As this small girl in pajamas with Disney princesses on them stood in the doorway, crying, all the leather-clad bikers in the smoke-filled room stopped talking. She gazed at the thirty big motorcyclists like they were her final chance. The jukebox seemed to be drowning out a song by Johnny Cash. The cues in the pool stopped spinning.
She walked right up to Snake, the 6’1″ president of the Iron Wolves MC. His arms looked like tree trunks, and his face was covered in scars. She tugged on his leather vest and spoke the words that would get the whole motorcycle club going and uncover the town’s biggest secret.
She said quietly, “The bad man locked Mom in the basement, and she won’t wake up.” “He said he’d hurt my little brother if I told anyone,” he said. But Mom said that motorcyclists keep people safe.
People aren’t safe because of the police. Not the people that live next door. There isn’t nobody in town who is “respectable.” The mother of this little girl had told her that if she ever needed real help, she should look for the motorcyclists.
Snake bent down to her level, and his huge body made her look even smaller. Everyone in the bar held their breath.
“Princess, what do you call yourself?” He asked in a calm, beautiful voice that was quieter than any we had ever heard.
He said, “Emma,” and then he added something that had every biker in the room reach for their phones: “The bad guy is a cop.” That’s why Mom urged us to hunt for bikers.
The air was full of energy. There was a cop there. Yes, of course. It made everything apparent. A cop could make a mother and her kids disappear, and the whole system would back him up, making the motorcyclists look awful.
But Snake grabbed Emma without a second thought, as if she were nothing. The scary-looking man, on the other hand, clutched her like a priceless burden. He stared around the room with eyes that seemed like stone. “Brothers,” he muttered, breaking the silence. “Come on.” Hawk, you’re in charge of talking to people. Figure out where you are. Patch, please get this girl some chocolate milk and write down where she lives. Razor and Diesel will cause a distraction on the north side of town in ten minutes. It will be noisy, but it will be clean. Everyone else, get ready. Not only are we going to find her mother, but we are also going to help her family. This family is going to be taken home.
There was no fight. No question. There were simply the sounds of chairs scratching, keys jingling, and men strolling with purpose. Patch, a large biker who was unexpectedly good at calming kids down, sat with Emma and showed her where her house was on a map on her phone. Officer Frank Miller was the owner. People knew he had a bad temper and was good at making a good impression on others.
The plan was very clear. Four motorcycles, including Snake’s, rushed through the alleys with their engines off, a block away from Miller’s house, while Razor and Diesel’s Harleys screamed across the city, which the police must have noticed. They moved through the dark like ghosts.
Snake and two other individuals found the back window that Emma said she crawled through. Inside the house, it was strangely clean. They followed the sound of a weak and fearful baby sobbing to a bedroom upstairs, where a toddler was resting in his crib. He was OK. The third motorcyclist picked him up, put a blanket over him, and took him outside into the dark.
The basement comes next. Snake went down the stairs by himself, and his flashlight lighted up the dark, moist region. He noticed her on the cement floor. Sarah, Emma’s mom, was asleep and hurt, but she was still alive. Snake felt a rush of cold wrath flood over him, but he forced it down and focused on what he had to accomplish. He lifted her up as delicately as he had taken up his daughter and brought her outdoors into the cool night air.
Hawk, the club’s computer expert, had already placed the last component in place. He found Miller’s cell phone number and called him, acting like a low-level informant with a voice changer. “Hey, Miller. I hear things. A woman just came into the main office of the Iron Wolves. It appears like she has been talking.
Hawk anticipated that Miller would sound afraid and angry. “That kid… She was told. When I’m done with this traffic stop, I’ll go back and finish what I started. Her and her mother.”
They taped the whole thing.
When Miller realized that the diversion was bogus and ran home, no one was there. The birds had left since the cage was open. Their reign of terror was over. It didn’t go to the local police; instead, it went straight to the state police and a news station in the county next door. There would be no way to hide.
Sarah was being taken care of by a seasoned army medic back at the clubhouse. In a quiet back room, Emma and her little brother Leo napped. They were surrounded by a circle of leather-clad guards who made sure that no one could even touch them.
Weeks later, the town was still in shock. Officer Miller was in federal custody, and his arrest showed that the local police were even more corrupt than anyone had assumed. People dubbed the Iron Wolves heroes, but they didn’t like it.
One night with Sarah.
She was sitting on the clubhouse’s porch with Snake and watching Emma chase fireflies in the garden. She was getting better; her bruises were fading and she was starting to feel better.
She muttered softly, “I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” and looked at her daughter, who was laughing. “My grandmother used to say that a single mother with a troubled past and a police officer with a lot of medals could keep you safe.” Some of them wear leather, while some of them wear badges. I sent Emma to look for you since I knew you wouldn’t see me. You would only see my kids.
Snake observed a big biker named Grizzly stop in the middle of his trip to let Emma catch a firefly that had landed on his boot.
He said, in the same deep, rumbling voice he used the first night they met, “We’re not heroes, ma’am.” “We’re just the monsters that other monsters are scared of.” He nodded at Emma, and a strange, small smile curled at the corners of his mouth. “And that little girl of yours… she went into the dark and found the right monsters to fight.” “She’s the one with guts.”
In the fading light, a sad family discovered their guardians. The sound of motorcycles and the scent of gasoline and pine calmed them down. They had been saved, but that wasn’t all. They had been welcomed into a group that would protect them for the rest of their lives.