Chapter 1
BECKY (KENZIE)
“Becky. Get a move on.”
I blew an errant curl out of my face and grabbed the tray of burgers and fries.
My shoulder ached from hefting trays of greasy food and dishes around all day.
I had switched to my left shoulder for the dinner rush.
My right shoulder had given out after the lunch break.
I peeked at the clock. My shift would be over in two hours.
If I had to endure the smell of overcooked food and stale frying grease much longer, I was going to kill myself or someone else.
I’d spent enough time in this small town.
It was time to get back on the road. I had almost saved up enough for a new life that I couldn’t wait to start.
I would get right on it as soon as I avenged my mother’s death or died trying.
The night my mom was killed, the cops arrived and took one look at the dead men at the bottom of my stairs before shutting down the house and whisking me off to a safe place.
I spent hours being questioned, first by local police and then by some detectives from homicide and the gang unit. Thankfully, the feds were more coordinated, and the DEI and the FBI interviewed me together.
It appeared the men “I shot” and, more specifically, the emblem on their jackets, garnered all this attention.
Not the innocent woman who they brutally raped and beat to death.
I kept my story short and consistent. Three men banged on our door.
My mom woke me up to hide me. She gave me the gun.
She told me to wait for her to come back, but she never did.
I sat in the cubby until the house was quiet.
I thought they had left, but two remained.
I stepped out, and they started after me.
I shot him before his foot hit the stairs.
I kept my mystery saviors out of my story, and the case was closed.
Some cops praised my bravery, while others didn’t buy my story. No other evidence pointed to any other theory. After a few days, I was offered the opportunity to say goodbye to my mother and was placed in protective custody and then witness protection to start a new life.
When you’re fourteen and alone in witness protection, they don’t give you a new life; they stick you with someone else in the same boat. That’s how I ended up with the Thompson family. New family and new name. I became Becky Thompson. It sounded made up.
They were witnesses to a crime in Boston that took down a mafia family. We all stumbled through life with a healthy dose of paranoia and the constant urge to look over our shoulders. But I had no complaints.
They treated me well and tried to provide as normal of a life as they could with a stranger who they thought had killed two men in self-defense. They were nice to me, but as soon as I turned eighteen, I split and had been on my own ever since.
With my graduation money and the payout from the government, I worked my way across the country. I didn’t rush—just kept drifting east until the road led me back to Jersey City, home of the Infinity Kings.
The gang my father founded.
The gang that killed my mother.
That crew wasn’t going anywhere.
“Becky. Stop daydreaming,” my boss, Murray, the cook at the Happy Highway Diner, bellowed. His rotund belly jiggled when he walked, and not in the jolly way like Santa. Murray was no saint. He rubbed his stomach while flipping a burger patty on the flattop.
“I’m on it, Chef.” The moniker never ceased to make me giggle on the inside. He’d watched the first season of The Bear and although the show took place in Chicago and ‘Chef’ wasn’t Italian and had no culinary education, let alone culinary experience, he made the whole crew call him Chef.
I delivered tray after tray of food to bikers and misfits all day, every day. When the dinner crowd thinned out, I stepped into the kitchen and helped with cleanup. Thirty minutes before the end of my shift, the bell above the door chimed. Two men stepped into the diner and looked around.
The two stripped off their gloves and beanies, eyes sweeping over the deserted diner before claiming a booth by the window.
Leaning in, their heads nearly met as they murmured to one another.
Everything about them—black denim, heavy hoodies, that edge of danger—marked them as bikers, though no patches declared their allegiance.
They both looked in their late twenties.
And handsome, if you went for guys like that.
Rugged and tan, with messy hair from a long ride.
The blond guy kept pushing his hair out of his face. He had nice teeth and a crooked smile.
The other was shy and mysterious. His dark hair was short, but a little longer on the top. He pushed it back, and it stayed. He hung his head as if embarrassed by his own sexiness. The stubble on his face and the way he didn’t quite lift his head made him look dangerous.
Yes, I could admit they were sexy and looked out of place in a shithole like this. The blond one looked like he should be posing for an Abercrombie catalog. The other could pose as his handler. They both hid their eyes behind dark sunglasses.
“Bec, take care of them, would you?”
I peeked around the restaurant. The other waitress must be off on her fortieth smoke break in the back. I opened my mouth to protest, but Murray had waddled into the back to drop more fries.
I sighed and grabbed my order pad. I stomped over to their booth, not wanting to startle them.
They peered in my direction and grabbed two menus from the end of the table.
“Welcome to Happy Highway. What can I get you?” I flipped through my pad to find a clean page.
“What are your specials?” the blond guy asked with a slight Irish accent.
“Disgusting diner food.” I scrunched up my face.
They both chuckled.
“How’s the coffee?” The dark-haired guy asked.
“Strong and lethal.”
“Just how I like it.” He raised one eyebrow. It became partially visible over his glasses. “Two cups of coffee.”
