The bonfire still burned hot behind him, flames licking at the desert night sky like hungry tongues, when Jason felt a hand clamp down on his arm with desperate urgency.
"Come with me," Anna hissed, her voice cutting through the background noise of laughter and clinking beer bottles.
Before he could answer, before he could even process what was happening, she was pulling him away from the crowd. Away from the forced camaraderie and the theatrical grief, away from Victor's booming voice as he continued working the room like a politician at a campaign rally. Jason let her drag him across the compound, his boots crunching on gravel and scattered bottle caps, his eyes never leaving Victor's back until the clubhouse walls finally blocked his view.
Anna moved with purpose, her grip on his arm tight enough to leave marks. She knew the compound's layout like a survival map—which shadows offered concealment, which corners were free from surveillance, which paths would take them away from prying eyes and listening ears. Three years of living under Victor's rule had taught her to navigate danger with the skill of someone who'd learned that visibility meant vulnerability.
She didn't stop until they were behind the main garage, where the compound's security lights cast long shadows against the chain-link fence that separated Iron Wolves territory from the endless Nevada desert. Out here, the roar of the memorial fire faded to a distant murmur, replaced by the lonesome hum of eighteen-wheelers on Highway 95 carrying their loads toward Vegas or California. The air was cooler away from the bonfire, carrying the scent of motor oil and desert sage.
It was just the two of them now—brother and sister, survivors of the same tragedy, standing in the shadows of their father's stolen kingdom.
Jason leaned against the corrugated metal wall of the garage, the surface still warm from the day's heat. He pulled out a cigarette with slow, deliberate movements, lighting it with the kind of practiced calm that had kept him alive in federal lockup. The flame from his Zippo illuminated his face for a brief moment, highlighting the new hardness around his eyes, the way three years behind bars had carved away everything soft.
"What's the rush, Anna?" he asked, exhaling smoke into the dry desert air. "You afraid of missing Victor's encore performance?"
Her eyes flashed with something between anger and fear, the hazel irises catching the distant glow of the security lights. "You shouldn't have come back."
Jason took another drag, letting the nicotine settle into his system like liquid patience. "Not exactly the homecoming speech I was expecting from my baby sister."
"I'm serious," she snapped, beginning to pace in front of him like a caged animal. Her voice was sharp enough to cut glass, but Jason could see her hands trembling in the half-light. "Victor runs everything now. The club, the money, the streets, the deals—all of it. These men—" she gestured toward the firelight spilling around the edge of the clubhouse "—they're not Dad's brothers anymore. They're Victor's soldiers. Bought and paid for with fear and blood money."
She stopped pacing, turning to face him directly. "If you call him out like that again, if you keep pushing, he'll kill you. And they'll let him do it. Hell, some of them will probably help."
Jason's jaw flexed, the muscle jumping beneath skin that had been hardened by three years of institutional tension. "Then I'll bury him first."
Anna stopped moving entirely, staring at him with eyes wide enough to show white around the irises. For a moment, she looked like the teenager she'd been when he went away—young, scared, desperate for someone to tell her everything would be okay.
"You don't get it," she said, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "You've been gone, locked away behind concrete and steel. You didn't see how he built this empire. Piece by piece, body by body. He's got everyone under his thumb—not just the club, but the whole damn ecosystem. Cops, judges, suppliers, even some of the federal agents."
Jason flicked ash onto the hard-packed dirt, the glowing ember dying among the scattered debris of compound life. "Fear doesn't last forever, Anna. Sooner or later, somebody always pushes back. Every tyrant falls eventually."
"Fear lasts if he keeps making examples," Anna shot back, her voice gaining intensity. "You remember Mikey Rodriguez? Dad's old road captain? The guy who taught you how to ride?"
Jason nodded. Mikey had been a fixture of his childhood—a loud laugh echoing across the compound, a heavy hand on the shoulder during bike lessons, a brother who'd once sworn he'd take a bullet for any member of the De'Leon family.
"He questioned one of Victor's deals about six months after you went inside," Anna continued. "Said the cartel partnership was going to bring too much federal heat, that Dad never would have approved. They found him in the desert three days later. Burned so bad they had to identify him by his dental records."
Jason's cigarette burned low between his fingers, the filter growing hot against his skin. The image hit him like a physical blow—Mikey, who'd been like an uncle to both of them, reduced to charcoal and bone in some godforsaken canyon.
