Stray's Justice

She baked through a crisis. He broke jaws before breakfast. Now the only thing standing between her and a loan shark's army is a man who never sleeps and won't stop claiming what's his.

Mercy Lyle built The Sugar Cane from her mother's insurance money and four years of four a.m. alarms — one biscuit at a time, one wedding cake at a time, one regular who learned that the woman behind the counter doesn't tolerate anyone who wastes her time. When her brother's gambling debts send collectors through her door, a Memphis loan shark decides her building is his.

Wrong bakery.

Stray, Sergeant at Arms of the Memphis Marauders MC, wasn't looking for a fight at six in the morning. But two armed collectors threatening the woman who's been feeding his club for three years tends to change a man's plans. He breaks their jaws, calls his president, and puts himself between Mercy and every man Ronnie Pelletier sends — not because she asked, but because the baker with the rolling pin and the backbone is his the moment she tells him she didn't need rescuing.

Ronnie Pelletier has twenty-five collectors, prizefighter muscle, and a sportsbook that touches every desperate man in Memphis. He doesn't want forty thousand in cash. He wants her building.

Stray doesn't leave what's his unprotected.

In Memphis, the blues play loud enough to cover the gunfire — if you survive what comes after the song ends.

Some men guard perimeters to keep the world out. Some find a woman worth letting inside the wire.