Chapter 9
CENTURY
Monday morning found me in my custom bay at The Pit, bent over a high-end motorcycle tank with an airbrush in my hand and Saylor wrecking every bit of concentration I had left.
The bike belonged to a customer who’d paid a ton of money for a custom paint job that looked like black smoke curling through dark red flames.
Normally, the slow transformation of a machine into something nobody else could do was where my head settled.
Today, every curve I traced made me think about Saylor’s body under my hands, each red edge reminded me of the blush on her cheeks when I said something filthy, and the careful pass had to compete with the memory of her soft, wrecked sounds filling my room.
I set the airbrush down before I fucked up an expensive tank because my dick was apparently more interested in my woman than letting me earn a living.
Even though just this morning, I’d woken up early with her wrapped around me and spent as much time as I could touching her before she had to get up.
It had been even harder to let her go after the shit that went down at the race last night. The only good thing about my mind being full of work and Saylor was that it kept me from going rogue and hunting down those motherfuckers until each one had eaten a bullet.
I’d spent years building control until it was steeped in my bones, but one week with my woman had me acting like a man who’d misplaced every ounce of discipline.
“You planning to paint that tank or mentally impregnate it?” Edge asked from behind me.
I didn’t turn right away. “You walk into a man’s bay and open with that, then act surprised when someone eventually stabs you with shop equipment.”
“Eventually?” I could hear the grin behind Edge’s echoed word. “You’re slipping.”
I looked over my shoulder and found him, Kane, Axle, Jax, and Shifter standing just inside the bay.
Kane’s gaze moved from the tank to me. “Office.”
I stripped off my gloves and tossed them on the workbench, not liking the way that one word landed. “This about last night?”
“Yeah.” Jax rubbed the back of his neck. “And before you ask, I got eyes on them after Edge called. Haven’t had time to dig deep yet.”
Shifter pushed away from the wall, his mouth twitching. “Lark keeping you busy, brother?”
Sometimes, Shifter reminded me a lot of Edge. Lethal and observant, with a slightly underdeveloped conscience. But he could also flip a switch, and suddenly, he was laid back and easygoing.
Jax gave Shifter a flat look. “My wife gave birth to Lincoln two weeks ago. If you’re volunteering for night duty, say so now. I’ll hand you a bottle, a burp cloth, and the tiny human who screams like Nitro wired him to explode.”
Axle huffed a laugh as we headed toward my office. “Shifter on baby duty would last six minutes.”
“Five,” Kane muttered.
Shifter looked offended for about half a second. “I’ve held babies.”
“Yeah,” Jax agreed dryly as we stepped inside my office. “Like they were suspicious packages.”
“Babies are suspicious packages,” Shifter shot back, dropping onto the chair by the wall while I closed the door. “Small, loud, and leaking from multiple points.”
Kane’s mouth barely moved, but I caught the faint amusement before it disappeared.
That was the thing with my brothers. We could be walking into a mess with another MC, but they’d still find time to talk shit.
Not because they didn’t understand the stakes, though.
If we didn’t laugh around the edges of the darkness, we’d all end up too mean to come back from it.
I moved behind my desk but didn’t sit. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
Jax set his laptop on the edge of the desk and opened it, the screen waking to a map with highlighted movement trails and a few still images from security feeds around Brake Point Run.
“Not enough yet. After Edge called, I tracked them leaving the race, then picked them up on two traffic cams outside Crossbend. They split into two groups, probably trying to see if anyone followed, but they weren’t subtle enough to lose me completely.
I have plates on two bikes, partials on a truck, and a couple of face grabs that should give me more once I have time to run them properly. ”
“Which you haven’t had,” Axle added.
Jax’s jaw tightened, and for a second, the exhaustion leaked through. “I’ve been handling club alerts between diaper changes and convincing my wife she’s not allowed to chase our toddler around the house two weeks after pushing out a kid. So no, I haven’t cracked their entire family tree yet.”
“Lark trying to take care of Isabella and Lincoln?” Shifter asked.
“Like I’m not fucking there to help the woman!” he snapped before sighing. “She tried to reorganize the pantry yesterday.”
Edge shook his head. “Terrifying woman. Looks sweet, quietly unhinged.”
Jax pointed at him without looking away from the screen. “First. Peas in a fucking pod. Second, say that where she can hear you. I’d enjoy watching you explain it.”
