Chapter 6
six
COLE
The sound of metal striking the concrete floor echoed like a gunshot. Maddox’s wrench lay next to him on the floor, the cause of the disturbance, but he hadn’t even flinched. He continued working the ratchet in a steady clicking rhythm.
Sweat trickled down my back as I pushed a broken-down bike through the shop. Fall had come early to Hade Harbor, and the unexpected shift of the season brought a welcome and cool breeze through the open shop doors.
“Timing’s off,” Maddox muttered. “I can feel it in the crank.”
“Yeah, I thought so,” I replied. “Probably needs the sensor replaced. And likely a real mechanic.”
“Kiss my ass,” Maddox chuckled. I gave him a hard time, but he could figure out ghost issues that none of our other guys could find.
Gage stood nearby with his back against the wall and a cigarette hanging from his lips.
For once, he didn’t have much to say and was just listening to our banter.
I watched his eyes shift to the old clock above the door.
Our hunt last night for the Vultures had been fruitless.
The fuckers had gone to ground after causing a mess at our bar.
That was a score that needed to be settled, and I had a long memory for that sort of thing.
Just to make sure they knew the Hounds wouldn’t be intimidated, we were moving forward with our biggest deal with Hutch, the Vultures’ preferred supplier.
We were waiting and trying to keep ourselves busy. Tension thickened the air.
In less than twenty minutes, Maddox would be on his way to meet one of our suppliers.
Today was just a midsize delivery, some handguns and a few rifles.
Easy enough to fly under the radar, but that didn’t mean we could get too relaxed.
Anytime we touched inventory, it had to go smoothly.
We didn’t have room for error. Once we got this stock, part of the subsequent sale would go toward making our monthly payment on Frank’s debt, and the rest would be divided among the Hounds.
I knew every single member’s family situations, from college fees or alimony and child support payments.
At the end of the day, it all came down to me.
I had to make sure the MC remained liquid, while still paying the debt.
If someone wasn’t getting paid at the end of the month, that would be me.
The debt and the men came first, always.
I walked through the shop, past the half stripped-down bikes and rusty toolboxes littering the benches.
My father’s office… my office was in the back corner of the shop with the door slightly ajar.
My desk, cluttered with invoices, sat against one wall, and an old couch that still smelled like my father’s cigar smoke sat against the other.
Not much had changed since I had taken over the “family business.”
The Clutch was a biker bar, and home of the Harbor Hounds.
The shop around back, Throttle, looked after the clubs’ vehicles and most of the cars in Hade Harbor—well, the ones whose owners weren’t too pussy to bring their rides into the best place in town.
This place was home, just as much as the cabin I’d built in the woods.
The smell of motor oil and gunfire would permeate my skin as long as I lived.
I’d been born with it, and I’d die with it.
The confines of this town, the walls of my business, and the bonds of my brothers were the lines in which my entire life would be lived.
Another man might rile against that restriction, they might suffocate under that pressure, but not me…
well, not anymore. I couldn’t afford to.
I didn’t have fucking time to. People relied on me. End of story. I’d accepted my fate.
My burner phone vibrated in the metal drawer of my desk. I unlocked it quickly, not wanting the incessant buzzing to attract attention. It glowed with a blocked caller ID, but I answered anyway.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“Clock’s ticking, Cole.”
“It’s still no, fuckhead. Don’t call me again.”
“If you really mean that, toss the phone, shithead.”
It was the only response before the line went dead.
I tossed the burner back into the drawer and locked it.
No one else knew who was on the other end of that line, and I was going to keep it that way.
Guilt and paranoia crawled through me as I stared at the drawer.
The man on the other end hadn’t been wrong.
If I really meant what I said, why did I keep that damn burner?
Why hide it from my men? Why entertain it at all?
When I stepped back into the shop, I found Gage’s eyes following me.
“You good?” he asked, his eyes scanning my face.
I nodded and added, “Fine. Let’s just stay focused on today. If last night is any indication, there might be trouble.”
I heard Finn’s boots crunching down the gravel drive before I saw him.
I clenched my teeth. He knew he shouldn’t be here.
