Chapter 23 #2
"He'll get used to the commute."
"He won't. He'll complain every single day for the rest of his life."
"Sounds familiar." Blizzard stood, tucking his paperback into his jacket. "Some things don't change just because the scenery does."
Wendy locked the front door at five and flipped the sign to CLOSED.
The street outside was quiet. November dusk settling over Bridgeport, streetlights flickering on, the particular hush of a neighborhood winding down for the evening. No black sedans. No men watching from parked cars. No shadows that didn't belong.
Just a bookstore with warm light in its windows and a CLOSED sign that meant she'd be back tomorrow.
Blizzard's bike was parked at the curb, angled toward the street the way he always positioned it—ready to move, engine facing the escape route. Old habits. The kind that kept people alive.
He took Hemingway's carrier and secured it to the bike with the bungee system he'd rigged specifically for transporting a seventeen-pound cat who hated motorcycles. The carrier sat on the back like a saddlebag full of rage.
"Ready?" he asked.
Wendy looked back at the store. Her store. Two floors of rebuilt shelves stocked with books she'd sourced from estate sales and library closures and one very enthusiastic collector in Pilsen. A mystery section ruled by an orange tyrant. A reading corner with two chairs side by side.
The first thing she'd ever built that felt like hers.
Still hers. Despite everything.
"Ready," she said.
The ride to the compound took twelve minutes.
Blizzard drove the same way he did everything—calm, controlled, taking corners with the unhurried precision of a man who'd never been in a rush. The November wind cut across the expressway, cold enough to make Wendy press closer against his back. He didn't react to the temperature. Never did.
The city scrolled past—Bridgeport giving way to Back of the Yards, residential blocks fading into industrial edges, the particular geography of a South Side that belonged to the Wolves now in ways it hadn't before.
She watched it over his shoulder, feeling the rumble of the bike through her chest, feeling the warmth of his body against the cold.
Hemingway yowled from his carrier. The wind swallowed the sound.
The compound gates opened as they approached, a prospect on watch recognizing the bike. Blizzard rolled through and parked in his usual spot, cutting the engine with a twist of his wrist.
The lot was quiet. A few brothers by the fire pit, beers in hand. Stockyard tending the grill despite the cold, because Stockyard always tended the grill. The particular rhythm of a compound at rest, no crisis pending, no war building.
Normal.
Wendy climbed off the bike and freed Hemingway from his carrier. The cat emerged with an indignant hiss, surveyed the compound like he owned it, and trotted toward the clubhouse door where someone had left it propped open.
Probably on purpose. The brothers had learned.
"Good day?" Blizzard asked, walking beside her toward the entrance.
"The best." She slipped her hand into his. "First of many."
He squeezed her fingers. Didn't say anything.
Didn't need to.
They walked into the compound together—the bookstore owner and the Wolf, the woman who'd rebuilt from rubble and the man who'd thawed from ice. Behind them, the November night settled over Bridgeport, cold and clear and quiet.
Inside, Hemingway had already claimed the common room couch.
The reading corner waited by the window, two chairs side by side, a stack of paperbacks on the shelf she'd built from salvaged crates.
Wendy sat in her chair. Blizzard sat in his. She opened her book. He opened his.
The compound breathed around them. Brothers moved through the space, nodding, giving them the comfortable distance that came with understanding. The fire pit crackled outside. The L train rumbled somewhere in the distance, bass note to a city that never fully slept.
Two people. Two chairs. Two books.
Silence that felt like home.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed BLIZZARD! But no matter how you felt about it, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’d like to leave a review, here is a link to the amazon page:
www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYSC3S6B
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READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF ANCHOR’S AWAKENING, THE FIRST BOOK IN THE SALT BLOOD MC SERIES
SNEAK PEEK: ANCHOR’S AWAKENING
Chapter 1
The Chesapeake spread out beneath them like hammered steel as six Harleys thundered across the low bridge on Highway 17, engines splitting the morning quiet wide open.
Anchor rode at the front where he belonged, the salt wind cutting through the humidity that already hung thick at eight a.m. Behind him, Hurricane held the right flank, Trawler the left, with Compass, Riptide, and Breaker filling out the formation.
