Strays

I'll Protect You

Chapter Two

Jaycee

Dust kicks up behind us as we barrel down the backroads east of Lodi, all three of us on bikes, moving like shadows with purpose. Jax sent us out to get eyes on a suspected warehouse Lin's crew might be using to shuffle heroin shipments. Nothing official—just recon. In and out. Easy. But nothing's ever that easy in this life.

We park just off a gravel service road and hike through the scrub brush until we've got a clear line of sight on the place. Tig crouches beside me, binoculars up. Happy's a few feet back, quiet as a graveyard, watching our backs.

"Two guards out front," Tig mutters. "Unmarked van out back. I don't like it."

"No plates," I note, eyes narrowing. "They're not even pretending to play nice."

"Yeah, well, pretend's for Sunday school," Tig replies.

I keep my rifle aimed, but my heart? It's already doing its own thing. Being out here, riding with the guys, it usually clears my head. But today... it's loud. Real loud. 

"You okay?" Tig asks, glancing at me sidelong.

I nod, too fast.

He doesn't push. Just hands me the binocs. "Tag in. My eyes ain't what they used to be."

I take them, pressing them to my face like they'll block out the ache in my chest. The building's just a blur of brick and metal, but I can't stop thinking about how far this all spiraled. Jax's plans, Gemma's silence, and the one ghost walking around like a dead man with no grave.

"Intel says Lin's guys hit this spot after dark," Happy says from behind us, voice low and dry.

"So we stay till dusk?" I ask.

"Longer," Tig says. "Jax wants us to be sure before he makes a move. You know how he is lately... all chessboard, no king."

Happy nods once. "We play it smart."

The silence hangs heavy for a beat, and then Tig mutters, "Funny... we used to have a guy who could sniff out this kind of heat before we even smelled smoke."

I flinch. Just slightly. But Tig catches it.

He doesn't say anything else. Doesn't have to. The weight of who we're not naming is thicker than Kevlar.

I adjust my scope, clearing my throat. "Yeah... well... people change."

"Yeah," Tig says. "Some just vanish."

Happy lights a cigarette, the tiny flame cutting through the growing dusk. "Dead or not," he says, "ghosts always come back around."

And just like that, we're quiet again.

Watching.

Waiting.

Bleeding under our cuts, but too patched-in to show it.

...

The only sound louder than the wind in my helmet is the low rumble of Tig's Harley behind me and Happy's close on our tail. It's a recon run, one of those hush-hush errands Jax doesn't want a lot of chatter about. He trusts us—Tig, Happy, and me—to handle the dirty work. We're his cleanup crew. His sharks in leather.

We pull off a service road near the docks, dirt crunching under our tires as we make our way down an overgrown path leading to an old, rusted-out warehouse that used to store spare parts for the city fleet. Emphasis on used to.

I kill the engine first and signal them to hold back while I dismount and move ahead on foot. Tig whistles low behind me. "Look at you, Black Widow—always first to the front. I bet your little black book of shot callers is gettin' real full, huh?"