Chapter 3
Jax picked up the folded piece of paper with fingers that felt unusually clumsy. He unfolded it slowly, as if expecting the ink to dissolve or the paper to bite him. The familiar scrawl—his own handwriting, jagged and rushed from the light of a dashboard dash-lamp—stared back up at him. Lot 42, Red Creek Storage. The key is under the third cinderblock. It was a cache he had abandoned when the federal marshals started sniffing around his old garage in Fresno, believing everything inside had been seized or rusted away by the elements.
“Who sent you here, boy?” Jax asked, his tone dropping from defensive irritation to something far more dangerous. He looked toward the front window of the diner, checking the reflection of the parking lot where his modified shovelhead motorcycle sat gleaming in the afternoon sun. No sheriff's cruisers yet, no flashing lights, but the open highway stretched out behind the bikes like a trap waiting to be sprung.
“Momma didn't send me,” the boy replied softly, shifting his weight from one scuffed sneaker to the other. His small chest rose and fell with a visible, shuddering breath, fighting back the exhaustion that clung to his pale skin. “Momma’s locked up in the county holding tank down in Ridgeview. The deputies took her three nights ago while we were sleeping in the truck. They said she set fire to the parts warehouse where she worked the night shift. But she was right there with me, reading a book about horses, when the smoke started downtown. She didn't do it, mister. You gotta help me prove it.”
Marie let out a sharp intake of breath and crossed her arms over her apron, her face hardening. “Ridgeview? That’s federal territory now, ever since the state police handed over the arson investigation to the marshals. Kid, you shouldn't even be talking about things like that out loud, let alone walking into a diner full of patched-in riders looking for a lawyer.”
“I ain't a lawyer,” Jax growled, finally tearing his gaze away from the note to look at the boy’s face again. The resemblance was too sharp to ignore, a mirror reflecting a life he had abandoned to save his own skin. He had told himself back then that leaving was the only way to keep them safe from the enemies circling his garage. He had convinced himself that absence equaled protection. Looking at the hollows under the boy’s eyes, he knew that lie had finally expired.
“What's your name, kid?” Jax asked quietly, his large hand coming down to cover the faded photograph on the counter.
“Leo,” the boy answered, his chin lifting just a fraction. “Leo Vance.”
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Jax swallowed hard, feeling the dry heat of the desert outside pressing against the diner's glass doors. Vance. His own last name, though he hadn't used it legally in nearly a decade. He looked over his shoulder toward the back booths where his riding club brothers—men like Cracker and Bull—were arguing loudly over a map of the weekend route. They didn't know about Leo. They didn't know Jax had ever left anything behind worth crying over.
“Alright, Leo,” Jax said, sliding the folded paper into the inner pocket of his heavy leather vest. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavily worn leather wallet, and dropped a crumpled twenty-dollar bill onto the laminate next to his half-finished coffee. “Let’s go outside and sit by the bike. It’s too loud in here.”
