Torched (17 page)

I rarely had company anyway, a bittersweet side effect of a life on the move. Bitter because the loneliness was suffocating at times, but sweet because I was a loner at heart.

I pulled into my attached double garage, an upgrade I’d payed for myself much to the appreciation of my landlord, Gary.

There was no way I’d park my custom, blacked-out Hayabusa out in the elements everyday. She was my most prized possession, the only one I was even remotely attached to. Cookware and clothes could be left behind, I could even part with my Infinity, but that bike went wherever I did.

Part of me felt like a traitor for not going with a classic Harley—they were loud, gorgeous, and elicited an air of power that was intoxicating—but my sporty Busa was sleek, fast, and agile. We were a match made in heaven.

She was the only common thread linking all of my various adventures since leaving Philly behind. In some ways, the motorcycle made me a little nostalgic too, a reminder of the outlaw who’d taken me on my first ride and made me fall in love with the feeling of freedom and risk that you can’t get while surrounded my airbags and steel.

Goddamn Torch. What felt like an entire lifetime later, and he was still this enigma I couldn’t quite shake.

It had dawned on me—more than once—that I was probably just projecting a hero complex on my memories. At least that’s what some ridiculous self-help book I’d once read said. But trying to psychoanalyze myself was like looking for a kernel of corn in a steaming pile of cow shit—unpleasant, to say the least. There was no point in even trying, because I knew that riding my bitchin’ bike was the only form of therapy that actually helped.

Even now, with a crapload of work looming inside and the sun going down outside, I simply looked over at her from inside my car and felt the pull.

Screw it. A quick ride was worth staying up for an extra hour, it wasn’t like I slept much anyway.

I was already in jeans and a leather jacket, so I simply added gloves and a pair of goggles that were in the garage. I’d been leaving my helmet behind more and more often, loving of the feeling of wind in my hair.

On one of the world’s fastest bikes, there was no question that I was being reckless by not gearing up, but riding was the single exception I was willing to make when it came to unnecessary risks. To me, it didn’t technically count as unnecessary, because now that we’d bonded, a life in nothing but a four-wheeled cage didn’t seem like one worth living.

Counterintuitive to all logic, even in just a tank top, jeans, and sneakers, I didn’t feel vulnerable or exposed on the bike. In my home, a car, the store, I could never let my guard down, but on the Busa, I felt invincible and in control. Being in the moment, focusing on the road and my surroundings for hours, it somehow insulated me from thinking about anything else. It was as if the wind was a wall, enclosing me in its protective embrace, even at ninety miles an hour without a helmet.

Without a second thought, I pulled out and hit the road.

The sun was setting on another unseasonable warm April day in Colorado, a state known for its three hundred days of sunshine a year. I’d been here for nine months now and loved everything about it, especially the weather. The mountains were a different story, but down in Denver and the plains, riding season wasn’t limited to summer. I’d gone out countless times in the winter months too. As long as you dressed the part, and payed extra attention to cagers—who seemed to forget about bikers as soon as temperatures dipped—you were good to go.

Surprisingly, it didn’t snow much, not during the single season I’d experienced here anyway. And when it did, the roads were dry within a few days. From what I’d heard, April and May were when the biggest storms of the year hit, but for the past couple of weeks, we’d been enjoying blue skies and highs in the seventies. Mother Nature seemed to have a lot of respect for my latest adopted home and so did I. It was the perfect place for a gypsy.

A smile crept across my face as I merged onto westbound I-76, right behind a semi that predictably flung road grime right at me. I shifted up, hit the throttle, and sped around the rig.

If it had been earlier in the day, I probably would’ve kept going, because there was nothing better than a trip to the high country. But since it was getting late and I had things to do, I exited the highway onto an unfamiliar county road a few miles down. There wasn’t much in the way of extraordinary scenery, so for the next hour I simply cruised around and enjoyed the amalgamation of colors in the sky as the sun descended down behind the Rocky Mountains.

I wanted to stay. For the first time in ages, I’d found a place that felt more like a home than any other so far. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure that a long-term future here was in the cards. There were just too many variables, some of which I had no control over.

: 10 :

“Shit.”

Leaning back in my chair, I blew out a deep breath and rubbed my temples to quell their throbbing. As I looked around my home office—every wall and surface covered in print-outs, photos, and sticky notes—the realization of what I’d stumbled on was too much to process.

Stunned. I was just stunned. There was no other way to put it.

Five days of watching surveillance feeds, digging into police and bank records, and combing through phone bills and GPS logs had paid off. But the twisted tale they’d revealed was
not
what I’d set out to find, not even close.

Fate was a fucking asshole.

I sat there for several more minutes, soaking it all in, and then running every logical way I could handle this through my head. None of them ended well, not for me anyway.

Jesus, was I really looking at this as a choice? Like
not
doing something was an option here? Maybe if I played my cards right, I’d be able to limit the blowback on my own life. Then again, maybe not.

Either way, I was pissing away precious time by sitting around and losing my head.

: : : :

Wearing a backpack full of everything I could fit in it, I raced down the highway like my ass was on fire.

Concentrating too hard on not wiping out to glance down at the speedometer, I just hoped to hell that I wouldn’t run across State Patrol. I was heading east on I-76 this time, to a small town on the plains that I’d never even heard of.

Linwood, Colorado. Population: 7,000.

And home of the goddamn Iron Serpents Motorcycle Club, founded
in
Linwood in 1973. I was willing to bet that tourist brochures didn’t include that part.

