Jack looked outside.
Black vehicles surrounded the station.
At least six.
Men moved through the rain.
Victor Hale stepped out of the first vehicle.
He looked up toward the broken window.
"Jack!"
His voice echoed.
"Give me the girl!"
Jack stood.
"No."
Victor smiled.
"Then everyone dies."
Mia looked at Jack.
"Don't give me to him."
Jack looked at her.
"I won't."
"Even if he kills everyone?"
Jack's eyes hardened.
"Especially then."
He turned toward his brothers.
"Reaper's Hollow!"
Every man looked at him.
Jack raised his gun.
"Nobody takes our family."
The men moved.
And the battle began.
The Last Ride of Daniel Carter
The fight at Saint Mary's lasted twenty minutes.
By the end, the station was destroyed.
Three Black Meridian vehicles were burning.
Several men had fled.
The rest had been captured.
Victor Hale was gone.
But Mia's world had changed.
Because among the evidence left behind was a phone.
A phone belonging to Alan Price.
On it was one message.
CARTER TRANSFERRED TO BLACK RIDGE.
Jack knew the location.
An abandoned mining facility nearly two hundred miles north.
They left before sunrise.
Eight motorcycles.
Jack rode first.
Mia rode behind him.
She had never ridden with the club before.
Now she held onto Jack's shoulders as the highway stretched beneath them.
For hours, nobody spoke.
The sky turned orange.
Mountains appeared.
Mia watched the world rush past.
For the first time in years, she felt something she had forgotten.
Hope.
They reached Black Ridge at 11:20 a.m.
The facility was enormous.
Old warehouses.
Concrete tunnels.
Rusting machinery.
A tower overlooking the valley.
Jack stopped.
"This is it."
Mia climbed off.
"How do we get in?"
Jack looked toward the main gate.
"We don't."
He pointed toward the mountain.
"We go underneath."
Cole nodded.
"There's an old service tunnel."
They entered.
The tunnel smelled of damp stone.
Their footsteps echoed.
After half a mile, they found a steel door.
Behind it were voices.
Jack raised his hand.
Everyone stopped.
He opened the door.
Two guards stood inside.
They barely had time to react.
Minutes later, they were unconscious.
The group moved deeper.
Then Mia heard something.
A voice.
Her father's voice.
"Stop."
She froze.
Jack looked at her.
They followed the sound.
At the end of the corridor was a room.
Daniel Carter sat chained to a metal chair.
He was thinner.
Older.
His beard had grown gray.
His face was bruised.
But he was alive.
Mia ran.
"Dad!"
Daniel looked up.
For a second, he didn't understand what he was seeing.
Then his eyes widened.
"Mia?"
She fell into his arms.
He couldn't move because of the chains.
But he pressed his face against her hair.
"My little girl."
Mia cried.
"You were alive."
"I'm sorry."
"You were alive."
"I tried to come home."
"Why didn't you?"
"They were watching you."
"You should have told me."
"I wanted to."
She pulled back.
"Then why didn't you?"
Daniel looked at Jack.
Jack understood.
"I couldn't risk it."
Mia wiped her tears.
"You let me hate you."
Daniel's eyes filled.
"I know."
"Do you know how much I hated you?"
"Every day."
"How?"
"Because every day I hated myself more."
Mia cried again.
Jack turned away.
Daniel looked at him.
"You came."
Jack nodded.
"Of course."
Daniel smiled.
"You always were stubborn."
Jack laughed quietly.
"So were you."
Then Cole entered.
Daniel's smile disappeared.
"You."
Cole stopped.
"I came to get you."
Daniel stared.
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't."
Cole stepped forward.
"But I came anyway."
Daniel looked at Jack.
Jack nodded.
"He's telling the truth."
Daniel lowered his eyes.
"Then we're running out of time."
"What happened?" Jack asked.
Daniel shook his head.
"Hale has everything."
"What?"
"The names. The accounts. The locations."
"Where?"
"Everywhere."
Daniel looked at Mia.
"He wanted you."
"Why?"
"Because you're the last person who knows where the original evidence is."
Mia frowned.
"I don't know anything."
Daniel smiled sadly.
"Yes, you do."
"What?"
"Your mother taught you."
Mia looked confused.
Lena stepped forward.
"What are you talking about?"
Daniel stared at her.
"The drawings."
Mia's eyes widened.
"When I was a child?"
"Yes."
"I drew houses."
"Not houses."
Daniel looked at Jack.
"Maps."
Mia shook her head.
"I don't understand."
Daniel smiled.
"Your mother taught you to draw the locations where we hid evidence."
Mia stared at Lena.
Lena began crying.
"I had to."
"But I was a child."
"Exactly."
Daniel nodded.
"No one would suspect a child."
Mia suddenly remembered.
The impossible roofs.
The strange windows.
The lines beneath the houses.
The little circles.
She had always thought they were imagination.
They weren't.
They were maps.
Daniel continued.
"The original evidence is hidden in the place you drew most often."
Mia whispered:
"Home."
Daniel nodded.
"Our old house."
Jack looked at Cole.
"Hale knows."
Daniel shook his head.
"No."
Everyone stopped.
"Because he never knew where it was."
Mia stared.
"Where?"
Daniel smiled.
"Under the garage."
The House Under the House
They returned to Mia's childhood home that night.
It stood at the edge of a small town.
Empty.
Abandoned.
The paint was peeling.
The windows were broken.
The garage door hung open.
Mia stood in the driveway.
"I haven't been here in seven years."
Daniel looked at the house.
"I know."
"You came here?"
"Sometimes."
"When?"
"After you moved."
Mia looked at him.
"You watched me?"
"From a distance."
She didn't know whether to be angry or grateful.
Maybe both.
They entered the garage.
Daniel pointed toward the floor.
"Third concrete panel."
Mia found it.
Jack and Cole moved the panel.
Beneath it was a steel hatch.
Daniel entered a code.
The hatch opened.
A staircase descended into darkness.
Mia stared.