Chapter 11
Eleven
Declan
“Fuck, I’m bored!” I flop back against the couch, trying to elicit some sympathy.
It’s Tuesday. Renner’s not back from San Fran, Genesis hasn’t emerged, and I’m struggling to make any headway getting the crew to accept me. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Plus, I’m fucking bored.
Tasha twitches at my outburst, but doesn’t look up from her laptop.
Dario has his phone out, playing some kind of word game that suggests he might be more intelligent than he sometimes comes across.
Cole is doing push-ups on the floor, and chuckles in mid-extension.
“Solutions, not problems,” he says, not losing his rhythm. His clipped British intonation is all military officer.
“Fine, then let’s go for a ride.” I lean forward, resting an elbow on one knee. “Where’s your bike?”
He was wearing leathers when he came in, which means Cole may be someone I can bond with.
“Parked next to yours.” Cole shows no sign of stopping anytime soon; he doesn’t slow.
“What have you got?”
“R1.”
I nod in approval. “That’s a decent bit of Yamaha. You want to go out for a couple of hours?”
“Sure, why not.” He looks at Dario as he keeps exercising. “Coming?”
“Yeah, but I drove.” Dario slides his phone back in his pocket. “I’ll have to go home and get my bike.”
“Do you all ride?” I ask.
“Can’t be part of Kurt’s crew if you don’t ride,” Dario replies.
“Or do art,” Cole points out. “Graffiti is his thing,” he tells me, “but Tasha’s tattoos are the best I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t ride.”
She’s sitting right there, ignoring us. I don’t think she likes me.
Or she likes Genesis a whole lot more. Completely understandable.
“Where are you thinking of going?” Dario asks.
Cole pauses at the top of a rep. “Mulholland Drive?”
I shake my head. “Too built up and slow traffic. San Gabriel Canyon?”
“If you want a canyon road, how about Little Tujunga?” Dario suggests.
“It’s pretty short,” I reply. I want a bit longer with them if they’re going to accept me.
“So we run it twice, there and back,” Cole proposes. “Then hit the range at the bottom.” He looks at me in challenge. “Can you shoot?”
“I’ve been known to fire a few rounds.” In the Marines, anything less than Expert on the rifle was considered underperforming.
“Sounds like a day,” Dario pushes himself to his feet. “Give me half an hour, I’ll meet you at the bottom of Tujunga Canyon. Tasha, you got comms for us?”
Better and better.
She gives a long-suffering sigh. “Now I’m kitting you out for a jolly?”
“You’re kitting us out because you love us.”
“Fuck that. But I’ll do it for some peace and quiet.”
Cole’s Yamaha R1 is the same size as my Fireblade, and he handles it pretty well.
It’s sharper than my bike, the ride position higher, but Cole is leaner than I am, and it suits him.
“Been riding long?” I ask over the comms.
“Since I was sixteen.” His voice is tinny in my ear. “Dirt bikes near where I grew up.”
“Which was where? England?”
“Wales, actually. But yes, I’m English.” His accent comes through more strongly on that line. “Do you know the Brecon Beacons?”
Oh, yes. It’s where the British SAS train. I wonder if he’s had first-hand experience. “Sure. The Brits talked about it often when I was on tour in Afghanistan.”
“You were in the army?”
“Marines. Two tours, three years.” Then my degree, and after that the FBI came knocking.
“Cool. I grew up near there.”
So young Cole would’ve been raised with military all around him, from low-level fast-jet training to the British Paras and Infantry Battle School.
It’s no wonder he took the route he did.
The parallels to my own trajectory are clear, save he turned left when I forked right. We’ve both ended up at the same place.
“What are you boys talking about?” Dario’s drawl breaks into our chat, and a moment later a Suzuki GSX-R rides up in my mirrors, in the classic blue-and-white.
“That’s not an easy bike to ride,” I say. “Why does… Kurt insist on two-wheel experience?” Shit. Almost said ‘Renner.’
“Because he fucking loves them,” Dario replies.
“Because bikes move faster than anything else on the road.” Cole gives a more considered explanation.
“On a bike, you can filter through traffic, disappear into lanes cars can’t follow, change direction and be gone.
One plate that can be switched in seconds, leave it anywhere, disappear into the back of a van, and you’re on your own. ”
No argument with any of that.
“And LA is lousy with them,” Dario adds, tone more serious as he joins in. “In a city this size, you’re all but invisible.”
We’ve been cruising until this point, but now we’ve reached the entrance to Tujunga Canyon Road, and Cole takes the lead, pushing hard.
The canyon wall rises steeply on our left, raw cut earth and loose rock, sparse brush clinging to the slope.
To our right, it opens out into a valley, hills rolling away in layers, the ground brown and dusty olive, the mountains beyond fading into the haze.
