Chapter 2
Axel
Twelve years after leaving Maine, and grifting around the country like an asshole hellbent on prison time, I rolled into Lexington, Kentucky, at dusk one summer night.
I came in low on my Harley, engine howling just north of seventy, scraping the last rays of sun from the blacktop before the night rolled in.
The wind chewed at my face and slapped the battered leathers that had outlasted every address and alias I’d ever tried.
If I closed my eyes and ignored the billboards, it could’ve been Maine, or Nevada, or the edge of any town I’d ever blown through.
But this was Kentucky, and that meant bourbon on the breath of every breeze, and a low-grade threat of violence you didn’t notice until it was already breaking your jaw.
I followed the outer belt of the city, bypassing the pretty parts where families barbecued, and kids played ball in the street.
My kind didn’t belong there. The addresses I was after were found in the in-between: pawn shops, tire fires, discount motels with bulletproof glass and hourly rates.
The only guide I had was a mental map of every shithole bar within five miles of downtown.
The Rusty Chain announced itself about a mile before I hit it, thanks to a thirty-foot neon sign that flickered "RSTY CH N" in blood-orange stutters.
It had rotted plank siding, a sagging tin awning, and a parking lot paved in broken bottles and used condoms. The place had its own smell, too—burnt oil, stale piss, and the desperation of a thousand last chances.
I recognized it instantly. My kind of church.
I killed the engine and coasted in, gravel crunching under tire, a sound I liked better than applause.
There were nine bikes lined up out front, each one shabbier than the last, all of them out of registration and at least two with frames stamped "property of evidence.
" I clocked the plates—three Kentucky, three Tennessee, one Indiana, two with the tags yanked off entirely.
The last was a fat, low-slung beast with a baby seat zip-tied to the sissy bar. I made a note to buy that man a drink.
Before I kicked the stand down, I did the ritual of scanning the lot, reading the angles, and counting the exits.
One main door, one fire escape on the side, two windows with plywood over the bottom halves and jagged glass up top.
No other bodies out here, but the presence was real—someone had been watching me since I turned off the highway, and they hadn’t even tried to be subtle about it.
I flashed a quick grin in the direction of the nearest shadow, just to let them know I’d seen them, and then I shouldered my duffel and went in.
The entryway was a hollowed-out phone booth, painted puke green and sticky with generations of spilled liquor.
I paused just long enough to adjust the cut—the club vest, for the uninitiated—so it sat straight on my shoulders.
It was a patchwork of old leather and newer thread, but the colors still mattered, even if I was wearing them on borrowed time.
My arms looked like a history lesson in bad decisions, faded back alley tats, cigarette burns, a scar from a broken bottle that ran wrist to elbow like a railroad track.
I flexed my fingers, let them pop once, then pushed through the door.
The place hit me like a frying pan thrown by my grandma, God bless her soul.
Every biker bar from here to Vancouver was a franchise, even if nobody owned the copyright.
The first thing was always the smell of cigarettes so old they’d yellowed the floor, the busted jukebox, and beer that had never known refrigeration.
Second thing was the sound—shouted arguments, glassware smashing, the muffled thump of someone getting their head bounced off a table in the back.
Tonight it was only half full, but every set of eyes turned when I walked in, sizing me up like an overdue bill.
I smiled, nice and wide, and let my boots do the talking.
The bar itself looked like it’d been hewn out of the bones of older, meaner bars.
The countertop was burn-scarred and sticky, dotted with the ghosts of cigarettes smoked decades ago.
Every stool was a different height, like they'd been stolen from separate crime scenes.
The music was classic rock, so warped by the speaker system you could barely tell if it was Skynyrd or the Stones.
Behind the bar stood a woman with a mane of copper-red hair that caught the light like a warning flare.
She moved with the economy of someone who’d been harassed in every way imaginable and stopped giving a shit before puberty was over.
Her tank top read, in faded marker, "I POUR, YOU PAY.
" No last names, no small talk. I liked her immediately.
She was serving up doubles to a slab of muscle at the end of the bar—Vin, if the Royal Bastards MC patch and the fact that every man in the room deferred to him meant anything.
I watched as she slid him a shot without looking, catching the glass on her backswing and using the momentum to line up three more for the next customer.
