## Chapter 8: Smoke Signals
The first sign came on a Tuesday, three weeks after the night Sadie stopped running.
She was elbow-deep in a sink of greasy water at the clubhouse, scrubbing charred chili from the bottom of a cast-iron dutch oven that looked older than her twenty-eight years. Through the screen door she could hear the low rumble of Jace’s voice out on the porch, talking with Brick and Smoke about a gun run that needed extra security. The late-May heat pressed against the kitchen like a branding iron, but she didn’t mind. Heat meant she was alive. Alive meant she’d made the right choice—maybe the first right choice she’d ever made—when she’d stayed instead of climbing back into her dented Honda and pointing it toward anywhere else.
The burner phone vibrated on the windowsill. Unknown number. She didn’t recognize the cheap flip model at first; Luna had handed it to her last week—“No names, no cloud, no apps, no trace.” The screen glowed now: 1 New Message.
She dried one hand on the dish towel, flipped it open.
> Tell your butcher boyfriend thanks for the flowers. > P.S. Maria says ¡hola!
No signature. None needed. The photo attachment loaded slow—first pixelated green, then the clear shape of a hospital bed, a woman’s profile against white sheets, face swollen purple, lips split. A breathing tube. A bouquet of white lilies on the bedside table, their throats splashed red. The same lilies the Rusty Spur used to keep in chipped enamel pitchers because cheap carnations wilted in desert heat.
Sadie’s knees buckled. The phone clattered into the sink, screen cracking against iron. Water sloshed over the rim, over her shoes, over everything.
Maria. Forty-nine years old. Six kids and a husband who called her mamacita when he thought nobody listened. The woman who’d taught her to count register change by the weight of coins in palm. The woman who’d wrapped ice in a bar towel and pressed it to Sadie’s split lip the first night Victor’s recruiter back-handed her for “flirting.”
The floor tilted. She gripped the counter. Outside, Jace laughed at something—short, sharp, alive. She could call to him. Could run. Could keep him safe by putting more miles between them. The instinct kicked so hard her calves cramped.
Boots scuffed on the steps, screen door hinges whined. “Tiny, you ’bout done in here? Smoke’s bitching that his bowl ain’t clean enough to see his ugly reflection.” Jace’s voice carried teasing, but it died the instant he saw her face. “Sadie?”
He crossed the floor in three strides, caught her shoulders. “What happened?”
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Her throat narrowed the way it always did when Victor reached across memories and yanked her back.
Jace’s head snapped toward the sink, to the phone face-down underwater. He fished it out, shook it, thumbed buttons. The screen lit—water-streaked, cracked, but the photo still clear as a death sentence.
“Christ.” His fingers flexed; she felt the tremor pass through bone into flesh. “Brick! Smoke! In here now!”
Boots drummed. Brick filled the doorway, wide enough to blot the sun. Smoke slid in behind, silent knife.
Jace laid the phone on the table, spun it. “Victor just sent flowers to Maria Ortega at Desert Hope ICU. Same fucking lilies we dump every Sunday. Means he’s been in our zip code. Means he knows Sadie’s connections.”
Brick cursed in Spanish. Smoke went still as winter wind, eyes flat. “When?”
“Time-stamp says forty minutes ago.” Jace’s voice dropped to that dangerous decibel that vibrated in fillings. “He’s sending smoke signals. Warning shot across the bow.”
Sadie’s voice came out reedy. “We have to go.”
Three pairs of male eyes pinned her.
“Go where?” Jace asked, too calm.
“Anywhere. Everywhere. I’ll drive east. North. I’ll—”
“Stop.” His grip tightened, not painful, but her teeth clicked shut. “Breathe.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know him. Flowers mean he’s close. A photo means he wants me to run. If I stay, he escalates. Next will be—” Her voice cracked. She pictured Luna’s peach pies cooling on the counter, Sage’s soft smile, Crystal’s baby girl in the high chair. “I can’t have more bodies on my conscience.”
Jace let her go, stepped back, hands fisting. The air thickened with unspent thunder. “You think I can’t protect them?”
“I think you shouldn’t have to!” The words exploded, echoing off the low ceiling. “This is my ghost, my trail of gasoline. I light it, I burn with it.”
Silence stretched, taut as trip-wire.
Brick broke it. “We can move Maria under our watch. Smoke, get Doc. Call St. Francis transfer. Put two prospects on her door. Family too.”
Smoke was already typing furiously on a second burner, thumbs flying.
Sadie whirled on Brick. “You put prospects in front of cartel bullets and you’ll bury boys whose only crime is loyalty.”
