by S. E. Jakes
“Why are there MC guys here?” I asked.
“Looking for you?” Noah ducked when I went to slap the back of his head. “Okay, sorry. And I have no idea. Didn’t think any of them were into cars.”
Ordinarily, they weren’t. For an MC member, a car was a cage. I gave another quick look and noted that the jackets bore the Hangmen’s symbol. They were a relatively newer MC, located about an hour south of here. And I hadn’t heard them butting up against Havoc much, but then again, I tried to keep my nose out of that shit. Because knowing too much about criminal shit for me, beyond the superficial amount necessary to keep me out of trouble, was just another enticement to commit it, like being near a lit cigarette was to a former smoker.
God, I fucking wanted a cigarette.
“Want me to register with BT?” Noah asked me when we’d parked.
The fact that he knew who BT was told me that I hadn’t really had to twist his arm to come here. But he loved this part of it, the gambling, the socializing. The bullshitting. He could talk the devil into selling him souls when he was really in the mood to do it, mainly because of his exuberance. Shit like this excited him like a kid at Christmas.
It was twenty minutes before start time. A lot of guys came here early so they could hang out and party. Intimidate the competition. In my experience, those guys lost more often than they won. I kept my business and pleasure separate—because racing was a pleasure, but I was all business about it.
It was a risk, but a more calculated one than spending years in the Sandbox, where every day you were in danger just by walking off the FOB.
I spent ten minutes working under the hood. There wasn’t much to do at all—couldn’t fix the brake pads at this point, but I knew how to compensate for their failure. Why I hadn’t gone into stunt driving was something my old CO asked me a couple of times. He knew people in California, he told me. “They’re fuckin’ nuts out there, but you’d fit right in.”
And I’d thought about it. But hell, fast driving led to shit like this. A gateway drug.
“She’s pretty.” The guy who’d spoken leaned against the bumper, and I glanced up, took in the leather cut . . . and the patch above the left breast that said President and had the Hangmen’s symbol of the skull and crossbones, with the knife sticking out of the skull’s head.
Shit.
He was tall and lanky—I couldn’t exactly call him handsome, but there was very much a stand-up-and-listen-to-him vibe happening. His hair flopped over his forehead, his green eyes drilled into mine and held my gaze for a second too long, and I knew what that second meant. “Just borrowing her.”
Which technically wasn’t a lie. But hell, mine wasn’t the only borrowed car here tonight. Guaranteed, I’d see that pretty yellow Mustang on the docks later tonight too, along with that tricked-out Hummer with the dark windows and expensive rims. I didn’t want him to spread the word that I was into the imports scene—I sure as shit didn’t need that kind of trouble.
“Don’t think she’ll take mine, though,” the Hangmen’s president said.
“You’re driving?” I asked.
“No. I leave that to Jethro.” He pointed to a guy with a bandanna wrapped around his head who looked older than me, and not MC related. “We like to see how the other half lives.”
I snorted. Finished up under the hood while he still hung around, no doubt checking to see if there were any aftermarket additions, and then he handed me a cloth to wipe my hands on. As I pushed the rough material between my fingers, he said, “I’m Casey, by the way. You need anything, you can give me a call.”
“I don’t have your number,” I told him.
He grinned at that, said, “Yeah, you do,” before walking away.
Because yeah, I did. All I’d need to do was drive over to the Hangmen’s compound. Which I wasn’t about to do.
“Am I wearing a sign that says, ‘MC guys, come fuck with me’?” I asked Noah when he came back.
“You’re serious?”
I threw my hands up in the air.
“Just drive, Rush. Figure out your love life on your own time.”
“Fuck off,” I told him, and got behind the wheel.
Noah came to the window. “Are you really ready?”
“I’m fine. Did you see who’s racing me?”
He gave a wry grin. “Hangmen’s got someone standing in for them in this one. It’s not the first time, either, according to BT.”