Chrome gleamed against the grey water. Leather and exhaust mixed with the smell of salt marsh and diesel from the distant shipping lanes.
This was his territory. Two hundred miles of Virginia Tidewater that Salt Blood MC had claimed and bled for over the past five years. Every fishing village, every crab shack, every stretch of coastal highway where working people were trying to survive—that was club business now.
Today's business was simple: a boat mechanic named Ray Dutton who'd taken three thousand dollars from Channel to rebuild a transmission, then disappeared south with the money and the parts. Channel was a prospect, young and eager, and some piece of shit had decided that made him an easy mark.
Ray Dutton was about to learn different.
The bridge ended and the bikes roared onto the two-lane that wound through marsh grass and weathered docks.
Anchor had gotten the address from a fisherman who still remembered when the Tates worked these waters—back when Anchor was still Griffin, still hauling crab pots at fourteen, still believing there was a future in it.
The old man had given up Dutton's location without hesitation.
Salt Blood protects its own, he'd said. You boys handle it.
They would.
The mechanic's shop sat at the end of a gravel road, a corrugated metal building with a hand-painted sign and three boats in various states of disassembly rusting in the yard. A pickup truck was parked by the side door. Dutton was home.
Anchor killed his engine and swung off the bike in one smooth motion. The others followed, six men in Salt Blood cuts spreading out across the gravel lot with the casual precision of wolves circling prey. No words needed. They'd done this before.
Hurricane cracked his knuckles, that cold smile already spreading across his broken-nosed face. "Want me to knock?"
"I'll handle it." Anchor's voice was steady, unhurried. He didn't need to raise it. Never had. "Stay visible."
The shop door was unlocked. Anchor pushed through into the dim interior, where the smell of motor oil and fiberglass resin hung heavy in the stagnant air.
Ray Dutton stood at a workbench with his back turned, a soldering iron in his hand, apparently deaf to the sound of six motorcycles that had just announced themselves in his yard.
Or maybe just hoping they'd go away.
"Ray."
Dutton spun around, and Anchor watched the color drain from his face in real time. The soldering iron clattered to the concrete floor. "Jesus Christ—"
"Not even close." Anchor stepped further into the shop, letting his eyes adjust to the shadows. Boat parts everywhere. A transmission that looked suspiciously familiar sitting on a pallet by the wall. "You've got something that belongs to my club."
"Look, I can explain—"
"Don't." Anchor held up one hand. The scars from old rope burns stood out white against his tanned skin. "I didn't come here for explanations. I came here for three thousand dollars and whatever parts you haven't sold yet."
Dutton's eyes darted toward the side door. Through the grimy window, Hurricane's massive silhouette was clearly visible, arms crossed, waiting.
"There's nowhere to run." Anchor kept his voice conversational, almost friendly.
That was the trick his father had taught him, back when negotiating with buyers and dock masters was part of the job.
Stay calm. Let the other man's fear do the work.
"You took money from a Salt Blood prospect.
You thought because he was young, because he was new, that made him easy. That made us easy."
"I was gonna pay it back—"
"You were gonna disappear further south and hope we'd forget.
" Anchor took another step forward. Dutton retreated until his back hit the workbench.
"We don't forget. Not ever. You could've run to Florida, to Texas, to fucking Alaska—we'd have found you.
Because that's what we do when someone steals from our brothers. "
Silence stretched between them. Outside, one of the bikes rumbled to life briefly—Breaker getting restless, sending a message.
Dutton swallowed hard. "I've got two thousand in the safe. The transmission's right there—I haven't touched it. I can get you the rest by Friday, I swear to God—"
"You'll get me the rest today." Anchor's tone didn't change, but something in his eyes did, and Dutton flinched like he'd been hit.
"You're going to open that safe. You're going to hand over everything you've got.
Then you're going to call whoever owes you money, whoever you can borrow from, and you're going to get me the rest. We'll wait. "
"That could take hours—"
"Then it takes hours." Anchor smiled, and it wasn't friendly at all. "My brothers and I don't have anywhere else to be. Do you?"
It took two hours and seventeen minutes.