"I know," I said, the guilt twisting like a knife in my gut. "I'm going to fix this. But you need to get down in the cellar right now. Take the emergency radio. Lock the steel door."
Maya looked at me, her eyes searching my face for a guarantee I couldn't give. Then, she looked down at Lily. The little girl was shaking, clutching the fabric of her mother's dress.
I knelt down in the dirt, bringing myself to eye level with the child who had just saved all our lives.
"Lily," I said gently, keeping my voice steady. "You did a very brave thing today. You saved me. You saved all my brothers. But I need you to tell me exactly what you saw last night. Every detail."
Lily sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "I couldn't sleep," she said softly. "My window looks out at the side gate. I saw shadows moving by the bikes."
"Did you see their faces?" I asked.
She shook her head. "It was too dark. But there were three men. They had flashlights, but the lights were red, not white."
Tactical red-lens flashlights. Another detail that screamed professional military or SWAT training. Not a street gang.
"Did you hear them say anything?" I pressed.
"No," Lily whispered. "They were very quiet. But one of them walked funny."
My breath hitched. "Walked funny? Like how?"
Lily stood up and mimicked a heavy, dragging step, leaning her weight dramatically to her left side. "Like this. He kept dragging his foot."
My heart hammered against my ribs. A heavy limp. I thought of Gator immediately, his left leg shattered in that crash on Interstate 15. But Gator wouldn't betray the club. He was my right hand. He had bled for the Iron Kings.
"Anything else, sweetie? Anything you smelled or saw?"
Lily scrunched up her nose. "When the man with the bad leg walked by my window, I smelled something sweet. Like... like those cherry candies you gave me. But like smoke."
Cherry tobacco.
The cold realization settled heavily over my shoulders. Gator smoked a very specific, cheap brand of cherry pipe tobacco. The smell was unmistakable. It clung to his leather, to his beard, to everything he touched.
"Okay, Lily. Thank you," I said softly. I stood up and looked at Maya. "Get to the cellar."
I watched them disappear inside, the heavy door slamming shut behind them. I turned back to the parking lot. Huck was lying on his back under my motorcycle, a pair of wire cutters clamped between his teeth, sweating profusely as he meticulously snipped and rerouted the ignition wires.
Gator was standing near the porch, watching the perimeter. I studied him. The heavy build, the thick beard, the pronounced drag of his left leg as he shifted his weight. Gator was the one who had assigned the night watch. Gator was the one who held the key to the master padlock on the gate. Gator was the one the dogs knew well enough not to bark at.
I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. But the evidence was piling up into a mountain I couldn't ignore.
"Boss," Huck called out, breaking my dark reverie. He slid out from under my bike, wiping grease and sweat from his forehead. He held up a fistful of disconnected wires. "Yours is clean. The circuit is dead. But I’ve got thirty-seven more to go, and the sun is cooking these casings. If the C4 gets too hot, the chemical stability degrades."
"Work fast," I said. "Show three of the guys exactly what to do. Multiply your hands."
As Huck began organizing a defusal team, the crunch of tires on gravel drew my attention toward the main highway. A white SUV with the distinct green and gold markings of the County Sheriff’s Department was rolling slowly down the dirt driveway toward the roadhouse.
Sheriff Miller.
Miller had been a thorn in my side since he took office two years ago. He was a corrupt, power-hungry badge who had spent the last twenty-four months trying to find a legal excuse to seize the roadhouse property and run the Iron Kings out of the state.
But Miller wouldn't show up alone to a biker bar unless he thought we were already dead, or unless he was here to witness the aftermath.
The cruiser rolled to a stop at the edge of the parking lot. The driver’s side door opened, but it wasn't Miller. It was a young deputy, barely out of the academy, his uniform perfectly pressed, his hand resting nervously on the butt of his service weapon. He looked terrified.
He stepped out of the car, his eyes sweeping over the line of thirty-eight motorcycles and the heavily armed bikers standing in a tense perimeter around them. He stopped when he saw the severed black boxes sitting on a nearby picnic table.
"Morning, Vance," the deputy called out, his voice cracking slightly. "Sheriff Miller sent me to... uh... check on a noise complaint."
"A noise complaint?" I repeated, stepping away from the bikes and walking slowly toward him. "Out here? The nearest neighbor is ten miles down the ridge."