Chapter Two
Ravage
A few days later...
Pulling up in front of the diner, a knot of dread tightened in my gut.
The usual rumble of engines was absent, replaced by an unnerving quiet.
Only a few bikes, looking forlorn and out of place, were scattered across the lot.
Swinging my leg over my bike, the familiar weight a cold comfort, I stood and stretched my back.
My eyes scanned the surrounding area, a practiced, almost instinctive move.
But today, the landscape felt different, hostile.
Every shadow seemed to harbor a threat, every parked car a potential ambush.
This place, once a sanctuary, now felt like a cage.
Heading toward the diner, I forced my feet to move.
The bell above the door chimed a mocking welcome.
My eyes immediately locked with Frankie’s, a flicker of something unreadable in his gaze.
He barely nodded, a gesture that felt more like a dismissal, before disappearing from my sight, swallowed by the dim interior.
Finding a booth in the back, the darkest corner, I sank into the worn vinyl.
I chose it with deliberation, my back to the wall, so I could see all who entered.
It was a futile attempt at control, a familiar, worn-out ritual that did nothing to quell the churning unease in my gut.
I hated this paranoia, this constant vigilance.
It was a cage of my making, but a cage, nonetheless.
I didn’t have to wait long before Frankie walked out, his imposing frame casting a long shadow as he took a seat in front of me.
Frankie was a big, burly man with a grizzled beard, a walking testament to a life he’d fought hard to leave behind.
He knew how to throw down with the best of them, but had walked away from the life years ago when his wife and daughter were killed in a senseless head-on collision.
The other driver, a drunk piece of shit, barely walked away without a scratch.
The injustice of it still hung in the air.
“Brother, you shouldn’t be here,” Frankie said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated with a weariness I understood all too well. He leaned forward, his big meaty hands, calloused from years of hard work and, I suspected, harder living, resting on the table. “Everyone knows what you did.”
His words hit me like a physical blow, sharper than any blade. “Word’s gone out. There is a price on your head.” He paused, his gaze piercing, searching. “They’re calling for blood.”
I shrugged. “Not the first time.”
“This time it’s different, brother. You killed a Black Odessa.”
“Yuri was Bratva. Bratva doesn’t mix with the Mafia.”
“They do when both organizations are Russian. Word is, Maxim’s back is against the wall. He can’t protect you and stay true to his homeland. He’s stepping back from this one. You are on your own. And that’s only problem number one.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the Death Dogs want your head. Yuri was their only contact with Black Odessa. Rumor is, they’ve lost access to their pipeline and are now scrambling to find a new distributor.”
Looking down at my hands, I muttered, “Who?”
“Disturbed runs guns and drugs up and down the West Coast. As they are closest, they would be the logical choice, but there ain’t nothing logical about the Death Dogs.
Word is, there’s a new distributor on the market out of Coco Beach, Florida.
No one really knows much about them. Gator controls the Gulf Port and told them to go fuck themselves. ”
“And Maxim controls the northeast ports,” I summarized.
“Yeah, so that leaves whoever the fuck is in Florida. But there’s more. The Death Dogs declared war against the Silver Shadows. Apparently, the Shadows have a woman who belongs to the Death Dogs, and they want her back really bad.”
“King won’t give up a woman.”
“He may not have a choice. Heard there is a meet today at the Tumbleweed for an exchange.”
“Bullshit.” I shook my head. “No fucking way.”
“Just relaying a message, brother, and it’s not just the Silver Shadows making a trade. The Brotherhood is too.”
I stiffened. “They don’t make deals with dead men.”
“They do when the Death Dogs have their woman.”
Carefully looking around the diner, I balled my fist tightly and asked, not really wanting to know the answer but needing it, “Whose woman?”
“Firestride,” Frankie carefully stated. “He claimed a woman a few weeks ago.” Frankie’s words hung heavy as the weight of old loyalties and fresh betrayals bore down like a suffocating fog.
I glanced at the clock above the counter, its hands crawling toward noon—a silent reminder that somewhere out there, everything was about to change.
If the Death Dogs did in fact take Firestride’s woman and involved the Brotherhood, they were stupider than anyone truly believed.
No one, not even Reaper, would go up against the Brotherhood.
They were a true one percenter club with absolutely no fucks to give.
Going up against them was instant death, and if Frankie was right, the Death Dogs had signed their own death warrant.
