Sinful (Raiders of Valhalla MC: New Blood #8)

Prologue

Helle

The neon CACTUS JACK'S sign flickers like it's having a seizure.

On. Off. On. Off.

Been doing that for three weeks now, and Jack—if that's even his real name—refuses to fix it because "it adds character."

What it adds is a headache that pulses in time with the faulty wiring.

I wipe down the bar for the hundredth time tonight, bourbon and beer creating sticky patterns I could map like constellations.

The Big Dipper made of Jack Daniel's.

Orion's Belt in Bud Light.

Nine-forty on a Friday night, and the place is packed with the usual crowd—truckers, oil workers, a few ranchers, and the occasional Shotgun Saints member passing through on their way to Sharp.

That last group always makes my stomach clench.

Not because they're dangerous—though they are.

But because MC members look at the world differently.

They notice things.

Remember faces.

And I can't afford to be remembered.

"Sweetheart, another round!" Big Tom calls from the pool table, waving his empty bottle like a flag of surrender.

I hate being called sweetheart, but tips pay rent, so I smile.

Grab three Lone Stars from the cooler, condensation immediately slicking my palms.

The bottles are cold enough to hurt.

When I deliver them, Tom slides a twenty across the felt. "Keep it."

That's eight bucks for carrying three beers fifteen feet.

Not bad.

I pocket it with the rest of tonight's haul—two hundred and forty-three dollars so far.

Enough for this week's rent on my shithole apartment with forty bucks left over.

Except I need gas and food.

And the Honda's making a grinding sound that definitely means something expensive is about to break.

Which is why I'm racing tonight.

Five hundred in my purse if I win, two-fifty for second.

I need first place.

Need it like oxygen.

The door opens, bringing in dust and heat even though it's almost April..

Two men enter, and something in my gut twists.

They're not regulars.

Not truckers or workers or weekend cowboys playing dress-up.

They move wrong. Too aware. Too controlled.

Eyes cataloging exits before they even reach the bar.

One's got a scar bisecting his left eyebrow.

The other's got ink crawling up his neck—I can't see the full design, but I catch the edges.

Serpentine. Deliberate.

"What can I get you?" I ask, keeping my voice neutral.

Sweet but not flirty. Helpful but not memorable.

"Two Modelos," Scar says.

His accent places him further south than Texas.

Mexico maybe, or close to the border.

I pop the caps and slide the bottles across.

"Eight bucks."

He lays down a ten, doesn't wait for change.

They take their beers to a corner booth, but I feel them watching.

Not sexually—that I'm used to, can handle, deflect.

This is different. Assessing.

My phone buzzes in my back pocket.

Text from Raze, the guy who runs tonight's race:

Gates open at 11. Don't be late. Got some new blood who wants to take your crown.

I check the clock. Ten minutes until I can clock out.

Ten minutes, then I'm gone.

Just ten more minutes of smiling and pouring and pretending I'm not slowly dying inside from guilt and loneliness and the weight of choices I can't unmake.

"Need anything else before I'm out?" I call to Jamie, who's been working the kitchen tonight.

"Nah, go on. Crystal's here for close." Crystal emerges from the back, already tying her apron.

She's forty-something, been bartending since before I was born, has a kid in college she never shuts up about.

Everything I'm supposed to be and not.

I grab my cut of the tips—Jamie splits them sixty-forty since I work the busy shifts—and shove the cash into my boot.

Three hundred and twelve dollars total.

A good night.

Almost enough to quiet the voice that says I should just go home.

Face my family. Face what I did.

Almost.

The parking lot is gravel and dust, my bike is the only one here that isn't a truck or a car held together by prayer and rust.

It's a Kawasaki Ninja, matte black, the only thing I own that's worth a damn.

Bought it with money from my first few races, back when I thought this was temporary.

That was two years ago.

Nothing's temporary anymore.

I'm pulling on my helmet when I hear footsteps behind me.

Too close. Too fast.

I spin, hand going automatically to the knife strapped to my thigh under my jeans—and slam directly into someone.

Hard chest. Leather cut.

The smell of cigarettes and something darker. "Shit, sorry—" I start, stepping back.

"Helle." The name stops me cold.

My real name.

Not Hell, what the racers call me.

Not Bailey, the name I gave Jack when he hired me.

Not any of the dozen fake names I rotate through.

Helle.

Pronounced Hell-uh, the Norwegian way my mother insisted on.

The name only my family uses.

I look up.

The man is maybe thirty, tall, with dark hair and darker eyes.

I don't know him.