Brick leveled her with a stare used to stopping bar fights. “Prospects know the job. You don’t get patched by hiding behind skirts.”
“I’m not a job.”
“No,” Jace cut in, voice hard enough to chip paint. “You’re my responsibility. That makes you club. Club don’t cut and run when shit bleeds.”
Heat flared in her chest—the kind that had once fueled bottles broken across knuckles. “Don’t you dare wrap ownership in chivalry. I never asked for a brand.”
Something dangerous flickered behind Jace’s eyes. “Brick, Smoke—give us the room.”
They hesitated.
“Go.”
The door thumped shut, sealing them in the oven of her panic.
Jace paced—three steps wall-to-wall, pivot, repeat. She tracked him the way you track lightning: inevitable, blinding, devastating.
“You think I wanna own you?” He bit each word. “You think I like knowing the cartel’s one mile away with sniper scopes? That every time I fire up my bike I might come back to find your brains on my porch?”
He stopped, chest heaving, the cut straining against muscle. “You think this is about control? Baby, you walked into my life wearing a death-mark and never once asked for rescue. But you stayed. You stayed and that means something—to me, to them, to every son of a bitch wearing this patch.”
She folded her arms, feeling the old armor crack. “So I’m just supposed to sit pretty while you build human shields?”
“You’re supposed to fight alongside us.”
“I’m tired of fighting!” Veins pulsed in her temples. “I’ve fought since I was nineteen—fist, word, lawyers, locks, lies. I’m scraped raw, Jace. I can’t lose anyone else.”
His laugh was bitter. “And you think running keeps them breathing? Victor sniffed you in Houston, Phoenix, here. Distance don’t erase scent, Sadie. Only ending the hunt does.”
She walked to the door, yanked it open. Heat slapped her. Beyond the porch, the desert shimmered, endless. “Ending the hunt means blood. Means bodies. Means funerals you won’t let me attend. Means this patch becomes a target on your back bigger than the one on mine.”
Jace followed, boots heavy. “Better my back than yours.”
“Wrong.” She spun, tears blinding. “Better nobody’s. I’ve worn guilt like wet concrete since the night I cracked that bottle across Victor’s skull. I won’t pour more over my head.”
His face softened—just a crack. “You think I don’t know concrete? My whole life’s been poured. Brothers buried. Fathers gunned down outside laundromats. Every mile of asphalt we ride is mortared with loss. Difference is: we stand in it together. Running just spreads the cracks.”
She swiped angrily at tears. “Easy to speak for the herd when you’re the bull.”
He stepped close, crowding without touching, voice dropping. “I’m not your ex. I’m not Victor. I’m sure as hell not your warden. But I can’t stand by while you hand yourself to the butcher to save sheep who’d rather die beside you than live because you sacrificed yourself.”
His words carved marrow. She saw Maria’s face, split and bruised; Luna’s pies cooling; Sage humming to her battered guitar; Jace’s mother pressing peach pie into her hands. All of them choosing to stay when leaving would be smarter.
“I’m terrified,” she confessed, voice barely wind.
He brushed a knuckle under her eye, collecting wet. “So am I.”
* * *
They didn’t speak after that. Jace walked the yard, phone to ear, voices low: logistics, transfers, intel. Sadie packed one-handed—jeans, bra, sketchbook, the heel hiding Victor’s ledger. Her other hand white-knuckled the cracked phone, scrolling Maria’s daughters’ social feeds for updates: #PrayForMom, screenshots of GoFundMe link, photo of Maria giving thumbs-up from hospital bed. Alive. Fighting.
Sadie’s chest loosened one notch.
At dusk, Smoke drove her to St. Francis in a rusted Tacoma. Desert Hope had wanted to airlift Maria after Doc flexed ER credentials, but cartel eyes crawled every hallway. Saints’ clubhouse had an infirmary—unorthodox, unregistered, stocked with enough penicillin and morphine to patch a small war. Maria would heal under club watch.
They parked by loading dock. Prospects flanked gurney transfer. Maria emerged—ivory bandages swaddling ribs, face technicolor but conscious. She grabbed Sadie’s hand with surprising iron.
“You ain’t leaving,” Maria rasped. “Not for me. Not for anybody. You hear?”
Sadie swallowed glass. “I hear.”
“Good. Now go give those bastards hell. But come back with breath in your lungs and that boy on your arm.” She winked, split lip stretching. “He’s pretty.”
Sadie laughed through nose-bubbles. “He’s a pain in the ass.”
“Best kind. Love you, mija.”
“Love you more.”
