Page 1 of Tyson
Chapter 1
Tyson
Myeyessnappedopenat 0447 — thirteen minutes before the alarm, same as every morning since Kandahar. The red digits on my nightstand clock cast shadows across the room, everything exactly where I'd placed it the night before.
No surprises.
No variables.
Just the way I needed it.
I rolled out of bed in one smooth motion, feet hitting the floor at precisely shoulder width. The hardwood was cold against my bare feet, a small shock that helped chase away the last fragments of dreams I didn’t want to remember. My bed looked like it belonged in a barracks—corners tucked with military precision, pillow centered, not a wrinkle in sight. Some habits died hard. Others kept you alive.
Fifty push-ups, counted in sets of ten, while the coffee-maker gurgled to life in the kitchen. I’d pre-measured the grounds lastnight so the pot would finish the moment my warm-up ended. Predictability is control; control is safety.
My phone lit up on the nightstand—seventeen new notifications from the security system. I'd check them after the push-ups. Discipline first, intel second.
I padded to the kitchen, noting how my hands remained steady as I poured the coffee. Black, no sugar. The mug was white ceramic, no chips, no cracks. I owned six identical ones, stored in order of purchase date. My therapist at the VA would probably have something to say about that, but then again she always had something to say.
The closet door opened silently – I'd oiled the hinges last week. Five black shirts hung at exactly two-inch intervals, each one the same brand, same size. Below them, three pairs of identical black jeans. My Heavy Kings cut hung on its own hook, leather worn soft from years of wear but meticulously maintained. In the kitchen, visible through the doorway, my meal prep containers sat in neat rows. Monday-1 through Friday-3, each labeled with contents and calorie count.
I grabbed the pull-up bar mounted in the doorframe, feeling the familiar bite of metal against my palms. One. Two. Three. My mind shifted to the presentation, running through key points like a mission briefing. Duke would resist anything that sounded like paranoia. He'd wave it off as military overthinking, tell me I was seeing patterns where none existed. Thor would rage first, think second. I needed to present facts, not fears.
The scar on my left forearm started its familiar ache. Weather coming in —probably snow by evening. The tissue had never healed quite right after Fallujah, served as a better barometer than any weather app. I pushed through ten more pull-ups, feeling the burn in my lats, welcoming the distraction from what I'd seen in those photos.
The time for distraction was over, though.
I grabbed my phone and opened the photos app. Seventeen new images from the automated cameras I'd installed around Heavy Kings territory. Not officially sanctioned, but Duke didn't need to know everything. The first few were routine—early morning delivery trucks, a few drunks stumbling home. But image twelve made me set down my coffee.
A Serpent prospect, clearly identifiable by his bottom rocker, photographing the back entrance to King's Tavern at 3:22 AM. Image thirteen: different Serpent, this one full-patched, sitting in a car outside Thor's cabin. Image fourteen showed him following Thor's truck, keeping two cars back like someone who'd been trained in surveillance.
My jaw tightened as I scrolled through the rest. They weren't being subtle anymore. Either they wanted us to know they were watching, or they'd gotten sloppy. Given what I'd documented over the past six weeks, I doubted it was sloppiness.
The pattern was clear to anyone trained to see it. Intelligence gathering, resource allocation, target acquisition—textbook pre-operation planning. In Afghanistan, we'd called it "shaping the battlefield." The enemy would map your routines, identify your weaknesses, wait for the perfect moment to strike.
The Serpents were shaping their battlefield, and my brothers were walking around like it was business as usual.
The clock read 5:10. Time to shower, review the full surveillance package, prepare my argument. Duke and Thor would listen—they had to. We'd survived too much together for them to dismiss this, even if every instinct told them I was being paranoid.
My reflection caught in the kitchen window—tired eyes, jaw set with determination. I looked like a man preparing for war, which wasn't far from the truth. The difference was, this time the enemy wore leather cuts instead of desert camo, and they were hunting my family.
I drained the coffee and headed for the shower. It lasted exactly four minutes. After I was done, I toweled off, dressed and headed into my office. The room looked like a forward operating base had mated with a detective's case board. Three monitors dominated the desk, their glow painting shadows on walls covered in tactical maps of Ironridge. Color-coded pins marked incidents, patterns, potential threats. Red for confirmed Serpent activity. Yellow for suspicious. Green for our assets.
There was a lot of red lately.
I peeled the lid off Monday-1 and forked chicken into my mouth without tasting it. Fuel, not food. My eyes stayed locked on the screens while I chewed. The meal was precisely measured – 444 calories, 52 grams protein, 41 grams carbs, 8 grams fat. The more I planned, the less I had to think, the more time I could devote to the important stuff.
Screen one showed footage from last night, timestamp 11:47 PM. The abandoned Riverside Warehouse on the east side, a place that had been dead for years until six weeks ago. Now it crawled with activity. I'd installed a camera in the trees across the street, high enough to avoid detection, angled to catch the loading dock. The image was green-tinged from the night vision, but clear enough to ID the players.
Three Serpents stood with five men I didn't recognize. Tough-looking, tattooed, carrying themselves like soldiers. I zoomed in, screenshot, enhanced. The neck tattoo on the tallest one made my blood chill—Las Cruces Cartel. A scorpion wrapped around a skull, their calling card. These weren't street dealers or muscle for hire. Las Cruces meant military-grade weapons, Mexican Army deserters, connections that ran all the way to Juárez.
I made notes in my tablet, fingers flying across the encrypted screen. The cartel's presence changed everything. This wasn't just MC rivalry anymore. This was a full-scale war.
Screen two made me set down my fork.
Amy Wright, Mandy's sister, stepping out of Ironridge General's oncology wing yesterday at 2:17 PM. Her treatment had been a success, but she was back in for a check up. She looked well, but that wasn’t what I was interested in. No. My focus was on the Serpent in the silver Honda across the street, zoom lens trained on her like she was a target in crosshairs.
I knew him—Tommy "Scorpion" Wade, one of their enforcers. The kind who enjoyed hurting people, especially women. My fingers traced the screen, following his sight line. He'd positioned himself perfectly—clear view of the entrance, multiple escape routes, invisible from hospital security.
