The engine hummed between Gunner’s thighs, and he let his focus narrow down into a tight band. Nothing mattered but the bike underneath him, and the road ahead. He was one with the bike… or some kind of hippie shit like that. He let out a low chuckle, feeling his hands relax but ready on the handlebars, his body loose on top of the bike.
And then the flag dropped, and he was roaring forward.
He’d been riding for so long that he didn’t consciously think about what he was doing. Granted, he was on a dirt bike, not his usual Honda, but still, the motion was easy, calm, simple. He spun through the course that had been put together - of course - by the Red Vipers. They’d deny it later, but there was no way Calhoun would’ve challenged him if he hadn’t thought he’d have an advantage. As if there was anyone in this fuckin’ town that Gunner and Horse couldn’t get around when push came to shove. And as if there was anyone in New England who could outrun Gunner on any two-wheeled vehicle. Ridiculous.
Calhoun was screaming behind him, trying to cut corners and catch up, but Gunner had been ahead since the flag dropped, and that wasn’t going to stop now. He’d insisted on going over the bike himself, instead of just trusting Calhoun’s word that it was safe. It was a good thing, too, since the brake cables had been loosened, and one of the calibers had been knocked out of alignment. It was a good thing he was having a good day; otherwise, he’d have made Calhoun switch bikes and watched the redheaded idiot knock himself out on a tree. That would’ve been entertaining.
He made the last turn, trusting his reflexes and balance as he laid the bike out at a ridiculous angle to the ground, then burned into the straightaway at the end of the trail. He could hear Calhoun behind him, still angry, trying to goose a little more speed out of his bike as he downshifted, but it was too little, far too late. As Gunner rushed across the finish line drawn in the gravel at the end of the old quarry lot, he gave a little flourish, dragging the bike’s tail end through the crushed rocks, and making Calhoun swerve to keep from crashing.
Calhoun was off his bike in half a heartbeat, the bike’s engine choking off as the sensors realized the rider had been ditched. Calhoun went for a gun, and everything went slow. Gunner could hear Horse shouting behind him, and knew that his friend was probably pulling his own gun already, prepared to intervene not just for his buddy but for his VP. It wouldn’t be necessary. His same reflexes doing the work for him, Gunner reached for the telescopic baton he wore strapped to his belt whenever he went out as part of the Satan’s Breed. He snapped it open even as he watched Calhoun’s approach. The pale man’s cheeks were bright red, whether from anger or exertion Gunner didn’t know. He stomped forward like some kind of Mafioso bad ass in a terrible movie, his gun all the way extended and held in a single hand. It was nothing to step just a little bit to the side, then bring the baton down hard, just above Calhoun’s wrist. Gunner didn’t hit hard enough to break the man’s arm, but he would have a multi-colored bruise there for days. The weapon dropped to the ground, and Gunner kicked it away, then gave Calhoun a sharp slap between the ribs with the baton. That was all it took; Calhoun dropped to the ground, coughing and gagging.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Gunner growled. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Horse pick up the fallen weapon and tuck it into his belt. Asshole was going to shoot his dick off one of these days, doing that. “If we were racing for territory, I could see you pulling a damn gun in my face, but wasn’t it you who called me out here for a little fun between friends?”
Calhoun made a raspy sound, and then vomited a stream of bile into the gravel. Gunner made a face at the spatter on his boots and made a point of wiping it clean with the other man’s shirt. He wasn’t vomiting blood; that was good. Gunner hadn’t come out here to start a war, despite Calhoun firing off like a rocket. There was a chance the Vipers would overlook him wiping the ground with their sergeant-at-arms, but it was a chance, not a guarantee. There was a time when Gunner wouldn’t have cared about the difference. But that was in the past, and then some. Even with Samantha gone, he owed it to those he cared about to do the right thing. To protect the town and the territory. That was what the club was supposed to be for, despite the fools who thought otherwise—thought riding bikes and wearing leather was an excuse to run drugs and beat up women.
Calhoun seemed to catch his breath, and he sat back on his heels. “Sorry,” he said, and he seemed to mean it. “Lost my cool there. And I swear, man, I didn’t know about the bike. About the brakes. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Gunner wasn’t sure he believed that even a little, but it was good that they were going to separate peacefully. The other Vipers who had come to watch the showdown were easing off as well, hands backing away from guns and resting more calmly over pockets again. Improvements. He reached down and helped Calhoun to stand up and dust himself off. Horse pulled a bottle of water from somewhere, and Gunner twisted the cap open and passed it over. Calhoun took a chug, rinsed his mouth, and spat again.
“Billy,” Gunner said, his voice deliberately pitched low. “We’re not going to have a problem here, are we?”
Billy Calhoun looked up at Gunner, but his eyes flicked away before they could really meet Gunner’s gaze. The kid didn’t really do eye contact, something Gunner respected. His old man had punished him for looking people in the eyes more than once. He was pretty sure that wasn’t why Calhoun tended not to meet anyone’s eyes, but it was still enough of a connection for some empathy.
“No way,” he said. “I didn’t even want to do that. I’m sorry. It’s just that things are gonna be bad when we get back to the clubhouse, and I lost my patience.”