They rolled Maria away. Sadie stood beneath flickering sodium light, feeling the earth shift. Roots sank where once there’d only been flight.
*
Back at the clubhouse, the party energy had been gutted—replaced with grim purpose. Moonlight glinted off chrome as brothers tuned chains, loaded ammo cans, tested comm pieces. The air tasted of CLP and burnt coffee. Jace stood at the center, issuing orders like a war chief.
When he spotted her, he excused himself, strode over. Dirt streaked his cheek; motor oil branded his forearm. He smelled of sand and gunpowder.
“Maria’s safe,” she said before he asked.
His shoulders eased. “Good. We ride at 0400. Intel says Victor’s running a convoy through Coyote Pass—guns and cash southbound. We hit the escort, torch the cargo. Message: touch our own, lose your skin.”
She nodded, mind racing. “And Victor?”
“He’s in the third Suburban—armored. Smoke wants to RPG it. I want live bait. Either way, he won’t make the border.”
“What about proof of life?” She tapped her boot.
Jace’s grin was all wolf. “We’ll have plenty of scraps to hand the federals. Cartels hate headlines. He’ll bleed PR dry.”
She searched his face for bloodlust, found only cold calculation. This was the man who’d built a kingdom in steel and bone. Who’d killed for strangers and would now kill for her.
She reached into her boot, pried the flash drive free. Held it up between two fingers. “Take what you need. End it.”
He stared, stunned she’d offer her ace. Then he palmed it, gentle, like accepting a live grenade. “We end it. Together.”
“Together,” she echoed, tasting the word. It felt foreign. It felt like sunrise.
Behind them, Riggs fired up his bike, pipes snarling. One by one, engines howled to life—a pack rousing for the hunt. Jace offered his hand. Not an order this time. A choice.
She threaded her fingers through his, allowed him to pull her against his chest. His lips brushed her ear.
“Stay at the clubhouse tonight. Luna’s got watch. I ride home to you by dusk. That’s a vow.”
She tilted her head, kissed the corner of his mouth—promise returned.
He released her, swung onto his Dyna. Chrome flashed as he slid on aviators. “When this is over, we talk. No more ghosts. Just you and me. Clear?”
“Clear.”
He nodded, twisted throttle. The bike roared, vibrating the concrete under her boots. One last look—blue eyes holding her heartbeat—then he powered up the drive, brothers falling in behind like apostles of thunder.
Smoke lingered, offered Sadie a fresh burner. “Prez’s private number on speed-dial. He answers even if the sky falls.”
She pocketed it, throat tight.
The convoy thundered into the desert, dust curling like wildfire behind. She watched until tail-lights vanished into pre-dawn gloom. Only then did she realize her hands weren’t shaking.
She was done running.
But dawn came slow, and the price of war was seldom paid in full before sunset.
*
They hit Victor’s convoy at dawn, just as the sun bled gold over the scrub plain. It should have been surgical—T-bone the lead SUV, box the rear, drag the target’s cage into the open and flex-tie him face-down for delivery.
Instead, it turned into a firefight because cartels travel like armies now.
Jace—helmet comm open—heard Smoke’s curse as the third Suburban revealed mounted turret behind smoked glass. Muzzle flash split the grey: 7.62 rounds shredding desert silence, seeking Iron Kings metal and meat. His bike fishtailed, gravel spitting. He tasted copper and dirt, felt the familiar slide of rage into pure cold.
He barked orders—Brick left flank, Ryder drop smoke, Mercy haul the prize—but shit spiraled: shoulder-fire igniting fuel tanks, black plumes corkscrewing into dawn, brothers returning fire with the discipline drilled on Afghan rooftops yet never truly left behind them.
When the turret went silent, Jace’s ears rang hollow. Smoke parted to reveal bullet-holed Suburban, driver slumped over dash, Victor nowhere.
Detour charge detonated beneath the armored underbelly—secondary ambush. Jace felt pavement buck, saw Riggs’ bike flip tail-up like broken toy. Then the world narrowed to muzzle flashes and the singular knowledge that he’d promised Sadie dusk, and the sun was barely above the ridge.
*
Meanwhile, at the clubhouse, Sadie paced. She’d tried sketching—pencil tremors ruining banana-bread crumbs and shadow lines. Instead, she cleaned the .38 Jace left her, then cleaned it again, until cold reek of solvent fogged her brain.
Luna chopped onions aggressively, knife slamming board. “Prez said dusk, it’ll be dusk. Man rides hell with a stop-watch.”
But the clock above the stove ticked loud as gun-fire, each second dragging iron.
