CHAPTER SIX | ACE
Asher had his nose glued to the shop window when I got back inside.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I grunted back as I slammed the door shut tight behind me, then jammed the deadbolt back into place.
“It didn’t look like nothing,” Asher protested.
He was right. It sure as hell wasn’t “nothing.” We just had an undercover agent with the Nevada Gaming Commission knocking on our front door.
Underneath that dumbstruck damsel-in-distress routine, I had a hunch that Sienna O’Malley knew more than she was letting on. A lot more. I might have thrown her off her game when I called her out in the parking lot, but she wasn’t gonna give up that easily. Not without a fight.
There was no doubt in my mind that we’d be hearing from Sienna O’Malley again. She’d be back. Now it was just a question of what we were gonna do when she did come back.
The answer to that question wasn’t up to me. Only the club president could make that call. I had to talk to Buck. But in the meantime, I had to keep this situation under wraps. If word got out that we had an agent kicking up gravel in our parking lot, people would panic. I couldn’t let that happen… and that meant I couldn’t let anyone know about this.
Especially not Asher. He wasn’t a member of the club, which meant that he had no business hanging around the shop in the first place. He sure as hell had no business being privy to such privileged information.
“It was just some Bible-thumper trying to sell me salvation and the good word,” I lied.
“I’ve never seen a Jehovah’s Witness dressed like that before,” Asher frowned in disbelief.
“I think she was Mormon, actually,” I shrugged nonchalantly. “Not that it matters. They’re all peddling the same schtick, if you ask me. ‘Do exactly what we say, or you’ll spend the rest of eternity burning in Hell.’”
“I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all,” Asher’s voice softened. He didn’t sound like my bratty, overly-confident little brother anymore. He sounded… humble.
He kept his eyes pointed at the ground as he continued. “I think religion is just about believing in something bigger than yourself. You know, trusting that all of this matters, and that there’s some bigger picture.”
“Where is all of this coming from?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Don’t tell me that one of those door-to-door assholes actually got you to drink the Kool-Aid?”
“It’s not like that,” Asher shook his head. “It’s just… after Dad died and you left, I felt… lost. Everything seemed so pointless. What’s the point of living if we all just end up dead? There has to be a bigger purpose for all of this, right?”
I clenched my teeth together, suddenly angry.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I said. “I never left you. After Pops died, your mother was the one who decided to pack up and leave town without saying goodbye. And there’s nothing you can show me in some thousand-year old book that’s gonna make that any less fucked up.”
Asher was quiet, his eyes still stuck on the same oil stain on the concrete floor.
“There is no bigger picture,” I continued. “We live, and then we die. All that matters is what we do in between. Once you’re dead and buried, you just become dirt under the next guy’s feet. That’s the bottom line.”
I sighed, trying to calm the storm of anger that festered inside of me. I knew that this wasn’t the time to dredge up childhood grudges or have a theological debate with my brother. I had more pressing matters to deal with. I had to call Buck and tell him about our visitor.
I was just about to excuse myself so I could make that phone call, but before I got the chance, I felt my cell rumble silently in my jeans pocket. I dug out the phone and glanced at the text message displayed on the screen. My heart immediately plummeted in my chest.
The message was only four words long, but they were the four words that no biker ever wants to hear.
There was an accident.
***
I sped the entire way, ripping over the highway like a bolt of jet-black lightning.
The rush didn’t end when I reached Bingo’s house. Even when I clenched the brakes and parked my bike on the curb, the adrenaline still sped through my veins at a hundred miles per hour.
Daisy must have heard my boots hammering up the concrete porch steps, because she cracked open the front door a few seconds before I reached it.
Seeing the shattered expression on her face was like driving full-speed at a brick wall. Everything immediately stopped.
“Ace!” she croaked, pulling the door open the rest of the way.
She was in bad shape. Her eyes were red and puffy, and mascara tears streaked both of her cheeks. Traces of dried blood stained her hands and t-shirt.
She looked like a woman living through her worst nightmare… and she was.
Danger, death, and dismemberment are all risks that you have to be willing to accept when you were a part of this lifestyle. Every woman who had ever loved a biker knew that.
Daisy de la Cruz sure as hell knew it, too.
Daisy was Bingo’s old lady. They’d been together for years, and she had weathered plenty of storms by his side. She knew the lifestyle and the risks. But I guess that didn’t make it any more or less painful when those risks became a reality.
I squeezed past her into the house and she closed the door behind me and bolted the locks, then she turned to face me. The entryway was small, and it felt especially cramped with the two of us standing face to face. But she didn’t move. She just stood awkwardly in front of me with her arms slightly raised at her sides.
After a few seconds, I realized that she was waiting for me to hug her.
Call me old fashioned, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one occasion when it’s acceptable to hug another man’s woman: at his funeral. Bingo wasn’t dead yet, and comforting his old lady was my last priority.
So instead of a hug, I asked, “Where is he?”
