Chapter 2 - Shadows of the Past
"You're lying," Maeve breathed, her voice trembling as she backed away from the workbench.
"My dad was an honest mechanic; he worked until his hands bled to put food on our table, not to steal from aging thugs!"
Jax stepped forward, the weathered leather notebook still clutched tightly in his scarred hands.
"I ain't lying, kid, and I ain't looking for a fight either," he said, keeping his tone carefully level to defuse the rising panic in her freckled face.
"Twenty years ago, before this club had patches or territories, your father and I shared a garage down in Austin. We designed a dual-carburetor inline motor that was supposed to revolutionize the open road."
One of the younger bikers, a burly man named Cole with a thick brown beard, stepped out of the shadows.
"Boss, you can't be serious," Cole muttered, eyeing Maeve with deep suspicion.
"She shows up out of nowhere with a stolen ledger and a sob story, and you're ready to hold her hand? For all we know, she's scouting us for someone else."
"Shut it, Cole," Jax commanded without looking back, his gaze fixed entirely on the girl.
"Look at the margin notes on page forty-two, Maeve. Go ahead. Open it."
Reluctantly, Maeve reached out and turned the brittle yellow pages until her finger stopped at a messy, hurried note scrawled in her father's unmistakable handwriting.
Jax will never forgive me for taking the schematics, but the family comes first.
The words hit her like a physical blow.
She dropped her hand, the defiant posture completely vanishing.
"He... he never talked about Austin," she whispered, her voice cracking under the weight of the sudden revelation.
"He told me he built everything from scratch after the accident took my mother."
"He lied to protect you," Jax said softly, stepping closer and extending the book toward her like an olive branch.
"Or maybe he just couldn't live with the guilt of walking out on the only brother he ever had."
Maeve looked from the ancient blueprints to the hard, lined face of the older biker, realizing the simple restoration job had just morphed into something far more dangerous.
"If you knew him, then you know why the engine wouldn't start when he tried to assemble it last month," she challenged, a spark of her earlier fire returning.
"The compression ratio in his math is off by three percent."
Jax stared at her for a long, silent moment before a slow, knowing smirk touched the corner of his graying beard.
"Hand me that socket wrench on the workbench, kid," Jax said, rolling up his sleeves.
"Let's see if the apple fell far from the tree."
As Maeve reached for the heavy steel tool, a sudden flash of headlights cut through the dusty windows of the barn.
May you like
A sleek black SUV pulled up right outside the sliding doors, blocking their only exit.
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