Cutter Reid had been the Skulls’ primary enforcer for twenty years. He was the man you sent when you wanted a building burned or a spine snapped. He never blinked. He never hesitated.
But when the Club President ordered a shakedown of a local startup, Cutter saw the name on the door. Miller. The name of the only woman he’d ever loved—the woman he’d abandoned two decades ago to keep his brother out of prison.
He walked into that glass office expecting a stranger. Instead, he found a boy with his mother’s eyes and a future that didn’t include “protection” taxes.
Rat Evans wanted to make an example out of the kid. The Club wanted their cut. But Cutter is holding a secret in the lining of his vest that’s about to turn the entire Portland chapter into his enemies.
The vest is coming off. The guns are coming out.
FULL STORY: THE PRICE OF THE PATCH
Chapter 1: The Weight of the Vest
The air inside the Skulls MC clubhouse smelled of things that never quite washed away: primary oil, stale Lucky Strikes, and the copper tang of old blood. It was a low-slung concrete building on the edge of the Industrial District, a place where the gentrification of Portland stopped dead in its tracks. Inside, the “Executive Board” sat around a scarred mahogany table that had seen more drug tallies and bail bonds than it ever had actual brotherhood.
Cutter Reid sat at the far end, his back to the wall. He was fifty-two, but in biker years, he was ancient. His hands were a map of scars—knuckle-breaks from the nineties, a road-rash burn from a slide in Vegas, and the deep, jagged line across his palm from a knife fight in a Pendleton parking lot. He wore his “Enforcer” patch like a lead weight.
“Lumina Systems,” Big Jim said, tossing a folder onto the table. Jim was the President, a man who had traded his soul for a leather throne years ago. He looked like a retired sheriff, all silver hair and grandfatherly smiles, until you noticed the way he watched people’s throats when they spoke. “Some tech-shitter startup in the Pearl. They’re making too much money, and they’re doing it on our turf. They haven’t paid the local ‘security’ tax. Marcus, the partner, tried to call the cops on a prospect last week.”
“Who’s the lead?” Cutter asked. His voice was a low rumble, like a truck idling on gravel.
“Kid named Toby Miller,” Jim said, lighting a cigar. “Smart. Soft. The kind of kid who thinks a lawyer can save him from a fire. We’re going in tonight to remind him that the glass in those fancy buildings breaks just as easy as anything else.”
Cutter felt a cold needle prick the base of his spine. Miller. It was a common name. It meant nothing. But the needle didn’t stop. It traveled up his neck, settling behind his eyes.
“I’ll take Rat with me,” Cutter said, his face a mask of iron. “He’s been itching for a real job.”
Rat Evans, a prospect with a meth-thin face and a set of “SS” bolts tattooed behind his ear, grinned. He looked like a dog waiting for the command to bite. “I’ll bring the heavy chain, Cutter. We’ll see how fast he signs the transfer.”
“No chains,” Cutter said, standing up. The chair screeched against the concrete. “We’re there to talk. If he doesn’t listen, then we break things. Clear?”
Rat’s grin faltered, but he nodded. Cutter walked out of the room, the heavy thud of his boots echoing. As he reached his bike—a 1998 Dyna that he’d rebuilt three times—he reached inside the secret slit he’d cut into the lining of his vest. His fingers brushed the corner of a photograph.
He didn’t pull it out. He didn’t have to. He knew every pixel of that toddler’s face. He knew the exact shade of the blue shirt the boy had been wearing the day Sarah had screamed at him to leave and never come back.
I’m doing this for you, Cutter, his brother, Liam, had told him from behind the glass of the county jail twenty years ago. If you don’t sign those papers, if you don’t give the kid to Sarah’s sister and disappear, the club will use him to get to me. They’ll use him to get to you.
Cutter had signed. He had traded his name, his son, and his soul to get Liam a clean slate. Liam had moved to Florida and died in a car wreck five years later. Cutter had stayed in the leather, a ghost haunting his own life.
He kicked the Dyna to life. The roar of the exhaust drowned out the ghost of Sarah’s voice, but it couldn’t stop the name Miller from echoing in his head.
Chapter 2: The Glass Tower
The Pearl District was another world. It was all polished steel, reclaimed wood, and people who spent more on a cup of coffee than Cutter spent on a week of groceries. He and Rat parked their bikes on the sidewalk directly in front of the Lumina building. The chrome of the Harleys looked like a smudge of grease on a clean mirror.
