The rare happy moment dies. Me: First step to getting K out of your life starts tonight.
Breanna: When are we going to shoot the rockets?
Classic Breanna. She switches the subject to school when she stresses out. Her brain operates so fast I’m not sure she’s aware of the defense mechanism. Me: Tomorrow? I know a place where we can shoot them off.
Breanna: Sounds good. I get off work at six. I don’t have a ride so can you pick me up?
My smile grows. Twenty dollars she has no idea what she asked for. Me: Yeah. Wear jeans and boots. It’s going to be a fast ride. I gotta go.
I pocket my cell and chuckle as it vibrates with her frantic responses. I suck down half my beer and consider grabbing another. People surround me. Over a hundred of them, but for a while I lived in a world where there wasn’t chaos, only me and Breanna.
Music pounds from speakers, there is beer on tap and two chicks are on top of the bar I’m leaning against—stripping for anyone who cares. I haven’t looked up once, even when a bra was tossed in my direction. My mind has been focused on Breanna and the meeting that’s about to take place tonight. Plus it doesn’t help that across the room is a picture of my mother.
The clubhouse is packed and it’s not just the mother chapter filling the place. Chapters from as far as California have made the pilgrimage.
It’s the annual remembrance party thrown for the members of the Terror and Terror Gypsies who have died. Some of the people we’re honoring are Eli’s blood brother and Chevy’s father, James, Violet’s father and, because life is cruel, Olivia and my mother.
A new beer with sweat running down the sides slides into view and Pigpen sidles up beside me grinning like a crazy man. “Everyone’s dying to know who you’re texting with. It’s like you’re a twelve-year-old girl chained to that damn cell. Have you started your period yet?”
“Fuck you.”
He punches me in the shoulder. “Seriously, who’s on the other end?”
I drink the beer while maintaining eye contact. He should know better than to ask questions he won’t get answers to. He motions to my cell. “I could hack it and find out.”
Proved he could this afternoon after the two of us hacked into emails of someone who’s been targeting a client. “You won’t.”
He tilts his head in annoyed agreement. A brother wouldn’t disrespect another brother like that. “Is it a girl? If so, tell me you’re being smart and covering up. This club has had enough teenage baby bullshit to last us a lifetime and the last one was born seventeen years ago.”
“I need something,” I say, ignoring his jab at Eli.
“Finally! Name it and it’s yours. That’s what we’ve been waiting for, brother. You to come to us.”
I shift to look at his reflection in the mirror on the wall beyond the bar. He appears too damn happy and that causes a wave of uneasiness.
Pigpen curses. “You’re asking me for something you don’t want the club to know about, aren’t you?”
I promised Breanna I wouldn’t drag the club into this, but if Pigpen agrees, I can solve her problems and keep my promise. I’m hoping he’ll help me as a friend.
He rests both of his elbows on the bar and has that expression that tells me he’s contemplating putting a bullet in my head. “You trust family and we are your family.”
“I’m trusting you,” I say.
“That’s not enough. Two voices can’t do shit, but together, this group, we’re fucking loud.” To prove his point, he shouts, “Reign of Terror.”
The answering roar causes my ears to ring. Pigpen stares at me, unblinking as the mantra is repeated three more times followed by over a hundred men howling into the night.
I sip my beer again. Point taken. When the room returns to normal chaos noise level, I say, “I gave my word I’d do this on the down low, but I need your help.”
I don’t give my word often, Pigpen knows this, and the confusion causes him to scratch his jaw as he surveys me. “What do you need?”
“A virus that will give me a back door. Something that can travel from a cell to a home computer if it’s hooked up. Nothing I’ve found will do the job and I need it to be undetectable.”
Anyone else my age making that type of request would have their parents grounding them for a month. Pigpen goes deep in thought, then nods his head that he has what I need. “I’ll send you the code tomorrow, but next time you have a favor or a problem, it’s time for you to man up and come to the club. I don’t care how many promises you made to other people. You got me?”