If Daisy felt hurt, she didn’t show it. Instead, she folded her arms over her chest and led me into the house.
“He’s resting now,” she said softly. “He’s in a lot of pain.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“I don’t know if he’s ready—”
“This is important,” I insisted. “I need to know exactly what happened.”
“It was an accident,” Daisy said. “He went riding by himself and wiped out…”
Even as she spoke, the words sounded more like a question than a statement.
“I need to make sure it wasn’t something more than that,” I told her.
Daisy sighed, then she nodded towards the bedroom door.
“He’s in there,” she whispered softly.
The door was open just a crack, and I knocked gently on the wood before I pushed it open.
No matter how many times you’ve seen someone bruised and bloodied, it never got any easier to see it happen to one of your own.
Bingo looked like he belonged on The Walking Dead. His skin was grey and mottled with purple veins. He was covered in cuts and scrapes. Some were wrapped in white gauze, others were exposed and crusted over with dried blood. He breathed in raspy gulps, and his chest compressed with each exhale.
His eyes cracked open when I stepped into the room, and his mouth immediately curled into a dopey grin.
“Ace, my man!” he slurred, sounding slightly drunk. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to check up on you. How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling fucking great!” he grinned as his eyes rolled back into his head. “Have you ever tried Oxy? The doc at the emergency room gave me a prescription and shiiiiittt, that’s some good stuff.”
I smirked and shook my head. At least he feels better than he looks.
“Do you remember what happened before you got to the hospital?” I asked.
He frowned and his face strained with concentration.
“Nope,” he decided finally. “I don’t remember anything.”
“What about the accident?”
“Nope,” he shook his head again.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing,” he said resolutely. “After that SUV hit me, everything went blank.”
“What SUV?!” a voice croaked behind me. I spun around and saw Daisy standing in the doorframe, eyes wide with shock.
“You didn’t mention an SUV earlier,” she said, pacing towards the edge of the bed. “You told me that you went for a ride on your own, and you didn’t remember seeing any other cars on the road—”
“There weren’t any other cars,” Bingo flopped his head back and forth on the pillow. “Besides the SUV. Stupid son of a bitch came out of nowhere…”
“Bingo, you need to tell me exactly what you remember,” I said. “Everything.”
“I just did,” he slurred. “I was just riding along on my bike, mindin’ my own business…”
His story cut off and a doped-up smile spread across his face. He started humming the chorus of Born to be Wild and miming his hand twisting an imaginary throttle.
“Come on, man. Concentrate,” I said.
“Ugh, you’re killin’ my groove,” Bingo rolled his eyes. “Anyways, I was just riding along and then the SUV pulled up next to me.”
“And he hit you?”
“Why the hell else would I have crashed?”
“I’m asking if it was deliberate,” I said, even though I already knew the answer.
“Hell yeah, it was deliberate,” Bingo said. “You don’t drive at someone like that unless you want to make them roadkill. The fucker wanted me dead.”
“What happened after that?”
“What do you think?!” Bingo threw up his hands, gesturing towards his bloodied body.
“I meant the SUV,” I clarified. “Did they drive off? Stop?”
“I already told you, I don’t remember anything else,” Bingo said. His eyes pinched shut and his forehead wrinkled into a frown; he was getting frustrated.
“Come on,” Daisy snapped at me. “We should let him rest now.”
We made it to the door before Bingo called after us:
“Wait! There’s something else!”
I froze and turned back to face him.
“I tried to stop,” he said. “When I saw him driving at me, I tried to slam on the brakes… but the bike wouldn’t stop.”
My blood turned cold and my hands clenched into tight fists. I turned to Daisy.
“I need to see the bike.”
The bike— or what was left of it, anyways— was in the garage. Another member of the club had hauled it back to the house when Bingo was still getting checked out at the ER.
Somehow, the bike was in even worse shape than Bingo was.
I crouched down next to the mangled up frame. I knew exactly what I was looking for, and it only took a few seconds to confirm my suspicion.
“Someone severed the brake lines,” I reported. “This was deliberate.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Daisy. She was anchored by the garage door with her arms folded across her chest, but her eyes watched me closely. Her face was blank, as if she was in a daze.
“He was pinned underneath the bike,” she whispered finally. “A driver found him in the middle of the road and called 911. Who knows how long he was stuck there all on his own.”
“He’s okay now, Daisy. That’s all that matters—”
“I just don’t understand,” she shook her head. “Who would do this?! Why?!”
Her face bunched up, and she turned away and started to sob softly.
I sighed as I glanced back at the bike. My eyes roamed over the frame, inspecting the damage. Scratches, dings, dents… it was going to take months to repair.
Then I saw something that sent a chill down my spine.
The bike’s gas tank was covered in scratches and chips, but there was one mark that stood apart from the rest. This wasn’t another casualty of the crash; this mark had been made deliberately.
It was a dollar sign, etched into the metal.
I knew immediately what it meant. The mark was a message, left by the same sick fuck that severed the brake lines.
Mr. Money.