Chapter 5
REID (RATCHET)
Ispent half the night reading her journal. It wove an interesting tale of drama, suspense, betrayal, and murder. Culminating in a revenge and a redemption arc that James Patterson would be proud of. It read like a novel, but in my world, some themes rang all too true.
If my calculations were correct, Becky, not her real name, had been through a lot in her twenty-one years. Almost as much as me and Patrick. Something about her story resonated with me, and it went beyond losing a parent and being betrayed by the people closest to us.
I’d known Sonny O’Connor had ordered my father killed even before it happened.
Patrick had tried to stop it but failed.
We both vowed never to fail again. It wasn’t as simple as taking Sonny out.
After all, he was Patrick’s father, but he hated him as much as I did.
It was his choice not to kill him outright.
It wouldn’t have changed anything. Too young and without real allies, our only leverage came from being Sonny and Mikey’s sons.
Putting in the work became our way to build the kind of club we wanted to lead.
Time was on our side, and we used it—stirring up trouble where it counted and keeping the Infinity Kings from gaining ground.
Legit avenues kept the club alive, even as the old guard clung to chaos.
The goal was close now, and instead of destroying our rivals like Sonny planned, the idea was to join them.
Our plan was to take place on Halloween, and it could all be upended by this woman who I couldn’t get out of my head.
Part of it was her fearlessness and bravery, but another part was the challenge. She clearly hated me or what she knew about me, but she didn’t know the whole story.
I could avoid a lot of undue stress and put an end to her crusade now. Grab her and lock her away until our plan was in place, but part of me thought the journal was just that, a story to make herself feel better. To keep a sad, little, lonely girl who slept in a van warm at night.
I couldn’t hurt her, but I could keep her from hurting herself.
Besides, the girl was freakin’ hot. Like girl of my dreams hot. She had cocoa-colored skin and curly light brown hair. Her eyes were a mix of brown and gold if that was possible. Her eyes were familiar, and I wanted to stare into them for the rest of my life.
Might sound like hyperbole, but I was a biker in a club trying to take out the current reigning president and his captains all in one night. I may not live for much longer.
I felt her in my arms, her ass on my thigh, and despite my warning to stay away, I wanted to see her again.
I told her not to come to the party. To stay far away.
A woman like Becky, it almost guaranteed she would show up and take her shot.
On the surface, we might have the same goal, but our mission would most certainly clash, and now I had the added burden of not only following through with my plan but protecting her in the process.
With this added wrinkle, I didn’t have the full picture, and it bothered me.
Excerpts from her book rode through my mind all during breakfast, but she wasn’t giving anything up.
After breakfast, I headed out to my bike and packed up.
I drove around the building and waited for her to leave, then followed her down the highway and was not surprised when she passed by the exit to head south without hesitation.
Once we crossed into Jersey, she exited near Newark, and I continued to my home in Morristown.
Patrick and I shared a loft in the warehouse district with a view of New York City.
I pulled into the parking garage on the ground floor and rode the elevator up four floors. It opened into our living room.
Patrick lay sprawled out on one corner of the three-piece sectional, bare-chested and in sweatpants, flipping through the channels.
He looked hungover and angry. My best friend had had a hard life, too.
Never getting the perks of being the president’s son, he fought for his respect and had mine even if we were practically brothers.
The place had minimal furniture and dark walls, but the windows made the space feel warm and like home. Better than both the homes we grew up in.
One of our businesses was construction and restoration, and our team had created our sanctuary.
We called it an open-plan duplex. Both sides are identical, with a shared kitchen and living space.
We each had a bedroom and en suite bathroom.
The rest of the place was bare and industrial. Perfect for us.
“Hey.” I ruffled his curly blond bedhead. He pushed my hand away.
“Where have you been?” He continued flipping through channels.
I flopped down on the sofa, leaned my head back, and closed my eyes. Not sure how much or what I learned I should share with him. We had no secrets, but I wasn’t sure how he would take it.
“I stayed outside Philly last night.” I tapped my chest. “Ran into a little trouble with the waitress.”
That piqued his interest.
“Oh, yeah, good trouble?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “She was hot.”
“Naw.” I chuckled. “The fat fuck of a cook wouldn’t give her the money he owed her. I had to remind him to be a good employer.”
“Something we need to watch out for?” Patrick looked over at me.
“He’s an asshole, but I don’t think he’s stupid. You don’t mess with the Infinity Kings.” I held my fist out, and Patrick bumped it.
“Damn right.” We both chuckled.
“Becky . . .” The name didn’t fit.
Patrick’s eyebrow quirked up.
“So, you did get into some trouble?” He sat up.
“Not the kind you’re thinking. You horn dog.” I hit him with a pillow. He threw it back.
“We might be in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Patrick stood and walked into the kitchen, where he made himself a cup of coffee and sliced some bagels that he put in the toaster. He was a worrier, and I hated to worry him without cause. He was also a planner and Becky was a variable we hadn’t considered.
I watched his meticulous dance around the kitchen, not wasting a move. Deliberate and focused. He was tense; probably didn’t sleep last night. With Sonny’s attempt to take out Alonzo and his crew, we had to prevent it and stop Sonny once and for all.
