Page 1 of Ranger’s Protection

Chapter 1 - Ranger

The car feels wrong.

I grip the steering wheel tighter than necessary, trying to shake the sensation that I'm missing something vital. It's the silence, I realize. No engine roar vibrating through my entire body. No wind threatening to rip my jacket off at seventy miles per hour. Just the muted hum of a sedan that could belong to anyone, which is exactly the point.

Still feels wrong.

I've been driving for forty minutes, taking the long route through back roads that add twenty minutes to the trip but keep me off highways where cameras track every license plate. The math made sense when I mapped it out this morning. One man, one unremarkable vehicle, minimal digital footprint. The safest way to extract a witness when half the police force has Viper connections and the other half can't be trusted not to talk.

Doesn't mean I have to like it.

My left hand aches where it grips the wheel, the old injury that never quite healed right, courtesy of the night I put myself between Quinn and our father's belt buckle. I was sixteen. She was thirteen. He'd been drinking since noon, and when he started in on her about some imagined disrespect, I knew how it would end if I didn't step in.

Broke two bones in my hand when I blocked the buckle. Worth it. Would do it again without hesitation.

I flex my fingers, feeling the familiar pull of scar tissue beneath the skin. The hand works fine for everything that matters—shooting, fighting, the precise movements required for tactical work. Just reminds me it's there on long drives or before storms.

Appropriate, given what I'm driving into.

The motel comes into view exactly where the coordinates said it would be: a sagging two-story structure called the Sunset Inn that hasn't seen a sunset worth advertising in at least two decades. Peeling paint. Flickering neon sign, and cars in the lot that look like they've been abandoned rather than parked.

Perfect place to hide if you're desperate and smart enough to pick somewhere nobody would look twice.

I drive past without slowing, scanning the lot and surrounding area with the attention that kept me alive through three tours overseas.

Two men smoking near the office. Woman with a stroller heading toward the stairs. Maintenance van that could be legitimate or could be surveillance.

Nothing that screams immediate threat, but my instincts are screaming anyway.

I circle the block twice before pulling into a gas station three buildings down. Park where I can see the motel entrance but where the car blends into the handful of vehicles scattered around the pumps. Check my phone: no messages from Phoenix, which means the situation at the clubhouse hasn't deteriorated further.

Small mercy.

Three weeks since the final assault on the Vipers' clubhouse. Three weeks since we burned it to the ground and scattered most of their members to the wind. Three weeks since Demon escaped on a motorcycle with just enough people left to make good on his threat to start his revenge with Saint.

Three weeks of lockdown protocol. Full security. Weapons checks. Rotating watch shifts that have us all operating on four hours of sleep if we're lucky.

Three weeks of waiting for the other boot to drop.

And now this, a witness who saw something she shouldn't have, went to the wrong cops, and ended up with a target on her back. A federal contact who owed Phoenix a favor reached out yesterday. Said there was a woman hiding in a motel forty-five minutes from Millhaven. Said she needed extraction before the Vipers' remaining network found her first. Said the feds couldn't move on her without paperwork that would take days they didn't have.

Phoenix asked who could go alone.

I volunteered before anyone else could.

Not because I wanted to: going alone contradicts every tactical principle about backup and redundancy. But because the math was clear. More people means more vehicles. More vehicles means more chances to be spotted, followed, tracked. One man in an unremarkable car is invisible. A convoy of motorcycles is a declaration.

Doesn't mean every instinct in me isn't screaming that I should have brought a brother anyway.

I kill the engine and sit for thirty seconds, watching the motel. The two men by the office haven't moved. The woman with the stroller disappeared up the stairs. The maintenance van is still parked in the same spot.

Nothing feels actively wrong.

Everything feels potentially wrong, which is just my baseline these days.

I pull out my phone and send a text to Phoenix: *On site. Making contact now.*

His response comes in under five seconds: *Stay sharp. Report when secure.*