“Got it.” Pigpen hugs me and I hug him back. I’d be lost without him.
With a sly smile he flickers his gaze over my shoulder. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
A warm body pushes up to my back and then her scent surrounds me. I take another drink. I made a mistake with this girl and, tonight, I hate the reminder.
“It’s packed,” she says into my ear, and I turn to discourage her from touching me again. Amy combs her light brown hair away from her forehead. She’s showing off her tight body in a pair of painted-on jeans and a red corset. “Wasn’t sure I was going to find you.”
Yet she did. I like Amy. She doesn’t laugh too loud to gain a guy’s attention, doesn’t act like a fool when she’s drunk. Amy’s older than me, in college, majoring in business, and she loves to play at the clubhouse on the weekends as a middle finger to her iron-fisted daddy.
Trying to find the attraction I had for her, I scan her from head to toe. It’s gone, and that causes me to be unbalanced. I haven’t thought of being with another girl for weeks. Can’t bring myself to do it. None of them compare to Breanna Miller.
I gesture from the prospect tending bar to Amy. He hands her the usual—Fireball. She downs it, then takes a burning gasp. “Thank you. You’re a classy guy to buy a girl a shot.”
I snort and peel the label off my beer. Funny how I found plenty to say to Breanna, but I’ve got nothing for the girl I lost my virginity to. It was the night I patched in. We did it twice and then I hooked up with a friend she brought along for the evening. The friend was Amy’s idea, and at the time I thought she was brilliant.
“Are we going to play tonight?” she asks. We’ve played since I patched in...multiple times, but we haven’t fucked. I regret that part of the night. In the morning light, I felt like I had morphed into my dad.
I kiss her cheek and walk away. She follows, smacking my ass, and smiles as she shoulders by me. “You’re too young to be in love, Razor, but whoever it is, she’s a lucky girl.”
I snatch her wrist before she disappears into the crowd in her search for her rebound good time. “I’m not in love.”
Amy sadly laughs and it’s the type that hits her eyes in that sympathetic way I hate. “I lied about just now finding you. I’ve watched you text for the past half hour. Me and you—we had fun together, but I never made you smile.”
She touches the edge of my lips. “You should smile more often, but if whoever it is makes you sad, you know where to find me.”
Here on any Friday or Saturday night. “Have fun tonight.”
She waggles her eyebrows. “Will do.”
My back pocket vibrates and I leave the clubhouse, striding past the bonfire and groups of guys cutting up. The night is dark, no moon, and it’s even darker when I enter the tree line and head for the towering oak Chevy, Oz, Violet and I used as home base. I can almost hear Violet singing, “Not it.”
There’s a shadow of a form leaning against the tree and I’m impressed she showed. It’s taken me two weeks of groveling to get her to agree to this, but I did grovel because this will be my first solid lead. “You missed your dad’s memorial.”
Violet powers on her cell so the two of us have light during this clandestine reunion. “It’s the club’s fault he died. Why would I parti
cipate in something that will ease their guilt?”
I cross my arms over my chest, not caring to get into a pissing match with her. “The picture of you that was put up on Bragger, were you being blackmailed?”
She goes pale against her red hair. I smacked the nail on the head.
“How did you know?” she whispers.
“It’s happening to someone else.”
“Who?” she asks, then answers her own question with an annoyed huff. “Breanna Miller.”
I don’t verbally confirm it, but I do meet her eyes.
“That sucks,” she says. “Not that it should happen to anyone, but she’s too nice for someone to be messing with her.”
“This stays between us.”
Violet nods and I can’t decide if I’m comforted or mad that the two of us fall so easily into our friendship even though she has shit on everyone else I love.
“What’s going on with you and Breanna?” she asks.
I shrug. “She’s helping me with something personal, so I’m going to try to help her with this, but I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
“No way. My life may suck because of that picture, but I will not have club blood on my hands. Does Breanna know she’s making a deal with the devil?”
