The Rusted Axle looked wrong with chains on the door.
I stood across the street staring at the building while federal notices hung in every window and for the first time since this entire nightmare started and I felt genuinely lost.
The truck stop had never been perfect. The coffee was questionable and the customers were worse.
Half the furniture probably qualified as a health code violation.
Still, it had been mine. Not legally, not officially but emotionally.
The Rusted Axle existed before the club, before Knox and before the Black Reapers.
Before anything, not it sat empty. Silent and gone.
The memory of the raid kept replaying in my head.
Federal agents flooding through the doors. Customers screaming and employees getting questioned.
And worse of all, my boss being dra