Eight years. For eight fucking years I’d managed to avoid all temptation to snoop into Torch and his crew. I didn’t Google them, didn’t try to look up police reports, and definitely hadn’t moved into my beloved farmhouse knowing that it stood almost exactly halfway between their—Torch’s specifically—clubhouse and Denver. How I hadn’t seen any of them riding by a single time in nine months, I had no clue. Because, let’s be clear, even though I’d eschewed all curiosity purposely, that had never stopped me from looking twice at any biker in a cut, just to see if it was him.

Anything beyond that was off-limits. I didn’t want to know where or who he really was. Alright, maybe I
did
, but I’d convinced myself that nothing good could ever come of it, personally or professionally.

Besides which, I had a lovely memory to look back on, untarnished by any ugly truths that would have eventually surfaced had we kept in touch. It was self-preservation at its finest.

Right to the last minute at that. I’d considered ways of warning him without actually stepping foot in Linwood. Knowing that the chances of Torch still having the phone I’d kept the number to all these years were slim, I’d tried calling it a couple times nonetheless. No answer.

Unfortunately, every hour I spent worrying about my own interests was an hour they could be spending protecting their—and their town’s—own. Any innocent blood that ended up being shed would be on me at this point.

So, here I was, closing in on my destination, with no idea of what I was even walking into by showing up at the Serpents’ clubhouse unannounced. Maybe I should’ve worn a vest.

Now that I’d done the digging I should have years earlier, it was clear that they weren’t some pansy club. Murder, kidnapping, extortion, smuggling, it was all in the law enforcement files. There was no doubt in my mind that a lot of it was trumped-up bullshit, but I wasn’t delusional. By all accounts, even though they didn’t outwardly advertise being 1%ers by wearing a patch signifying it, they were still outlaws, dangerous by definition. And Cameron “Torch” Larter was no ordinary member, he was now Vice President.

Shit, would he even be there on a Tuesday night?

It was entirely too late to start having second thoughts now. Before I knew it, I was tearing down Main Street. It seemed like a nice enough, blue-collar town, from what little of it I could make out make out in my peripheral vision. But I wasn’t here to sightsee. Through the city center, and then the residential suburbs, all I could focus on was my destination, which came into view as I crossed a set of railroad tracks that seemed to divide the inhabitable and the industrial.

The clubhouse, a two-story concrete building with blacked-out windows and an enormous Iron Serpents logo painted on the front, was right across the tracks. Next to it was the MC’s repair shop, Iron Automotive, and next to that, the entrance to a club-owned salvage yard, which looked like it wrapped behind all the buildings in satellite photos. It was pretty impressive, these guys had to have been doing well for themselves to own an entire fucking block.

The property was surrounded by a twelve foot tall chain-link fence, but each area had its own individual entrance gate. The shop and salvage yard looked to be closed for the day. Slowing down to a crawl, I approached the only open gate—the one leading to the clubhouse—and immediately saw two guys standing outside smoking with two scantily-clad women. Only bottom rockers adorned the backs of their cuts.

Prospects. Great. The gatekeepers were men who couldn’t bend any rules if they wanted to be patched in.

Oh well. Here goes nothing.

I took a deep breath and pulled in, parking my bike at the end of the row closest to the gate, in case I needed to make a quick break for it or something. I couldn’t tell if there were lights on inside, but counted at least nine Harley’s in that lot, which hopefully meant there were more of them—preferably actual members—inside.

One of the prospects noticed me and strutted over, while the other stayed back and watched. I pulled off my goggles and beanie, dropped my backpack onto the seat, and shook out my long hair, before walking toward the greeter. His tough-guy swagger relaxed, I assumed because he figured I was nothing more than a nonthreatening woman.

Over his shoulder, I saw the other staring at me like a hungry wolf. Naturally, the girls were shooting me bitchy looks.

I held back and let the prospect come to me. “There’s no party tonight, darlin’,” he said.

“I’m not here to party.”

He looked me up and down and smiled. “That’s a shame. Never seen you around.”

I rolled my eyes, hardly in the mood for banter that could throw me off my game. “Listen, I don’t really have time for small talk. Is Torch around? It’s really important.”

He raised a brow, as if trying to assess whether I actually knew Torch or was just dropping names. Or maybe he was trying to figure out if I was one of his boss’ lays, there to stir up shit. “He’s in church. I’ll take a message.”

My nerves started tingling at the confirmation that he was inside. “That’s not gonna work for me. This is an emergency and I can’t get through on his cell. Please, just tell him that Livia needs to talk to him.”

“
Livia
, I said I’d take a message.”

I took a step closer, leaving only inches between us and looking him straight in the eyes to show that I wasn’t backing down. “And I said that this is a fucking emergency. Look, I know you’re not allowed to interrupt when they’re at the table, but this is serious shit that they should probably be discussing anyway. I’m sure they’ll forgive the breach of protocol.”

He was clearly getting angry and snapped his fingers at the other guy, who jogged over to join us. “We’ll let Torch know you were here. If you don’t wanna do that, you can
leave
. Right now,” he demanded as they both crossed their arms across their chests. I wondered which one actually had the bigger penis.

Oh wait, that was me.

I shook my head at them and turned back to walk toward my bike. But instead of getting on, I discretely pulled my gun.

I turned around and fired off two rounds into the ground, far enough to my right that they wouldn’t ricochet and hit somebody.

Both of the girls screamed. As quick as the men drew their own weapons and pointed them at my chest, I casually dropped mine and raised both hands. I wasn’t actually trying to get shot here.

“This’ll get his attention faster. But thanks.”

: 11 :

“Alright, last order of business tonight is May Fair,” Buddha announced from the head of the table.

They’d been in church for over an hour and Torch was getting restless.
And
he was out of beer. Most of the meeting had been nothing but fucking around and bullshitting anyway, something they easily could’ve done out in the lounge with cold drinks in their hands and easy women in their laps.