Chapter 7 - The Ambush at the Crossing
The convoy of eighty motorcycles rolled down the southern slopes of the Adirondacks like an iron storm.
They bypassed the interstate corridors, sticking to the winding two-lane blacktop of Route 4, flanking the slate-gray F-250 where Ethan sat between Declan and Jack. The roar of the engines was a continuous, vibrating pressure wave that rattled the windows of roadside diners and sent deer scattering into the timber.
By 11:30 AM, they were twenty miles north of Albany, approaching the narrow iron truss bridge that spanned the swollen waters of Fish Creek.
Ethan watched the road ahead, his stomach knotting with a cold, greasy dread. The landscape had flattened into overgrown farmland and abandoned industrial rail spurs.
"Stay sharp," Jack muttered, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel of the truck. "This crossing is a bottleneck. If Marcus has scouts on the highway, this is where he’ll try to box us in."
Declan checked the slide on his customized .45 caliber pistol, resting the heavy weapon flat against his thigh. "Marcus is an arrogant bastard, but he isn't stupid. He knows he can't win a fair fight on the clubhouse floor. Keep the bikes in tight formation."
The lead four motorcycles rolled onto the wooden planks of the bridge, their tires thumping rhythmically over the wet timber.
Suddenly, a blinding flash of white light erupted from the tree line on the southern bank.
BOOM.
A concussive explosion tore through the front of the bridge. A felled timber truck, its bed loaded with thirty tons of raw logs, roared out from a concealed logging trail, slamming broadside into the bridge exit with terrifying force, crushing the lead two motorcycles into twisted heaps of scrap iron and chrome.
"AMBUSH!" Jack roared, slamming his foot on the brakes of the F-250.
The truck skidded across the wet asphalt, tires smoking, coming to a halt thirty feet from the burning wreckage. Behind them, forty motorcycles scattered into the ditch, riders diving off their machines as automatic gunfire erupted from the tree line like a hailstorm.
Bullets ripped through the truck's windshield, spiderwebbing the reinforced ballistic glass with dozens of impact craters.
"DOWN!" Declan bellowed, grabbing Ethan by the neck and shoving him flat onto the floorboards between the bucket seats.
Outside, the air became a hurricane of screaming lead, shouting men, and the deafening clatter of return fire. The Red Serpents—reinforced by thirty hired mercenary shooters in unmarked tactical gear—had established fortified positions behind the stone bridge abutments and the abandoned railroad embankment.
"They've got high-ground rifles on the ridge!" Jack shouted, kicking open the driver’s side door, using the heavy armor-plated door as a rolling shield as he leveled a short-barreled shotgun into the timber.
Ethan lay on the floorboards, his ears ringing, his chest heaving with terror. The scent of ozone, burning motor oil, and copper filled the cab. For a split second, the paralyzing memory of his childhood trauma threatened to swallow him whole—the smoke, the screaming, the fire.
Then he looked at Declan Vance.
The seventy-year-old president wasn't hiding. He was kneeling on the truck’s running board, his .45 barking with rhythmic, devastating precision, dropping two riflemen from the railroad embankment before turning back to Ethan.
"Christian!" Declan roared above the gunfire, his eyes blazing with the fierce, unbroken fire of a lion. "Look at me! You are a Vance! The fire didn't take you when you were three years old, and these crawling snakes won't take you today! Grab that iron!"
Declan reached into the center console, pulled out a blued steel Colt Commander pistol, chambered a round with a crisp, violent snap, and shoved the weapon directly into Ethan’s trembling hands.
"Keep your head low, stay behind Jack, and move toward the bridge pilings!" Declan commanded. "We don't retreat! We push through!"
The boy who had spent nineteen years hiding in the shadows, washing dishes and dodging blows, looked down at the cold, heavy steel in his hands.
May you like
Something inside him snapped. The fear that had defined his entire life—the quiet, humiliating submission of a nameless orphan—evaporated, replaced by an ancient, boiling fury that had been sleeping in his veins for sixteen years.
Ethan raised the pistol, kicked open the passenger door, and stepped directly into the crossfire.
