Chapter 19 Chapter nineteen
The government operatives didn't move like men; they moved like machines, their eyes hidden behind polarized lenses that reflected the rising sun. They fanned out across the pier, the click of their shoes on the concrete sounding like the ticking of a countdown clock. Elena didn't flinch. She leaned back against her silver bike, a cold, triumphant smirk playing on her lips as she watched the trap snap shut around us.
"Mia Chen," the lead operative said, his voice as flat and sterilized as a hospital room. "My name is Director Vance. You are currently in possession of state-classified intellectual property. Under the National Security Act, we are authorized to recover the prototype and the data by any means necessary."
"Classified?" I spat, the adrenaline from the race still sizzling in my marrow. I stepped in front of the Norton, my body a shield for my father's heart. "My father built this in a garage with his own hands. It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the Chen legacy."
"Your father was a contractor for a defense firm you’ve never heard of," Vance replied, stepping closer. The air around him felt heavy, pressurized. "He went rogue, stole the blueprints, and disappeared into the civilian sector to hide his work. We’ve been waiting twenty years for the Engine to surface. Now that it has, you’re coming with us."
The roar of thirty Harleys drowned out the sound of the tide as the Iron Wolves surged onto the pier. Dax led the formation, his bike sliding to a halt in a cloud of dust right between me and Vance. He didn't say a word. He just sat there, his uninjured hand resting on the throttle, the muscles in his jaw tight enough to snap steel.
The operatives didn't flinch at the sight of the bikes. Instead, they reached into their suits, the movement synchronized and deadly.
"Dax, don't," I whispered, my hand finding the leather of his vest. "They're not like the Dealers. These people have the law on their side."
"The law doesn't own a man’s mind, Mia," Dax said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated through the air. He looked at Vance, his eyes burning with a fire that made the operatives' coldness look like a weakness. "And the Iron Wolves don't hand over family to the highest bidder. You want the girl? You go through the pack."
Vance sighed, a sound of genuine disappointment. He tapped a device on his wrist. "I was hoping the President of the Iron Wolves would be more pragmatic than his predecessor. But if you insist on making this a public spectacle..."
High-intensity floodlights suddenly erupted from the rooftops of the surrounding warehouses, bathing the pier in a blinding, artificial noon. The rhythmic thud-thud-thud of a tactical transport helicopter approached from the harbor, its searchlight sweeping over the bikes like a predator’s gaze.
"Dax!" Tank’s voice came over the comms, panicked and raw. "We’ve got a perimeter lock! Black SUVs at the bridge, and they’ve got snipers on the grain silos. We’re boxed in!"
Elena let out a soft, melodic laugh. She pulled her white helmet back on, the mirrored visor snapping shut. "You see, Mia? This is why your father lied. He knew that once you built it, the world would stop being a place you could live in. It becomes a place you have to survive."
She kicked her turbine into life, the high-pitched whistle rising to a scream. Before the operatives could move, she spun her bike, the rear tire sending a spray of grit into Vance’s face. She didn't head for the bridge; she headed for the edge of the pier.
"Follow me, Mia!" she shouted over the wind. "Or die here with your bikers. The choice is yours!"
She soared off the end of the dock, her bike clearing the thirty-foot drop into the hold of a waiting, unmarked freighter that had been idling in the fog.
Vance wiped the grit from his face, his expression turning from sterilized to lethal. "Fire," he commanded.
The pier exploded into a chaos of suppressive fire and smoke. I felt Dax’s hand grab my jacket, yanking me down as a bullet shattered the Norton's side mirror.
"The water, Mia!" Dax roared over the gunfire. "The freighter is the only way out! Get on the bike and go! I'll hold them at the ramp!"
"Dax, I can't leave you!"
"You're not leaving me!" He shoved my helmet into my hands, his eyes fierce and desperate. "You're taking the truth to the one place they can't reach! Go! Now!"
I vaulted onto the Norton, the Engine screaming as I engaged the override. I looked at Dax one last time his hand reaching for his sidearm as the operatives closed in and then I twisted the throttle to the stop. I didn't look at the water. I looked at the freighter.
I hit the edge of the pier at ninety miles per hour. The world fell away as I soared into the gray morning mist, the sound of Dax’s name on my lips lost to the roar of the wind.
As the deck of the ship rushed up to meet me, I saw a figure standing by the railing, silhouetted against the rising sun. It wasn't my mother.
It was a man I hadn't seen in three years. A man who looked exactly like the father I had buried.