Chapter 2
The question hung in the air.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
“If he’s really my father… why do I have your eyes?”
Nobody breathed.
The jukebox had finally reached the end of its track, leaving the bar in absolute, terrifying silence.
Grizz stared at the little girl.
Emma.
His daughter.
The words hadn’t fully formed in his brain, but his soul already knew.
He looked down at the small, crumpled piece of paper in his hands.
Lena’s handwriting.
The loops of her letters.
The frantic, rushed pressure of the pen.
He read it again.
And again.
“Grizz. If you are reading this, it means I failed. It means David found us. He is not her father. You are. He forged the papers. He paid the judge. He threatened to kill you and burn your club to the ground ten years ago if I didn’t leave. I ran to save your life. Now, he wants Emma because of my grandfather’s trust fund. He doesn’t love her. He will hurt her. Protect our daughter, Grizz. Protect her like you couldn’t protect me.”
Grizz’s hands stopped shaking.
They went completely still.
Cold.
Like stone.
He slowly folded the note and slipped it into the breast pocket of his leather vest.
Right over his heart.
He looked up.
David was still standing there.
Still trying to look like a desperate, misunderstood father.
But Grizz could see it now.
The slight twitch in the man’s jaw.
The cold, calculating calculation in his eyes.
This wasn’t a father looking for his lost child.
This was a hunter looking for his prize.
“Whatever that note says,” David said, his voice dropping a full octave, losing the fake panic. “It’s the raving of a sick woman. Lena is not in her right mind. Now, hand over the girl before this gets ugly.”
Grizz didn’t stand up right away.
He looked at Emma.
He reached out with one large, calloused hand.
He didn’t grab her.
He just offered it.
Emma looked at his hand.
Then at his eyes.
Her eyes.
She placed her tiny, trembling hand inside his.
Grizz closed his fingers around hers.
Gentle.
Safe.
Then, he stood up to his full six-foot-four height.
He didn’t yell.
He didn’t scream.
He didn’t have to.
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Grizz said.
The rumble in his chest was so deep it vibrated through the floorboards.
David sneered.
The mask fully off now.
“You think a bunch of greasy bikers can stop me? I have court orders. I have the law. I have men waiting outside.”
“Let them wait,” a voice said from the back.
It was Tracker.
The club’s Sergeant-at-Arms.
He racked a shotgun.
The sound echoed off the wooden walls.
Loud.
Final.
Every man in the room stood up.
Twenty bikers.
Twenty men who had lived and bled together.
They stepped forward, forming a solid, unbreakable wall of leather, denim, and muscle between the front door and the little girl holding Grizz’s hand.
David took a step back.
His confidence finally shattering against reality.
“You’re kidnapping a minor,” David spat. “I’ll have the cops here in three minutes.”
“Call them,” Grizz said. “We’ll wait.”
But Grizz knew they didn’t have three minutes.
He knew men like David.
Men with money and fake papers didn’t use regular cops. They used private security. Mercenaries. Fixers.
“Tracker,” Grizz said without taking his eyes off David.
“Yeah, boss.”
“Get the bikes ready out back. Just you, me, and Bones.”
David’s eyes widened. “You can’t run!”
“I’m not running,” Grizz said.
He took a step toward David.
Just one.
But it made the man in the expensive coat stumble backward toward the door.
“I’m going to see the woman you threatened,” Grizz said. “And when I find out exactly what you’ve done to her… I’m coming back for you.”
David practically tripped over the threshold, pulling his phone from his pocket, screaming orders into it before the heavy oak door even slammed shut behind him.
The bar exploded into motion.
No panic.
Just military precision.
“Lock the front! Barricade it!” Tracker shouted.
Bones, a towering man with a bald head and a gentle smile, jogged over to Grizz.
“We got two minutes before his goons try the door,” Bones said.
Grizz looked down at Emma.
She was terrified, but she wasn’t crying anymore.
She was watching him.
Trusting him.
“Emma,” Grizz said softly. “Have you ever been on a motorcycle?”
She shook her head.
Grizz took off his heavy leather jacket.
He wrapped it around her small shoulders.
May you like
It swallowed her whole, smelling of oil, rain, and old leather.
“Hold on tight to me,” he said. “We’re going to see your mom.”
