The grenade detonated.

A blinding sphere of fire exploded across the parking lot.

Thousands of razor-sharp fragments ripped through the air.

The force of the blast lifted Wyatt’s several-hundred-pound Panhead off the ground and flipped it onto its side, sending it crashing against the diner wall.

Dust and sand swallowed the sunlight.

Cole’s hearing disappeared beneath a piercing metallic whine.

He struggled to his feet.

The world swayed around him.

Through blurred vision, he saw Syndicate soldiers climbing over the wreckage.

Black gun barrels were now aimed directly at the diner entrance.

It looked like the end.

And then—

from the southern stretch of Route 93—

the ground began to tremble.

Not from gunfire.

Not from an explosion.

Something much bigger was coming.

Chapter 7: The Steel Storm from Vegas

An eerie silence settled over the cracked parking lot after the deafening grenade blast.

Gun smoke and thick clouds of dust swallowed the entire battlefield, forming a suffocating gray curtain.

Cole lay facedown on the scorching ground, his ears still ringing, his heartbeat pounding violently against his ribs.

Jimmy was beside him, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

Convinced that the Hells Angels had either been wiped out or rendered incapable of fighting back, Mendoza calmly stepped over twisted pieces of metal and the wreckage of motorcycles.

He waved his mercenaries forward.

“Break down that door!” Mendoza roared, aiming his submachine gun at the wooden entrance now riddled with bullet holes. “Find the woman and get me that ledger!”

But at that exact moment, the ground south of Route 93 began to shake.

This was different.

It was not the broken percussion of gunfire or explosions.

It was steady.

Deep.

Rhythmic.

A rolling vibration that seemed to rise from the heart of the desert itself, like an earthquake tearing its way through the earth.

Mendoza stopped.

His eyes narrowed as he turned toward the highway.

Beyond the shimmering veil of heat, another enormous cloud of dust was approaching.

But this time, it came with a sound.

The thunder of dozens of high-displacement V-twin engines.

A deadly symphony of steel, friction, and fire.

“What the hell...?” Mendoza muttered.

Then the cavalry emerged from the dust.

More than forty Harley-Davidsons charged down the highway in a broad battle formation that stretched across both lanes.

At their head rode Nomad, president of the Vegas chapter.

He was a massive man with tattoo-covered arms and a German-style motorcycle helmet strapped to his head.

One hand gripped the handlebars.

The other swung a heavy iron chain nearly six feet long.

Nomad never slowed down.

His leather-clad army surged directly into the parking lot like a steel tsunami.

“Take them down!” Nomad roared.

The Syndicate mercenaries were accustomed to firefights fought from behind cover.

Nothing had prepared them for this kind of insane mounted assault.

The heavy motorcycles slammed directly into their formation.

Men were knocked from their feet.

Others were sent sprawling as the bikes tore through their lines.

Nomad swung his iron chain.

It smashed through the windshield of an armored SUV.

The end of the chain wrapped around the arm of a gunman inside.

Nomad twisted the throttle.

The man was yanked through the broken window and dragged across the asphalt.

Other Hells Angels riders carried armed passengers behind them, who opened fire with pistols and shotguns as the motorcycles swept through the lot.

The battle changed in seconds.