She didn’t just pour drinks. She conducted traffic.
I took the stool farthest from Vin but closest to the main door. Old habit. She clocked my move and smirked.
“New in town?” she said, the accent Southern but not sweet.
I shrugged. “Passing through.”
She poured a whiskey neat without asking, then set it in front of me like a dare.
“On the house,” she said. “For the balls.”
I drank it down in one go. Cheap, harsh, with an afterburn that threatened to come back up, but it did the job. I set the glass down and tapped the rim.
“Another.”
She obliged, less amused now, her green eyes pinning me like a bug under glass.
“Name?” she asked.
“Axel.” I didn’t offer the rest. If she wanted it, she could ask. People just didn’t respond properly to Alfred.
She nodded like she already knew, then glanced down the bar to where Vin was watching the entire exchange with the patience of a man who knew he could end a life before dessert.
He didn’t move, didn’t even blink, but I could feel the full weight of his attention on the back of my neck.
That’s when I realized I was in his club’s bar.
“So what brings you to our little slice of paradise, Axel?” Red asked, pouring herself a shot for solidarity. “Tourism?”
I grinned. “Business.”
That got a little ripple down the bar. Nobody laughed, but three men in the corner straightened up, hands sliding to where their knives probably slept. I raised my glass in salute and drained it.
Vin’s voice came down the bar, low and flat. “We don’t get many passers-through. Not since the construction ended.”
I looked at him over the rim of the glass. “Then I’ll be gone before you miss me.”
He smiled, just enough to show a gold incisor. “Nobody leaves Lexington without a reason.”
Red leaned in, dropping her voice to just above a whisper. “You got a reason, Axel?”
I met her eyes, then Vin’s, and let them both see that I wasn’t here by choice. “I’m looking for work.”
That was honest, in its own way. I’d been running long enough to know that if you didn’t give people something true, they’d make up something worse. I wasn’t interested in that.
The bar went quiet for a second, all the tension of a lit fuse just waiting for the gasoline.
Red cocked her head, weighing me. “You any good with your hands?”
I flexed them on the bar. “Better than most. Never met a Harley I couldn’t fix.”
She smiled, not friendly, but not hostile either. “We’ll see.”
Vin finally got up, pushing away from the bar in a single, predatory motion. His boots hit the wood floor like thunder. He didn’t speak to me right away. He just stood there, looking me over like I was a piece of produce with a bruise nobody else could see.
“You got balls,” he said. “But you got a head to match?”
“Depends what you need,” I answered.
He snorted. “We need people who don’t fold under pressure. You ever fold, Axel?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “Not for free.”
He laughed, and the whole bar seemed to exhale. Even Red looked impressed.
Vin stuck out his hand. His grip was crushing, but I squeezed back hard enough to make him blink.
“You might just fit in,” he said, and then he was gone, back to his stool, back to his whiskey, like he’d never moved at all.
Red poured me another, no longer on the house.
The rest of the bar noise crept back in, but the hierarchy was set. I wasn’t at the top, but I wasn’t at the bottom, either.
The next complication showed up like it had been waiting for a cue. Guy was built like a dump truck, red in the face and sloshing with whatever shitty lager had been on tap. He staggered up to the bar, leaning heavy on his elbows, and barked at Red for a refill.
She didn’t even blink. “You’re cut off, Donny. Go home.”
Donny didn’t like that. Not even a little. He slammed his glass down and snarled, “Don’t be a fucking bitch, Red. Pour.”
She kept cleaning a glass. “Not tonight. Try tomorrow, if you can still walk.”
He reached across the bar and snatched her wrist, yanking her halfway over the counter. She never flinched, but the tendons in her neck stood out like guide wires. The whole bar went quiet, even the shitty music from the jukebox hit a beat of silence.
I was three stools away and moving before I thought about it. My left hand clamped on Donny’s forearm. The first knuckle of my thumb pressed a nerve just above his wrist, and his grip on Red vanished like magic.
“She said no,” I said, calm as reading the weather.
He turned to look at me, bloodshot eyes full of mean and wet. “You wanna get fucked up, hero?”
I shrugged. “Not particularly. But you’re not giving me much choice.”