Chapter 3
Luke
It was three days after the funeral, and I struggled to fall asleep. It was already in the early hours of Thursday morning, and I was still wide awake. I fucking missed Dalton. I missed talking to my best friend and brother, and it fucked my head up knowing we could never hang out again. I’d known him my whole life, and knowing that he was gone made me feel incomplete. When you made friends that close, you never consider the hell it would be to lose them.
The funeral on Monday had been a nightmare. I’d had to be strong for the Starr family because they needed me and I’d promised Dalton I would be there for them. I would have done it anyway. They were my family, too, and in a time like this, they needed me the most.
But what I’d really wanted to do, instead of cleaning house and supporting crying women, was get fucking drunk in honor of Dalton and pass out so that I could forget my own pain.
I was glad I’d been there for Alexa, though. She wasn’t coping with Dalton’s death well at all. Not that I could blame her. When I’d spoken to him on the phone that Friday night, he’d been right to ask me to look out for her. She was innocent and pure, and the ugly life Dalton had been involved in didn’t suit her at all. It was a pity it had brushed up against her in the form of his death.
I was going to make sure nothing else about his life came close to her. I had to keep an eye on her and make sure she was all right. I didn’t want whatever Dalton had been involved in to spill over into the lives of his family. I wasn’t sure how to watch her constantly without looking like a creeper. Sure, I was a family friend, but I didn’t want her to think I was stalking her.
Although being around her all the time wouldn’t be a chore at all. I was comfortable around her—most of the time. Sometimes she was so fucking sexy that she turned me on, and hiding an erection from your brother’s sister wasn’t comfortable at all.
Alexa was beautiful in every sense of the word. She was just the right amount of curvy, with breasts big enough that she would be an easy handful and hips that would make men sit up and beg. She carried herself with elegance and grace. I didn’t think she knew how sexy she was.
And that hair, God, that hair. Long and silky, dark brown and beautiful. It hung over her shoulders in thick waves, and I could just imagine what it would feel like with her straddling me, her hair on my chest, her lips on my pectoral muscles.
I shook off the thought. I was getting hard just thinking about her, and even though I would have loved to go out and get some sex now, I had bigger things to worry about.
Like that someone had murdered Dalton. Someone had been out to get him. When I’d called him, he’d been worried that someone was after him. Well, he hadn’t been wrong. Someone had been after him, and whoever it was had caught up with him.
I was going to find out who it was. I wanted to know what Dalton had been involved in and why he’d been so worried about getting killed.
Who could I speak to who would tell me? The club was very strict about information. Anyone who spoke about something they shouldn’t have got killed. Most of the time they made it look like suicide, suggesting that whoever had snitched had eaten a bullet. Being around Dalton had taught me more than I cared to know.
Now I was glad he’d told me all these things. He’d confided in me because I was the one person who was uninvolved and, therefore, safe.
I had to find someone who was willing to talk to me. Surely the news of Dalton’s death would be well-known among all the motorcycle clubs. Someone’s death could serve as a warning just as well as a punishment. If word got out that someone was killed because of something they did, it created fear among the rest of them. MC clubs ruled through fear.
I could count on one hand the people I knew who were involved with the Samurai, and none of them were going to talk to me after Dalton dying unless they had a good reason. Dalton had been the common denominator. I wouldn’t have met them at all if it hadn’t been for him.
There was only one person I could ask about it. Dalton had introduced me to Sam a while ago, and even though we weren’t tight like Dalton and I had been, we had spent enough time together that I considered him a friend of my own by now. He was also a Samurai, which meant that if anyone knew anything, it would be him.
I would contact him in the morning and see what I could find out. If Sam couldn’t help me out, maybe he could point me in the right direction at least. He was one of Dalton’s few friends who had his head right about this shit. He hadn’t been at the funeral—none of the Samurai had attended—and I had the feeling it had been for fear of his own life. When you were associated with the wrong people, things ended badly.
At least I had some kind of lead, something to go by. With that knowledge, sleep finally crept up on me. I could fall asleep now that I had a plan of action, and I let the sleep drag me under.
I met Sam at Hollenbeck Park during lunch the next day. I had called him first thing in the morning, and he’d been reluctant, but he was my only connection with that world right now.
“Thanks for meeting me,” I said when we sat on a bench overlooking the Hollenbeck skate park. Teenagers on skateboards were doing tricks and falling more than succeeding. The park was full, as if no one had to be at school or work now. We sat far from each other, as if we were two strangers sharing the same bench, and Sam didn’t look at me when he spoke.
