I still had no idea why the fuck he hadn’t moved yet.
Maybe that was why he renovated. To try and bury her memory. Maybe that was why he gutted the bathroom they shared and completely redid their bedroom. Maybe that was why he replaced all the furniture with things he couldn't afford and tossed out all the plates they’d gotten on the day of their wedding.
To try and erase the scent of her that still poured from the walls of his home.
Our home.
Their home.
After putting together my kitchen, I went and explored the rest of my apartment. It wasn’t much. Eight hundred square feet of empty space, especially since I didn’t have much furniture. I had a couch, a recliner, my bed, and a dresser. That was it, in terms of furniture. I didn’t watch enough television to justify having one and I sure as hell didn’t have the time to sit and read books. I kept myself busy, always.
I’d been that way from a young age.
After tearing through boxes and finding my clothes, I grabbed a new outfit. The bathroom wasn’t set up to shower, but I figured I could use my father’s beautiful, newly-renovated bathroom to clean myself up. I grabbed the bag of toiletries I had packed up for myself, then stuffed everything into a plastic bag.
I locked the apartment door behind me before I started to my car, ready to get across town.
I knew the way by heart. Even though so much about San Diego had changed already, I’d always remember the roads. The construction. The systemic gridlock of the bustling town. San Diego was definitely a place for families. For a mother and a father with two and a half kids and a perfectly-bred labradoodle that ran around underneath their feet.
I’d never have something like that. It wasn’t my style. Not after tasting the beautiful, thrilling nightlife of Los Angeles.
I’d get back there one day.
I was ripped from my thoughts by a deafening roar. I zoomed down the road, trying to merge so I could turn left at the stoplight. One more left before the entrance to my father’s neighborhood. One more left standing in my way between the stench coming from my armpits and a fucking shower.
Then, I heard a horn honking.
The roar grew and raced around me. Motorcycles ripped by on all sides of me. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw them coming up on my tail, watching as the wimps of San Diego pulled over to let them through.
Pulled over. To let them go.
Like they were fucking driving ambulances.
“Fucking bullshit men,” I murmured.
I didn’t care. They didn’t own me. Even though people who rode bikes thought they owned shit, all they really had were limp dicks they tried to overcompensate for by the loudness of their bikes. I took the left turn anyway and heard them laying the horn on me. A couple of them raced by me, eyeing me down as if I was the one in the wrong.
A hulking man with brown hair and dark brown eyes passed by me, flipping me the fucking bird in the process.
“You’re bullshit!” I exclaimed.
I almost ran into the curb with how they followed me. How they tore around that corner like they didn’t give enough of a shit about the other people around them. I almost ran into one of them as I straightened the wheel of my car and watched them all pour in front of me. They sped off, easily doing seventy in the forty-five I was cruising in.
“You’ll kill someone like that!” I shrieked.
I drew in a deep breath. Images of my mother’s closed casket bombarded my mind as I eased myself into my father’s neighborhood. The groaning of the motorcycles fell off into the distance as I inched through the neighborhood. So many memories dotted my mind. Like the sidewalk where my mother taught me how to ride my first tricycle. Or the corner she’d always stand with me on while waiting for the bus since I was the only kid picked up there. I passed by the tree in the yard of the house that used to belong to my best friend, Stacie. I smiled as I passed it. Her mother and my mother had been the best of friends. They’d sit on the porch and drink their blackberry lemonade while watching us climb the tree and play hide and seek around the house.
I blinked the tears away as I pulled into my father’s driveway.
“About time!” he called out from the porch.
I pushed myself out of my station wagon and closed the door behind me.
“You look like you haven’t shaved in weeks,” I said.
“Because I haven’t,” my father said.
I walked onto the porch and sat down next to him. In the rocking chair my mother used to occupy beside him.
It hurt, sitting in that chair.
“You look like her, you know,” he murmured.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
My father shrugged. “Okay. I’ll do this, then. Why didn’t you want me helping you move?”
“Because you told me you were undercover and I didn’t want you blowing it just to help me move back home.”
“I always found a way around it when you were younger.”
“And now, I’m not younger.”
My father grinned. “No. You're not.”
“So, Captain Woolf—”
“It’s not Captain.”
“It might be, one day,” I said.
“I don’t want to be Captain. ‘Detective Terry Woolf’ is fine with me.”
“You used to want to be Captain.”
He paused, and I knew why he had given up the good old fight. My mother had always encouraged him to follow his dreams. His passions. He talked about it all the time when I was a teenager. And here he was, giving up on his because he missed her.
Because his heart couldn't take the loneliness any longer.
“I’m getting too old for this undercover shit,” he grumbled.
“Is the infamous Terry Woolf admitting defeat?” I asked.
“Never.”
I snickered. “I figured as much. I take it the assignment didn’t go well?”
“It did what it needed to do. Just don’t think it’s enough.”
“Why do you go on these assignments, anyway? If you know it’s gonna be too much and you know it’s gonna be too hard on your body, why do them?”
