Riot's Retaliation (Sons Of Liberty MC #18)

Chapter 1

The heavy bag swung back and Riot met it with a right hook that sent shock waves up through his forearm and into his shoulder. Good pain. Clean pain. The kind that shut everything else up for a few seconds.

He reset his stance and threw a combination—jab, cross, left hook to the body, overhand right that would've dropped a man if there'd been one standing there instead of two hundred pounds of canvas and sand.

His knuckles screamed. He could feel the skin splitting again over the old scars, fresh warmth mixing with dried.

Didn't matter. Nothing mattered when the bag was swinging and his fists were flying and the whole world narrowed down to impact after impact after impact.

The compound's gym was a converted storage room in the back of the old brewery—concrete floors, exposed pipes overhead, equipment that looked like it had been salvaged from three different gyms that went out of business.

Worked fine. Riot didn't need fancy. He needed something to hit, and the Sons of Liberty had given him that along with everything else.

Left jab. Right cross. Duck the imaginary counter. Rip to the body.

His lungs burned. Sweat soaked through his shirt, dripped from his chin, made his hands slip inside the wraps that were already stained pink. He'd been at it for—what? An hour? Two? Time got slippery when the hunger took over.

"You planning on leaving any bag for the rest of us?"

The voice came from behind him, calm and quiet in a way that would've made most men nervous. Riot threw one more hook before stepping back, chest heaving, hands still up in guard position like his body didn't know how to quit.

Bayonet leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, watching with those hunter's eyes that never seemed to blink. The man moved like smoke and killed like a scalpel, and he was one of the few brothers Riot actually understood. Different methods, same appetite.

"Plenty of bag left." Riot bounced on his toes, unable to make himself stand still. The energy was still there, crawling under his skin, looking for a way out. "Could go another couple rounds."

"Could." Bayonet pushed off the doorframe and walked closer, studying the heavy bag like it had done something to offend him. "Question is why you'd want to."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"It's eleven-thirty at night. You've been in here since dinner." Bayonet nodded at Riot's hands. "And you're seeping through your wraps again."

Riot looked down. Red was spreading through the white fabric around his knuckles, blooming in patterns that looked almost artistic if you squinted. He flexed his fingers, felt the sting, and shrugged.

"Knuckles heal."

"They'd heal faster if you stopped splitting them open every night."

"Probably." Riot grabbed the bag to stop it from swinging and leaned his forehead against the rough canvas. His heart was still pounding too fast, breath still coming too hard, but the roar in his head had quieted to a low hum instead of a scream. That was something. "You ever get tired, man?"

Bayonet considered the question like it meant something different than the words. "Tired of what?"

"Just... tired. Like your body wants to stop moving but your brain won't let it.

" Riot pushed off the bag and started unwrapping his hands, the motion jerky and too fast. "I don't get tired.

That's the problem. I just keep going until something breaks, and usually it's my hands or someone's face, and even then I don't want to stop. I just... can't find the off switch."

The words came out in a rush the way they always did, tumbling over each other like they were racing to escape. Riot talked fast, moved faster, lived his whole life at a speed that most people couldn't keep up with. Made him good in a fight. Made him shit at everything else.

Bayonet watched him work the stained wraps loose without offering help or commentary. That was one of the things Riot appreciated about the man—he didn't fill silences with noise the way most people did.

"That why you got banned?" Bayonet asked finally. "From fighting?"

"One of the reasons." Riot's jaw tightened at the memory.

The ref pulling him off, the other fighter's face that didn't look like a face anymore, the red on his gloves and the terrible knowledge that he hadn't wanted to stop.

Had liked it. Had felt more alive in that moment than any other moment in his life.

"Kept hitting after the bell. After the ref called it.

After the guy was already down and done. Something in me just wouldn't quit."

"And what did you do about it?"

Riot barked out a laugh. "Found a place where they don't ring bells and nobody calls time."

He tossed the ruined wraps in the corner and flexed his fingers, watching red well up from the splits over his first two knuckles.

His hands were a mess—scar tissue over scar tissue, calluses hard as leather, the kind of damage that came from years of hitting things and people and anything else that got in his way.

He'd started fighting in Kensington schoolyards when he was twelve, kept fighting through the amateur circuit until twenty-three, and now he was fighting for a motorcycle club that had given him a road name and a purpose and brothers who understood that some men were just built for destruction.

Better than the alternative. Better than what he'd been before—just some Philly kid with too much anger and nowhere to put it, getting in bar fights and street brawls and slowly working his way toward prison or a grave.

The Sons had given him something else. A channel. A family. A reason to direct the rage instead of just letting it explode.

Didn't mean the rage went away. Just meant he had somewhere to point it now.

"Prospect work tomorrow," Bayonet said, pulling Riot out of his head. "Turnpike needs a body for a supply run. Nothing complicated."

"Supply run." Riot couldn't keep the disappointment out of his voice. "Like, boxes and shit?"

"Like making sure the boxes get where they're going without anyone getting ideas about taking them." Bayonet's mouth twitched in what might have been amusement on a man whose face actually moved. "Not every job is a fight."

