I slammed the forklift into reverse and bailed out of the cab.
“Boone, get in your truck!” I shouted across the yard. “Take Miller and Jenna! Follow me!”
I didn't wait to see if they obeyed. My own motorcycle was ruined, but parked near the dispatch building was a sleek, black dirt bike that had belonged to one of Corbin’s men.
I swung my leg over the seat, kicked the engine to life, and tore out of the freight yard, fishtailing wildly in the mud before hitting the paved highway.
The rain was falling harder now, stinging my eyes, but I pushed the lightweight bike to its absolute limit. The speedometer needle buried itself past ninety.
Two miles down the dark highway, I saw it.
The red taillights of the massive North Star semi-truck, roaring through the darkness, carrying a heavy steel container strapped to the flatbed.
I tucked my head down and accelerated, the engine screaming in protest. I closed the gap rapidly, weaving through the light, early morning traffic.
I pulled up directly alongside the massive truck’s cab.
Looking through the rain-streaked window, I saw the driver. It was Viper. The massive man with the coiled snake tattoo on his neck. He was steering with one hand, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
He glanced out the side window, saw my Iron Syndicate vest, and his eyes widened in shock.
Viper violently yanked the massive steering wheel to the left, trying to crush my bike beneath the truck's massive eighteen wheels.
I slammed on the brakes, dropping back just in time as the trailer swung wildly into my lane, missing my front tire by inches.
I accelerated again, pulling up to the driver's side door. I pulled my .45 pistol from my holster and smashed the heavy steel barrel directly through the truck’s driver-side window.
The safety glass shattered inward, showering Viper in sharp fragments.
Viper roared in anger, dropping his cigarette and reaching for a heavy pistol resting on the dashboard.
Before he could raise it, I lunged off my motorcycle, grabbed the heavy steel handle of the truck door, and threw my entire body weight outward.
The bike slid away into the darkness, crashing violently in the ditch. I was hanging completely off the side of the speeding semi-truck, my boots dragging against the wet asphalt at seventy miles an hour.
Viper swung his heavy pistol toward my face.
I kicked upward with my heavy boot, smashing his wrist against the steering column. The gun fired wildly into the roof of the cab.
With my uninjured arm, I reached through the shattered window, grabbed the heavy red air-brake valve on the dashboard, and pulled it as hard as I could.
The truck's massive air brakes locked up instantly.
The eighteen wheels screamed against the wet pavement, blowing out massive plumes of white smoke and burning rubber. The sheer physics of the sudden stop ripped my grip from the door handle.
I was thrown backward, rolling violently down the grassy embankment, the world spinning in a terrifying blur of mud, rain, and pain. I slammed hard into a wooden fencepost, the air completely blasted from my lungs.
Up on the highway, the massive semi-truck jackknifed violently. The cab twisted sideways, crashing heavily into the steel guardrail with a deafening screech of rending metal, before finally coming to a dead, smoking halt.
I forced myself up onto my hands and knees, spitting blood into the wet grass. Every muscle in my body screamed in agony, but I forced myself to stand. I pulled my weapon and limped up the embankment toward the wrecked truck.
The driver's door was kicked open from the inside.
Viper crawled out of the smoking cab, his face covered in blood from a severe head wound. He weakly raised his pistol toward me.
Before I even had to pull my trigger, a massive black pickup truck roared out of the darkness.
It was Boone.
He didn't hit the brakes. He drove the heavy truck directly into the side of the semi’s cab, pinning the open door flat against the metal and crushing Viper’s arm in the process. Viper screamed and dropped his gun, completely neutralized.
Boone threw his truck into park. Miller and Jenna jumped out of the back doors before it even stopped moving.
But it wasn't over.
A sleek, black SUV that had been following the semi suddenly screeched to a halt on the shoulder of the highway.
The driver’s door opened. A tall, impeccably dressed man stepped out into the pouring rain.
He wore a tailored suit, but the heavy silver watch on his left wrist gleamed in the headlights.