He leaned back into his rocking chair and sighed.
“Your mother,” he said plainly.
“You’re still on that?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me.
“Dad, it was a random motorist. Mom wasn’t killed in some conspiracy with some hometown biker gang. It was a guy who wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing. That’s all.”
“Then, why did he run from the scene? Why did he get back on his bike and get away as fast as he could?” he asked.
“You found him, Dad. He’s in jail. He’s rotting for the rest of his life for what he did.”
My father shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“What? Did he get parole or something?”
And again, my father didn’t answer me.
I reached over and took his hand. I knew my father had a secret vendetta with what happened. My fear, however, was that the vendetta was misplaced. I didn’t like bikes. I thought they were unsafe, reckless, and unnecessarily loud.
My father, it seemed, had an issue with the people that rode those bikes.
All of them.
“Why don’t you come inside and I’ll fix us some food?” I asked.
“A bit early for lunch, don’t you think?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It’s ten thirty. You old guys eat lunch around now, right?”
His eyes slowly panned over toward me. The bright blue eyes I had inherited from him. It was the only thing I had inherited, though. Everything else was from my mother. My father had jet black hair, whereas mine was brown with auburn highlights. Like my mother. He was tall and lean, with aged muscle that had seen its time on the streets, whereas I was thick and stout like my mother. Full, rounded cheeks like my mother. A soft jawline like my mother.
A stern glare like my mother.
“You look like her, you know,�
�� my father said again, softly.
I squeezed his hand and forced back the tears as his words echoed off the corners of my mind. He always said that to me whenever he was thinking about her. He always said that to me whenever he didn’t know how to fill the silence.
I’d grown up with both the haunting of that phrase and the pride from it all my life.
“And I can cook like her, too. So, come on. I’m assuming you got stuff to make some sandwiches with,” I said.
“I always do,” he said.
Then, I eased my father’s creaking body out of the rocking chair and we started inside.
My shower completely forgotten about.
Three
Stone
I rode around on my bike trying to clear my fuckin’ head. I still couldn't believe I’d let Boulder in. That I let that asshole wear a prospect’s jacket. Let him touch our damn logo against his pig skin. It still burned me to my gut, even though Boulder had exposed himself and killed Jet almost two fuckin’ months ago. Bronx was just back to coming out of his shell. He had just gotten done beating himself up for not seeing it. For not being able to fish it out whenever him and Boulder went and did anything.
Which was a lot, considering the two of them had grown close.
I cranked up my bike and wove through the traffic. I blazed through yellow lights and shot myself down back roads to get around the red ones. That church meeting still rattled around in my head. The way Bronx came in. The look on his face as he told us he’d been fuckin’ followed. I couldn't shake it. I couldn’t shake this way this shit had spiraled out of control. I used to have control of this space. Control of this town.
Control of my home.
San Diego had always been my home. Born and raised in a house that was too fuckin’ small for a family of four. I was glad Ella and Keva had returned to it after she left Jett. It was the perfect size for their little family. Even with Texas’ massive ass wandering the house.
I blazed a trail up Highway One, listening to the sounds of the ocean. I enjoyed the morning sound of waves. Especially once it started getting warm around ten o’clock. The waves lapped against the shoreline, battling the sounds of the revving of my engine. Water was always calming to me. It held a massive, mighty power, but had the ability to be gentle with the wildlife that swam in its grip. I related. I understood that kind of power, but still being soft enough to cradle the life that was dependent upon me. I’d built The Lost Boys from the ground up after bein’ kicked out of a crew myself. I was nineteen and reckless and thought I was a damn hot shot. I figured starting my own crew meant I’d never get kicked out. Meant I’d never have to suffer with people judgin’ me and shit like that.
The Lost Boys had become my home. My brothers. My life.
And Boulder almost destroyed that.
I parked on one of the lookout points and gazed out over the ocean. The sun hung in the sky and I watched the growing waves crash against the sand. There was a storm brewing off the coast. A storm readying itself for our lunch time. And it had moved in just enough for me to see the dark clouds off in the distance. Families still played in the waters and mothers clung to their children, keeping their eyes on the looming clouds.
I felt like that cloud sometimes.
Dark. Expansive. Bringing nothing but destruction. Then again, it made me fit for the job I ran. Guns. Ammunition. Tactical gear. Taking on clients that needed our help. I was fit for that job because I got to throw my anger and resentment into stalking out people who didn’t deserve to live in the first fuckin’ place.
I enjoyed putting bullets through their fuckin’ eyes.
Jett hadn’t deserved my sister, and I didn’t see the devil in him. I believed him when he said things were okay at the house. I believed him when he said he’d take good care of Ella. I believed him when he said he loved Keva. I believed all his bullshit before my sister came stumbling onto my porch that night. Bloodied. Beaten. With a broken nose, a black eye, marks around her neck, and her shirt practically torn off her body.
