Splinter's Battle (Mountain Reapers MC #30)

Chapter 1

The dealer's back hit the cinder block wall hard enough to crack plaster, and Splinter kept him pinned there with one hand fisted in his collar while Grit circled behind them like a wolf deciding which part of the sheep to eat first.

"Third time I'm asking." Grit's voice carried that flat, almost bored quality that meant violence was seconds away, not minutes. "Supply routes. Names. Now."

"I told you, man, I don't—"

Splinter tightened his grip, twisting the fabric until the dealer's face went from red to purple. The man was maybe thirty, soft around the middle from product he should've been selling instead of sampling. Stupid mistake. One of many, apparently.

"He asked nice twice already." Splinter kept his own voice quiet. Didn't need to raise it. "Won't be a fourth time."

The dealer's eyes darted between them—Splinter holding him against the wall like he weighed nothing, Grit pulling a knife from his cut with the casual ease of a man selecting a fork for dinner.

The abandoned gas station they'd dragged him to sat twelve miles from anything resembling help, surrounded by nothing but mountain dark and the distant rumble of the brothers' bikes idling outside.

"Okay, okay!" The words came out strangled, desperate. "There's a guy in Pikeville, calls himself Rondo. He runs product down from—"

"Already know about Rondo." Grit moved closer, blade catching the weak light from the single working bulb overhead. "What we don't know is who's supplying him. Rondo ain't smart enough to cook his own breakfast, let alone run an operation."

The dealer's lie came fast, practiced. "I swear I don't know, I just—"

Splinter slammed him against the wall again, harder this time. Something crunched—probably the dealer's shoulder meeting a support beam wrong. The man screamed, high and thin, the sound swallowed by concrete and distance.

"That's three lies now." Splinter held him there, watching the pain register, watching the calculation behind those watering eyes shift from can I bullshit my way out to how do I survive. "Lying to Reapers in Reaper territory. That's a choice you're making."

"The Martinez brothers!" The dealer was crying now, snot and tears mixing with the blood from where his head had bounced off the wall.

"Out of Louisville. They're moving product through the mountains because the interstate got too hot.

Rondo's just a—just a distribution point. I swear that's all I know, I swear."

Grit looked at Splinter. Splinter gave a small nod. The dealer was telling the truth now—you could hear it in the way his voice cracked, see it in the way his whole body had gone slack with surrender.

"Martinez brothers." Grit tucked the knife away. "Out of Louisville."

"Please." The dealer was sobbing openly. "Please, I told you everything. I got kids, man. I got—"

"Should've thought about that before you started pushing pills to our kids." Grit's hand moved, fast and brutal. The dealer's head snapped sideways, and he crumpled in Splinter's grip like someone had cut his strings.

Splinter let the body drop. Checked for a pulse out of habit, found nothing. Grit was already moving toward the door, rolling his shoulders like he was working out a kink.

"Get the truck. Body goes in the Millard shaft."

Splinter nodded and stepped over the dealer's corpse without looking back.

The night air hit him cold and clean when he pushed through the door, the rumble of bikes a familiar comfort after the close stink of fear and death inside.

Timber was leaning against his Harley, watching the stars wheel overhead with the patience of a man who'd waited through worse.

"Done?"

"Done." Splinter moved to the pickup they'd brought for exactly this purpose. "Millard shaft."

Timber grunted acknowledgment and swung onto his bike.

The body wasn't heavy—Splinter had hauled heavier lumber in his carpenter days—but death had its own particular awkwardness, limbs that wouldn't cooperate, weight that shifted wrong.

He got the dealer into the truck bed, covered him with a tarp that had seen this kind of work before, and climbed behind the wheel.

The drive to the Millard shaft took forty minutes on roads that weren't really roads, just suggestions carved into mountain rock by generations of men who didn't ask permission before they went where they wanted.

Splinter knew them blindfolded by now. Seven months prospecting for the Mountain Reapers, and he'd driven every forgotten path in their territory at least twice.

The mine entrance gaped black against the hillside, timber supports rotting but holding well enough for men who knew where to step. Splinter and Grit carried the body in together while Timber kept watch, and they left it where it would never be found, another ghost in a mountain full of them.

Back at the compound by two AM. Splinter washed the night off his hands in the clubhouse bathroom, watching rust-colored water swirl down the drain. His knuckles were raw but not split—he'd learned early how to hit without breaking his hands. Carpenter's hands. Worth protecting.

The common room was mostly empty when he came out, just a few brothers drinking quietly and a prospect he didn't recognize cleaning glasses behind the bar. Music played low from speakers someone had mounted in the corners years ago, something with enough bass to rumble in your chest.

Switchback was at a corner table, boots up, beer sweating rings onto wood that had seen decades of the same. He lifted his chin at Splinter.

"Clean?"

"Clean enough."

"Reaper wants you at the garage tomorrow. Eight sharp." Switchback's grin carried an edge. "Grease duty."

Splinter didn't argue. Prospect life meant whatever job came next, whenever it came, with whatever attitude the brothers decided you'd accept.

