Epilogue #2
Highway 53 stretched north through the darkness—four hours of Minnesota road between her and the compound, between her and the man who picked up on the first ring because patience was something he'd learned for everything in his life except the sound of her name on his phone.
She pulled onto the highway and drove.
The road was dark and Minnesota-long, and for the first time in ten years it didn't feel like running. The miles between here and there weren't distance—they were the space between one version of her life and another, and both of them were hers.
The showcase was behind her. The producer's card was in her pocket. The album was ahead of her, and the gigs, and the career she'd spent a decade of fifty-dollar nights earning the right to build.
But home was four hours north. Home was a converted mine compound where brothers worked on bikes in the yard and old ladies made coffee in the kitchen and a man with dozer hands waited by the door because he'd learned to hold everything gently except his need to see her walk through it.
Home was the sound she made when she sang for him. The sound he made when he said her name. The sound of two rough instruments—steel strings and heavy machinery, calloused fingertips pressed together in the dark—finally learning to play in tune.
Elise turned up the heat, cracked the window, and drove north toward the only man who'd ever been quiet enough to hear her song.
She was playing for keeps now.
And the music had never sounded better.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed GNARLY ROUGHCUT! 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:
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READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF ALPHA, THE FIRST BOOK IN THE WINDY CITY WOLVES MC SERIES
SNEAK PEEK: ALPHA
Chapter 1
The Harley's engine cut through Halsted Street like a declaration of war.
Alpha rolled three deep with Razor and Fang flanking him, their V-twins announcing ownership to every soul on the block.
Lake Michigan wind sliced across the back of his neck, carrying the smell of rain and rust from the expressway overpass.
Spring in Chicago meant nothing—cold was cold, and the South Side didn't give a damn about the calendar.
The bar sat mid-block between a laundromat and a payday loan shark, neon Budweiser sign buzzing in the window like a dying heartbeat. O'Malley's Tap. Alpha had been drinking here since he was nineteen with a fake ID and a chip on his shoulder the size of the old stockyards.
Now he owned it. Or rather, the Wolves did.
Danny O'Malley just hadn't gotten that message yet.
Alpha killed his engine and swung off the bike in one fluid motion, boots hitting concrete as Razor and Fang fell into position behind him. The three of them walked toward the entrance with the easy confidence of men who'd never met a room they couldn't take.
Happy hour crowd inside. Maybe fifteen people nursing Old Styles and watching the Cubs get murdered on the TV above the bar. Every head turned when Alpha pushed through the door—six-two of South Side steel wrapped in leather and bad intentions.
The room went quiet except for the game.
"Danny." Alpha's voice carried without effort. "You've been ducking Razor's calls."
Danny O'Malley stood behind the bar, rag frozen mid-wipe on a pint glass. Fifty-three years old, gut pushing against a Bears t-shirt, sweat already beading at his hairline. His eyes darted to the phone on the counter, then back to Alpha, calculating odds he'd never survive.
"Look, I was gonna—"
"Sit down." Alpha jerked his chin toward a booth in the back corner. Not a request.
Danny's hands shook as he set down the glass. He came around the bar like a man walking to his own funeral, which wasn't far from the truth if he kept making excuses.
Alpha slid into the booth across from him while Razor and Fang posted up at the bar. Razor ordered three Old Styles like they were here for the game. Fang didn't order anything—just stood with his back to the wood and his eyes on every exit, hands loose at his sides.
The regulars found sudden interest in their drinks. Nobody wanted to be a witness.
"Six months ago," Alpha said, voice low and even, "you had a problem. Crew from Englewood tried to turn your place into their personal ATM. Protection money, Danny. You remember what they wanted?"
Danny's throat worked. "Two grand a month."
"And what did the Wolves do?"
"You... handled it."
"We handled it." Alpha leaned forward, forearms on the scarred wooden table. "Three of those boys are still eating through straws. Fourth one's in Stateville on weapons charges we made sure stuck. Your problem disappeared, Danny. Like it never existed."