“It’s dangerous for me to be here.”
“I know,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
“I don’t want what happened to Dalton to happen to me.”
Definitely not a mugging then. Sam was nervous. He was tall and lanky. He wore khaki pants and polo shirts, not black leather and sleeveless shirts, and I knew he liked to read when he was alone. He didn’t look like the type that would belong to a gang like the Samurai. But the way his eyes shifted over the park at regular intervals, his leg popping like he didn’t know what to do with all the extra adrenaline, and looking older than his years—the constant fear and a hierarchy that wasn’t natural would do that to you.
“What did happen to Dalton?” I asked, getting to the point. “I have a feeling the police aren’t telling us the truth.”
Sam shook his head back and forth, back and forth.
“I can’t tell you much, okay?” he said.
“It’s fine. Tell me what you can.”
Sam let out a breath in a shudder. It wasn’t a hot day, but his shirt had dark circles under his armpits. He was sweating out his fear.
“Dalton got involved with some shady deals. He spoke to the wrong people about the wrong things, and they found him out.”
“What deals?” I asked.
Sam glanced at me, his dark eyes too big in his pale face. “I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry, Luke. If I snitch, they’re going to hurt me bad.”
He swallowed, and his eyes darted around the park again, as if he expected the enemy to jump out from behind the halfpipe.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what else to say to you.”
I shook my head. “Don’t sweat it, Sam.” The man was obviously sweating it, and I felt bad for him. He was terrified of something. I knew from what Dalton had told me what a hard life it was to belong to a biker gang, how hard the leaders were on the men, how expendable the men were. Fear was the big kicker, and everything revolved around holding on to your life with both hands, hoping you didn’t lose your grip.
“There’s one more thing,” Sam said. “I heard a conversation between Mason and another member of the club.”
I’d heard the name before. Koby Mason was the president of the Samurai. He was the man in charge, the man everyone feared if I remembered correctly.
“What were they saying?” I asked.
Sam shook his head. “Not here. If they’re watching me, they’ll really know I’m snitching. I’ll send you a text or something.”
I nodded. Sam was terrified, and that made me worried for him.
“If you’re that worried, you should leave,” I added. “I don’t want you to end up like Dalton, either, and from what I can tell, the Samurai don’t exactly value their members.”
Sam sighed. “How nice that would be. I guess we can all dream.”
I frowned. “I’m not trying to be funny, Sam. Get out of here while you still can. Save yourself.”
Sam shook his head. “I can’t do that. If I leave town, they’ll think there was a reason for it and they’ll hunt me down. You don’t run unless you have something to hide.”
“Maybe you run because this is bullshit and people shouldn’t be treated this way. Your life shouldn’t be a maybe.”
Sam chuckled, and it wasn’t cheerful.
“It’s good to know there are people still so positive about life and options out there. If you’ve been in the gang as long as I have, you start realizing what a privilege it is to be alive at all, and you realize how easy it is for it to be taken away from you. Life is fucking fragile, Luke. It can be over at any moment.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” I said.
Sam turned, and for the first time, he looked right at me. He looked scared.
“No offense, but you don’t get it, Luke. I have to go.”
He got up and walked away without giving me a chance to respond to that. I sighed and turned my attention back to the kids on the ramps. They weren’t very good at all, but I guessed you had to start somewhere.
Sam had told me that Dalton had been involved with deals. Dalton had mentioned that he’d spoken to the wrong people and that he’d fucked up. Sam was right; I didn’t know enough about that world to connect the dots all the way. What I did know, I only knew from what Dalton had told me. He’d told me that other clubs were the “wrong people.” There was no one they had to avoid the way they had to avoid rival clubs. It was a shot in the dark, but at least I had a general direction.
I just had to figure out what this was all about. What deal had Dalton tried to do, and with whom? What had he done that was so wrong? I didn’t know enough, and I wasn’t going to join the club to find out, either. My life was precious to me, and I had a duty to fulfill. I had to look after Alexa and her parents. I would be no good to them dead.
When I couldn’t figure any more out, I got up. I looked around, wondering if someone really had been watching Sam while we’d been sitting here. I walked to my car and got in.
Dalton hadn’t wanted to tell me what was going on because ratting someone out would get him killed. He’d gotten killed anyway.
Sam hadn’t wanted to tell me anything because he’d said he would get killed for snitching, and running away apparently wasn’t an option.
Whatever was going on, it was bad, and Sam seemed to think he was in trouble already.
What the hell was going on?