Chapter 2 - THE CAMERA NEVER BLINKED
The silence inside the hospital room was deafening, broken only by the steady, rhythmic beep... beep... beep of my heart monitor.
Jax stared at the tiny photograph, his thick, scarred fingers trembling slightly as he reached out to touch the silver metal. He looked from the picture to my face, scanning my features—my eyes, the shape of my jaw, the jagged scar above my left eyebrow that matched the one Luke had carried.
"Luke's brother..." Jax breathed out, the heavy steel rail slipping from his grip and clattering onto the floor. "He told us his family was dead. He swore he had nobody left in the world when he took his patch."
"He lied to protect me," I said, my voice thick with emotion as the memories began to break through the fog in my mind. "Eight years ago, Luke disappeared overnight. He cleared out his apartment, left his phone on the kitchen counter, and vanished. I searched for him for three years before the police told me to give up. I thought he was buried in an unmarked grave."
"He was hiding," Jax said grimly, pulling a wooden chair up to the side of the bed and sinking into it with a heavy sigh. "Eight years ago, Luke stumbled onto a human trafficking operation run by the Iron Scythes—a rival syndicate operating out of the border docks. He intercepted a transport, saved this little boy when he was just an infant, and killed the Scythes' second-in-command to pull it off."
I looked down at Leo, who had crawled onto the edge of my mattress, burying his tear-stained face into my hospital gown. I wrapped my arm around his small, trembling shoulders, feeling an overwhelming, ancient instinct to protect him.
"Luke couldn't go home," Jax continued, his tone dark and bitter. "If the Scythes found out he had a family, they would have butchered you to get to him. So he joined us. He took the kid, went off the grid into the Blackwood Ridge mountains, and raised Leo in secret while serving as our chief mechanic."
"What happened last night?" I asked, my pulse accelerating as the image of burning metal flashed through my mind. "I was driving my truck through the storm on Route 9... headlight beams cut through the rain... a black motorcycle tumbled off the cliff side..."
"The Scythes finally tracked his cabin down," Jax growled, his fists tightening until his knuckles popped. "They ambushed him during the flash flood. Luke managed to get Leo onto his bike, but they ambushed him on the mountain pass. He forced your truck off the road to stop you, didn't he?"
"No," I whispered, tears burning my eyes as the final piece of the memory clicked into place. "He didn't force me off the road. He swerved in front of me to block a bullet from a black SUV chasing him. He threw his bike into the embankment to cushion the kid's fall... and he rammed his own bike into the SUV to buy me time to drag Leo out of the wreckage."
Jax slammed his hand against his knee. "The bastard sacrificed himself... he knew you were on that road."
Before I could answer, the red emergency light above the hospital door began to flash violently.
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The overhead intercom crackled with static: "Code Black. Security to the ground floor lobby. Multiple unauthorized vehicles on the ambulance ramp."
Jax sprang to his feet, pulling a heavy custom revolver from the leather holster inside his vest. "They followed us here. The Scythes know Leo survived the crash."
