“This isn’t how you want this to go down!” Jax told them, risking a glance over the top of the pickup’s bed. The Russians hadn’t come any closer, nor did anyone open fire.

“You need to come with us. This is to be a private conversation,” the Russian said, “and this is a very public place.”

Jax looked at Opie, then over at the cars passing on Highway 99. A black Mercedes slowed down—a driver rubbernecking, thinking he’d seen an accident—and Jax realized the clock was ticking. Cops would be on the way. He glanced at the pine trees behind them.

“You’re too quiet, Mr. Teller!” the Russian shouted. “But we will catch up to you, and then there will be bullets. I imagine you’d prefer to keep bullets out of this.”

Opie frowned at Jax. “Gotta buy some time,” he rasped quietly.

Jax nodded. Every option he considered seemed to lead to only two possible results: die or survive and end up back in prison. They could claim self-defense if they shot these bastards, but possessing the guns they would use to defend themselves might be enough to flush his parole down the toilet. His mind reeled, trying to puzzle his way out of it.

Ticktock, pass the time, keep them talking.

“Who sent you?” he called. “Might make our decision easier if we knew who we were dealing with.”

“Your only decision is bullets or no bullets,” the Russian said, his accent somehow growing thicker.

The wind picked up. If there were any birds in the trees, they’d fallen silent.

Off to Jax’s left, a man in a gray suit sidestepped into view, edging over with his gun raised, trying to get a clean shot behind the pickup. Jax whipped around and took aim.

“Back the hell off!” he roared. “Or the decision is made!”

The man did not move, but neither did he shoot. He kept his gun trained on Jax, who glanced at Opie and wondered how many seconds they had before another Russian moved into view on that side of the pickup. They hadn’t had a long list of choices to begin with, but the list was getting shorter with every passing second.

“Jax,” Opie muttered.

The Russian called his name. “Time is running out. In moments, the decision will be taken from you. My men have witnessed the opportunities I gave you. My employer won’t blame me if you die here on the side of the road. Your children will cry for you, Mr. Teller, but I will sleep well tonight.”

Jax stopped breathing. Anger blinded him for a second or two as images of his boys, Thomas and Abel, swam into his head.

“I will count to five,” the Russian said. “One—”

The countdown narrowed their options to only one. Jax glanced at Opie, found his friend already looking back at him, dark anger in Opie’s eyes that matched Jax’s own.

“Two,” the Russian said.

Opie helped keep him focused, keep him grounded. They had been best friends so long that Opie understood him better than anyone. When Jax has lost his brother and later his father… and when Opie’s first wife, Donna, had been killed… they had relied on each other. Hell, they’d always relied on each other.

“Three.”

“I’ve got the asshole to your left,” Opie whispered.

Jax took a breath, relaxed his grip on the Glock, then popped up from behind the pickup’s bed. In one smooth motion, he took aim at the Russian who’d just brought his children into the conversation and shot him twice in the chest. One of the bullets punched all the way through, fanning bright crimson blood onto the grass behind him.

Simultaneously, Opie stepped back from the pickup, leveled the shotgun behind Jax, and blasted the guy who’d come around the side. The Russian blew backward through the mist of his own blood. The boom rattled Jax’s brains as he ducked behind the pickup again, but then he and Opie were both running into the copse of pine trees. The Russians opened fire, and the pickup rocked with scores of gunshots that plinked metal and shattered glass. By then, Jax and Opie were in the midst of the trees, and Jax had begun to count the seconds in his head. How many until they caught up? How far to the highway, running at this angle through the trees?

Opie crashed between two pines, and Jax raced to catch up.

“We need a ride!” Opie said.

The clamor had died down behind them, but Jax knew that didn’t mean the Russians were departing. They would be in pursuit. He glimpsed Highway 99 through the trees, spotted an eighteen-wheeler, a whining Suzuki motorcycle, its rider all in vivid blue, and a couple of cars racing in either direction. Their best hope was to force someone to stop—no one would willingly pull over for a couple of shaggy guys in biker cuts. Might be they had to jack a car.

And I end up right back in Stockton.

Shit. Whatever they were going to do, it would have to happen here. Their only real choice was to outlast the Russians, stay alive until the cops showed up, and then leave it to the lawyer.

Across this section of Highway 99, the trees were thicker. They could get lost in there, at least for a while, maybe long enough to call the clubhouse and get Juice or Phil to come and pick them up before the cops tracked them down.

A way out, maybe.

A bullet grazed Jax’s right shoulder, and he swore as he stumbled. He dodged left and kept running, the skin on his back prickling with the sensation that every inch was a possible target. Opie’d heard him grunt when the bullet tagged him. He turned toward Jax.

“Keep moving!” Jax snapped, and Opie didn’t need to be told twice.

Bullets zipped by, punching the air and shaking tree branches. They broke from the edge of the pine grove twenty feet from the shoulder of Highway 99. A big rig thundered past, sucking gravel and someone’s discarded McDonald’s burger wrapper into its wake. A bullet hit the truck’s broad side. Another took out a window in a Mustang racing along the northbound side of the highway, and the car slammed on its brakes.

Jax thought they might just have found themselves a ride.

Heads low, he and Opie hurtled into the road.

Amidst gunfire and the blare of car horns, they reached the median strip that divided the highway, only to hear tires skidding behind them and voices shouting loudly in Russian. Jax spun, ducking behind the guardrail at the median, and took aim with the Glock as a silver Lexus skidded to a halt on the grassy shoulder they had just vacated.

“What the hell?” Opie said, dropping down beside him.

A guy in an old Volvo shouted and honked as he drove by, maybe not noticing the guns. Opie racked another round in the shotgun’s chamber, and he and Jax both stared at the Lexus. More Russians poured out—no mistaking those icy eyes and granite features—but instead of opening fire on Jax and Opie, they turned their weapons on the men now emerging from the pine grove.

“Check it out,” Opie said, and gestured back to the cut-through between the side road and highway—the gap where they had left Opie’s pickup.

A black Escalade raced along the same dirt track and slid to a halt at the edge of the highway, and more armed men jumped out.

Another big rig roared by. Jax closed his eyes and turned away as grit pelted his face. When it had passed and he turned to look again, the gunfire had ceased entirely. Russian voices rose in warning and anger as the newcomers took aim at the men from the Humvee and the white box truck. The two groups barked challenges at one another, and a huge, bearded man who’d climbed from the Escalade came forward. The man had presence, and the body language of both groups changed as he started shouting at them all.

“The boss?” Opie asked.

Jax nodded. “Someone’s boss.”

The bearded man smoothed his tailored charcoal suit and gestured southward. Jax frowned, wondering what he might be telling the other Russians, but then he heard sirens in the distance and got the gist.