Chapter 5 - Seams and Secrets
""We have to go, Lily. Right now,"" Jax said, his voice flat with the sudden shock of grief and survival instinct.
He didn't allow himself time to mourn. He grabbed Sarah’s small canvas duffel from the closet, slung it over his shoulder, and lifted Lily onto his hip. As he moved toward the rear bathroom window, his eyes dropped to the teddy bear in Lily’s arms.
What’s inside the bear.
Jax pushed Lily out the small window into the cold night air, following her through a second later. In the dense pine thicket behind the motel, he set Lily down behind a boulder and reached for Barnaby.
""Let me see him for a second, Lily,"" Jax said gently.
Lily hesitated, then handed the bear over. Jax ran his calloused thumb along the back of the stuffed animal. His fingers found it immediately: crude, uneven stitching made with thick fishing line, hidden beneath the bear’s synthetic fur.
Drawing a small tactical blade from his pocket, Jax carefully severed three stitches. He probed inside the polyester batting and pulled out a small, metallic cylinder—a military-grade, encrypted flash drive, wrapped tightly in lead foil to evade scanners.
This was the phantom drive he had stolen eight years ago from Gabriel Vance, the head of the southern distribution syndicate. Jax had handed the drive to Sarah before vanishing, believing it was insurance that would keep them wealthy and protected forever. Instead, it was a death warrant.
Suddenly, a loud snap echoed through the woods twenty yards away.
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Jax whipped his head around. A laser sight flickered across the pines, red and precise, scanning the dark. Then, through the dense foliage, Jax spotted the distinctive patch on the chest of the approaching gunman.
It wasn't a cartel hitman. It was the skull-and-pistons rocker of the Iron Nomads—Jax’s own brotherhood.
