They drove as quietly as they could into Echo Lane. Adam was in the lead with Robbie, Mike, Bill, and Wade following behind him. According to rumors, the Stealers hadn’t tamed Echo Lane yet. It wasn’t surprising that it would be a tough job. When a real biker gang set up shop in a neighborhood, they got to know their neighbors, got rid of other competition. The point of it was to turn those neighbors into a sort of front line. They would tell you when someone else was riding on your turf. Adam wasn’t sure how much the neighborhood liked the Stealers, if at this exact moment a call was going to the Stealers letting them know Scarred Angels was coming.

 

They were a block away from the long lane that led to the Stealers’ headquarters. The men all silenced their bikes, turning off their lights and using their legs to propel themselves forward. Once they were close enough, Adam and Robbie hopped off their bikes and hunched over as they began to make their way through the rubble and trash towards the two men who Adam knew guarded the road. He could just make out the chain that stretched across the road and knew they must be close.

 

They stopped and listened, hearing the faint sound of music coming from one of the outbuildings. Together the two men silently snuck up and peered through the window. As Adam suspected, it was a shithole. A literal hole in the wall led to a small room with a futon mattress propped up as an imitation couch. Two men were smoking and listening to the tinny sound of music playing from a cheap cell phone.

 

Adam nodded at Robbie as he pulled out his shotgun and Robbie did the same thing. Adam silently counted to three and then he ran into the hole in the wall, into the sneaking room.

 

“Don’t move, don’t speak,” Adam hissed. The two men both looked shocked and confused, staring at Adam wide eyed, both of their hands in the air. Robbie hurried over and pulled their guns and knives free, putting them in his pocket and nodding at Adam. “Clothes off,” Adam spit. The two hostages look confused at each other, and didn't move. “I said, take them off, down to your boxers.”

 

The two men were quick to obey, stripping off their dirty jackets and town jeans, all of which Robbie scooped up and threw out into the woods. Once they were undressed Adam had them lie on their stomachs on the floor and watched as Robbie expertly hogtied them both up, gagging them, as well.

 

Adam didn’t bother to ask if there were others out here. He couldn’t trust either of these men to tell him the truth. “Clear, over” he said into his walkie-talkie.

 

Somewhere down the lane Mike, Bill, and Wade silently brought their bikes. They parked them in the guardhouse and, silently, the five men made their way to the Soul Stealers’ headquarters. They stuck to the scrub on the side of the road, ready to drop to the ground if car lights came, but there was only silence, and the only light came from the dilapidated building not far ahead.

 

“The fuck, Adam?” he heard Mike whisper. “Isn’t that the Kane girl’s car?”

 

Adam’s heart stopped. It was Dakota’s Prius. Parked amongst motorcycles and dirt bikes.

 

“What’s that doing here? She working with the Stealers?” Robbie asked.

 

“Working with the Stealers, they tried to kill her! You think they got her in there somewhere?” Mike asked.

 

But Adam didn’t know. He hadn’t contacted Dakota and she hadn’t contacted him. He had put her out of his head, determined not to let his feelings affect his judgment. He never thought this could happen, Dakota here. In his mind, he had assumed she was under lock and key at her father’s house, safe and sound under the guard of another man. “Plan doesn’t change,” Adam said through clenched teeth. The plan couldn't change. At this moment, he knew the rest of the Stealers had left their headquarters and were on their way. There were too many moving parts for it to all be tossed just because Dakota’s car was in the Soul Stealers’ driveway. He forced it out of his mind, refused to let his imagination run wild. He needed to stay in control, now more than ever.

 

“I count nine out front,” Mike said as Robbie and Wade left in separate directions. They would circle the building and come back with a count of who was inside.

 

Adam watched the men in the parking lot. Of the nine, three were smoking weed, two were smoking cigarettes, and four were smoking crack. He couldn’t help but smile. Seven out of nine stoned to the point of incapacitation. Taking the outside of the building would be easy. He glanced at his watch, knowing the rest of Scarred Angels was only fifteen minutes out.

 

“I count ten more inside, and I saw Dakota,” Robbie said as he and Mike rejoined them. Adam stomach dropped, but he refused to let his facial expression change. “She was talking to the leader, a guy named Charlie. He don’t look like any biker I’ve ever seen.”

 

“Joey?” Adam asked.

 

“No sign of him. What is Dakota Kane doing here?”

 

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter,” Adam said. “We need to secure the exterior.”

 

“Should we wait for the rest of the guys?” Mike asked.

 

“Nine guys, seven of them high. I think we can take ‘em.”

 

Guns drawn, the five men fanned out and silently approached the building. Adam couldn’t help but be disgusted with the Soul Stealers security. They no doubt assumed that Echo Lane itself would keep most people away, but Scarred Angels wasn’t most people. But the Stealers didn’t know they were coming; they probably thought they had enough time. Or they thought holding Joey hostage would keep Scarred Angels away. They were wrong on both counts.

 

At once the five men emerged from the thin trees that surrounded the headquarters. Their guns out, they raced at the nine men who were sitting outside.

 

“Don’t move, don’t speak,” Adam said, holding his shotgun against one man’s throat as his fellows surrounded the smoking men. The men were high and clumsy, struggling to their feet, their glassy eyes staring around them in confusion.

 

“Guns, weapons, drugs, on the ground,” Mike said, his shotgun pointed at the Soul Stealers’ heads.

 

They watched as the men tossed pistols, switchblades and bags of white powder down onto the ground. Adam kept glancing at the door to the headquarters, but no one came out. And no one out here made a sound, but he didn’t know how much long he could count on that.

 

“On your knees,” Mike ordered, and one by one in a line the men fell to their knees and were quickly hogtied like the other men at the guardhouse, left on the ground to make themselves as comfortable as possible. They had done it just in time. Adam could hear the roar of motorcycles behind him as Scarred Angels came pouring down the dirt road to wage war against the Soul Stealers.

 

Dakota, he thought. He knew he shouldn’t but he couldn’t help himself. Did they have two hostages? Had they hurt her? How had a simple protection contract turned into this?