Chapter 1 - THE FIRST LOOK OF FEAR
The smell of disinfectant and cheap coffee hung thick in the air, but beneath it was the sharp, metallic stench of rainwater and engine oil. The small hand clutching my fingers was ice-cold and trembling, but the boy’s grip was surprisingly tight, as if he believed letting go would cause me to vanish into thin air.
Before I could clear the fog from my throat or ask the boy his name, the heavy door of the private recovery room slammed open with a deafening bang.
A giant of a man stepped through the doorway. He was well over six-foot-four, broad-shouldered, and draped in a battered black leather vest emblazoned with the skull-and-spanners insignia of the Ashen Kings Motorcycle Club. His long, iron-gray beard was braided at the tip, and his face was a patchwork of old road scars and fresh cuts. In his calloused right hand, he carried a heavy, solid steel bed rail he had ripped straight off a gurney in the hallway.
"Step away from the kid, stranger!" the biker leader roared, his voice like grinding gears.
With a brutal, sweeping arc, he thrust the steel rail down between my hospital bed and the crying boy, forming an impenetrable barrier. The violent impact shook the metal frame of my bed, sending a sharp spike of agony through my bandaged ribs.
The little boy gasped, shielding his head, but he refused to release my fingers, leaning over the steel bar to cling to me.
"Jax, don't!" the boy cried out, his voice cracking with tears. "He's the one! Uncle Luke said he’d come!"
Jax, the biker leader, spat onto the linoleum floor, his icy blue eyes fixed on me with pure venom. "Shut your mouth, Leo! This bastard is the one who led the Iron Scythes straight to your father’s cabin last night! We found him passed out in the ditch two miles from the wreck while your dad's bike was burning!"
I pushed myself up against the pillows, my head throbbing, my memory fighting through the haze of a severe concussion. "I don't know who you are... or what you're talking about," I rasped, my throat raw. "I was driving through the mountain pass during the storm... a motorcycle swerved in front of my truck..."
"Save your lies for the ditch we're gonna throw you in," Jax growled, taking a threatening step forward, raising the heavy steel rail like a club. "Eight years ago, Luke Miller walked into our clubhouse, earned his colors, and swore to protect this kid with his life. He never mentioned a soft-handed civilian brother. You’re a scout for the cartel, sent to pick off Luke's boy the second he dropped his guard!"
"You're wrong!" I yelled, forced by instinct to protect the child crouching beside me. "Look at what the boy is holding!"
Jax paused, his eyes darting down to the child's small fist.
Clutched tightly in Leo’s right hand was a scratched, dented silver locket attached to a broken steel chain. The metal was stained with dried mud and rainwater, but as Leo’s fingers slowly uncurled, the latch popped open.
Inside the tiny, oval frame rested a faded, water-damaged photograph. On the left stood a twenty-year-old version of myself, grinning beside an old pickup truck. Standing right beside me, his arm draped over my shoulder in a tight headlock, was my older brother—Luke.
Jax lowered the steel rail an inch, his rugged face turning pale as he leaned in to stare at the miniature photo.
May you like
"Where... where did you get that locket, kid?" Jax asked, his voice losing its thunderous edge, replaced by a sudden, hollow shock.
"Uncle Luke gave it to me before the crash," Leo sobbed, holding the open locket up toward me. "He said... he said if anything ever happened to him in the mountains, I had to find the man in the picture. He said... he said his brother would never let them take me."
