Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
The confrontation at the clubhouse didn't erupt into a full-scale brawl, but it left a bitter, metallic taste in Jax’s mouth as he gunned his engine and tore away from the gravel lot. Vince had backed down—for now—warned off by the cold, reckless stare Jax had given him, but the road captain’s parting words hung in the air like smoke: “Keep your house in order, brother. Because if that kid brings trouble to our door, the club handles it.”
When Jax finally rolled back up to the timber cabin, the engine noise echoed off the trees like thunder. I threw the heavy iron bolt back and yanked the door open before he even had his boots on the porch. One look at his face—the tight set of his jaw, the faint smear of grease across his cheek—told me everything I needed to know.
“They know, don’t they?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Jax stepped inside, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him and throwing the bolt. He dropped his heavy leather gloves onto the table, breathing hard through his nose. “They suspect. Which means we’ve got about twenty minutes before Vince decides to send someone up here to poke around. We’re changing the plan, Leo.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not waiting until tomorrow for the records office,” Jax said, crossing the room in two long strides and grabbing his canvas jacket from the peg. “We go right now. We walk through those courthouse doors, we get your name legally tied to mine in the registry, and then we disappear into the northern timber belt before Vince even has time to saddle up.”
I grabbed my old jacket from the chair, my fingers trembling slightly as I zipped it up. “Will it work, Jax? Can we really do that?”
“It has to,” he said, his pale eyes softening just a fraction as he looked down at me. He reached out, his calloused hand resting gently on my messy light brown hair for a brief, awkward second before pulling back. “Your mother fought for twelve years to keep you safe, Leo. The least I can do is spend one afternoon making sure nobody can ever take you away from me.”
We didn't waste another second. We piled into the cab of Jax’s battered truck, the old engine coughing twice before roaring to life with a thick plume of blue exhaust. The drive down the winding mountain road was silent, the tires crunching over loose gravel as the dense pine forests gave way to the weathered clapboard buildings and rusted iron roofs of the valley town.
As we pulled into the gravel lot behind the county courthouse—a grand, decaying brick building with peeling white pillars and a bronze statue of a forgotten town founder out front—Jax killed the engine. The streets were quiet, a few midday shoppers moving sluggishly along the sidewalks under the pale autumn sun.
“Stay close to me,” Jax instructed, pulling his cap low over his forehead as we climbed out of the truck. “Don't talk to anyone unless I tell you to. If you see anyone from the club—anyone wearing a Road King patch—you drop behind me immediately. Understand?”
“I understand,” I whispered, grabbing the hem of his old jacket.
The interior of the courthouse smelled of old paper, floor wax, and damp stone. The high ceilings echoed with the distant clatter of a typewriter and the hollow sound of footsteps on marble tile. We walked down a dim hallway lined with framed black-and-white portraits of former county judges until we reached Room 104: Vital Statistics and Public Records.
Jax pushed the frosted glass door open, the brass hinges squeaking in the quiet room. Behind a high wooden counter sat a middle-aged woman with short graying hair and wire-rimmed glasses, spectacles perched on the tip of her nose as she sorted through a towering stack of buff-colored folders. She looked up as we approached, her professional expression instantly shifting into one of guarded curiosity as her eyes took in Jax’s leather vest, his faded tattoos, and the pale, quiet boy standing right beside him.
“Morning,” Jax said, his voice carefully controlled, stripped of its usual rough edge. “We need to file a late birth registration and a legal paternity claim.”
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The clerk’s eyes flicked from Jax’s weathered face down to me, then back up again. She slowly pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, her hands resting flat on the wooden desktop. “Late filings require a court order and verifiable proof of maternity and paternity, sir. It’s not something we process over the counter on a Tuesday morning.”
Jax reached into his inner vest pocket, his movements slow and deliberate, and pulled out the small folded paper alongside Sarah’s faded hospital discharge slip, laying them carefully on the polished wood between them. “We’ve got the proof right here,” Jax said quietly. “And we’ve got twelve years of waiting that says we aren't leaving until it’s done.”
