Chapter 10 - The Garage Siege
The deafening clatter of falling wrenches echoed off the wooden rafters as Leo sprawled across the concrete floor, effectively blocking the deputy's path to the motorcycle.
"Watch it, kid!" the deputy snapped, stumbling backward and losing his footing for a fraction of a second as he tried to avoid stepping on the scattered tools.
"Sorry! I'm so sorry, officer, I'm just clumsy!" Leo stammered frantically, scrambling on his hands and knees to gather the tools while deliberately making it as difficult as possible for the lawman to advance.
Jax didn't waste a single microsecond of the distraction.
With lightning-fast reflexes born of decades in the shop, Jax dropped his rag, grabbed a heavy-duty jumper cable from the workbench, and hooked it directly up to the auxiliary battery pack resting beside the chassis.
"Maeve, kill the overhead lights!" Jax barked over the commotion.
Without hesitation, Maeve lunged for the main electrical switch near the door, plunging the entire barn into sudden, pitch-black darkness.
The only illumination came from the harsh, piercing beams of the deputies' flashlights slicing frantically through the floating dust motes.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing? Turn those lights back on right now!" the second deputy yelled from the doorway, drawing his flashlight and sweeping it wildly across the room.
"You're standing on private property without a signed county seizure order!" Jax's voice echoed from the darkness, sounding calm, authoritative, and entirely unbothered by the threats.
"You want this bike? You better show me a judge's signature, or you're walking off this farm empty-handed."
The lead deputy swore loudly, kicking a wrench out of his way as he clicked his heavy tactical flashlight to maximum brightness, sweeping the beam straight toward the spot where Jax was standing.
The harsh white light caught Jax standing completely still beside the blue motorcycle, his hand resting casually on the brass carburetor.
Beside him, Cole stepped out of the shadows, his massive silhouette looming large in the beam, holding a heavy tire iron with an expression of quiet, lethal intent.
The deputy hesitated, his hand hovering nervously over his holster.
He knew the local jurisdiction laws as well as anyone; without a direct court-ordered writ stamped by a superior judge, seizing custom machinery on private agricultural land could land the department in a massive civil rights lawsuit.
"This isn't over, Miller," the lead deputy snarled through clenched teeth, keeping his flashlight trained on Jax's chest.
"We're pulling our cruisers back to the highway, but don't think for a second you're riding that machine out of here tomorrow morning. We'll be waiting at the county line with a federal warrant."
The deputies backed out of the barn slowly, keeping their weapons half-drawn until they slammed the cruiser doors and burned rubber down the gravel drive, their sirens silenced as they retreated toward the highway.
Maeve let out a long, shuddering breath, her knees nearly buckling beneath her before Cole caught her by the shoulder and steadied her.
"Good work, kid," Cole muttered gruffly, flipping the wall switch back on and flooding the barn with warm, yellow work light.
"You've got ice in your veins."
Jax walked over to the workbench, picked up a heavy copper wrench, and looked down at the brass carburetor with grim determination.
"They're right about one thing," Jax said quietly, looking up at the group gathered around him.
"If we don't fire this engine up and test-run it before sunrise, the patent lien defaults to Apex, and we lose the farm."
Leo rubbed his bruised arm, stepping closer to the vintage bike with a worried expression.
"Even if we get it running, Jax, how do we get it past the blockade at the county line?"
Jax smiled slowly, a dangerous, familiar glint returning to his weathered eyes.
"We aren't going through the county line," Jax replied, picking up Arthur's leather-bound notebook.
"We're going over the old mountain ridge trail where no cruiser can follow."
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As Jax flipped open the leather ledger to the final, handwritten blueprint page, a hidden folded map fell out from the binding, revealing a secret route none of them knew existed.
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