Page 23 of Crash’s Secret

People say your life flashes before your eyes. Mine doesn’t. I get one picture.

I told Cassidy I wanted morning afters with her. The small stuff. The in-between. And that’s it.

I never got the morning after.

The shot is so close to my ear, the world rings white.

The Warrior, pointing the gun at me, drops, and Jinx is standing there with his arm out straight and smoke crawling off the muzzle.

“Clear,” Duke calls.

“Clear,” Joker says.

Five down. None of them ours. My legs hold me up out of habit more than anything.

Jinx lowers his arm. “You good, VP?”

“You’re never buying your own beer again,” I tell him. “I’ve got it covered.”

Back at the clubhouse, I stop at the infirmary door. Bear is lying on the cot, face swollen into something unrecognizable.

Doc looks up from his chair beside him. “He’ll wake up ugly,” Doc says. “But he’ll wake up.”

Good enough.

The guys are already around the table in Church when I walk in. Duke has a ledger open in front of him.

“Every crate accounted for,” he says. “Shipment’s locked in the back room until we reschedule with the buyer.”

“And the Warriors?”

“Down the shaft.” Joker drops into his chair. “That hole goes deeper than anybody ever measured. Bikes are stripped for parts by the weekend. There’s nothing at that mine but a dead mine.”

“Nitro will know, anyway,” Duke says.

“Five of his riders don’t come home? He’ll know exactly what it means.” I take the seat at the head of the table. “And we’re not going to wait for him to come for us. We’re done with this shit.”

Jinx leans against the wall, arms folded. “Trapper was a real asset tonight. He’s as loyal as they come.”

I’m thinking the same thing. “Noted.”

Church runs for forty minutes. Then I call Saber.

Duke has been keeping him updated, but he needs to know we’re escalating our retaliation.

He listens to all of it without interrupting once. When I finish, the line stays quiet long enough that I check the screen.

“You made the right call. All of it,” he says. “We’re already on the road. We’ll push through the night. Be home sometime tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. They’re hundreds of miles out. Even riding hard, that’s late afternoon at best.

“Cass is fine,” I say. He didn’t ask, but I figure he’d want to know.

“I know,” he responds. “I trust you to protect her.”

He hangs up, and I sit there alone in Church for a minute with that one—the trust he put in me.

Then I climb the stairs.