Chapter 5
Five
Jersey Boy
Quinn screamed the moment she showed up and Miami wasn’t at the clubhouse.
Not loud. Not high-pitched. It was one of those guttural sounds that seemed to tear out of somewhere deep. She looked everywhere, then at Blackjack, at me, and knew. Old ladies always know before you say the words.
“Where is he?” she demanded. “Where the fuck is he, Evan?”
Her blonde hair was a mess from the wind, mascara smeared under her eyes from crying in the car. She still looked like sin walking, but right then she just looked wrecked.
The bar had already thinned out. Most of the brothers and club bunnies had drifted toward their rooms or the lot.
Word travels fast even when nobody is saying anything out loud.
Quinn had stormed into the clubhouse like a hurricane, shoving past anyone in her way, Bee-lining straight for the back hallway until Tanya and Rebecca had steered her back toward the main room. Blackjack told her to sit. She didn’t.
“Tell me he’s okay,” she said. “Tell me he’s here somewhere. Tell me this is some stupid prank or some stupid job or some stupid whatever.”
“Quinn,” Blackjack said. His voice was softer than usual, but the words still hit like gravel. “He wrecked. Bike went out from under him. Ambulance got there fast. He’s in surgery now.”
She went white, then red. “What hospital?” she snapped. “I am going. Right now.”
“You are not going anywhere tonight,” Blackjack said. “They are working on him. You show up in that state, you are just going to get yourself hauled out or locked up. Jersey is going in the morning. He will see him, talk to the doctors, then call you the second he knows anything more.”
“That is not good enough.” She turned on me, eyes wild. “You tell him. Tell him I’m going.”
I stepped in close and caught her by the shoulders. She tried to jerk away. I held firm. “Quinn,” I said. “Look at me.”
She did. Barely.
“He’s alive,” I said. “That is more than we usually get when a brother eats asphalt at a high speed. Blackjack is right. You go in there now screaming and clawing, they will have security on you in two minutes, and you will be banned from the building. Let them do their job tonight. I swear to you I will be there as soon as the sun is up.”
Her breath came fast and ragged. “You swear.”
“I swear,” I said. “On my cut. On his. On everything.”
She hit my chest with her fists three, four times. Not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make a point. Then she sagged and let her forehead press against me.
“I cannot lose him,” she said. “He is such a fucking idiot, Evan. He leaves his phone dead. He forgets to eat. He rides like he is being filmed every five seconds. He watches the same four episodes of Miami Vice on repeat. He hums that god-awful theme song in the shower. He is mine. You bring him back to me.”
“I intend to,” I said.
Tanya appeared at her side with a full glass. “Drink,” she said gently. “Then drink again. Then crash in the back room. We will wake you when Jersey calls.”
Quinn snatched the glass and tossed half of it down in one swallow. Her hands were shaking. Rebecca came around the other side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“I am going to avenge him if anything happens,” Quinn said suddenly. She looked up at me, eyes glassy and lethal. “You hear me? I will stab whoever did this myself.”
“You can get in line,” I said. “But yeah. If he doesn’t pull through, no one apart of this will walk away smiling.”
She jabbed a finger into my chest. “You swear to me,” she said. “Swear you will make them bleed.”
“I swear,” I said. It was easy. My throat still felt tight from hearing Blackjack say, “critical,” in Church. “On my life.”
She exhaled and some of the fight drained out of her.
Tanya and Rebecca steered her toward the back, murmuring to her in low voices.
The other old ladies drifted in behind them, a soft wall of perfume and tattoos and tough hands.
They would get her drunk enough to sleep.
They always did when she got this worked up.
I watched until Quinn vanished into the hallway.
Blackjack came to stand beside me. For a moment neither of us spoke.
“She is going to be a nightmare if he dies,” I said.
“She is going to be a nightmare if he lives,” Blackjack replied. “That’s how you know it’s real.”
I huffed out something that was almost a laugh. It died quick.
“Get some rack time,” he said. “You’re riding at first light.”
“I don’t think sleep is in the cards tonight,” I said.
“Then lay down anyway,” he replied. “Stare at the ceiling. Pretend. Your body will take what it can get.”
He turned to go, then stopped. “Tomorrow,” he added, “I’ll call Liberty again. Arrange for a clean pull on that wreck. I’m thinking 8-Ball, Priest, Roadkill and Turnpike. They’ll go in, strip anything that matters, and get it out before anyone else can get to it.”
