27. Brick
27
brICK
Two Days Later
Blood splashes across the concrete as my fist connects with the thief’s face for the fourth time. His head snaps back, a tooth skittering across the floor of our garage’s back room. The patch on his jacket reading “Road Reapers” is stained dark with his own blood.
“Wrong town,” I tell him, shaking out my hand. My knuckles are split, but the pain feels good. “Wrong place to pull your little stunt.”
The kid—he can’t be more than twenty—spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “It was just flour, man. Just a stupid diner.”
I grab his jaw, forcing him to look at me. “ Our diner. Our territory.”
Maddox and Ryder stand on either side of me, silent sentinels. We’ve barely spoken to each other in two days, not since the morning we discovered what’s been happening with Rowan. The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife, but business comes first. It always does.
“Road Reapers think they can send their guys to hit Black Wolf businesses?” Maddox asks, grabbing a fistful of the kid’s greasy hair and yanking his head back.
“I wasn’t—” the kid tries, but Ryder steps forward and slams a boot into his ribs.
“Wasn’t what?” I ask, leaning down to eye level. “Wasn’t supposed to get caught?”
“Initiation,” he gasps through the pain. “Had to hit—something protected by another club. Prove I could do it.”
I straighten, processing this. The Road Reapers are from out of town, far enough away that they shouldn’t be bothering with Wolf Pike.
“Why here?” I demand. “Why us?”
The kid hesitates, and Ryder doesn’t wait for my signal. The metal pipe in his hand connects with the thief’s knee, shattering the patella. The scream that follows echoes off the concrete walls.
“Boss said—” The kid pants through the agony. “Said this town was easy pickings now.”
I go still, every muscle in my body tensing. Easy pickings. The words hit harder than they should because of what they imply. That we’ve lost our edge. That we’re not feared like we once were.
My boot connects with his jaw, the satisfying crunch of bone giving way under the impact. Blood sprays across the floor.
“Maddox,” I say, not looking away from the thief’s now-unconscious form. “Call their president. Tell him to pick up his trash before we turn it into fertilizer.”
I add, “And tell him the next one who steps into Wolf Pike doesn’t leave.”
We spend the next twenty minutes working the kid over, making sure when the Road Reapers retrieve him, there’s no doubt about what happens to people who disrespect our territory. By the time we’re done, the concrete floor is slick with blood, and the kid’s face is unrecognizable.
I wipe my hands on a shop rag, watching the white fabric turn red. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to send this kind of message, but some lessons need to be physical to stick.
“He’ll live,” Ryder says, checking the kid’s pulse. It’s the first words he’s spoken to me directly in two days.
I nod, not trusting myself to respond without addressing the tension between us. We’ve never been like this before—this silence, this distance. It’s not us. The Kane brothers disagree, sure, but we don’t shut each other out.
Not until now. Not until Rowan.
The memory of her beneath me hits like a physical blow. Two nights ago, taking her to my home, bending her to my will, claiming her so thoroughly she’d feel it for days. The way she surrendered completely, taking everything I gave her. The marks I deliberately left on her skin, where I knew my brothers would see them if they got her alone again.
Every time I’ve seen her since, a blush creeps up her neck when our eyes meet. It’s subtle, but I notice. Just like I noticed the slight wince when she sat down at the diner counter yesterday morning, still feeling the effects of how roughly I took her.
My brothers don’t know. They have no idea what happened when I drove off from the diner that morning, how I took her to our house, how I made her mine in ways they never did.
The Road Reapers come for their guy an hour later, collecting him with hard eyes and terse acknowledgments. The message was received. Wolf Pike is not to be fucked with.
After they leave, I grab my jacket. “I’ve got a race to judge. You two finish locking up.”
Neither responds beyond curt nods. The silence follows me out to my bike, a weight on my shoulders I can’t seem to shake.
The track is packed when we arrive, crowds gathering for Friday night races. Money changes hands as bets are placed, engines rev in preparation, and the smell of gasoline fills the air. It’s familiar. Grounding.
I spot Rowan at the refreshment table, offering water to racers coming off the track. The sight of her—confident, at ease in this world—does something to my chest I don’t care to examine too closely. She’s wearing those tight black jeans that hug every curve and a simple tank top showing off toned arms. Her hair is pulled back, revealing the curve of her neck where I left marks with my teeth just two nights ago.
Mine . The thought comes unbidden, possessive and dark.
That’s when I see him. One of the racers, a big guy with a leather cut I don’t recognize, sidling up to her. His hand slides down, grabbing her ass like he has the right. Like it belongs to him.
I’m already moving, fury building in my chest, when something unexpected happens.
Before I can take three steps, Rowan has the guy on his back. Her movements are a blur of practiced precision—a twist of his wrist, a sweep of his leg, and suddenly he’s on the ground with a small blade pressed against his throat. The entire crowd goes silent.
“Touch me again,” she says, voice deadly calm, “and you’ll need a lot more than water.”
The blade presses just enough to draw a thin line of blood before she releases him, stepping back with the knife already hidden away somewhere on her person. The guy scrambles to his feet, rage and humiliation warring on his face, but one look at the gathered crowd—and at me, now standing just behind Rowan—has him backing away.
“Crazy bitch,” he mutters, but there’s fear in his eyes now.
Rowan turns, catching sight of me. For a split second, I see something in her expression—a coldness, a calculation that doesn’t belong on the face of a small-town baker. Then it’s gone, replaced by the warm smile I’m used to seeing at the diner.
“Sorry about that,” she says, like she didn’t just take down a man twice her size without breaking a sweat.
“Don’t be,” I reply, studying her with new interest. “He deserved worse.”
The races continue, but my mind keeps returning to what I witnessed. The way she moved. The placement of the blade. The complete lack of hesitation.
That wasn’t self-defense learned in some women’s safety class. That was professional. Practiced. The kind of fighting that comes from years of specialized training.
Later that night, after the races finish and the crowd disperses, I find myself unable to sleep. The image of Rowan with that knife keeps playing in my mind. There was something familiar about it—the grip, the angle, the precise placement against the carotid.
Then it hits me. I’ve seen that technique before. Years ago, at a West Coast MC summit. The Vipers are known for training not just their men but also their women in particular fighting styles. Defensive skills taught to the club’s most valuable assets.
The realization makes my blood run cold. If Rowan has connections to the Vipers, it would explain a lot—her combat skills, her wariness, that strange calculation I sometimes catch in her eyes.
But it also raises a host of questions I’m not sure I want answered. The Vipers aren’t just any MC. They’re deep in trafficking, drugs, and violence that makes most other clubs look like church groups.
A Viper in Wolf Pike would be more than just a complication.
I pour myself a drink, staring out the window at the dark forest surrounding our house. My brothers are somewhere in this building, but they might as well be miles away for how distant we’ve become in the past two days.
All because of her. Rowan. The baker with deadly skills and a body made for sin. The woman all three of us have had, though they don’t know about my encounter with her. Not yet.
I down the whiskey in one burning swallow. Whatever her connection to the Vipers, whatever game she might be playing, one thing is certain—nothing between the Kane brothers will ever be quite the same again.
And despite what I told her in the heat of the moment, I’m not sure I’m ready to share.