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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Also by Christopher Golden

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  Jax Teller liked peace and quiet as much as the next guy, but he’d learned the hard way never to trust them. He’d spent his whole life as part of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club—first as the son of its founder, then as a member, and now as vice president of its original charter—and he didn’t know any other way to live. Even when the club wasn’t in the midst of trouble, there was usually some brewing.

  Not today.

  Just to have something to do, Jax reeled in his line, checked his bait, and then cast it back into the deep, churning river.

  “Nothing biting,” he said, just to say something.

  Opie Winston sat six feet away, broad back against a rock formation and a beer in his hand. Shortly after they’d come down to the river, Opie had driven a black plastic tube into the soft, damp soil of the riverbank, cast out his line, and slid the handle of his fishing pole into the tube. It wasn’t fishing so much as drinking beer and shooting the occasional glance at the line to see if anything might be tugging at it.

  Jax thought he was begging for the fishing pole to get dragged into the river—exactly what would happen if a decent-sized steelhead decided to take the bait—but Opie looked too relaxed for him to bring it up. In truth, the arrival of a thieving steelhead didn’t seem very likely, considering that there had been two nibbles on Opie’s line in nearly three hours and that he had only bothered to reel it in a few times. His focus had been on emptying the cooler of beer they’d lugged down from the cabin.

  Jax rose to fetch a fresh beer, doing his share to help lighten the cooler for the return trip. He propped his fishing rod in the crook of his arm to open the beer and took a long gulp.

  Opie stretched and rotated his head, and the bones in his neck popped loudly. “Either the fish are getting smarter or they can sense how unmotivated we are,” he said.

  “Speak for yourself, Op. I’m motivated.”

  “Then you’re doing it wrong,” Opie said. “Fishing’s a state of mind, Jax. It’s Zen. If you wanted to finish the day with something to eat, we should’ve gone hunting like I suggested.”

  Jax settled himself at the base of a massive tree whose thick roots had been exposed by decades of erosion. When the river ran low enough for the ground between the roots to dry out, it made the perfect seat.

  “Hunting’s too much work,” he said. “We came up here to clear our heads.”

  “Then why are you bitching about the fish not biting?”

  Jax drained a third of his beer. “Things get quiet, I squirm a little. Need to break the silence.”

  He drew back on his fishing pole a bit to see if there was anything dragging on the line, but it moved easily, not even the ghost of a nibble. When he realized Opie hadn’t replied, he turned to find his best friend studying him curiously.

  “What?” Jax asked, not bothering to hide the edge in his voice.

  “How many days do you think you’d have to be up here before you could stop worrying about all the other shit?”

  Jax sipped his beer. “Not sure I can count that high, brother.”

  They fell quiet again, only the sounds of the river and the rustle of the wind in the trees to disturb the silence. Opie had suggested the trip the day before, and Jax had surprised himself by agreeing. They’d thrown beer and bait and a single bag of groceries into the back of Opie’s truck and made the drive up to the cabin. The place had been a private retreat for the club since the days of the First Nine, back when Jax’s and Opie’s fathers and guys like Clay Morrow and Lenny the Pimp had been laying the groundwork for what would become SAMCRO—Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original.

  As kids, Jax and Opie had run wild in the woods around the cabin, fished and swum in the river, and drunk beers they’d stolen from their dads. John Teller and Piney Winston had made their sons drink those beers until they threw it all up—a biker’s lesson. Sitting in the cradle of those old tree roots and watching the river flow by, Jax felt haunted by those days. They hadn’t come up to the cabin on anything but business in years, and now he struggled with the weight of his responsibilities to Tara, to his sons, and to the club. Coming up here with Opie had seemed like a good idea, and he’d enjoyed just breathing for once, but he could feel hooks set deep in his flesh, dragging him home.

  He and half the club had survived months in prison and upheaval in their relationships with the Real IRA and the Russian mafia—the Bratva. Jax had been shivved in Stockton Penitentiary on orders from the Bratva’s chief, Viktor Putlova. SAMCRO had managed to broker a peace with the Russians that lasted long enough for Jax and the other club members who’d been sent up with him to get back on the street. SAMCRO had broken that peace at Opie’s wedding to Lyla. Putlova and his muscle were all dead, and the Sons had struck a new deal with the Mexicans—the Galindo cartel—and bought themselves a moment to breathe.

  Jax and Tara had gotten engaged and announced it to the club. All should’ve been right with the world—he told himself this trip to the cabin, a sort of mini bachelor party, was proof of that—but the engagement had only deepened the fault line that splintered Jax himself in two. There was the man he wanted to be, and then there was the man he’d been raised to be. SAMCRO’s business had always been illegal guns and now it included drugs, and he’d promised Tara he had a plan to get himself—and his sons—away from the club and the dangers that came along with it.

  He’d promised. And he’d meant it.

  Sometimes, though, promises turned to quicksand.

  Opie’s line twitched, bobbed, and then bent. Jax called his name, put aside his beer, and pushed himself up from the cradling tree roots, but Opie was already in motion. He’d seemed to be half-dozing a second before, but now he hurtled toward his fishing pole and grabbed hold just as it began to tilt and slide up out of the tube. Jax dropped his own fishing pole into the tube, thinking he might need to help.