I stood and walked toward the kitchen, where I leaned against the counter.
“Come on. What’s going on?” he yelled with a mouth full of bagel.
“This is going to sound crazy.” I slid onto a barstool at the island that separated the kitchen from the living room.
Patrick hopped onto the counter.
“Becky might be a problem for us.”
“The waitress at the shithole diner?” He pushed his hair out of his face. “Why?”
“After we confronted Murray, the diner owner, she hightailed it out of there and forgot her journal. I found it and was going to bring it back to her, but when I flipped through it, I found this.”
I showed him the photo I took of the journal page with the Infinity King’s logo.
“So, she’s a fan?” Patrick shrugged.
“If by fan you mean she wants to go scorched earth on our assess and destroy the existence of the Kings, then yeah.” I shrugged. “She’s a fan.”
“She said that in her journal?” Patrick hopped off the counter. “What the fuck did we do to her?”
I handed him the phone back. “Check out some of her more colorful descriptions of the Kings.”
He flipped through the images I took of the journal, the more interesting excepts.
“Damn.” Patrick laughed. “I’m kind of turned on. Why does she hate us so much?”
“Read the last one.”
I gave him time to read it, and when he got to the punch line, his mouth opened, and his eyes slowly met mine.
“Yeah.” I inhaled and exhaled. “We killed her mother.”
“Fuck.” Patrick leaned on the counter. I could see his mind racing. He read through a few more of the pages. I didn’t even read them all, just captured any page related to the Kings. He took the phone back to the couch.
I grabbed a bag of chips out of the pantry and joined him. “I think it happened in Pittsburgh. Do you remember this?”
He looked up at me. “Do you know when? Who did it exactly?”
“I don’t think she knows. I don’t think it matters to her.
She wants to take us all out.” I had to give my girl credit; her mission was noble.
She couldn’t save her mother, but she would save people in the future if the Infinity Kings no longer existed.
“From the timeline I worked out, it had to be about six or seven years ago.”
“In Pittsburgh? You sure?” Patrick held his hand over his mouth.
“Yeah, why?”
“Ratch, dude.” He stood up and then sat back down. “We were there.”
I blinked and stared at him. I had never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it and never killed a woman.
“Dennis.” He scooted next to me. “It has to be right. Remember that woman, Brandy, that Sonny had been looking for? It was a few years after my mom died. He finally tracked her down in a shitty neighborhood, in a run-down house outside of Pittsburgh?”
I stood up and paced in front of the couch, working it all out in my head.
We rode out with the guys on that job, then were told to head back home.
Instead, we circled back and followed them.
Their plan for the woman didn’t include us, but the moment they forced their way in, it was obvious.
The screams cut through the walls. After that, we went in and waited for them to finish, but Dennis and a guy we called Pewter didn’t leave.
It was Patrick’s idea to see if we could help the woman, and then we saw the little girl and had to protect her. It was the first time we took out someone in our own set. After seeing what they did to that woman, no doubt in my mind that they deserved it.
There had been more since. In a way, that defined the role we wanted to play in this world. We were saviors.
“Wait.” He tapped my phone, probably sending himself the images to study later. “That girl’s name was Mackenzie. It was written in pink neon above her bed.”
“Timeline fits. Age fits.” I crunch on a chip.
“Last night she reminded me of someone.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It kind of fits.”
“It’s the eyes.” I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“She had a crazy color of brownish gold eyes.” He nodded.
“Kind of like yours.”
His face drew up.
I stared at him, tilting my head for another angle. It kind of hit me like a freight train. I grabbed my phone and flipped through my contacts. The phone rang.
“Hey, Ratch, what’s up?”
“Mike.” He was kind of the club’s historian and on our side of the Kings.
We hadn’t disclosed our plan to too many people in the club.
Plausible deniability and all, but Mike was a world-class hacker, and we needed someone like him in the inner circle to move the Kings into their new reality.
“You remember us joking about how many kids Pres had? And you said it was probably more like four.”
“Yeah.” His voice dropped low. “Why?”
“Was it true or were you just bullshitting us?”
Patrick grabbed the phone and put it on speaker. “Mike, this is Patrick.” His lip twitched. “I only know about Marty and Dana. Who else?”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s true exactly.” He spoke slowly and hesitated in his choice of words.
“Mike, you could break into the FBI database if you wanted to. What’s the story?” Patrick was losing patience.
“See, that’s the thing.” Computer keys clicked through the phone. “There’s no record on file. No filed birth certificates with your dad listed as father besides the ones you know about. I overheard some other guys talking about it. And I looked into her because I was curious.”
“What did you find out?”
“Well, she was born in 2004. She and her mom lived in a run-down townhouse in Hoboken. Her mom was one of Pres’s side pieces for years, but then they disappeared.”
“But you keep track of them.”
“Well, yeah, it wasn’t hard.” Mike was always careful about what he said. “Until 2018.”
“What happened in 2018?” I asked.
“Brandy was killed in her home.”
“And the kid?” I asked.
“Well, that’s the thing.” He hesitated. “She disappeared.”