pits. We’ll circulate like civilians. Nobody will clock us unless they’re trained. If they’re trained, they’ll meet me first.”
“Piston.”
“Armor a transport,” he answered. “Subtle. Nothing that screams convoy. Blacked-out 4Runner, fresh plates. A remote-kill relay and a decoy ignition in case someone’s feeling clever with a laptop. I’ll swap the plugs on the second gate truck too—turns over for family, not strangers.”
“Fury.”
He rolled his wrist, a lazy circle that didn’t match the intent behind his eyes. “I’ll tap the off-duty roster—lawyers, bouncers, the quiet ones who owe favors. Have ’em drift around the track in plain clothes, buy beers, smile, take note of anyone whose eyes don’t track the cars. And I’ll have a conversation with a man who hears whispers I don’t like. He knows something, he’ll give it to me or lose the teeth he uses to hold on to secrets.”
Kane nodded once, satisfied. “Good. Tighten everything by sundown.” He turned back to me. “Can you keep her out of the pit tonight?”
“If I have to,” I answered, hating how right he was. “She won’t like it.”
“She’ll like fucking breathing,” Edge muttered.
I shot him a glare that would’ve melted asphalt.
Kane ignored us.
“Jax.” I met his eyes. His mouth tipped, the barest suggestion of amusement under the steel. “Ordered the vest.”
Heat slid through my chest, relieved and grateful all at once. “Good.”
“Let’s keep her alive long enough for you to give it to her. Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed the rest. The room didn’t need my heart on the table, it needed my hands on the keyboard. Or a gun. The second option was quickly becoming my preference.
“Move.” Kane dismissed the crew. He hooked my elbow as the others filed out. “Jax.”
I turned toward him with a raised brow.
“You didn’t fuck this up. You did what you do. Now do the next thing.”
Alanna’s words flickered through my mind again. That’s what you do. You break shit. You fix shit. And when the whole world goes to hell, you stay standing.
I jerked my chin up, then followed my brothers out of the office.
Nitro peeled toward the armory with Fury in tow, already arguing about whether prospects could be trusted with new radios. Edge fell into step beside me for three paces, the two of us moving in an old rhythm that didn’t need words. At the end of the corridor, he clapped the back of my neck, hard enough to sting.
“Don’t get dead,” he ordered.
“Same,” I grunted.
Edge snorted a laugh. “Death’ll have to catch me first. And I don’t lose races.”
Then he was gone in another direction.
I glanced at my watch and frowned, torn between going back to check on Lark or getting straight to work. It was early, and she hadn’t had much sleep, so I was guessing that I had a couple more hours before she woke.
In my office, the servers were already awake, fans whispering, and LEDs blinking like a city at night. I sank into my chair and let the world narrow to code, cameras, and the yawning hole I needed to seal around her. Fingers flew. I cloned the compound feeds into a second cold store the feds could never subpoena because they’d never know it existed. I wrote a quick-and-dirty pattern matcher keyed to men who wore tactical shoes to public events—no civilians in Crossbend needed Vibram soles and straight-leg cargo pants. I added gait recognition tuned for men who trained to clear rooms, not stroll grandstands. The net tightened in my head as much as on the screens.