What was the MC’s deal these days? But hey, all’s fair. I glanced over to the Porsche Boxster, and the guy with the ratty AC/DC T-shirt, black bandanna wrapped around his hair, and ripped jeans eyeing me as much as the Testarossa. A lot of the MC guys—a lot of guys from this world in general—were on the DL. Way more than the average person would think. Since it was mostly guys with their women here, it was pretty damned easy to spot the gay or bi guys. And yeah, he’d pretty much been my type, until my type’d become tattooed motorcycle guys.
Well, a certain tattooed MC guy, because Casey didn’t push any buttons either.
I shook my head at myself and got my goddamned head in the game.
The rules of street racing were pretty easy—rev and drive as fast as you could in the short distance allowed before any other civilian cars got involved. Sometimes there were as many as four cars racing, but this stretch was narrow. Here, cars went in heats of two, with the fastest two of the night racing one another. But tonight, it looked like it was just me and the Hangmen’s car—the others were apparently just for show. Too pretty to possibly fuck up.
Tonight’s dig was a half mile–long stretch of straight road ending just a quarter mile before it opened up into a major intersection. Which meant the lack of brakes could carry me into the danger zone if I didn’t hold it together.
Jethro and I waited in our cars until most of the crowd dispersed to meet us at the finish, leaving me, Jethro, some of BT’s guys and some of their women, including a pretty blonde who was the flagger. As soon as she threw the flag down, I took off like a rocket, the car responding to me the way I did to Ryker. I just tried to hold on as I let her do her thing. In my rearview, I saw smoke, watched the Boxster fishtail a little, then hit a pothole and shimmied. That was the problem with true racing cars—take them off the track and they didn’t translate to street all that well. Still, he caught up admirably and it was a close one, but I crossed the imaginary line that occurred wherever BT stood with his white flag. I didn’t notice much else—these races always happened too quickly, and when it was over, it was very similar to recovering from an orgasm.
I won. The brake pads were really damaged, but I spun out and stopped on a dime. Then I backed slowly into a space and got out. Noah gave me a hard slap on my shoulder, and I looked into the crowd to see Casey staring at me. Hard.
Then he nodded, a subtle Nice work, and I did the same nod back before something else—someone else—caught my eye.
My head jerked to the side, and for a second, I swore I saw him. The crowd was swarming, dancing and celebrating, and I looked for the tall man with the tattoo on the side of his neck . . .
Jesus. Now I was hallucinating him. And then I looked back at the car, and I imagined myself spread out naked on the hood, with Ryker on top of me, and Jesus Christ, I was losing my mind.
Had to be, because my adrenaline raced into overdrive. After BT gave me our cash, I split it with Noah and we said our good-byes. BT leaned in the open window before I drove away.
“Be good to see you back here,” he said, looking at me meaningfully. “I can supply the cars. All you gotta do is race ’em.”
Neither me or Noah committed with anything more than nods. Right now, I was too high from the win to care about anything but that feeling, and since I was too jazzed, I made Noah drive to the docks.
It started to rain again, harder than before, which was a pretty great cover for our bright-red stolen car. When we pulled up to the spot, we got out of the car for the handoff. One of the big men stepped out of t
he shadows to drive the car away and I waited, watched Noah talking to another guy animatedly for a few minutes.
Then he was striding over to me, a smile on his face. “Done.”
“We’re not done till we’re paid,” I reminded him.
He showed me the envelope and yeah, we were done. I stuck my hands in my pockets that were already stuffed with a roll of cash as we walked in the rain toward the parking lot, where Noah, thinking ahead, had dropped his car.
“Want to grab some drinks?” he asked once we were a safe distance from the docks. “Maybe Cy’ll forgive us for the fight if we buy some rounds for the house.”
Even though it’d been less than twenty-four hours since Ryker’s last visit—or maybe because of that—I was feeling a little off. Antsy. Horny. I checked my watch and said, “I think I’ll just head home.”