Still, I needed to be sure because if Firestride claimed a woman and the Death Dogs had her, there was no fucking way in hell I would let my brother walk into a fucking trap alone. Not that he needed my help. Fucker was deadly in his own right.
Frankie watched me closely, the tension between us thick as oil. In this world, you learned quickly who you could trust, and no matter what, you didn’t leave your own hanging.
“I’ve gotta go,” I suddenly said, sliding out of the booth, my mind racing through every possible scenario—none of them ended well. But if family was on the line, hesitation was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
The town of Burns, Wyoming, was scarcely a blip on the map.
Barely four hundred people, and in the heart of that small town was the Tumbleweed.
A bar and diner that served as the small town’s hub of entertainment.
The Tumbleweed was exactly what I expected.
A dive bar that looked like it had seen better days a decade ago.
The neon sign flickered weakly, advertising cheap beer and bad decisions.
The air outside was thick with stale smoke and desperation as I pulled my bike to a stop beside two lone riders, their faces grim masks in the dim light.
Slowly getting off my bike, I stood and smirked. “Was in the neighborhood and thought you’d like some help.”
Firestride shook my hand, pulling me into a hearty brotherly hug. “Always, brother.”
Looking around the area, I frowned. “Where the fuck is he?”
“Watching,” Firestride simply replied as I turned toward the horizon and flipped the motherfucker the one-finger bird.
Indigo chuckled. “You’re still pissed, I see.”
“Bastard can kiss my ass,” I grunted as another rider rode up and parked his bike. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” I grinned, shaking the hand of Eros. “Finally. The brothers of FIRE together at last.”
Eros grunted but welcomed the brotherly hug from me. “Look, we need to make this fast. King and Zeus are chomping at the bit. They want Banshee back alive.”
“That’s who’s in there?” Indigo asked, looking at the Tumbleweed.
“Yeah, and considering who Banshee is, they aren’t fucking around. Zeus and King are ready to burn this place to the ground to get him back. Nav said we have ten minutes.”
“I just need five,” Firestride said, reaching for his gun.
I stretched my head from left to right and rolled my shoulders, as my hand gripped my machete. Indigo flicked his cigarette and blew out the smoke as Eros stormed toward the entrance.
It was all over before it began. We delivered a brutal, bloody message with cold, hard steel and unforgiving bullets.
“Finish it, Firestride,” Eros shouted. “They’re coming in!”
Without blinking, my brother raised his gun, pointed it at the dead fucker holding his woman, and fired just as the doors to the Tumbleweed kicked open and in walked my father, along with King, Zeus, and several others.
“Jesus fuck! Patch, get the fuck over here,” King shouted as he and Patch rushed over to Banshee, who looked like dogshit, but I didn’t care, because I couldn’t stop looking at the motherfucker who had my face.
Inching my way toward the door, a knot tightened in my gut, a churning mess of righteous anger and something else, something shamefully close to.
.. hope. I refused to say shit to the fucker who abandoned me at birth and left me to rot.
We might share blood, but he was no kin of mine.
That was the absolute truth, the bedrock of my being.
Yet, as his gaze finally landed on me, a phantom ache throbbed in my chest. His eyes scanned me from head to toe, a flicker of recognition, or maybe just assessment, before he quirked his eyebrow.
I knew what he saw. I wasn’t fucking stupid, but the urge to scream, to demand answers I knew I wouldn’t get, was a physical pull, a wave threatening to drown the carefully constructed wall around my heart.
He could get fucked, yes, but a sliver of me, a traitorous, weak sliver, wanted him to see the damage.
When he moved to step toward me, a primal instinct screamed to bolt, to flee the suffocating presence.
But another part of me, the part that had spent years honing a hard shell, a bitter defiance, rebelled.
I had to show him I wasn’t broken, that his absence hadn’t shattered me.
So I smirked, a brittle, forced thing, and lightly shook my head, a silent dismissal that felt more like a surrender.
Disappearing out the doors of the Tumbleweed, I fought the urge to look back, to see if he truly cared—a question I desperately wanted answered and simultaneously feared finding out.
Heading for my bike, the engine roared to life, a sound of freedom and escape, but beneath the noise, a hollow echo of what might have been, of a connection I’d sworn I didn’t want, gnawed at me.
I knew the son of a bitch wouldn’t follow me, and I was right.
As I rode away, the side mirror showed only the dust my bike kicked up, a stark, lonely testament to the fact that he had chosen to remain a stranger, and I, in my desperate attempt to prove my strength, had let him.
And that—that was the real abandonment.