“Anything to eat? The pies are decent. He buys them day old from the diner up the street.” I pointed to Murray in the back.
“You really know how to sell the place.” The blond guy grinned and adjusted his glasses.
“Well, I work with what I got.” I shrugged, scribbled on my notepad, and waited for them to respond.
After an uncomfortable few seconds, I peeked up and found them both staring, but not at me.
The floor vibrated with the rumble from several bikes pulling off the highway and entering the diner’s tiny parking lot.
The place sat maybe twenty people comfortably; no way we could accommodate a gaggle of hungry bikers at ten o’clock at night. We were a highway diner, but most people saw the grease stains on the windows and kept driving.
“Fuck.” The blond guy shrugged out of his black hoodie and stashed it on the seat next to him. “What are they doing here?”
“I told you the asshole has a tracker on you.” The dark-haired one rubbed his chin and unzipped his hoodie to show off his jacket. I’d never seen bikers hide their cuts before.
He slid to the end of the booth. “Just stick to the story and don’t go inventing shit.”
A short, stocky guy in a dark black leather jacket walked through the door. He spotted me and licked his lips. His beady eyes looked me up and down.
“Minnow.” The blond guy rested his arm on the back of the booth like he hadn’t a care in the world. “How did y’all catch up? We told you we didn’t need a ride-along on this one.”
“Well, Tricky.” He ruffled the blond guy’s hair. Tricky pushed his hand away. “Dude. Get over yourself. I spotted you on my way back and phoned Pres.” He shrugged. “We were close, so we thought we’d join you for dinner and drive back together.”
“Y’all finished your business in Philly?” the dark-haired guy asked.
“As finished as it can be.” Minnow chuckled and then leered at me like a lizard about to pounce on its prey. I fought the urge to cover up, although I was clothed from head to toe.
“Patrick. Reid.” A loud, booming voice from outside echoed off the tin walls of the diner.
Both guys stiffened. Now I knew where Tricky came from.
Patrick was the first to slide out of the booth.
Reid peeked over his shoulder in my direction.
His steely gray eyes made my stomach flip.
He mouthed the word ‘Go’ and jutted his chin toward the back.
I stepped back a couple of feet but stopped. This was my place of employment. A couple of bikers didn’t scare me.
Both guys stepped out into the night air where they’d been summoned.
I gasped and dropped my order pad and pencil. I backed up into the counter. Blinking my eyes, hoping the image of the skull with an entwined infinity symbol morphing into a snake was a mirage or a fucking nightmare.
A sharp pain shot up my hip where it banged on the counter. My gaze traced the familiar symbol, my heart pounding with every loop and line. And then my eyes fell to the bottom of their cut. Sprawled across in battered white lettering.
Infinity Kings.
Bile rose in my throat, but I couldn’t move.
My legs felt like jelly. I couldn’t breathe.
Here they were, outside my diner, within spitting distance.
I thought about my stuff in the van out back, the weapons in the duffle I’d been collecting over the years.
The pictures and notebooks of notes and plans and strategies of how I was going to get close to them.
Never did my plan involve them walking into my world. I was supposed to fuck theirs up, not the other way around.
My eyes darted around, identifying everyday items as weapons within my reach.
A glass pitcher would take out one or two of them.
Unfortunately, the booths and chairs at the counter were bolted to the floor.
The missing waitress had left a basket of washed cutlery on the counter.
Worn from overuse, they would still do some damage if plunged into a neck.
I slid down the counter and palmed two knives from the basket.
The bells chimed again. I spun around to find the two men reentering with a third trailing behind them.
He wasn’t as tall as the other two and walked with a limp. He slapped a hand on Patrick’s back. The half visor of his helmet obscured his face.
“Hey, pretty girl.” He gave me a once-over and a head nod. “You own this place?”
“Me. It’s my place.” Murray came waddling from the back.
The guy threw a rolled-up wad of cash in my direction.
Murray had reflexes like a cat when it came to money.
“Take care of my boys.” He had yet to address Murray.
“Beers and burgers for everyone.” He gestured in the air with his glove before setting it on the table and peeling off his helmet.
His short reddish-brown hair lay matted against his skull.
He pushed it over to the side. And sat with his back toward me.
A bald spot had formed on his head. The skin on the back of his neck was pale and thin.
He had a weird hump on his left shoulder, or his body was crooked.
Patrick took the helmet and set it on the seat behind him.
I peeked into Reid’s eyes. His forehead scrunched up, the tension in his jaw palpable.
“Sweetheart.” The older man snapped his fingers in my direction.
Reid opened his mouth, but Patrick nudged him, and they sat down opposite the old man.
“Is she deaf?” He turned with a sneer on his lips. The scar above his left eye looked fresh, but I recognized him instantly. Sitting in front of me, in a random diner on the outskirts of Philadelphia, was Sonny O’Connor. My father.