“Okay,” he said, like it wasn’t a big deal. And then he asked, “Is this Ryker shit going to change things between us?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re already different.”
“Like how?”
“Can’t explain it. I guess it’s the kind of shit being in love—”
“I’m not in love!”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Being in ‘like’ does to people.”
“Did I not just complete that job in record time?”
“Yeah, even with your brief thoughts of Ryker.”
“How do you know I was thinking of him?” I demanded.
“That shit’s written all over your face.”
I shrugged. Sighed.
Noah softened. “I get it. You want to spend time with him. But dude, he ever going to come see you in the day?”
“I thought you said that didn’t matter.”
Noah stared at me steadily. “You matter. So I want you to matter to him.”
was on edge, but a night at the bar like Noah suggested wasn’t going to fix it. The stealing, the racing . . . instead of satisfying me, it made me want more. Like it always had.
Instead, after Noah dropped me home, I made the drive back around to the old neighborhood. It was just outside the site where we’d raced and near the Havoc compound, forty-five minutes from where I lived now, but Shades Run might as well be a world away.
My truck was a nondescript old Ford, but she was built like a goddamned tank. Speed wasn’t always the answer. I drove through my old block slowly, my window down, no music on to distract me, to make me more revved up than I already was. This slowing down took conscious effort. Always had. Nothing had changed here either—the same apartments and old houses, the same small-community feel. And Havoc’s presence still blanketed everything, at least to me.
I stopped in front of my old building, the place where I’d seen the Havoc guys for the first time. Even then, I’d known I was on the edge of something.
I was still on that edge, but I wasn’t sure what it was, or if it even mattered. All I knew was that I was back in the game, and there was never going to be any getting out of it.
I’d been eight when I’d caught sight of three men riding Harleys and wearing leather jackets emblazoned with the Havoc logo, the snarling dog of war.
That was before Mom split and Dad went to jail. Now, I stopped in front of the stoop of the building where we’d lived, where I’d been when Dad had first pointed them out and said reverently, “They’re the good guys and the bad guys.”
“How can they be both?” I’d asked.
“Because they are. Best you stay away from them.”
“Because of the good or the bad?”
“Hush, Sean. Just hush.”
I drove away from that memory, still moving slowly through the potholes that would never be filled. As I grew older, and into more of a bit of a juvenile delinquent, I learned more about Havoc, or at least the rumors. Because they really did stay in the hills, to themselves. Unless there was trouble.
I saw them as a symbol, a beacon, which was stone-cold crazy, because who the hell saw a notorious, violent biker gang as a beacon for anything?
One summer’s night, about two years after that first sighting, me and some of the guys from the building—and what seemed like the entire neighborhood—had been hanging out after dark. It was too hot to go inside, and no one could settle in. Least of all me. That’s when the roar of motorcycles cut through the night. Most of the people hid, including my friends, but I sat there and watched.
A few of them turned, almost surveying me. I froze, but they drove by.
“Jesus, Rush—you’re not supposed to look at them,” one of the bigger kids—I think his name was Mike—told me.
“I’m gonna follow them. Cover for me,” I’d called over my shoulder as I threaded my Schwinn through the neighborhood. The bikes were moving slowly through town. Roaring. Intimidating. Searching. I followed at a respectable distance, more balls than brains. It was like the town shut down because of them. I saw people hanging out their windows once the bikes passed their buildings, peeking past curtains, relieved and now curious.
Finally, the Havoc guys stopped their bikes in front of a building that was near my school. One of the bikers got off his Harley and stood facing the door, waiting.
Now, I got out of my truck and stood there, the way the biker had. He’d probably been my age then, biding his time for the fight he’d been about to have. I flexed my fists as I looked up the steps, like I was expecting the doors to open. I was practically bouncing on my toes, and I actively fought not to scan the parked cars to see if there was anything of interest. Because I would steal one of them, for the hell of it, desperate to re-create that perfect goddamned high.