The only reason Jett didn’t die that night was because she had Keva in tow. And Keva was fine. Not a mark on her, and sleeping soundly against my sister’s shoulder.
I bristled at the memory. Goosebumps fled across my skin. My nostrils flared with anger as I thought about Jett. About Boulder. About all the shitheads that had infiltrated our fuckin’ crew lately. I prided myself on being able to read people, and two fuckers had gotten through to our ranks. Had gotten through to the heart of our crew.
I was losing my touch.
My club had been at risk twice in the past year because of me. Because of my inability to be the president they needed me to be. Any of the shit we got ourselves into because of all this was solely my fault. I grit my teeth and ground them together. The clouds loomed off in the distance while the waves grew higher. High enough for families to begin packing their loved ones up and getting the fuck out of dodge.
But I stayed. I stayed and watched the clouds slowly roll in.
The waves grew to mighty heights. The tide rolled in, swallowing the sand and the castles built by little children with light in their eyes. I leaned against the handlebars of my bike until I heard the thunder rolling in the distance. Flashes of lightning fell into the water, spraying the ocean into the air. The wind around me whipped. It rocked my bike and blew my gelled hair off to the side.
“Time for a storm to right the ocean once again,” I murmured.
Then, my phone rang out in my pocket.
“This is Stone,” I said.
“Stone. It’s Harry.”
“Harry Cheng. I take it Notch got in touch with Yung.”
“He did. And he got in touch with me. We need to talk,” he said.
“Figured you’d wanna. Same place?”
“Yep. The restaurant in Kerny Mesa. For an early lunch. Come all the way back. You know how it goes,” he said.
“I’m forty minutes out.”
“Forty? Where the hell are you?”
Thunder cracked above my head as lightning sliced the sky open.
“Watching the storm,” I said.
“Well, get the hell out of it and get to his restaurant. We don’t have any time to waste,” Harry said.
I hung up my phone and backed my bike off the lookout point. The storm was maybe four miles out. Far enough away where the rain still battered the ocean, but close enough for me to feel its fury. I cranked up my bike and rode away, skirting the edge of the storm. California didn’t see much of these. We’d been in a devastating drought for damn near a fucking decade.
But still, one storm managed to make it to our coastline every once in a while.
One storm managed to claw its way inland.
I cruised at a comfortable seventy miles an hour. The wind almost knocked me off the damn road. Twice. I flew as quickly as I could, wanting to get out of the rain before it hit. Motorcycles and leather didn’t mix with water falling from the sky, and I didn’t want to have to start detailing every aspect of my clothing tonight. I didn’t want to look like a drowned fuckin’ rat for this meeting.
I pulled my bike underneath the awning of the restaurant just before the clouds burst open.
“Just in time,” I murmured.
I was always “just in time.” Which pissed me off. Because that meant I hadn’t been a step ahead in years.
Like I used to be.
I walked into the restaurant with my helmet tucked underneath my arm. I scanned the restaurant, taking in the faces of Chinese Americans that ran the place. Shin Chun had the best damn Chinese in the area, and it was Harry Cheng’s favorite place to meet up. They had a private room in the back where we could talk without prying ears, and there was always a spread for me to devour in the process.
The smell of food pulled me into the back room, with the waitstaff parting as if I was their God.
“About time you showed up,” Harry said.
“Told you I was forty minutes away,” I said.
I sat down at the table across from him and a beer was set down in front of me. I grabbed the serving spoons and dishes up some of my favorites. General Tso’s chicken. White rice. Legitimate crab rangoons and some vegetable lo mein. My stomach growled out as I started taking bites. Shoveling the food into my face like a damn beast.
At least I wasn’t afraid to admit that I was one.
“I’m concerned about this… cop situation,” Harry said.
I slowly looked up at him and swallowed my mouth full of food.
“You mean, Yung is,” I said.
“Naturally,” he said.
“Don’t worry. We’re worried about it as well.”
“What are you guys doing about it, then? Must be bad if you’ve stalled out your regular purchases.”
I put my fork down and leaned back into my chair. I grabbed my beer and took a sip, giving myself a chance to study Harry. Usually, he was very open with me. Willing to throw the punchline down onto the table before backtracking. But this time, he didn’t open with that. For the first time in our business partnership, he was holding all the cards to his chest.
Time to be a step ahead.
Harry mocked my movements, and I knew what that meant. It meant he had something to hide. He was posturing, whereas I was simply getting comfortable. I crossed my foot over my knee, then settled my arms against the chair. I opened up my posture, letting him know I was there to receive everything he had to tell me.
It also pulled my jacket away from the two guns on either side of my body.
He followed my movements, and not once did he blink. I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a read on him. He had bags under his eyes. Crow’s feet I hadn’t seen before. And judging by the gray that poked out against his roots, he was coloring his hair. Wow. Harry Chang had aged greatly since the last time we spoke face to face.
“How long has it been now?” I asked.
Harry grinned. “The memory fading on you?”
Stone: The Lost Boys MC #2 Page 2