"I know. I know, and I'm grateful—"
"Grateful doesn't pay the bills." Alpha's scar through his eyebrow seemed to catch the dim light, a white slash through weathered skin. "You owed us eight grand. Payment plan. Five hundred a month. Easy money for a bar that clears six on a good weekend."
Danny's face went gray. "Business has been—"
"Business has been fine. I know because Scout's been watching your registers." Alpha smiled, but there was nothing friendly in it. "You cleared four grand last Saturday alone. Bachelorette party from Lincoln Park, bunch of Cubs fans after the game. Good night."
The color drained completely from Danny's face.
"So here's what's going to happen." Alpha's voice dropped to something barely above a whisper—the kind of quiet that preceded violence.
"You're going to open that safe in your back office.
The one behind the Cubs poster your old man hung in 1987.
And you're going to give me every dollar you owe, plus the two months you've been avoiding Razor's calls. "
"That's... that's ten grand—"
"It's exactly what you owe." Alpha tilted his head. "Unless you'd rather negotiate terms with Fang."
At the bar, Fang turned his head just enough to make eye contact with Danny. Those dead eyes. The butcher's hands scarred from wet work. The face that showed nothing because feeling had left years ago.
Danny scrambled out of the booth.
Alpha didn't move. Didn't need to. He listened to Danny's footsteps hurrying toward the back office, heard the scrape of the poster being pulled aside, the click of the safe.
Razor appeared at the booth with three bottles of Old Style, sliding one across to Alpha. "Cubs are down by six in the fourth."
"They'll come back."
"They never come back."
"Faith, brother." Alpha took a pull from the bottle. Ice cold, the way he liked it. "This city's built on faith and stubbornness."
Danny returned with a canvas bank bag, hands shaking so bad the zipper took him three tries. He set it on the table in front of Alpha like an offering to an angry god.
Alpha didn't count it. Didn't need to—Danny knew better than to short him now.
"We're square." Alpha stood, pocketing the bag. "Don't make me come back here, Danny. Next time Razor calls, you answer on the first ring."
"Yes. Yeah. First ring."
Alpha walked out without looking back. Razor and Fang fell into step behind him, and the three of them pushed through the door into the Chicago evening.
The lake effect wind had picked up, cutting through leather and denim with teeth. Alpha mounted his Harley and kicked the engine to life, feeling the familiar rumble settle into his bones. This was the sound of ownership. Of territory claimed and held through blood and steel.
They rode south through Bridgeport in formation, Alpha at the point of the V, Razor and Fang on his flanks. The brick two-flats of the neighborhood rose on either side like canyon walls, narrow streets and narrower alleys where three generations of his family had scratched out survival.
The mills were gone now. The stockyards nothing but memory and condos. But the Wolves remained, and so did the people they protected.
A kid on a corner—couldn't be more than sixteen—threw up a hand as they passed. Wolf country. Even the teenagers knew it.
Alpha returned the gesture without slowing, and they thundered on toward the compound.
The converted meatpacking plant rose from the Back of the Yards neighborhood like a brick fortress, two stories of industrial muscle turned into the Wolves' den.
Alpha pulled through the gate first, rolling past brothers working on bikes in the open garage bays, past prospects washing road grime off chrome with the dedication of men earning their place.
He killed the engine in his usual spot—front row, closest to the clubhouse door—and swung off with the bank bag in hand.
"Razor." Alpha tossed him the bag. "Treasury. Then I want you in chapel."
Razor caught it one-handed. "Something on your mind?"
"Victor Daszak."
The name landed like a punch. Razor's jaw tightened, and even Fang's dead eyes flickered with something that might have been interest.
"I'll be there in ten," Razor said, and headed toward the clubhouse.
Alpha took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, leather creaking with each step. The President's quarters occupied the corner suite overlooking the street—tactical position, best sight lines, the privilege of leading from the front.
He stripped off his cut and hung it on the hook by the door with the reverence it deserved. Patches earned in blood. President's rocker worn smooth from years of weight. The Wolves' grinning skull staring back at him like a reminder of what he'd built from nothing.