“Look at this place,” Rat spat, kicking the kickstand down. “Bet there’s a hundred grand in computers in there. Why are we talking? We should just haul the shit out and sell it in Vancouver.”
“Because Jim wants the recurring revenue, you idiot,” Cutter said. “You steal a laptop, you get a thousand bucks once. You own the man who owns the laptops, you get ten thousand a month forever. That’s how you build a kingdom.”
“Yeah, well, I like the breaking part better,” Rat muttered.
They walked past the security desk. The guard, a kid in a blazer who looked like he’d never seen a man with a “1%” patch in person, started to open his mouth. Cutter just looked at him. The guard’s mouth stayed open, but no sound came out. He looked at the floor until the elevator doors closed.
The Lumina office was on the fourth floor. It was open-concept, full of white desks and young people in hoodies staring at screens. When Cutter and Rat walked in, the air in the room seemed to vanish. The clicking of keyboards stopped.
“Which one is Miller?” Cutter asked.
A tall, thin man with glasses stood up from a desk in the corner. “I’m Marcus. Toby’s partner. You need to leave. We’ve already contacted the authorities about your harassment.”
Rat laughed, a high, wheezing sound. He stepped toward Marcus, but Cutter put a hand on Rat’s chest. Cutter’s eyes were fixed on the private office at the back. Through the glass, he saw a young man standing up.
The boy was twenty-three. He had a shock of dark hair that wouldn’t stay flat and a jawline that was a mirror image of the one Cutter saw in the mirror every morning while shaving. But it was the eyes that stopped Cutter’s heart. They were Sarah’s eyes—wide, intelligent, and currently filled with a terror that made Cutter want to vomit.
Toby Miller stepped out of his office. He was wearing a simple grey t-shirt. He looked fragile. He looked like something that would snap in a stiff breeze.
“I’m Toby,” the boy said. His voice was shaking, but he held his ground. “Whatever you think we owe you, you’re wrong. This is a legitimate business. We don’t deal with people like you.”
“People like us?” Rat sneered, stepping around Cutter. “You mean the people who own the streets you park your Tesla on? You mean the people who could burn this whole glass box to the ground while you’re inside it?”
“Rat, back off,” Cutter said.
“No, Cutter, let the kid hear it,” Rat said, his voice rising. He was performing now, trying to show Cutter he had the stomach for the work. He grabbed a ceramic mug from a nearby desk and dropped it. It shattered against the polished concrete. “That’s your life, kid. One day it’s a mug. The next day it’s your partner’s teeth.”
Toby didn’t flinch, but his face went grey. “Get out.”
Cutter looked at his son. He wanted to say Run. He wanted to say I’m sorry. Instead, he leaned in close, his voice a low, terrifying whisper. “Listen to me, Toby. My friend here is an asshole. But the man who sent us is a monster. Pay the tax. Move the office. Get out of Portland. Do it tonight.”
Toby looked at Cutter, and for a second, a flicker of something passed between them. Not recognition—Toby had no idea who the man in the leather was—but a strange, ancestral connection.
“I won’t be bullied,” Toby said.
“Then you’ll be buried,” Rat snapped, lunging forward. He shoved Toby hard, sending the boy stumbling back into a desk.
Cutter’s hand shot out, catching Rat by the back of his vest and yanking him back so hard the prospect nearly lost his feet. “I said… we’re done here for today.”
“What the hell, Cutter?” Rat yelled. “He’s disrespecting the patch!”
“He’s a kid,” Cutter said, his voice like grinding stones. “We’re going. Now.”
As they walked out, Cutter didn’t look back. He couldn’t. If he looked back, he knew he’d never be able to leave again.
Chapter 3: The Ghost in the Lining
The “Ghost” was what Cutter called the photograph. It lived in the lining of his vest, right over his heart. After the visit to Lumina, he didn’t go back to the clubhouse. He rode east, out toward the Columbia River Gorge, until the city lights were a yellow smudge in his rearview mirror.
He pulled over at a gravel turnout and sat on the warm chrome of his bike. Finally, he pulled the photo out.
It was Toby at three. He was holding a plastic dinosaur, squinting into the sun. Behind him, Sarah’s hand was just visible, resting on his shoulder. Cutter remembered that day. It was the last day he’d been a person instead of a weapon. Two hours after that photo was taken, Big Jim’s predecessor had called. A warehouse had been raided. Liam had been caught with ten kilos of meth in his trunk.