There’s no guardrail on that side, and the drop is deep enough to make any mistake costly.
“I figured you’d say something about brotherhood or shared culture,” I say, trying to keep them talking.
“Sure, there’s some of that,” Dario replies.
“Not for Kurt,” Cole corrects. “He’s not a biker gang leader like your friend Briggs.”
Briggs isn’t my friend; the guy was nothing more than a means to an end, and an asshole to boot. “What’s Kurt’s take then?”
“Riding takes commitment, discipline, a cool head. All the things Kurt likes.”
Interesting. “Tell that to Pablo.”
“Don’t need to, do I?” Cole replies. “Kurt had him pegged from the start. Someone like him is just what we needed to distract during our escape.”
It’s the middle of the working week and the road is quiet.
It’s been a while since I’ve ridden it, and the bends come hard and fast. I follow Cole into a hairpin, bike leaning steeply, and he has his knee down, sparks coming off his slider.
More showy than I gave him credit for, but points for style.
“Does it bother you that Kurt got him killed?” I ask, as we straighten up. People sometimes talk more when they’re gently provoked.
“Fuck, no.” Dario is first to respond. “You hear what he said to Raven?”
“Man, that pissed me off,” Cole agrees. “The guy was a prick.”
My jaw’s clenched too tight to reply. The memory of Pablo talking to Genesis overlies with their first encounter in Franco’s. I didn’t intervene and I damn well should’ve. What if it hadn’t gone down the way it had? I’m glad that fucker’s dead.
“Kurt knew Pablo was a loose cannon,” Dario continues. “His intent was obvious as soon as he eyed that dirt bike, remember? Kurt could’ve stopped him, but he chose not to.”
“You rode with him,” Cole says, clearly speaking to me. “Does it bother you that he’s dead?”
“Fuck, no.” After the way he spoke to Genesis, he’d be dead now anyway if the cops hadn’t done it for me. I’m still bitter I didn’t get to kill him. “You know he started a fight with… Raven?”
Dario laughs over the mic. “Well, we saw the bruises. Welt on his cheek and an egg-sized lump on his temple. Not the first time, huh, Cole?”
“Chad?” Cole asks. “Before my time, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” Dario replies, then chuckles. “Still brings tears to my eyes.”
“Who the hell was Chad?” I growl out before I can stop myself.
“Her first beau. The guy was a dick, dunno what she saw in him. But he got violent toward her, and she wore bruises for a few weeks. Then Chad disappears, right? Turns out he spent two days at Verdugo Hills Hospital. Facial fractures, bruised testicles, busted kneecap.” Dario laughs.
“Raven walking around with a grim sense of satisfaction.”
A wave of visceral fury tightens my chest and I’m clenching the handlebars so hard the throttle twists. I have to slow my bike down, taking the next bend extra carefully while I get control of myself. “What happened when he got out?” Someone else I need to kill.
“The idiot turned up at Kurt’s unit, didn’t he? Started yelling at Raven, threatened to go to the cops. So Kurt took him aside, and less than an hour later, the guy left town. Good fucking riddance.”
“Where is he now?”
“Word is, a week later he rode into a pickup in San Fran. Survived, but with brain damage. Guy’s a vegetable.”
“Yeah,” Cole says, tone as dry as dust. “Sheer fucking coincidence that Kurt is originally from there.”
“So the moral of that story, friend Declan,” Dario adds, “is you fucking watch yourself with Raven, or Kurt will be having a ‘little chat’ with you, too.”
“What’s this?” Cole asks sharply. His bike brakes ahead of mine, and I’m forced to pull up too. It’s a moment before he gets going again.
“It’s nothing,” I grind out. None of their goddamn business.
“Raven turns up Saturday morning,” Dario replies, “then leaves half an hour later. Then Loverboy here turns up two hours after that, looking for her. Tasha blows him off.”
Cole is quiet for half a mile, while I’m seething. I was making progress, and now my relationship with Genesis is threatening to undermine everything I’ve achieved. I know better than this.
Never, ever get personally involved with people in an operation, Declan. She’s a tool, nothing more. Manage her like one.
“I like you, man,” Cole says at last, “but I like her a hell of a lot more. You hurt her, all Kurt will have to do is get rid of your body.”
And I believe him, too.
“I just went out for a walk and some fucking breakfast,” I mutter down my mic. “She was gone when I got back.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Cole says. “You had Raven in your bed and you go for a fucking walk? Are you insane?”
Dario chortles over the comms.
There’s no comeback to that. Damn Mercer and her face-to-face check in.
“I won’t hurt her. It’s the farthest thing from my mind,” I say instead, because it’s what they want to hear. I ignore the way it also rings true. “If I do, I’ll stand still and make it easy for you.”