"Every job should be a fight." Riot grabbed a towel from the bench and wiped his face, then pressed it against his knuckles to soak up the moisture. "What's the point of prospecting if I'm just running errands?"

"The point is showing you can do what the club needs, not just what you want." Bayonet's voice didn't change, but something in his eyes sharpened. "Patience isn't your strong suit."

"I don't have strong suits. I have a strong left hook and a lot of problems."

"Self-awareness. That's something."

Riot snorted and threw the towel at Bayonet's head. The man caught it without looking, which was annoying, and tossed it back with enough force to make Riot step sideways.

"I'll do the supply run," Riot said. "Not complaining."

"You were absolutely complaining."

"Fine, I was complaining. But I'll still do it.

" He grabbed the roll of fresh wrap tape from his gym bag and started rewrapping his hands, covering the splits with clean white fabric that would be stained again within a day.

"Just feels like... I don't know. Like there should be more. Like I should be doing more."

Bayonet studied him for a long moment. The silence stretched out until Riot's skin started to itch with the need to move, to hit something, to burn off the restless current that never stopped building.

"You've been prospecting for six months," Bayonet said finally. "That's nothing. I watched Powder prospect for two years before he earned his patch, and he blew up three cars and a boat for the club before they voted him in."

"Powder's crazy."

"Powder's patient. Learned to be." Bayonet moved toward the door, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "The club doesn't need men who can fight. Plenty of those around. What they need are men who can wait for the right fight. Control the fury instead of letting it control them."

Riot's hands stilled on the wrap tape. "And if I can't do that?"

"Then you'll wash out, and you'll end up back where you started.

Brawling for nothing in bars and parking lots until someone puts you down or you kill someone who didn't deserve it.

" Bayonet's eyes held his, calm and cold and absolutely certain.

"I've seen your type before. Either you find something to fight for, or the fighting eats you alive. "

He left without waiting for a response. Riot listened to his footsteps fade down the corridor, then turned back to the heavy bag with his half-wrapped hands and that familiar electric hum under his skin.

Find something to fight for.

Easy to say. Harder when hitting things was the only activity that had ever made sense to him, the only thing that quieted the noise in his head and made him feel like he wasn't about to vibrate apart.

He'd been this way as long as he could remember—too much energy, too much anger, too much everything.

His mother used to say he came out of the womb swinging, and she'd meant it as a joke, but Riot had never found it funny.

He'd watched her get hit by men who were supposed to love her.

Watched her make excuses for them, take them back, let them into the house again and again until Riot was big enough to do something about it.

And then he'd done something about it. Done it so thoroughly that the last boyfriend ended up in the ICU with a shattered jaw and broken ribs and a look in his eyes like he'd seen the devil wearing a teenage kid's face.

Riot had liked that look. That was the part that scared him.

He threw a jab at the bag, then another, then a cross that made his shoulders ache. The wraps were already coming loose, the gauze starting to spot, but he couldn't stop. The need wouldn't let him.

Fighting was the only language he'd ever been fluent in. The only thing he'd ever been good at. The Sons understood that. They'd seen him scrap, seen the way he threw himself into every brawl without hesitation or fear, and they'd decided that was worth something.

Prospect. Lowest rung on the ladder. Running errands and guarding supply shipments and proving he could be trusted with the small things before they let him anywhere near the big ones.

Riot understood the logic. He even respected it. But patience had never been his strong suit, and the hunger was always there, always demanding, always looking for something to destroy.

His knuckles tore open again on the next hook. He kept hitting.

By the time he finally stopped, his hands were shaking and his lungs were burning and the sky outside the small gym window had gone from black to the deep gray that came just before dawn.

Five hours. He'd been punishing the bag for five hours, and his body was finally starting to feel like it might let him rest.

Riot peeled off the ruined wraps and studied the damage. His knuckles looked like raw meat, skin torn and weeping, but he'd had worse. The pain was good. Clean. Real.

He grabbed the first aid kit from his bag and started taping himself up—antibiotic ointment, gauze pads, medical tape wound tight around his knuckles and the backs of his hands. Practiced motions. He'd done this a thousand times before.

Supply run tomorrow. Boxes and shit. Standing around looking intimidating while Turnpike handled the actual business.

It wasn't enough. He needed more.

But for now, it was what he had. The Sons had given him a place, a name, a chance to be something other than a wrecking ball waiting to swing. Prospecting was part of that. Proving himself was part of that.

And if patience wasn't his strong suit, well—he'd just have to learn.

Riot finished wrapping his hands and flexed his fingers, feeling the tape pull against the wounds. The restless current was still there, coiled in his chest like a living thing, but it was quieter now. Worn down from the hours of hitting.

Tomorrow he'd do the supply run. Do it right. Show the brothers he could be trusted.

And maybe, if he was lucky, something would come along that would let him stop pretending he was the kind of man who could sit still.

He grabbed his bag and headed for the door, his wrapped hands throbbing with every step, looking for a purpose.