Don't recognize anything about him—not his face, his build, the way he stands.

But he knows me. "No, I'm—I'm Bailey," I stammer, heart hammering against my ribs.

Stupid. Suspicious. Should've just ignored it, played it off. But panic makes you stupid.

"Right. Bailey. My mistake." He smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Have a good night."

He walks past me toward a black pickup truck I didn't notice before.

Too focused on my bike, on escaping, on the race.

Now I notice everything.

The truck's plates—obscured by dirt, deliberately.

The way he moves—controlled, military maybe, or something else.

The way he said my name—certain, like he's been looking for me.

I throw my leg over the bike, hands shaking so bad I almost drop the keys.

The engine roars to life, and I don't wait.

Just go.

Gravel spitting under my tires, the Kawasaki eating up distance between me and whatever the fuck that was.

The desert highway is empty this time of night.

Just me and the broken white line and the suffocating dark pressing in from all sides.

I push the bike to eighty. Ninety.

The speed helps. Always does.

Wind tears at my jacket, the engine screams, and for these few minutes, I'm not running from anything.

I'm just riding.

Just existing in the space between one mile marker and the next.

The race site is an abandoned airstrip forty minutes outside Austin.

Exactly the kind of place cops don't bother with because there's nothing out here but rattlesnakes and bad decisions.

I can see the lights from a mile away—portable floods someone hauled in, generators humming, casting everything in harsh white that makes the desert look alien.

Cars and bikes line the makeshift road, maybe forty vehicles total.

Good turnout.

Means the pot's probably bigger than Raze said.

I park at the edge, away from the crowd.

Old habit. Always know your exits. Always be ready to run.

"Hell! Thought you might pussy out!" Raze appears, grinning like the devil's accountant.

He's skinny, all elbows and angles, with a face that's been broken and reset too many times to look right anymore.

But he runs clean races—no guns, no cops on payroll, just speed and money and the kind of reputation that keeps people honest.

"When have I ever?" I pull off my helmet, let my curls fall where they want.

"Never. That's why you're my favorite." He hands me a beer, already opened. "Got some hotshot from El Paso who thinks he's gonna take you down. Riding a Ducati, custom work, probably cost more than both our bikes combined."

"Let him try." The beer is cheap, warm, but perfect.

I drain half of it, feel the alcohol hit my empty stomach.

Should've eaten before I left, but there's never time.

Never enough money for both food and rent.

The crowd is the usual mix—racers, girlfriends, guys with too much money and not enough sense betting on outcomes.

I know most of the regulars by now.

Torch, who rides a Suzuki and always comes in third.

Viper, who's fast but reckless, crashes more than she wins.

The Menendez brothers, who race together like it's a fucking team sport.

And then there's the new guy.

He's leaning against a red Ducati that probably cost forty grand, arms crossed, watching me with the kind of confidence that comes from never having lost.

Pretty boy face. Expensive gear. New boots that haven't seen enough road to be broken in.

He's going to eat dirt tonight. "Entry's two hundred," Raze says, pulling out his phone to track payments.

I hand him cash from my boot.

Two hundred of my three-twelve.

Leaving me with one-twelve for the week.

Not enough.

But if I win—when I win—I'll have five hundred plus the one-twelve.

Enough to breathe for a minute. "Three laps, standard rules. First across wins, cutting corners gets you disqualified, crashing is your problem." Raze counts my money, shoves it in his messenger bag. "And Hell? Don't die. You're good for business."

"I'll try my best."

The starting line is marked with orange cones that have seen better days.

Six bikes total tonight—me, Ducati Boy, the Menendez brothers on matching Harleys that are too heavy for this kind of racing, Torch, and some woman I don't recognize on a Yamaha.

We line up, engines idling, the sound building into something that vibrates in your chest.

I live for this moment.

The second before everything goes to hell.

When it's just possibility and adrenaline and the knowledge that you're about to push metal and flesh to their absolute limits.

Raze raises his hand, phone in the other, filming for his Instagram that somehow hasn't been shut down yet.

"Riders ready!" I roll my shoulders, feel my spine pop.

"Set!" Rev the engine, feel the Kawasaki tremble like a living thing.

His hand drops. "Go!"

I don't think. Just move.

First gear screaming, clutch release, the bike lunging forward like it's been shot from a cannon.

Ducati Boy is fast—I'll give him that.

He takes the lead out of the gate, that expensive machine eating up asphalt.

But speed isn't everything.

It's knowing the track, knowing your bike, knowing exactly how far you can push before physics stops being a suggestion and becomes a demand.