Grave's Retaliation (Beantown Bastards MC #18)

Chapter 1

The coffee had gone cold twenty minutes ago, but Grave hadn't noticed.

Three months back with the club. Three months of late work, surveillance runs, the jobs that needed doing when normal people were dreaming. He'd stopped pretending he'd ever be anything else.

Grave appreciated that more than he could say.

"Refill?"

Nina appeared at his elbow, pot in hand, already pouring before he could answer. She never asked if he wanted more—just noticed when his cup was empty and fixed it. No conversation required.

"Thanks."

She nodded once and moved on, her hair escaping from its pins, navigating her space with the efficiency of someone who'd been doing this her whole life.

Which she had, near as he could tell. The diner had been here since before he was born, and Nina had been behind that counter since she was old enough to carry plates.

He watched her handle a difficult customer three booths down—some asshole in a suit who'd wandered in from wherever suits went at 3 AM, complaining about the eggs being too greasy.

Nina listened with ice in her eyes, then told him the eggs had been cooked the same way since 1978 and if he didn't like it, there was a Denny's two miles east that would be happy to serve him rubber.

The suit paid and left. The longshoremen at the counter raised their mugs in silent salute.

That's right. Her place, her rules.

Grave drank and let the stillness settle back over him.

Five years he'd been gone from the club.

Five years of trying to be something else—warehouse shifts, a woman who wanted him to see a therapist, pills that made him foggy but never actually let him sleep.

He'd tried. Christ, he'd tried. But you couldn't fix what Afghanistan had broken, and eventually he'd stopped pretending otherwise.

The Bastards hadn't asked questions when he came back. Wicked had just looked at him, nodded, and put him to work. Graveyard shifts. Surveillance. The jobs nobody else wanted because nobody else was awake at 3 AM anyway.

It fit. That was the hell of it. The life he'd tried to escape fit him better than anything he'd built to replace it.

The door chimed and two longshoremen walked in, salt air clinging to their jackets, the particular exhaustion of men who'd been moving cargo since midnight. Nina had their cups poured before they reached the counter, knew their orders without asking.

"Usual, Tommy?"

"You know it."

"Danny?"

"Eggs over easy. Extra toast."

She moved to the kitchen window, called the order through, came back to top off Grave's cup even though he hadn't asked.

"You ever actually drink this, or do you just like watching it go cold?"

He looked up. She was watching him with those eyes that had adjusted to fluorescent light and late-shift trouble, and something in his chest shifted.

"Drink it eventually."

"Eventually." Her mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "You've been sitting here four hours. That's a lot of eventually."

"Peaceful here."

"They're all peaceful, these hours." She glanced around the diner, taking stock of her domain. "That's why I like them."

She moved on before he could respond, and he found himself watching her go. The way she anticipated needs before they were voiced, handling the drunk in the corner with firm patience when he asked for a sixth refill.

He'd been coming here for months. Since before he came back to the club, actually—discovered the place during one of his insomnia walks, drawn in by the glow and the promise of a cup that didn't require conversation.

Nina had served him that first time without comment, and he'd been coming back ever since.

She never asked why he was awake at 3 AM. Never looked at him with that particular pity people reserved for the obviously broken. She just poured his cup, let him sit, and went about her business.

He appreciated that more than she knew.

The hours slid by the way they always did—slow and fast at the same time, measured in refills and shift changes.

The longshoremen left for the docks. The drunk finally paid his tab and stumbled out.

A trucker came in, ate a stack of pancakes in twelve minutes flat, and disappeared into the predawn gray.

Through it all, Nina worked. Topping off mugs, wiping counters, chatting with the regulars who knew her well enough to warrant conversation.

She moved like she'd been born behind that counter—probably had been, in a way.

The diner was her father's before it was hers, and his father's before that.

Charlestown legacy, passed down through generations of people who understood what it meant to serve the graveyard crew.

Around 5 AM, the energy started to change.

The black outside began to thin, the first hints of gray creeping into the sky.

The breakfast crowd would be arriving soon—construction workers, early commuters, people who operated on normal schedules and couldn't understand why anyone would be awake at this hour by choice.

Grave finished his cup and left a twenty on the table. Triple what he owed, but Nina never mentioned it.

She caught his eye as he stood to leave. "Same time tomorrow?"

"Probably."

"I'll keep the booth warm."

He nodded and headed for the door, stepping out into the pre-dawn chill. The air smelled like salt and exhaust, Charlestown waking up around him as he walked to his bike. His body ached with the particular heaviness of a man who hadn't slept properly in fifteen years, but that was nothing new.

The ride back to the compound took twenty minutes through streets that were just starting to fill with early traffic. He pulled through the gate as the first real light broke over South Boston, painting the brick walls gold and pink.

Inside, the clubhouse was still. A prospect dozed on the couch, jerking awake when Grave walked past. Brothers who kept normal hours were sleeping, would be for another few hours at least.

His room was exactly as he'd left it—blackout curtains blocking the growing light, bed unmade because why bother, the particular emptiness of a space occupied by someone who was never really there.

He stripped off his cut, his boots, lay down on sheets that smelled like nothing because he hadn't been in them long enough to leave a mark.

The ceiling stared back at him. His body screamed for rest. His mind refused to cooperate.

Same as always.

He closed his eyes and waited for the few hours his body would allow—the shallow, restless sleep that was all Afghanistan had left him. Two hours if he was lucky. Three on a good day.

Outside, the sun climbed higher over Charlestown. The city woke up, started its day, operated on schedules that had nothing to do with him.

Grave lay in the shadows and waited for the small hours to come again.