"Nobody talks anymore," Anna said, her voice barely audible. "Nobody questions orders. Nobody even thinks unless Victor says they can. He's turned the Iron Wolves into his personal army, and anyone who remembers what we used to stand for is either dead or too scared to speak up."
She stepped closer, close enough that he could see the exhaustion in her face, the way three years of living in fear had aged her beyond her twenty-three years. "If you want to live through the week, you keep your head down. Smile when Victor talks. Drink when he drinks. Act like you're grateful for his generosity. Act like you believe his bullshit about carrying on Dad's legacy."
Jason's eyes narrowed, studying his sister's face in the dim light. "That's your plan? Hide? Pretend?"
Her lips pressed into a thin line, her hands curling into fists at her sides. "My plan is survival, Jason. You think I haven't wanted to fight back? You think I don't hate him for what he did to Dad, to Mikey, to all of them? But this isn't just about you anymore. He's got the whole club under his control. He's got partnerships with the Sinaloa cartel that bring in millions. He's got—"
She stopped herself mid-sentence, shaking her head like she'd said too much.
Jason caught the slip, the way her voice had changed when she mentioned the cartel. There was something else there, something bigger than just drug partnerships and territorial disputes. "He's got what, Anna?"
Anna looked away, staring out at the desert beyond the fence like she could disappear into the darkness if she tried hard enough. "Nothing. Forget it."
Jason dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his boot, the ember dying with a small hiss against the leather sole. He stepped closer to his sister, close enough to smell the fear-sweat that had soaked into her hoodie.
"Don't lie to me," he said, his voice carrying the quiet authority he'd learned from dealing with inmates who thought they could run games on him. "Not now. Not after everything."
She met his stare for a long moment, her hazel eyes raw and haunted by three years of secrets. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.
"You think walking in here with Dad's bike makes you untouchable? It doesn't. It just paints a bigger target on your back. Victor smiles at you because it suits his purposes right now, because having you here gives him legitimacy with the old-timers. But the second you become more of a threat than an asset—"
Jason's voice dropped to a growl that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest. "I already am a threat to him."
Anna's breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling like she'd been running. She looked past him toward the bonfire glow, then back at his face, and he could see the calculation in her eyes—weighing risks, measuring consequences, trying to find words that might save his life.
"Then you'll end up in the ground beside Dad," she said finally. "And I'll be alone in this hell with no one left to remember what our family used to stand for."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The desert night pressed in around them, silent except for the whisper of wind through chain-link and the distant crackle of the memorial fire. Jason could hear his own heartbeat, could feel the weight of his father's ring on his finger, could taste the smoke and grief that had followed him from the bonfire.
He reached out, placing a hand on his sister's shoulder with the gentle touch of someone who'd learned to be careful with fragile things. "I'm not afraid of him, Anna. I've stared down killers and rapists in federal lockup. Victor Kane doesn't scare me."
Her laugh was sharp and bitter as broken glass. "Maybe you should be scared. Maybe that's the only thing that'll keep you alive long enough to actually do something about this mess."
Jason's hand slipped from her shoulder as something caught his eye—a flash of discolored skin where her hoodie sleeve had ridden up during their conversation. He grabbed her wrist gently but firmly, pushing the fabric back before she could react.
What he saw made his blood turn to ice water.
Bruises. Faint but unmistakable, deep purple and yellow marks circling her skin like a bracelet of violence. Finger marks, precise and deliberate, the kind that came from someone gripping too hard, too long, with the intention to cause pain and establish dominance.
"Anna," he said, his voice razor-thin and dangerous as a blade. "Who did that to you?"
She yanked her sleeve down with desperate urgency, but it was too late. The damage was done, the secret revealed. Her eyes filled with shame, fear, and something else that hit Jason like a punch to the gut—resignation. The look of someone who'd accepted that pain was just part of life now.
Jason's fists clenched so tight his knuckles cracked like gunshots in the quiet night. The sound echoed off the garage walls, sharp and final as a death sentence. He didn't need her to answer. He didn't need confirmation or explanation.
He already knew.
Victor Kane had put his hands on Anna. Victor Kane had hurt his sister. Victor Kane had crossed the one line that could never be uncrossed.
The rage that filled Jason's chest was pure and clean and absolutely lethal. It burned away the last of his restraint, the final threads of patience that had been holding him back. This wasn't just about his father's murder anymore. This wasn't just about stolen thrones and family honor.
This was personal.