“Get out of my way, Tech,” I say, my voice flat.
She doesn’t move. “If you leave now, you’re abandoning me. Abandoning the club. Is that who you are? A man who turns his back on his family?”
Her words inspire nothing but anger in me. I grab her wrists and pry her hands from my cut, then shove her aside. Not hard enough to hurt her, just enough to clear my path.
“Viper!” she calls after me, her voice cracking. “You’ll never find him alone! You have no plan! You have no idea where he’s taken her!”
I don’t look back. She’s right, but I’m not about to admit it. I have no plan, no leads, nothing but blind rage and desperation. But I’ll tear this state apart piece by piece if that’s what it takes.
I push through the clubhouse doors into the late afternoon sunlight, the brightness momentarily blinding after the dim interior. My bike stands where I left it, untouched in the chaos. I stride toward it, keys already in hand.
Just as I’m about to kick the starter, the clubhouse door swings open again. Steel emerges, his weathered face grim. He’s one of the old guard, rode with my father for years before he died. Steel’s got thirty years of road on him, and the respect of every man in the club.
“I’ll try to talk some sense into him,” he calls over his shoulder, then makes his way toward me, unhurried.
“Not in the mood for a lecture, Steel,” I say, hand still on the ignition.
“Good,” he replies gruffly. “Because I’m not in the mood to give one. Take a ride with me.”
I narrow my eyes, suspicious. “I need to find Kayla.”
“And I need you to take a ride with me,” he says, already moving toward his own bike. “Just for an hour, Viper. After that, you can do whatever the hell you want.”
I hesitate. Steel has never been one to waste time or words. If he thinks this is important, it probably is. But every minute counts with Kayla in Demon’s hands.
Steel must see the conflict on my face. “You go charging off blind right now, you’ll get yourself killed. And then who saves your old lady?”
He’s right again, damn him. I exhale slowly, then nod. “One hour.”
Steel kicks his bike to life and rolls out of the lot. I follow. We merge onto the highway, heading east. The wind whips at my face, clearing my head slightly. But the clarity only brings more fear. What is Demon doing to Kayla right now? Is she hurt? Terrified?
We ride for about thirty minutes, Steel setting a pace that’s just fast enough to focus the mind. The road winds up into the mountains, pine trees crowding close on either side. Finally, he signals and turns onto a narrow side road that climbs even higher.
The overlook appears suddenly around a bend, a small gravel lot with a guardrail and a view that stretches for miles. Steel cuts his engine and dismounts. I do the same.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. Steel walks to the edge of the overlook, staring out at the valley below, hands tucked into the pockets of his cut. I wait, impatience thrumming through me, but knowing better than to rush him.
“This is bad business,” he finally says, still not looking at me. “Bad for you, bad for the club.” He shakes his head slowly. “Wouldn’t have happened this way if your old man was still alive. If he were still our Prez.”
I move to stand beside him; the valley spreading out beneath us in shades of green and gray. “What do you mean?”
Steel’s weathered face turns toward me. “We didn’t ignore our own back then. An old lady was family. You messed with one, you answered to all of us.”
It’s something I’ve known but haven’t wanted to admit for a while. I’ve watched the club change under Atlas’s leadership, becoming harder, more insular, less the brotherhood my father raised me in as a boy. It’s part of the reason I’ve kept Kayla separate from the club.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Steel looks away again. “Because someone needs to. Because that girl of yours deserves better than what she got. And because your father would raise hell right now if he knew what happened.”
The mention of my father stings. He died when I was fifteen, in a stupid accident on a wet road. He never got to meet Kayla, never got to see the man I became.
“Atlas won’t help me find her,” I say, the reality of it still raw.
“Atlas has his priorities,” Steel replies, his tone making it clear what he thinks of them. “Always has.”
“I don’t know what to do next, Steel. I have no idea where to even start looking.”
Steel turns to face me fully. “You need information. You need to know where Demon might be keeping her, what his next move might be.”