Chapter 1: The Incident at Pump Seven
Everyone at the Kentucky travel plaza turned to stare the second the little girl broke free from her mother’s hand. Not because children running through gas stations was unusual, but because she was sprinting straight toward the most intimidating man anyone there had ever seen. The giant biker beside Pump Seven looked like trouble carved out of stone.
His name was Everett Knox. At forty-four years old, Everett stood like a mountain beside his black Harley-Davidson—broad shoulders, shaved head, heavy boots, and tattooed arms wrapped in faded black-and-gray ink that disappeared beneath the sleeves of his weathered leather vest. A thick brown beard covered most of his face, and the patches stitched onto his vest carried the kind of reputation that made strangers avoid eye contact.
But the little girl, maybe six years old with tangled blonde hair, didn’t care about the patches. She slammed into Everett’s denim-clad legs and scrambled behind him, grabbing the heavy leather of his chaps with tiny, trembling hands.
Everett froze, the gas nozzle still humming in his tank. He looked down at the child, then up at the silver Mercedes SUV parked two aisles over.
A man was marching toward them, his face twisted in a vicious scowl. He wore a crisp, expensive golf polo and a silver watch that caught the afternoon sun. Behind him, a woman with dark bruises fading on her jawline stumbled out of the SUV, sobbing silently as she tried to keep up.