At 09:17 the burner buzzed. Luna answered on speaker.
“Clubhouse,” she barked.
Doc’s voice—hoarse, smoke-roughened. “Need surgical suite hot. Multiple incoming. ETA forty.”
Sadie’s knees buckled; she caught the counter, nails bending on Formica.
Luna’s face hardened. “How bad?”
“Three critical. One possible code. Prez took shrapnel—thigh, maybe femoral. Won’t know till we strip him.”
The room spun. Sadie tasted iron. She heard herself ask, “He conscious?”
“Barely. Keeps asking for tiny.”
Her sob came feral. Luna grabbed her shoulders, eyes flint. “You stay upright, child. He needs you vertical. You hear?”
She nodded, swiped tears, spine turning steel. “Tell them prep two tables. I’ve got O-neg if cross-match fails.”
Doc grunted approval, line dead.
Luna arched brow. “You know blood type?”
“Know everything about him,” Sadie said, voice steady now—surgeon precision wrapped in barbed love. “Let’s get the room ready.”
*
Doc’s convoy roared in thirty-five minutes later—pickups loaded with bleeding men, dust clouds thick as war. Sadie ran barefoot into sunlight, heart punching ribs. Riggs came first—arm in splint, face purple—but alive. Smoke half-carried Bear whose left calf resembled raw hamburger. Then Jace—pale as moon, tourniquet soaked crimson, eyes unfocused behind cracked shades.
She shoved smoke aside, cupped Jace’s beard, forcing eye contact. “You stay with me, you hear? Dusk promise still good.”
He managed crooked grin. “Got your ghost,” he slurred, lifting mangled evidence bag—red smears across flash drive. “Trade for a kiss.”
“Done.” She pressed lips to his—tasted smoke, blood, salt. “Now save the macho shit till after surgery.”
They carried him inside on a door ripped from barn, laid him on butcher-block table under floodlights. Doc sliced denim; arterial spray arced, painting ceiling. Luna slapped hemostats, clamps, IV lines. Sadie rolled up sleeves, let Doc jab her vein—blood thick as guilt snaking into bag, into Jace.
Time blurred—scalpel, suture, suction whine. She counted units, swabbed sweat, fed Doc instruments like nurse born to blood. When pressure dipped to sixty over palp, she crawled onto table, straddled Jace’s hips, chest to chest—her heartbeat willing his to steady.
“Beat with me,” she whispered. “Beat, you stubborn bastard.”
Sometime between clot and cauterize, pressure climbed—seventy, eighty. Color returned beneath beard. Doc sat back, shaky. “He’ll ride. Gotta. Too mean to die.”
She collapsed, forehead on his sternum—finally crying hot tears that sizzled on his skin.
*
Night fell by the time they moved him to the infirmary cot. She refused to leave, dragged plastic chair bedside, held his fingers until monitors beeped steady. When morphine let him surface, he squeezed weakly.
“Sadie girl?”
“I’m here.”
“All accounted?”
“Riggs’ arm reset. Bear stitched. You leaking through two units of my very expensive blood, but stable.”
He huffed laugh—pain-laced but alive. “Victor?”
“Flash drive says DEA picked him up at El Paso bridge an hour ago—courtesy anonymous tip sheet with bank accounts and GPS receipts. Your brothers put him in cuffs instead of a box.”
His eyes closed—relief. “Dusk promise kept.”
“Barely.” She leaned in, brushed lips to his temple. “Next time you leave, take me with you. I’m done being the reason you bleed.”
His hand found hers—bandages, IV tape, but warm. “Not reason. Not ever. Armor.”
“Armor gets dented.”
“Still protects the heart.” He tugged her down, breath ghosting ear. “When I can stand, we finish what we started. Kitchen table, desert dawn, church pew—doesn’t matter. I choose you. You choose me. War over, war begun—doesn’t fuckin’ matter. We choose.”
She burrowed into him, careful of wires and wounds. “I choose,” she whispered. “But next time I drive the getaway.”
Morphine pulled him under, smile soft as twilight.
Sadie stayed until monitors sang lullabies, until Luna forced sandwiches and promises, until dawn tiptoed windows and painted him gold all over again.
Outside, the desert was quiet. Inside, her pulse finally matched the fan’s cadence—steady, stubborn, alive.
Victor’s reach had scored flesh, but it had not taken the thing that mattered. The clubhouse stood. The club breathed. Jace’s heart beat beneath her palm—an oath set in red.
When she finally slept, it was on the floor beside his cot, fingers laced through his, gun within reach, dreams for once empty of running.