  “Son of a bitch!” Opie growled, whipping the pole back to set the hook in the mouth of whatever fish had been dumb enough to take bait that had been sitting in the river for three quarters of an hour.

  Opie had a few inches and at least thirty pounds on Jax. With his beard and grim eyes, he looked intimidating, like the kind of man who would break a musician’s wrists for playing the wrong song—which he’d actually done.

  He looked ridiculous reeling in that fish. Jax couldn’t help laughing.

  “Guess you met your match,” he said, trotting back to fetch his beer. He stood on the riverbank and watched Opie dip the fishing pole toward the water and then jerk it back again, reeling quickly each time he did so.

  Opie turned to sneer at him, but he couldn’t maintain the anger and started laughing instead. He to
ok a step toward Jax and the fishing line snapped, twanging as it ribboned back toward them like a spiderweb in a breeze.

  “Fuck it,” Opie said.He hurled the fishing pole into the river, drew his gun, and fired off half a dozen shots in the general direction of the fish. As the echo of gunfire died away, the two of them stood and stared at the fishing pole as it bobbed along for a few seconds longer and then slid below the current.

  “That’s one way to fish,” Jax said with a grin.

  Opie turned to gaze downriver, brow furrowed.

  Jax wasn’t grinning anymore. “What’s up?”

  “That fishing pole was my old man’s.”

  Jax glanced at the pole he’d brought down from the cabin. They’d gotten the rods and reels from a dusty closet. Most of them were rusty, and Jax had chosen the one that seemed the least deteriorated. If one of the fishing poles at the cabin had belonged to his own father, John Teller, he wouldn’t have been able to pick it out from the others. But Piney was alive, and he felt bad about the loss.

  Half a dozen smart-ass remarks came to mind. Jax gave voice to none of them. Instead, he picked up his own fishing pole and began to reel in the line.

  Opie gathered up the empty beer bottles and piled them into the cooler. In an alley back in Charming, they might not have bothered.

  “Looks like you needed to get out of Charming more than I did,” Jax said. Opie hefted the cooler. “I’m not the one who just got out of Stockton.”

  Jax put on a smile. “I’m fine, Op. Like you said, I’m out. Now I’m engaged, and you’re a newlywed. The club’s put its house in order. Cash is flowing again. Things are good.”

  Opie gave a soft laugh, but without a trace of humor.

  “That’s what worries me,” he said, and started trudging back up through the woods toward the cabin.

  “How does that make sense?” Jax asked, falling in step beside him. “We in some kind of trouble you’re not telling me about?”

  Opie smiled grimly. “Trouble’s always on the way, Jax. What worries me is times like this. Times when we don’t know which direction it’s gonna hit us from.”

  His words lingered in Jax’s head as the two men reached the cabin and prepared to head back to Charming. It bothered Jax how much Opie’s thoughts about trouble seemed to echo his own, like they were swimming in an ocean of it, just waiting for the next big wave.

  Neither of them could have predicted how soon the next wave of trouble would hit or whom they’d find drowning in it.

  2

  They’d just come off the wooded road onto the long, faded, two-lane road that ran parallel to Route 99 for a dozen or so miles on the way to Charming and Lodi. Opie was behind the wheel, and Jax had been digging through the stack of old CDs on the floor. He’d chosen Drunken Lullabies, by Flogging Molly, because the head-banging title track always wormed its way inside his skull and made him think of Ireland and his father, two topics that, when considered together, always pissed him off and yet somehow amped up his mood.

  He turned to peer out the window at a dusty vineyard that had seen better days. In the rearview mirror he caught a glimpse of a black Humvee coming up behind them, moving fast.

  “Be happy, brother,” Jax said, popping open the glove compartment and retrieving the Glock 17 that had been waiting there. “At least you know what direction the trouble’s coming from.”

  Opie glanced in the mirror. “Shit. Feds, you think?”

  “Just drive,” Jax told him. “If it’s feds, I won’t need this.”

  He jacked the slide, slamming a round into the gun’s chamber. Jax had a feeling this wasn’t feds.

  Opie floored it, the truck jumping forward with a roar. The gap separating them from the Humvee opened up for a second or two, and then the monstrous black vehicle began closing again. Jax tightened his grip on the Glock and glanced to the left, across the two-lane road and the span of grass and trees and scrub that separated it from Highway 99. “Cut across,” Jax said.

  Opie shot him a quick, hard look. “Serious?”

  A hundred yards ahead, the ground between the side road and the highway flattened out, and old, worn tracks showed that others had driven across it in the past. A white box truck rumbled toward them from the other direction.

  “Right after the truck,” Opie said. “Hang on to something.”

  Jax watched the box truck coming along the two-lane road, counting seconds in his head. The Humvee’s engine roared, and it bumped the pickup. Opie and Jax jerked in their seats, rattled by the impact.

  “Guess that rules out the feds,” Jax said, bracing himself against the dash with his free hand.