Finn strode through the open shop door, wearing his usual flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, under a new, overly shiny sleeveless leather vest. His own version of a cut.
His jeans had more grease stains than holes, which was saying something.
He also wore a self-satisfied smirk and vibrated with barely controlled energy.
He reminded me so much of myself at that age.
The thought made me want to throttle him.
The last thing I wanted was for Finn to end up anything like me.
“I’m going to ride with them today, right?” It was the first thing out of his mouth.
“No,” I answered flatly. I looked at the kid, and I was transported back to that night, in the pouring rain, when I’d broken a seven-year old’s heart. He was still that kid to me, and he always would be. Lately, that simple fact seemed to be pissing Finn off more and more.
The smirk dropped from his face for a mere second before returning. “Oh, come on, Cole. How am I going to prove myself if you never give me a chance. You give other guys a chance!”
Maddox kept quiet, knowing it wasn’t worth interfering, but Gage let out a snort. Finn shot him a glare.
“Yeah, because they are not you. You’re seventeen, Finn. You’re not old enough to go out on a run like this. You shouldn’t even know this run is happening in the first place,” I said. I should have known he’d pull something like this. He was getting more and more difficult to subdue.
“I’m not a kid, Cole. I’ve seen more violence than most people will experience in their entire lives. You need to stop treating me like I’m just a kid,” Finn said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
I forced thoughts of the stunning mystery girl from my head and focused on my current pain in the ass. “You might not be a kid, but you aren’t a Hound either.”
That shut him up real quick. Ignoring his irritated gaze, I walked over to Maddox, lowering my voice. “You’re taking Denny and Rico?”
“Yeah. We’re ready to leave as soon as you give the word,” Maddox responded.
“Good,” I said, slapping him on the back before returning to Finn.
The smirk returned to his face, like he thought he was going to get his way.
“You can hang out here, but you keep your mouth shut, and you better stay out of the way. Don’t make me regret this,” I warned sternly.
Finn opened his mouth like he was going to argue, then clearly thought better of it and nodded. He sulked his way back to the shop’s break room and unceremoniously flung the fridge door open.
“Kid’s got balls, I’ve got to give him that. There is no way I would have lipped off to your dad or Beatie when I was that age,” Gage said with a chuckle.
“He’s going to get himself killed,” I muttered.
I couldn’t allow that. My promise to his fallen father aside, I saw a lot of myself in him.
Maybe I wanted to save him from this side of the business, like I wished I could have saved myself in another life.
Who knew? I wasn’t going to be starting therapy anytime soon, so I could only guess about my feelings of protectiveness toward Finn.
If I could help keep him from turning out like the rest of us, I wouldn’t hesitate to send him down a different path.
“Why don’t you just make him an official member?” Gage asked, as if responding to my thoughts.
“Because if he can get out of this shit intact, he should at least have a fighting chance. I won’t be giving him that by adding him to the Hounds’ ranks. His dad wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Gage didn’t argue; he understood better than most.
The squeak of the door between the bar and the shop alerted us all to a new arrival, and a familiar voice called out.
“Gage, you still in here?”
She walked in like she owned the place, her boots clacking noisily against the concrete floor.
Her jeans were a second skin, and her dark hair was pulled back into a thick braid, and a bulky, sheepskin coat swallowed her petite frame.
Every guy in the Hounds had hit on her at least once, but they all knew better now.
Every guy, except three. Me and Maddox, and of course, her brother, Gage.
Sally was completely off-limits. Gage had made sure everyone knew not to mess around with his sister.
At this point, it had become an unwritten rule of the club.
But that hadn’t stopped the weird tension between her and Maddox.
It made sense, in a way, that the only thing that could come between two men as close as Maddox and Gage would be a woman.
“Stop sending packages to my house that I have to sign for!” she shouted across the shop and launched a box at her older brother’s head.
Gage snatched it effortlessly from the air and gave her a shit-eating grin.
“But the rest of us have social lives and are never home… you’re the opposite, so it really does work out.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “Next one goes in the lake, got it?”
Gage turned toward the back where a narrow corridor housed some lockers, waving his sister off over his shoulder.