“Turnpike earned that,” I said. “He blocked that road without blinking. Saved all our asses by helping Miami get away. He has been solid as hell for a while now. It is about time we slap a patch on him.”
Blackjack nodded slowly. “He has done more than enough,” he said. “We will put it on the docket for a future Church. Assuming we still have a Church to hold after all this.”
“Fair,” I said. “I’ll tell him to keep his hopes up.”
“You do that,” Blackjack said. He clapped my shoulder once. “Get your head straight, Jersey. Tomorrow, you walk into someone else’s house with our patch on your back. Remember where you are.”
“Yes, Prez.”
***
Morning tasted like old coffee and anxiety.
The sky was just starting to bleed from navy to gray when I pulled out of the lot. The air was cold enough to bite through my cut and into my bones in a way that felt almost good. Something sharp to focus on besides the looping reel of what-ifs in my head.
The roads north were quiet at this hour.
The boardwalk lights behind me were still on, a glittering false smile over sleeping casinos.
As I passed the edge of our usual routes, the buildings changed.
Less neon, more brick. More dead storefronts.
Different graffiti. Long back roads and sleepy little towns.
Lady Liberty’s shadow lay over this. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it.
I rode with one hand light on the bars, the other resting near the grip, mind tracing old memories to keep from drowning in new ones.
Miami talking non-stop about how the sky here was “all wrong” compared to Florida while on a ride, but the women were top shelf.
Miami quoting Miami Vice in the middle of a shootout once, getting Priest to snort-laugh behind cover.
Miami drunk on the picnic table outside the clubhouse, telling me in all seriousness that he was going to die alone because he loved his bike more than he loved people.
Then Quinn had walked in. Tight jeans. Too much eyeliner. Laugh like a dare. He had tried to charm her with the usual lines. She had rolled her eyes so hard I thought they would fall out, then told him he was pretty enough to be a poster boy and just dumb enough to let her train him.
He never stood a chance.
I remembered the night he had shown up in my room at three in the morning, eyes wide, holding an empty ring box.
“I am going to marry her,” he had said.
“You already act like it,” I had replied.
“I am serious,” he had insisted. “I am going to do it right one day. Ask Blackjack, do the dinner, all that stupid shit.”
“You should,” I had said. “She has put up with your playlists. That alone is devotion.”
“But if I fuck it up,” he had added. “You have to punch me.”
“I’d gladly do that for free, anytime.”
That memory sat heavy now. As the miles rolled under me, I made a quiet promise to the empty road.
“You live through this,” I muttered into the wind, “I am making you propose. I do not care if I have to drag you to a jewelry store myself to fill that empty box.”
The highway turned into a state road. The state road cut through a cluster of older buildings, then gave way to a cluster of medical complexes, low-rise offices, strip malls.
Shoreline General sat back from the main drag, low and wide, all glass and pale concrete, banners hanging out front about community and care and other shit that sounded thin against what really went on inside.
I pulled into the lot, noting instinctively where the cameras were, where the exits sat, how many cars were parked. Morning shift. Light traffic. A couple of nurses in scrubs smoking near the rear entrance. A janitor pushing a cart.
And one bike.
It was parked three rows over from the main door, near the side access that led toward the staff entrance. Matte black, lean lines, curves that said built, not bought. The rider sat atop it, helmet on, visor down, body still.
Female. I could tell from the shape under the cut, the way her hips sat, the length of her legs.
The patch on her back was two vipers coiled around a skull, fangs out. Shore Vipers the top rocker read.
My stomach did something complicated.
I pretended not to analyze her, but my eyes catalogued details anyway. Black jeans. Black boots. Black cut. Holster line just visible under the leather. She didn’t move as I rolled past. Just watched. I could feel it even though I couldn’t see her eyes.
I found a spot closer to the main entrance and backed in. Killed the engine. The silence felt loud after the ride.
My hand had just left the bars when I heard another bike start. I looked up.
She was gliding toward me now. Slow. Controlled. Not posturing. Just moving like someone who knew exactly how much attention they could command without even trying.
She pulled up beside me and cut the engine. For a second there was nothing but the tick of cooling metal and the faint whoosh of passing cars on the road beyond the lot.
Her helmet turned. Visor still down. She lifted her left hand and flicked her cut just enough for the leather to part. Inside, I saw the outline of a gun snug against her side.