Chapter 4 - The Alleyway Run
Jax didn't hesitate. He let go of the unconscious enforcer, spun on his heel, and grabbed a heavy porcelain coffee mug from a nearby table. He threw it with lethal precision. The thick ceramic shattered across the gunman's temple, spraying blood and knocking the man off balance. Leo tore himself free, scrambling backward on his hands and knees.
"Clara! The rear alley!" Jax shouted, scooping Leo up into his left arm with practiced strength he didn't know he still possessed. The boy weighed almost nothing, his small ribs pressing through his cheap cotton shirt.
"Go, Jax! Take my car keys!" Clara yelled, hurling a ring of brass keys toward him as she swung her skillet into the jaw of a rising gunman who tried to block the corridor.
Jax caught the keys mid-air, kicked open the greasy back exit of the diner, and burst into the rainy dusk. The smell of rain-soaked asphalt and rotting dumpsters hit him instantly. His custom chopper sat beneath an overhanging corrugated roof fifty yards away, but Clara’s old battered sedan was parked by the kitchen dumpsters.
He threw Leo into the backseat and dived into the driver’s seat, slamming the lock down just as bullets peppered the passenger door, punching jagged holes through the thin metal. Jax turned the ignition. The engine sputtered, wheezed, and roared to life with a squeal of worn belts.
He slammed the transmission into reverse, smashing through a wooden trash enclosure and whipping the sedan around toward the back access road.
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"Hold on!" Jax yelled, looking into the rearview mirror.
Leo was curled into a ball on the floorboards, clutching the faded photograph tight against his chest. Through the rain-streaked rear window, the headlights of the two black pickup trucks flared to life, barreling out of the main lot and roaring down the alley directly behind them.
