Chapter 5
I reached Cal first.
Reaper hit the deputy nearest him and took him down hard.
Silas grabbed Pike’s wrist before he could draw his gun.
The parking lot erupted into shouting, boots, blue lights, and fists.
I pulled Cal behind a truck.
“Can you stand?”
“Maybe.”
“That means no.”
He tried to smile.
Blood ran from his lip.
I cut the rope around his wrists with a shard of glass from a broken headlight.
Pike shouted, “Weapons! They’re armed!”
He was building the lie in real time.
Then Jessa’s voice came from the bar doorway.
“It’s live, Pike!”
Everything stopped for half a second.
Pike turned.
“What?”
She held up her phone.
“Every word. Every camera. Every feed.”
His face changed.
Not fear yet.
Calculation.
He raised his gun toward her.
Silas slammed into him from the side.
The shot went into the dirt.
I covered Cal’s head and dragged him lower.
The deputies hesitated.
That hesitation saved lives.
Because then real sirens came.
Not Pike’s men.
State police.
Federal SUVs.
Internal affairs.
The lot flooded with headlights.
A woman stepped out of the first black SUV with a badge held high.
“Federal agents! Weapons down!”
Pike froze.
Silas stepped away, hands raised.
Reaper did the same, breathing hard, one arm held close.
I lifted my hands too.
Cal leaned against me.
Jessa kept streaming until an agent gently took her phone.
Pike lowered his weapon slowly.
“You don’t understand what’s happening here,” he said.
The federal agent looked at him.
“I think the livestream helped.”
They cuffed Pike in front of the whole bar.
His own deputies watched.
Some looked shocked.
Some looked guilty.
A few looked relieved.
Cal sagged against me.
I held him up.
“You idiot,” I whispered.
He coughed a laugh.
“You’re welcome.”
“Welcome for what?”
“I didn’t confess.”
“That was the bare minimum.”
His laugh broke into pain.
An ambulance arrived.
They loaded him onto a stretcher.
I climbed in after him.
Silas tried to speak to me before the doors closed.
I looked at him.
“Not now.”
He nodded.
For once, the president of the Red Valley Riders had nothing to say.
At the hospital, Cal slept under fluorescent lights while a nurse cleaned his face.
I sat beside him with my hands clenched.
He looked younger asleep.
Nineteen.
Still a kid, no matter how much the world tried to make him useful to criminals.
Detective Morales from state police arrived near dawn.
He placed a recorder on the table.
“Can you talk?”
“Yes.”
“Your brother first?”
“No,” Cal whispered from the bed. “Me.”
I started to object.
He looked at me.
“Jax, stop protecting me from consequences. It’s how I ended up trying to prove I didn’t need you.”
That shut me up.
Cal told them everything.
Reaper adding him to the chat.
Pike contacting him.
The SUV.
The storage room.
The threats.
The name Mule.
Then he told them why Pike grabbed him.
“I saw him meet Vincent Cross two weeks ago.”
My head snapped up.
Vincent Cross.
The Vegas fight club owner.
The man whose name still carried rot through the underground.
Cal swallowed.
“They were planning routes through Arizona and Nevada. Bikes, fights, guns, cash. All connected.”
The agent beside Morales wrote fast.
I stared at my brother.
“How long did you know?”
May you like
He closed his eyes.
“Long enough to be stupid.”
