Chapter 11: The Local Sheriff
The shattering glass and the sound of Crash hitting the dirt had barely stopped echoing across the trailer park when the crunch of gravel heralded an arrival nobody wanted. A dusty Ford patrol truck with a lightbar bolted to the roof rolled past the rusted gate, its amber beacon flashing lazily in the fading twilight. Sheriff Miller didn't rush out with his hand on his holster; he just shifted the truck into park, cut the engine, and stepped out with a heavy sigh that carried the weight of twenty years policing a town where everyone knew everyone else's business. He hooked his thumbs into his duty belt, his weathered eyes sweeping past Crash, who was still groaning and wiping blood from his chin, and fixed squarely on me. Word of a fistfight between two senior club members travels fast in a place this small, but the word that a child was holed up in my trailer had apparently traveled faster.
"Evening, Jax," Miller said, his voice flat and tired as he walked past the shattered beer bottle. "Heard some noise over the police band. Folks down at the diner are talking about a little boy with a faded photograph. Care to tell me what kind of circus you're running out here behind the old lumber yard?" Leo shrank back inside the doorway, his small fingers gripping the wooden frame so tightly his knuckles turned white. I stepped half a step backward, placing my body between the sheriff and the boy, trying to keep my posture loose despite the adrenaline still humming through my veins. Crash pushed himself up off the dirt, spitting a stream of crimson onto the gravel, glaring at me with pure venom while Miller kept his steady gaze locked on my face.
"There's no circus, Miller. Just a private matter," I said, keeping my tone deliberately even. The sheriff adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses, squinting as he looked past my shoulder at Leo's pale face and messy light brown hair. In a town where family ties were written into every public record, a child appearing out of nowhere with my facial structure and eye color wasn't something you could brush off as a private matter for long. Miller walked a slow circle around the truck, his boots crunching on the dry earth, before stopping right in front of me. "A private matter usually doesn't involve a bloodied nose and a minor child hiding in a convicted mechanic's bachelor pad without birth records or school enrollment, Jax. You know how the county works. People talk, and the Department of Family Services doesn't look too kindly on kids drifting in during a biker rally without paperwork."
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Inside the doorway, Leo let out a small, frightened breath that I could hear clearly in the sudden stillness of the camp. I knew right then that playing tough guy with the local authorities wasn't going to cut it anymore. The secret I had guarded for nearly a decade—the quiet, solitary life I built after walking away from Clara and the past—was unraveling by the minute. I looked down at my calloused hands, then back up at Miller’s waiting eyes, realizing that the only way to protect the boy was to stop hiding and start answering the questions everyone was suddenly asking.
"He's my son, Miller," I said quietly, the words feeling foreign yet entirely true as they left my lips. The sheriff stopped his pacing, staring at me for a long, silent moment to see if I was joking. Finding no humor in my expression, he simply nodded once, pulled a small notebook from his shirt pocket, and clicked his ballpoint pen. "Then I'm going to need to see some verification, Jax, because the state of things right now means we have to make sure that boy is safe, legal, and accounted for before tomorrow morning."
