Chapter 1
Rider
Rolling myself underneath this fucking car for the third time that week had me fuming. What the fuck did this customer expect from us? If you didn’t take care of your shit, then it would constantly break down. With cars, you gotta change the fluids, change the oil, and maintenance the damn thing. When you ride a used car hard, you gotta make sure you know what you’re doing. It wasn’t my damn fault the customer wanted to drag race with some fucked up hooptie. And it sure as hell wasn’t my job to fix it up.
I was a mechanic. Not a chop shop.
“Third time this week,” Colt said. “That’s fucked up.”
“No. What’s fucked up is this guy’s put some bullshit engine with nitro-whatever in it, and it’s wondering why the bottom’s fucking falling out of this thing.”
“You serious?” he asked. “Let me pop the hood. Now I’m curious.”
“If you touch anything and this car collapses on me, you’re the one paying my funeral expenses, asshole.”
“Quit being a pussy. I’m just takin’ a look,” he said.
I heard the hood pop as I continued to fiddle around with shit underneath the car. It was an absolute mess, and I knew it would keep me here later than I wanted to be. I heard Colt whistling as he jostled some things around, trying to figure out what the hell this man had put in this car.
“Okay. Rider, get your ass out from under there.”
“I’m almost done with som-”
“Get your fucking ass out,” he said.
“Shit. What the hell’s wrong with you?” I asked.
I rolled out from underneath the car and held out my arm for Colt. He grabbed me, helping me upright and steadying me on my prosthetic leg.
No matter how long I walked on that damn thing, I still had issues getting myself up on it.
“Take a look and tell me what you see,” Colt said.
“Another one of those tests?” I asked.
“Just fucking do it.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes before I dipped my head into the car. I saw a suped-up engine and some bullshit that didn’t need to be there. I saw piped flowing every which way and a cracked radiator reservoir that would have to be fixed as well. Oil was leaking underneath the bottom of the car now, which made me grateful Colt asked me to roll out.
But then I saw what Colt was seeing, and I groaned.
“You fucking kidding me?” I asked. “We’re gonna have to report this, aren’t we?”
“Hell no. Gearshift Mechanic Shop doesn’t need any police poking around in here. Not with its association with the club. But, we are gonna alert the customer that we know about it and tell them to take their fucking bullshit elsewhere,” Colt said.
“You want me to do it? Or are you gonna?” I asked.
“I’ll do it. You just close it up and roll it out. Don’t start it. Don’t play with it. And you sure as hell don’t steal it.”
“Not a fucking problem.”
Every once in a while, people thought they could pull the wool over our eyes. Even though the mechanic shop was associated with The Fallen Reapers Motorcycle Club, the club ran everything legitimately. It was their only source of legal business, so they made sure to keep it that way. But there were people in the community who lived in the shadows and fraternized in the underground world that thought they could bring their bullshit here. They thought that because of our associated with the club, we turned a blind eye to when their cars and shit brought trouble into our place.
Like having a fucking storage compartment underneath the hood filled with heroin.
I slammed the car hood down and opened the driver’s side door. I slipped the car into neutral, pushing it out towards the parking lot. I had half a mind to push the fucking thing right into oncoming traffic, but I resisted the urge. I was still trying to get in good with the group so I could talk to them about becoming a prospect.
I wanted to be a part of The Fallen Reapers MC.
I parked the car and looked up just in time to see Colt throwing some skinny little asshole out onto his face. They were yelling at one another as I walked back into the shop, grinning and shaking my head. Colt was trying to send a message. Prove a point with that scrawny little kid. Gearshift Mechanics wasn’t to be messed with. Even though it was associated with a club, everything that came out of that shop was legit.
And no one was going to try and ruin that.
“You good?” I asked.
“Helped blow off some steam. Good news for you, though. That was your last customer for the day,” Colt said.
“Ah, the non-paying customer.”
“Oh, no. I made him pay up. He signed the bill to be done. Not our fault we came across drugs in his car. He paid for the work we quoted him on, and I told him to let that be a lesson. You’re getting paid. I don’t run my shop like that.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I need all the money I can get.”
“Saving up for a surgery or something?”
“Hell yeah, I am. My V.A. benefits will take fucking forever to kick in, and I’m sick of the scars running down my face. I can always get them to reimburse me, even if it is a year from now.”
“You’d think the government would treat you better after having you getting blown up off overseas.”
“You’d think,” I said with a huff.
“You comin’ out with the guys tonight?” he asked.
“Didn’t know the guys were going out. What time?”
“The usual. Eight.”
“At the bar, we usually go to?” I asked.
“Yep. That’s the one.”
“I’ll be there, then. Gonna go home and scrub this grease off first. Shit stinks.”
“Maybe that’s just your upper lip,” he said.
The two of us chuckled as I threw my rag over my shoulder. I started for my locker, getting my shit out of it so I could head home. Going out with the guys gave me the perfect opportunity to talk to them about becoming a prospect. It took me months to cope with the fact that an I.E.D. blew me on my ass in the field, leaving me with a scared reminder of the explosion and shrapnel all over the side of my body. The scars just snaked up my neck and went down my torso, so I was able to hide them depending on what I was wearing. But it took me even longer to cope with no longer being in the military in the first place. Everywhere I went, people treated me like I was damaged. Women would thank me for my service while children stared at my scars poking out from underneath my shirt. Men would shake my hand and pat my back will giving me some bullshit sympathetic look.