He'd done harder work for less purpose. Building custom shelves for people who didn't pay on time.

Repairing porches for widows who had nothing to pay with at all.

At least with the Reapers, the work meant something.

He found a cot in the prospect room—a corner he'd claimed months ago with nothing but a bedroll and the leather jacket he'd earned when Timber brought him in.

The patch on it marked him as prospecting, not full member.

Not yet. But soon, maybe. If he kept proving himself.

If he kept showing up when brothers needed someone who could handle dirty work without flinching.

Sleep came hard and fast, the way it always did after violence. His hands remembered the dealer's collar, the twist and pull of desperate fabric. His ears remembered the lies that came before the truth, and the silence that came after.

Tomorrow there'd be grease duty and whatever else the club needed. Tonight there was just the dark and the cot and the certainty that he'd done exactly what needed doing.

Morning brought weak coffee and Grit's voice telling him the garage wasn't the only stop today.

"Ride with me after. Got a stop to make."

Splinter didn't ask where. Didn't need to. When a brother said ride, you rode. Questions were for prospects who wanted to stay prospects forever.

The garage work ate four hours—oil changes and tire rotations on club bikes, the kind of maintenance that kept the fleet running smooth.

Splinter had learned the basics in his first weeks, enough to be useful without being trusted with the custom work Switchback and Casey handled.

His hands knew wood better than metal, but metal could be learned.

Everything could be learned if you paid attention.

Grit rolled up at noon, engine rumbling like a threat. Splinter wiped his hands and swung onto his own bike—a '98 Softail he'd rebuilt from scrap with help from brothers who didn't coddle and didn't explain twice. She ran rough but reliable, and that was enough for now.

They rode east, away from the compound and the handful of towns that counted as civilization in Reaper territory.

The road wound through hollers thick with spring green, past abandoned coal company buildings slowly being eaten by kudzu and time.

Splinter knew this route—it led to a handful of scattered communities, mountain families who'd been here since before the coal companies came and would be here long after the last shaft collapsed.

The diner appeared around a bend, a squat building with a painted sign that read CAUDILL'S in letters faded by decades of mountain weather. Four trucks in the lot, one sedan, the quiet kind of busy that meant regulars and home cooking.

Grit parked but didn't dismount. "Gonna grab food. You coming?"

Splinter swung off his bike and followed Grit inside, the bell over the door announcing them to a room full of turning heads.

A few nods of recognition—Reapers were known here, if not exactly welcomed—and then eyes returning to plates and conversations.

The diner smelled like biscuits and bacon grease, the kind of cooking that sank into walls and stayed forever.

They took a booth near the back, the one that gave clear sightlines to both doors. Habit. Grit ordered coffee without looking at the menu, and Splinter did the same.

The woman who brought it was early thirties, tired around the eyes but moving with the efficiency of someone who'd done this work long enough to stop thinking about it.

Dark hair pulled back. Hands that had seen their share of hot pans and heavy lifting.

She set down cups without spilling a drop and didn't linger for small talk.

"What'll it be?"

"Eggs, scrambled. Bacon. Biscuits." Grit didn't look at her when he ordered, attention on the door, on the windows, on a truck that had pulled into the lot with plates he apparently didn't recognize. "Double order."

Splinter added his own: "Same. And whatever pie you've got."

That earned him a glance—not unfriendly, just assessing. "Apple or cherry?"

"Apple."

She wrote it down and moved away, her attention already shifting to a table of old-timers who wanted coffee refills.

Splinter watched her work, the practiced rhythm of diner life.

There was something about the way she moved that stuck with him—not fear, exactly, but watchfulness.

The kind of awareness that came from expecting trouble even when none had arrived yet.

The food came fast and good. Grit ate like a man with places to be, shoveling eggs with the focused efficiency of someone who'd learned to fuel up when fuel was available.

Splinter took his time, watching the diner around them.

The regulars. The woman behind the counter.

The little girl coloring in a corner booth, crayons spread across the table like a tiny explosion of color.

The girl was maybe five, dark-haired like her mother, focused on her drawing with the intensity only children could manage. She looked up once, caught Splinter watching, and gave him a gap-toothed grin before returning to her masterpiece.

Something about that smile twisted in his chest. He looked away.

Grit finished first, dropped enough cash to cover both meals plus tip, and stood. "Let's roll."

Splinter rose to follow, but his eyes snagged on something he hadn't noticed before. The front window had a crack in it, taped over but visible. Fresh. The woman behind the counter—the mother, obviously—had paused in her work to watch them go, and the expression on her face wasn't relief.

It was exhaustion. The bone-deep kind that came from fighting battles no one could see.

He filed it away and followed Grit out into the afternoon sun, the rumble of bikes swallowing whatever questions might have formed. There'd be time for questions later.

Or there wouldn't.

Either way, prospect life meant you showed up, did the work, and kept your eyes open. Splinter could handle that. He'd handled worse.

The road wound back toward the compound, and he let the engine roar carry him home.