Gunner’s belly twisted up just a little. The Vipers and the Breed had been coexisting just fine for years; the Vipers ran a whole lot of shit that the Breed didn’t touch, and as long as it didn’t happen in the Breed’s territory, they officially didn’t care. But the President of the Red Vipers had just changed, the old man retiring, and his jumped up asswipe of a kid taking over, and there had already been signs that things were going to get a lot messier before days were done. Privately, Horse and Gunner had already been making plans. What they’d do if war broke out. But Billy Calhoun was a good kid. He was a Viper because he’d lived on that side of the territory line, and he wasn’t involved in the dirty shit they did.
He made his voice even quieter. “Billy, you have my number, right? You know I’ve always got a spot for you if you need one.”
Billy nodded so hard it seemed like his head might snap off his neck. It was suddenly obvious that he was barely more than a scrawny overgrown kid. And when, exactly, had Gunner started to feel like twenty-seven was ancient, and everyone younger than him was an actual child?
“I know, man, I know,” he said. “I gotta go, okay? I need to get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Gunner said. “Take care.”
Billy picked up the dirt bike he’d been riding, and one of the other Vipers picked up Gunner’s. The small pack of men cleared out of the gravel lot until it was just Horse and Gunner standing there, looking like two random dudes pissing in the wind.
“What was all that shit?” Horse asked.
Gunner shook his head. “Storm’s coming. Prophetic-type stuff,” he said. “Nothing we haven’t already been talking through.”
Horse grunted. “Want to talk it over some more? Over a couple plates of chili fries and a couple beers?”
Gunner laughed and soft-punched the other man in the bicep. Horse was more than ten years his senior, and he’d been the President of the Satan’s Breed motorcycle club for about fifteen years now. He was the one who’d cleaned the club up, and when he’d seen a young Gunner causing trouble at the unified high school, he’d given him a job working on bikes and sweeping floors. It had been hard work, but it had earned him enough money to get away from his drunk father and junkie mother, and that was all he’d wanted at the time. Then he’d met Samantha…
The anniversary was hitting him harder than usual this year. He did his best to put it out of his mind.
Horse looked at him like he knew exactly what Gunner was thinking about.
“Come on, kid,” he said, and Gunner had to laugh; apparently, he’d picked up the word from somewhere. “Let’s go out and chase away some negative thoughts.”
“Okay,” Gunner said. “But no chili fries for you. They make you fart like a damn dog, and it’s too cold to have the windows down in the Buick this time of year.” He started to walk towards the old car they’d driven to the gravel quarry, and then his phone started to ring. He glanced down, and his heart all but stopped when he saw Laurel’s number on the caller ID.
“Just a minute,” he said, not really looking at Horse. “I have to take this.”
His heart beat a little too fast every time Laurel called. It was a little silly; she was nearly always just confirming that he was going to stop by for a visit or letting him know about some new expense that had come up, but it never stopped him from worrying. Even though Grace was with Laurel so that he wouldn’t need to worry that he was putting the little girl in danger. He took several long steps away from Horse, more for his own mental privacy than anything else. He tapped to answer the call and put the phone to his ear, turning his body firmly away from his friend.
“Hey, Laurel. Everything okay?”
“You gotta go get her, Gunner.”
Laurel’s voice was choked with tears and something more. His heart started to race. He’d been so careful for so many years, and he’d given up so much to protect the child, Sam’s child. His child. He lived in terror of someone figuring out the connection between him and Sam, and from there, it wouldn’t be much to notice that Sam’s sister had moved back to town with a baby right around the time that Sam had died. It wouldn’t take much for someone to realize that the child could be used to pull the strings of the most powerful group of quasi-outlaws in the city. He did everything he could to keep Grace safe, but a lot of that safety had to do with keeping his distance.
“What happened, Laurel?” he asked again, letting his voice drop lower, and a little more intense.
“What happened is that I was already running late to pick up Grace from aftercare, and then some shit for brains rear-ended me, and my car is completely totaled. I need you to pick her up.” Laurel sounded close to panic, but Gunner felt his heart slowing down.
“Okay, no problem. Will they let me?”
“Yeah, you’re on her emergency list, it won’t be an issue. Hold on a second,” she said, and then Gunner heard a muffled rustling like Laurel had turned the phone so that it was pressed up against her shirt. He heard her speaking, but couldn’t make out the words; he couldn’t tell who she was talking to. But then there was a short, sharp sound, and the rustling stopped at the same time that he heard Laurel start to scream. He heard himself yelling, but she didn’t respond, and then the call dropped, as quick as it had started.
He turned blank, horrified eyes towards Horse. Horse was already ready to move.
“I’ll find out what’s going on,” he said, clearly having overheard the entire conversation despite Gunner’s distance. “You go take care of the kid.”
There was a weight to the statement that made Gunner more than a little nervous. Horse was the one person who held all the pieces and had probably put them together over the years. He was pretty sure that Horse would keep his teeth together, no matter what happened, but Gunner hadn’t spent the last seven years protecting a little girl to risk blowing everything up right now. He had to trust someone, and Horse was the only one who was here.
He’d tried to get Horse to come to the gravel quarry with him in his rebuilt Buick Grand Sport, but Horse had rolled his eyes and insisted that Gunner drove like someone’s grandma. He’d taken his bike. Gunner was grateful for it now as he sprinted across the lot to his car, and Horse headed the other way, towards his chopper. He already had his phone out and was barking questions at someone, presumably at the clubhouse.
Gunner put it out of his mind. He had one mission right now. He had to get to his daughter.