It was disgusting. I hated being treated like I was broken.
Restaurants offered me discounts, and bars handed me free drinks. And it was good for a while until I took advantage of all the free shit. I tacked on forty pounds and tried to find solace at the bottom of a bottle, but that shit didn’t work.
It wasn’t until Colt stepped in that I got my act together.
He offered me a job at his mechanic shop. Nothing special, just fixing up cars and doing oil changes. It gave me a purpose instead of sitting around and stuffing my face with all the free food I could find. My need for alcohol was replaced with a need for oil on my shirts, but that wasn’t why I stayed. My friendship with Colt spanned across years. We knew each other well, and he knew the toll of the scars took on me. But he also knew how important it was for me to be treated as if nothing had happened.
That was what the entire club did. They treated me like I was a regular man. They didn’t stare at my scars, they didn’t ask me dumbass questions like ‘what happened?’ or ‘how does it feel?’. When I was around them, it was like my issues didn’t exist. Like I was a whole man instead of a mutilated one.
It was some pussy shit, but it was the truth.
I had worked for the mechanic shop for a little over a year now, and I was ready to talk to the guys about joining up. I spent over a year proving myself to the club, and I felt like I deserved a shot at becoming a prospect. They were the only family I had now. They had taken me in when I had nowhere else to go and pulled me from the darkness when I didn’t even know I was slipping into it.
And I figured my military skills would be helpful for the other side of their business.
The Fallen Reapers had the mechanics shop, but they were also guns-for-hire. Any person or any town that wanted their services would use a very specific channel to get in touch with them. Any specialty someone could think of that went into protecting people, they utilized it. Snipers. Close-range fire. Stealth activities. Night vision shit. They were loaded with all the technology and armed themselves with people that knew how to use it.
What they didn’t have, however, was someone trained in close quarters combat.
That was my specialty in the military. Sure, I knew how to shoot a gun. Disarm a bomb. Pick a lock. But what I was good at was close quarters fighting. I could beat someone’s ass with one hand tied around my back. I could disarm them within second and pin them to the floor, rendering them useless. My senses were always alert, and I was always aware of my surroundings. It made me dangerous in the military, and it could be of great use to their club.
I went home and cleaned myself up, making sure I looked presentable. I didn’t need a fucking suit or some shit, but I wanted the guys to take my proposal seriously. I wouldn’t stroll up in there with a greasy shirt and black fucking fingernails and talk about being in their club. I needed to present myself with the same care and consideration I would take if they made me a prospect.
Everything was about appearance and how you held yourself during shit like this.
I’d come to know the core group very well through Colt over the years. Bruiser, Fender, Grave, and Jax were good people. Rough around the edges, but very serious about the protection of others. It was why I bonded with them as well as I did. It tapped into that military part of my brain that associated combat and fighting with something greater than myself. When I killed someone on the battlefield, I wasn’t taking a life. I was reassuring the lives back home that they were safe as long as I was around. As long as I was on the battlefield waging war against an enemy, they would be free to live their lives however they wanted.
Even if it was spitting on my own damn uniform.
They operated the same way. The Fallen Reapers put themselves in harm’s way so others wouldn’t have to. When a threat reared its head, they were the first to be called. If someone wanted something done under the radar, so the press didn’t catch wind of it, they got in touch with Colt. That resonated with me. The need to keep people safe from threats and those who wanted to do them wrong was all I knew for almost ten years of my life
It was a part of me I didn’t want to give up. Even if I was left with scars from my previous battles.
I put on a decent pair of jeans and a simple black shirt. Nothing fancy, but nothing grungy. I rehearsed my speech in my head as I adjusted my sleeves so they would cover the scars on my right arm. I hated that they made me self-conscious, but the thing I hated the most were the stares. That was why I was saving up for surgery. For something that would help me hide them more.
I took a look at the clock. It was a quarter to eight, and it wouldn’t look good on me if I showed up late. I grabbed my keys and my wallet, shoving them into my pockets before I reached for my jacket. The black leather jacket was something the guys had gifted to me when I first joined the shop. They said all new hires got one, but as I did more research, I found that wasn’t quite right.
It wasn’t the new hires that got leather jackets from the group. It was those they were considering as prospects. Or so I had deduced.
Colt had hired and fired a few guys since I had been employed at the mechanic shop. And none of them had ever received leather jackets. I got one coming in on my first day, and some of those guys had worked there for weeks before they were let go. And none of them had ever been gifted a leather jacket.
At least, not that I knew of.
It could’ve been a pity present, but I refused to believe that. The guys didn’t see my scars when they looked at me. All they saw was a man. And the more I hung out with them, the more I started seeing a man as well. I didn’t see a broken soldier, medically discharged from the military. I saw a strong, confident male who was making his way in the world.
They had done me a lot of good, and I wanted to do them some good in return.
I slipped my coat over my shoulders and started for my car. I had fifteen minutes to get across town to this bar. I slipped into the seat and cranked everything up, smiling as my music began to blare through the speakers.
It was gonna be a good night.
I could feel it.