novelraw Chapter 363: What He Is Due
Chapter 363: What He Is Due
"Four bikes are closing in fast," Alexei reported, looking briefly over his shoulder.
Zubair didn’t bother to ask distance. The floorboard gave him the answer — a low, thin vibration under the Hummer’s frame — and Sera’s breath shifted a fraction beside him as if she had scented her favorite meal.
That was enough for him to know everything that he needed to.
"Let them burn fuel," Zubair replied with a shrug.
Lachlan checked the mirror and let out a quiet laugh. "You’d think Marrow would’ve learned after last time."
"Some men don’t learn until their engines stop," Zubair replied.
He kept the wheel straight on the broken county road.
The Saints’ compound lay behind them in a widening smear of dust and black smoke; ahead was nothing but dry flats, scrub, and the carcasses of old irrigation lines.
There wasn’t much cover, but plenty of room to make other people make mistakes.
Sera lounged in the front passenger seat like she owned the sun. One knee up, a forearm against the window, and her eyes on the sidemirror.
Interested, not tense.
That helped.
When she was interested, the creatures inside all of them seemed to behave better...or at least, his did.
"Four’s not a hunting pack," Elias noted from the middle row. "Four’s a message."
"Then they can deliver it out here where there’s space," Zubair answered.
Behind Elias, Alexei angled himself to get a better view through the rear glass. "Formation is loose. They’re not trying to box yet."
"Because they’re not alone," Lachlan muttered. "Listen. It sounds like there is an even bigger shark out there hunting."
Zubair heard it a second later — deeper engines, lower gearing, not Saints. The Saints ran whatever they scavenged. This new sound was tuned and even. Biker, but not starving biker.
"The second group?" Zubair asked.
Alexei confirmed. "Two more bikes... no. Three. And a truck. Coming in fast from northwest. They’re not chasing us. They’re chasing the first four."
Sera’s mouth curved. "Oh. Guests. Does that make this a party?"
Zubair’s fingers tightened on the wheel, not from fear, just to mark the shift. "Everybody keep it clean. This is still our road."
He eased off the accelerator just enough to let the scene form behind them.
If he kept speed, all the moving parts would mash together and he’d have to pick sides at forty miles an hour. If he let it breathe, he could sort it.
The Saints hit visual first — four riders in patched vests, engines screaming harder than they needed to. Dust plumed around them. Bandanas, but not a single helmet to be seen.
Angry men trying to look bigger.
"Those are Marrow’s leftovers," Alexei judged. "Same patch as the compound."
"Probably trying to earn their way back after getting smoked," Lachlan added, amused. "Bad day to be ambitious."
The second set rolled out of the haze ten seconds later.
They looked different right away. Bikes cleaner. Gear matching. Helmets.
And the truck behind them wasn’t a pickup — it was an old armored bank van with the paint stripped, Saint skull spray over the side, but underneath it was good steel.
Elias shifted to look over his shoulder. "Those aren’t Saints. That’s someone with a lot of money to burn."
"Saint Eaters," Alexei recognized, voice flat. "The ones who like killing Saints more than they like breathing."
Sera perked up. "Are those the ones who took the Saint patches and made curtains out of them?"
"Those are the ones," Alexei confirmed.
"Fun."
Zubair rolled his shoulders once. "All right. We let them have their family fight. We don’t get boxed while they posture."
He pulled the Hummer half off the road to the hard shoulder, not a full stop, just slow enough to make it clear he wasn’t running.
It was a predator courtesy: you come close, you do it where I can see your hands.
The Saints didn’t read it fast enough. They roared up like they were going to surround the truck anyway.
The Saint Eaters did read it. Their lead rider blipped his throttle once and the whole back group adjusted, fanning to cut off the four Saints instead of them.
"Watch it," Lachlan warned. "Teeth out. Let’s see whose set is bigger."
It was a good description.
The Saint Eater bikes flashed past with that bare, forward lean that meant they already knew they owned this piece of road. Their truck braked hard, dust rolling over the hood, and blocked the lane behind Zubair at an angle.
The four Saints tried to dodge, found the lane closed, and circled in a tight, angry loop like dogs that had just realized they’d treed themselves.
Zubair kept the Hummer idling. He didn’t raise his weapon. He didn’t need to.
They were four trained killers in one armored vehicle, and a woman that no one underestimated twice.
Whoever was behind them had to know that.
The armored van’s passenger door opened.
A man stepped down — shaved head, dark jacket, and a Saint Eater patch on the front, with nothing on the back.
He wasn’t young, and he wasn’t nervous. His eyes went to the Hummer first, clocked Sera in the passenger seat, and then flicked to Zubair.
He lifted a hand in a not-quite-greeting. "You’re a long way from the General’s mall, Captain."
Zubair didn’t blink. "You’ve got the wrong rank."
"Not from where I stand." The man grinned, not friendly, just to show he had all his teeth. "Name’s Rigo. I ride under Harrow now."
That fit. Harrow was the General’s hand out here — not military, not Saint, not cartel, but the man who came when rules were ignored.
Sera tipped her head, curious. "I’m surprised that Harrow remembered us."
Rigo’s eyes flicked to her again, sharper now. He took her in, the men around her, the way they all orbited without thinking. He didn’t comment on it. Smart.
"He remembers everyone who leaves without paying," Rigo replied. "He asked me to remind you that his ledger is still open and you owe him a debt."
Elias exhaled through his nose. "We didn’t take anything from him."
"You took from more than two stores, and Harrow didn’t take a single finger in return. That is a debt you can’t pay." Rigo nodded toward the Hummer and Sera, "You also took her, which was bolder than most. And you burned his agreement with Marrow when you lit that yard up."
Lachlan’s grin sharpened. "If Harrow had an agreement with Marrow, that’s his first problem right there."
Rigo ignored him. He kept watching Zubair because Zubair was the one holding the wheel.
"The message is simple," Rigo went on. "Harrow says he hasn’t collected what’s owed. Your boys from the mall still breathe because he let them. You still drive his roads because he lets you. He wants what he’s due."