The trade was simple: Cutter’s loyalty for Liam’s life.
The club had paid for the best lawyers, but they wanted something in return. They wanted Cutter “unencumbered.” They didn’t want an enforcer who had a family that could be kidnapped or used as leverage. They wanted a man with nothing to lose.
Cutter had walked into the kitchen of their small apartment in Gresham. Sarah was making pasta. He’d told her he was going away. He’d told her he’d signed the papers giving her full custody and that he was forfeiting all rights. He told her if she ever contacted him, the club would find her.
“You’re a coward, Cutter Reid,” she had whispered, her voice breaking. “You’re choosing a bunch of criminals over your own son.”
“I’m choosing his life,” Cutter had said.
He hadn’t seen her again. He’d heard through the grapevine that she’d moved to Seattle, changed her name back to Miller, and died of breast cancer when Toby was twelve. Toby had been raised by her sister. He’d worked hard. He’d become the success Cutter could never be.
Now, twenty years later, the Skulls had found him. Not because they knew who he was, but because he was successful. He was just another pig to be slaughtered.
Cutter gripped the photo until his knuckles turned white. He couldn’t let it happen. But if he stopped it, he wasn’t just breaking a rule. He was breaking the Code. In the Skulls, “Blood over All” meant the club was your blood. Your biological family was a liability.
To save Toby, Cutter would have to kill the only life he had left.
He put the photo back in his vest. He felt the weight of it—the weight of twenty years of silence. He looked out at the dark water of the river. He knew what was coming. Rat would tell Jim that Cutter had gone soft. Jim would realize there was a reason. Jim was many things, but he wasn’t stupid.
Cutter kicked the bike over. He didn’t head for the Gorge. He headed back to the city. He had to move fast.
Chapter 4: The Pressure Cooker
The atmosphere at the clubhouse was different when Cutter returned. The usual rowdy music was off. The guys standing by the pool table didn’t look up when he walked in.
Big Jim was sitting in his chair at the head of the table. Rat was standing next to him, looking smug.
“Cutter,” Jim said. He didn’t offer a drink. “Rat tells me you had a little trouble today. Tells me you stopped him from doing his job.”
Cutter didn’t sit. He stood in the center of the room, the eyes of a dozen patched members on his back. “The kid is a waste of time, Jim. He’s got no muscle, but he’s got friends in the DA’s office. We push him, we bring a federal light down on this club that we can’t afford right now. I was protecting the chapter.”
Jim leaned forward, the cigar smoke curling around his head like a halo. “Is that right? Protecting the chapter? Or protecting the boy?”
Cutter’s heart did a slow, heavy roll. “What are you talking about?”
“Rat’s a sneaky little shit,” Jim said, almost fondly. “He went back to that office after you left. He didn’t go inside. He just watched. He saw you sitting on your bike across the street for an hour, looking at something in your hand. Then he did a little digging into the Miller kid’s background. Funny thing about birth certificates, Cutter. Even the ‘forfeited’ ones leave a trail if you know where to look.”
Jim stood up. He walked around the table, his heavy boots clicking on the floor. He stopped inches from Cutter. “You lied to the club for twenty years. You told us you were clean. You told us you were ours.”
“I am yours,” Cutter said, his voice steady. “I’ve bled for this patch. I’ve gone to prison for this patch.”
“And yet, when it came time to tax a little tech-shitter, you couldn’t do it because he’s got your chin,” Jim spat. He turned to the room. “The partner, Marcus? He called the cops again an hour ago. He thinks he’s brave. Now, it’s not about the money anymore. It’s about the message.”
Jim looked back at Cutter. “We’re going back tonight. All of us. And you’re going to be the one to light the match, Cutter. You’re going to show the boy exactly who his father is. Or, we’ll kill you both and find someone else to do it.”
“Jim, don’t do this,” Cutter said.
“It’s done,” Jim said. “Rat, get the cans. We’re going to the Pearl.”
Cutter looked around the room. He saw men he’d called brothers for two decades. Some looked away. Others, like Rat, looked hungry. He realized then that the “brotherhood” was a lie. It was just a collection of lonely, violent men held together by a common fear.
He felt the photo in his vest. It felt warm.
“I’ll get my gear,” Cutter said.
He walked out to his bike. He didn’t go for his helmet. He went for the saddlebag. Inside was a heavy, snub-nosed .45 and three extra mags. He tucked the gun into the small of his back.
He wasn’t going to light a match. He was going to start a war.