Later, I found out what the guy who’d been targeted had done. He’d fucked with one of Havoc’s old ladies. There was a brutal beauty to the beatdown. One on one, not excessive. A lesson. But still, the biker had plenty of backup. Fuck with us, you get the brunt of our whole family.
I’d heard through the neighborhood grapevine that the guy had gone to the police. He was found dead two days later. Suicide. Had they scared him enough—or had they come back to finish the job? I’d like to think the former.
I didn’t always believe violence was the answer, but there were times when nothing else would suffice to save the people closest to you. And that night, seeing those Havoc guys—the leather jackets, leather pants, dark T-shirts . . . I wanted all of it. The way they moved like a team and watched out for one another. The way they didn’t have to say a word and still their brothers-in-arms knew exactly what they were thinking.
Years later, I thought I’d had that with Noah and Billy. For a little while, anyway. The bond grew stronger in the Army, but it wasn’t enough to make me re-up.
Finally, I got back in my truck and drove out of the neighborhood and up toward the hills where Havoc was rumored to rule. I used to do this with the cars I stole, and all these years later, here I was still searching for them.
Except when I had one of them in my bed.
The only thing that comforted me about not having moved forward was that I was a pacifist compared to my father, who’d taken people out of their cars at gunpoint. He was currently serving a life sentence for murdering several people in cold blood during a bank robbery gone wrong. And really, he hadn’t needed to shoot anyone, his lawyer told me. He knew he wasn’t getting away—he’d been surrounded.
The psychiatrist told me my father was a sociopath—no conscience at all. And no, he’d quickly added, that wasn’t always genetic.
There was truth in his statement—I definitely felt guilt. Although not about stealing cars. When I stole them, they were always empty—none of that carjacking shit for me. I took high-end and classic cars—took them from men and women who could afford ridiculous luxury items. Sometimes I made money off it, but more often than not, it was about the pure fucking thrill of it all.
So that part was, most likely, genetic. And never going away.
It’d been so incredibly easy to slide back into the old ways. One job
, one night doing two of my favorite things, and I was hooked.
I’d been hoping the magic would’ve faded, that post-Army—the job that was supposed to have made me into a responsible adult—none of it would be fun anymore. Then again, to me the only fun part of the Army had been the cars. And the explosions. Well, the ones we’d created.
Boosting’s an addiction, one I swore I was born with, and both Billy and Noah helped foster it. I remember Noah calling me from the first car he and Billy’d taken, while being chased by the guys they’d boosted the car from, because they knew I couldn’t say no to helping them at that point. I’d already been training with Al and trying not to rub my delinquency off on them.
After that, we tried to be smart, or at least I did. Only small jobs, just enough to bleed off the adrenaline-fueled need.
Drag racing was another one of those things the three of us dabbled in. We’d borrow the high-end cars, jack them up a bit, and then return them before anyone noticed. Unless we wrecked them (which happened), in which case, we just left the totaled wreck for the police to find.
And we’d gone merrily along that way. Until we’d gotten caught.
And then we’d gotten lucky, thanks to a sympathetic judge who’d let us funnel into the Army. The military appreciated my skills, and so I’d actually become a better thief. But I didn’t want to stay in. I saw too much shit, too many friends go down. I even avoided the monthly calls to work black ops for a private contracting firm—Prince Industries wanted young guys, and I’d seriously considered it, but I hadn’t wanted any more trouble. I should’ve known I’d get into trouble one way or the other, but I figured staying in the good old US of A, working on cars was the safer bet. I was so fucking wrong.
It was all about channeling it, Linc would tell me. Linc was like, part hippie, part metrosexual. He was my age. Taller, lankier. A smooth talker. And he definitely fucked anything that moved, except for me. Not for lack of trying at first. And he was a definite delinquent. Which, of course, made him more than okay in my book. I could see him now, with an M14 strapped around his neck—without the safety—a bone in his hand, telling me that I could become the best version of myself.