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I won’t.

The engine turns over and I pull out of the parking lot without looking back at the motel room. If I look, I’ll see her in there. Bound and gagged and crying. I’ll see the betrayal in her eyes and the way her whole body went rigid when I fastened the last restraint. I’ll remember the feeling of her struggling beneath me, trying to get away, trying to make me stop.

She’ll understand eventually.

Once the deal is done and the Sons are off our backs and we have that life she wants. The apartment. A dog. Normal dinners and movie nights. She’ll see that I did this for us. For her. Because I love her more than I love anything else in this fucked-up world.

The highway stretches out in front of me, empty and dark except for the occasional semi hauling cargo through the night. I drive south. The town Moose named is half an hour away, maybe forty minutes at this speed. I keep both hands on the wheel and focus on the white lines disappearing under the hood. Physical details. Concrete things. The vibration of the engine through the seat. The weight of my phone in my pocket, where June’s picture is still the wallpaper — her laughing at something I said, hair wild around her face, eyes bright with genuine happiness.

She was happy with me. But she doesn’t understand that happiness requires protection and someone willing to make the ugly choices so she doesn’t have to.

The truck stop appears on my right just past the thirty-minute mark. Abandoned, like Moose said. Boarded windows. Cracked pavement. A single flickering light over what used to be the fuel pumps, now just empty concrete islands with rusted metal stumps.

I pull into the lot and park near the building where I can see the access road. Kill the engine. Check the time on my phone — ten minutes early. Good. I want to see Moose arrive. Want to make sure he’s alone like he promised.

The silence presses in from all sides. No traffic noise out here. No voices or music or any of the ambient sound that usually fills the spaces between thoughts.

I did the right thing.

I had to.

Headlights appear on the access road. A single motorcycle, the engine sound carrying across the empty lot. A Harley. I recognize the growl before I can make out the rider. Moose pulls up beside my truck and kills his engine. When he pulls off his helmet, he’s grinning.

“Wraith.” He swings off the bike and crosses to my window. I roll it down. “Good to see you, brother.”

“Moose.”

“You alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Me too.” He leans against the truck door, casual, as if we’re just two old friends catching up instead of discussing murder and betrayal. “I gotta say, I’m glad you came to your senses. Every man gets a little crazy for pussy now and then. It’s natural. But you remembered what matters is the brotherhood. The club. That’s what’s real. That’s what lasts.”

The words should bother me. Should make me defensive about June, about what she means to me. But they don’t. Because he’s not entirely wrong. I got crazy for her. Almost let my feelings override my judgment. Almost threw away everything for a dream that would have gotten us both killed.

“I want to make this right,” I say.

“And you will,” Moose says. “I got intel on the ride over here. Irons is at his girlfriend’s place right now. Little house on the south side of Redding. He goes there when he wants to get away from club business. Thinks nobody knows about it. But I know everything that happens in my organization.”

“Just him and the girlfriend?”

“That’s right. No security. No backup. Just him being stupid and vulnerable because he thinks he’s untouchable.” Moose’s grin widens. “You catch them sleeping, or fucking, or whatever they‘re doing. Make it quick and clean. Like a robbery gone wrong. Take some jewelry, trash the place a little. Cops’ll think it was some junkie looking for shit to pawn.”

My pulse is steady. Calm. This is just another job. Just another thing that needs doing.

“That’s it?”

“There’s one other thing. I got a present for you.” Moose reaches into his jacket and pulls out a pistol. Glock 19. Standard issue for half the cops and criminals in California. He holds it out and I take it, feeling the weight of it in my palm. “This beauty used to belong to a cartel enforcer in northern California. Sacramento area. My guy who works in evidence lockup acquired it for me. No connection to the Sons. No way to trace it back to us. You use this, dump it somewhere, and we’re clean.”

I check the magazine. Fully loaded.

“Irons goes down, the heat comes off the club,” Moose continues. “The feds have been sniffing around because of him. Because of his sloppy handling of this Devil situation. With him gone, I can steer things back to what matters. Business. Profit. Stability.” He pauses. “And you, brother. You prove your loyalty tonight, you’re back in. Not just back in: you will be primed to move up. VP position opens up real nice for someone who understands what needs to be done.”

VP. The position I wanted. The power I craved. The respect that comes with the patch and the gavel.

And all I have to do is kill a man I’ve ridden with. A man who’s made mistakes, but who’s still a brother. Still wearing the same cut I used to wear.

But he’s standing between me and safety. Between me and the life June wants. Between me and the future where we’re happy and together and nobody’s hunting us.