  Opie didn’t reply. Jaw tight, he watched the box truck, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, ready to swerve left, tap the brakes, and shoot across the open ground between the faded side road and Highway 99.

  The white box truck swerved first—across the lane in front of them.

  A setup.

  “Son of a—” Jax managed before Opie cut left as planned, tires skidding.

  Their pickup slammed sidelong into the box truck, but Opie hit the gas, gunning it for the break in the trees—that tire-worn gap that would put them on Highway 99, give them room to run, put some other vehicles into the mix.

  The Humvee hit them broadside, shattering windows and caving in Opie’s door. The engine screamed under duress as the Humvee slammed them sideways and Opie’s pickup skidded along the road and off the shoulder. They missed the gap. The Humvee kept pushing, and they hit a stand of old pine trees with a jerk that bounced Jax’s skull off the passenger-side window. His grip on the gun loosened, but only for a second.

  “Down!” he shouted.

  Opie ducked his head. Jax grabbed his shoulder to be sure, steadied his hand, and fired through the shattered driver’s side window, blowing out the Humvee’s windshield. The Humvee’s driver reversed, tires spinning as the vehicle withdrew; then it skidded to a halt, and the doors popped open.

  Jax knew he ought to be moving, but he wanted to see what they were up against. If they were dealing with a rival club, like the Niners or Mayans, the assholes would have been on motorcycles. Must be a different breed of assholes, he thought.

  “Cartel?” Opie asked, twisted in his seat and rooting in the back for the shotgun there.

  “We’re solid with Galindo,” Jax said, frowning.

  “Is anyone ever solid with the damn cartel?”

  The question went unanswered. The men piling out of the Humvee and the white box truck were pale and dressed in blacks and grays, all of them carrying guns. These weren’t cartel hitters, and they sure as hell weren’t part of Lin’s Crew. Jax might’ve thought them Real IRA, but he didn’t recognize a man among them.

  “Russians,” Opie said.

  Jax grunted. “Let’s move.”

  They piled out the passenger door, using Opie’s pickup as cover. Jax’s boots hit the ground, and he ducked behind the truck’s bed, gun raised. His temples throbbed with rage, but he pushed the anger away, forcing himself to think. A quick glance over the truck bed showed the Russians fanning out, guns trained on the pickup but not firing yet.

  Of course they’re Russians. How could he have thought anything else? Their dour Slavic countenances were unmistakable. Pale killers, there for vengeance for Putlova’s murder.

  That’s why they aren’t shooting yet, he thought. Putlova’s whole crew were dead and the Russians had no one who could confirm that SAMCRO was behind it.

  “They want us alive,” Jax muttered.

  Opie had his back to the truck, shotgun primed. “They got a funny way of showing it.”

  Jax exhaled. The Russians might want them alive for the moment, but that wouldn’t last. Whoever had ordered this move would be reluctant to expose himself to any unnecessary public risk. Jax and Opie would be tossed in the back of the box truck, driven to wherever the boss might be, questioned, and then very likely executed. It would be hard to convince the Bratva that SAMCRO hadn’t
killed Putlova and his buddies … mainly because they had.

  “Mr. Teller!” one of the Russians shouted, his accent thick. “You and your friend throw out your guns and come out where we can talk.”

  “We can hear you just fine from here!” Opie shouted back.

  Jax couldn’t help the hint of a smile.

  “This isn’t how you want this to go down!” Jax told them, risking a glance over the top of the pickup’s bed. The Russians hadn’t come any closer, nor did anyone open fire.

  “You need to come with us. This is to be a private conversation,” the Russian said, “and this is a very public place.”

  Jax looked at Opie, then over at the cars passing on Highway 99. A black Mercedes slowed down—a driver rubbernecking, thinking he’d seen an accident—and Jax realized the clock was ticking. Cops would be on the way. He glanced at the pine trees behind them.

  “You’re too quiet, Mr. Teller!” the Russian shouted. “But we will catch up to you, and then there will be bullets. I imagine you’d prefer to keep bullets out of this.”

  Opie frowned at Jax. “Gotta buy some time,” he rasped quietly.

  Jax nodded. Every option he considered seemed to lead to only two possible results: die or survive and end up back in prison. They could claim self-defense if they shot these bastards, but possessing the guns they would use to defend themselves might be enough to flush his parole down the toilet. His mind reeled, trying to puzzle his way out of it.

  Ticktock, pass the time, keep them talking.

  “Who sent you?” he called. “Might make our decision easier if we knew who we were dealing with.”

  “Your only decision is bullets or no bullets,” the Russian said, his accent somehow growing thicker.

  The wind picked up. If there were any birds in the trees, they’d fallen silent.

  Off to Jax’s left, a man in a gray suit sidestepped into view, edging over with his gun raised, trying to get a clean shot behind the pickup. Jax whipped around and took aim.

  “Back the hell off!” he roared. “Or the decision is made!”

  The man did not move, but neither did he shoot. He kept his gun trained on Jax, who glanced at Opie and wondered how many seconds they had before another Russian moved into view on that side of the pickup. They hadn’t had a long list of choices to begin with, but the list was getting shorter with every passing second.