Then he smelled it.
His father's voice came back to him.
Years earlier, Cal had held up a bottle in the garage and pointed at the fluid.
"If you ever see this under a motorcycle, tell me immediately."
Jace had asked why.
Cal hadn't answered.
He hadn't needed to.
Now the boy looked upward.
The brake line was visible.
There was a cut in it.
Clean.
Straight.
Deliberate.
Jace's stomach tightened.
He stood.
Rhett was already walking toward the motorcycle.
The big man had changed his mind about taking the loaner.
He wanted the Road King.
He was thirty feet away.
Jace ran.
"Rhett!"
The man turned.
"Stop!"
Jace's voice cracked through the frozen afternoon.
Rhett froze.
"What?"
"Don't ride it."
Rhett stared at him.
"The brake line."
"What?"
"It's cut."
For two seconds, Rhett didn't move.
Then he walked toward the motorcycle.
He crouched.
His face changed.
Cal came running through the side door.
"What happened?"
Rhett pointed.
Cal looked.
The line had been sliced clean through.
Brake fluid was dripping onto the frozen gravel.
Cal's expression hardened.
"This wasn't an accident."
"No," Rhett said.
His voice was quiet.
"Somebody tried to kill me."
The clubhouse fell silent.
They brought the motorcycle inside.
Wade examined the damage.
Boone checked the security system.
The cameras had been offline for two weeks.
Rhett's eyes moved around the room.
"Who knew?"
Nobody answered.
Then Boone said a name.
"Dane Holloway."
The temperature seemed to drop.
Dane had once been a respected member of the Iron Veil.
Four months earlier, he had left after a bitter argument with Wade over club money and the legal defense of another member.
He had returned his cut.
Walked away.
And disappeared from their world.
Rhett stared at the floor.
"Dane knows this place."
Cal shook his head.
"That doesn't mean he did it."
"He has a reason."
"Having a reason isn't proof."
Rhett looked at him.
"Someone just tried to put me in the ground."
"I know."
"Then don't tell me to be patient."
Wade raised a hand.
"Nobody moves on suspicion."
But the damage had already been done.
The men began looking at one another differently.
And in the corner of the room, Jace watched.
He didn't say anything.
He looked at Elias.
Then at his boots.
There was something dark on the sole of the left one.
Not mud.
Not oil.
Something thicker.
Jace followed the faint mark across the floor.
It led toward the side door.
Then outside.
Then toward the old storage garage.
A building nobody had opened in weeks.
Jace returned to his milk crate.
He opened his notebook.
He wrote three words.
Elias. Garage. Why?
Outside, the wind rose.
Inside, the brotherhood began preparing for war.
And only one person in the room understood that they were looking in the wrong direction.
An eleven-year-old boy.
The Man Everyone Wanted to Blame
Jace didn't sleep that night.
He lay in the small bedroom above Cal's garage and stared at the water stain on the ceiling.
The stain looked like a hand.
He had stared at it so many nights that it had become familiar.
The heater clicked every forty seconds.
Downstairs, Cal was awake.
Jace could hear him moving around.
His father didn't sleep well when something was wrong.
Neither did Jace.
But for different reasons.
Cal was thinking about the brake line.
Jace was thinking about the boots.
And the garage.
And the strange feeling in his stomach that told him something was still missing.
The next morning, Cal drove Jace to Mrs. Tierney's house.
She was seventy-two, partially deaf, and famous for burning one side of every pancake she made.
Jace liked her.
She didn't ask questions.
Cal stopped the truck.
"I'll pick you up at four."
Jace nodded.
He started toward the porch.
Then Cal called him back.
"What you did yesterday..."
Jace turned.
"You did good."
Jace nodded.
He wanted to tell his father about Elias.
He wanted to say what he'd seen.
But Cal's expression was already closing.
The moment passed.
Cal drove away.
Instead of going to work, he went to the clubhouse.
Wade and Boone were already there.
Boone slid a photograph across the table.
Dane Holloway stood outside a bar in Winslow.
Beside him was a man wearing a Cobalt Reapers patch.
Cal studied the image.
"The Reapers?"
Wade nodded.
"That's what I thought."
The Cobalt Reapers were not exactly enemies.
But they weren't friends.
They were the kind of organization that waited for other people's mistakes.