Edge grinned. “Nah, I like my face where it is.”
Kane cut through the banter with a low, “Back to the MC.”
Jax nodded and tapped a key, pulling up a few images.
“They’re from Georgia. Name’s Diesel Serpents.
They’ve been pushing into regional racing the past year, mostly underground and dirty.
Sloppy when they think nobody important is watching, but not stupid enough to come at us directly until last night. ”
I stared at the grainy shot of the man who’d stepped toward Saylor like he planned to put his hands on her, and something cold spread under my skin.
I could still see the way Saylor’s face changed when she realized he might grab her.
My fingers curled against the edge of the desk.
If I’d been two seconds later and he’d touched her, this meeting would have had a different purpose.
“I know them,” I growled. “Not personally. Reputation.”
“Most of us do,” Axle replied. “They’ve been trying to make themselves bigger than they are. Betting heavy, poaching racers, pushing into routes around race nights, and sniffing around crews that don’t belong to them.”
Kane’s gaze stayed on the screen. “They want a bigger seat at the table.”
“They want our table,” Edge corrected, his grin gone now. “Or at least enough crumbs from it to pretend they matter.”
Axle’s expression darkened. “They’ve crossed my path on runs too.
Nothing big enough to justify action before now, but enough to piss me off.
One truck was delayed outside Perry because a couple of their riders boxed in the route and acted like they'd gotten lost. A fuel transport got followed for twenty miles before they peeled off. A couple of them showed up near a meet location they had no reason to know about, then played dumb when my guys clocked them.”
I looked at him. “Why didn’t I hear about that?”
“You did,” Axle shot back. “In reports you probably skimmed while painting naked women on gas tanks.”
“They weren’t naked.”
Kane explained, “Axle reported it. We watched. They hadn’t done enough to make a move worth consequences.”
“Until they cornered Saylor,” I muttered.
Kane nodded.
The Redline Kings didn’t move on every annoyance, insult, or little territorial sniff from clubs trying to prove they had teeth. We were patient when it served us, violent when only it solved the problem, and strategic every time. But Saylor had changed the board.
The Diesel Serpents hadn’t just gotten bold near our races. They had stepped into my woman’s path and threatened her.
Jax turned the laptop slightly toward me. “From what Saylor repeated, they think Sutton was supposed to get close to you. That means her twin didn’t just randomly stumble into The Burnout drunk and decide to crawl into your lap because she liked your personality.”
“She didn’t make it to my lap,” I pointed out.
Edge’s mouth twitched. “Tragic for absolutely no one.”
I ignored him. “So it wasn’t me. She was fishing.”
“That’s my read,” Jax agreed. “Question is for what. Technical specs? Race schedules? Crew vulnerabilities? Something tied to your custom work? You’re the one they apparently targeted, which means whatever they wanted, they thought you had access.”
“Which is a long fucking list. But if she was supposed to manipulate me, she fucked up before she got past hello.”
“Comforting,” Axle muttered. “The enemy’s plan died of tequila and boundary issues.”
A muscle in my jaw twitched. “They’re still breathing. So not comforting enough.”
Kane folded his arms, the shift small but final.
“For now, the play is patience. Jax keeps digging. Axle tightens eyes on runs. Edge and I will watch where they move and who they talk to. We figure out what they wanted from Sutton, why they wanted it from you, and how far they’re willing to go before we decide how to end it. ”
Patience was the right call. I knew that. Didn’t mean I liked it. “And Sutton?”
“Jax will start looking for her,” Kane replied.
“Unless we need her to prove Saylor’s identity, or Sutton becomes a bigger problem for us, she isn’t worth chasing hard.
Right now, the priority is figuring out why the Diesel Serpents wanted her close to you and making sure they stay the fuck away from Saylor. ”
Jax nodded, his fingers moving over the keyboard.
“I’ll run Sutton Everett through the obvious channels first. If she’s as messy as Saylor says, she’ll leave tracks.
People like that usually think disappearing means using cash and changing motels.
They forget cameras, phones, and stupid friends exist.”
“Sutton stole Saylor’s identity once.” The reminder made my teeth grind. “Took out a loan in her name and left Saylor to clean it up.”
Edge’s eyes went colder. “Lovely.”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “Real charming family dynamic.”