“This is on me, not the club. I promised her they wouldn’t be involved.”
Violet’s head jerks back. “You’re lying to the club?”
Why is she shocked? “I kept what you’ve told me quiet.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you would, which is why I didn’t tell you everything. Razor—if the club finds out you’re hiding something big like this from them, they’ll kick you out.”
She’s not wrong. The club would want to know about anything involving Violet. She was the daughter of a brother who died. They feel it’s our job to protect her now. As for the stuff going down with Breanna, they probably would be pissed if they knew that I’m seeking retribution without their knowledge or consent. Then again, Violet doesn’t understand how close I am to being thrown out to begin with. “That’s my problem. Is it Hewitt that blackmailed you?”
She’s silent as she weighs whether or not she should tell me. What’s seriously jacked is that I have a cut on my back that says I have an entire clubhouse of men who should trust me, but the only ones putting that trust into action are two seventeen-year-old girls.
“No,” she says. “I had no idea Kyle was involved. Not until you just told me that Breanna’s being blackmailed, and, by the way, how is that possible? The girl is a saint. What on earth can he have on her?”
Tension forms in my neck and I pop it to the right. “He has a picture of me and her together, and before you go there, don’t. We didn’t do anything.”
She smirks. “You must have been doing something, and go you for ‘not doing anything’ with the smart girl. I bet her family must be thrilled she’s not only into a Terror boy, but she’s dating the notorious Terror boy.”
“We’re friends.”
A “psh” leaves her. “You don’t have friends, but for shits and giggles, let’s say you are just friends—keep it that way. Don’t mess up that girl’s life by dragging her into the club.”
My patience level is depleting fast. “Who blackmailed you?”
“Promise no club involvement.”
“I already gave my word to Breanna.”
“Great, but you gave it to her for her situation. I want your word on my situation.”
Keeping a secret from the club regarding Breanna—I could justify that. She has no club involvement. But keeping a secret of who has caused Violet pain and misery, the secret I swore to tell the board the moment I found out—I’m entering near damnation. Good thing I’ve been teetering on this ledge for a while. “You have my word.”
Trusting I’ll stay true, she immediately answers, “Rob McEntire.”
A muscle in my jaw twitches and Violet shrinks. That’s the asshole she was making out with the night the Riot flew into town. “What was he blackmailing you for?”
Violet raises her chin and creates a fist with her fingers. “Something that I took the risk of not doing, and you saw how that blew up in my face.”
I’m a damn pot on the stove getting ready to boil. Violet’s smart. If she said sexual favors out loud, I would already be on my bike and would be seconds away from ripping his heart from his chest with my bare hands. “He’s still blackmailing you.”
She looks away now, at the tree, and her foot begins to tap. “I lost my chance at a scholarship out of this dump town over that picture. I was a finalist and they called and I was happy and Mom was happy and a few days after the picture went up the college called back and told me what they found on the internet and that I was no longer—” she uses her fingers to create quotation marks “—material that lived up to their standards. So, yeah, I said yes to Rob and in return he took the picture down.”
But it’s still out there. And other places now. She knows this. I know this, but like Kyle had warned Breanna, they probably had more.
“You should have come to me,” I say.
“I did!” Tears form in her eyes. “You demanded that we go to the club when I needed my friend. The moment I said a name, Chevy, Eli or Cyrus would have taken a gun to his head.”
“What makes you believe I won’t?” I ask. “I’m the crazy one, remember?”
“You’re emotional,” she says. “But you think before you leap. They don’t just leap—they go psychotic. Eli went to jail over a temper tantrum gone wrong and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of living in this damned town!”
My fingers curl in and out because the need is to shout. To throttle her because she knows this club is legit, that they never would have killed anyone, but then there’s a question in the back of my head. A lingering doubt. My mom. I have to swallow the hurt tightening my throat.
Something caused Violet to walk away from her family, and whatever that something is, I wonder if it’s on the same level of agony as my mother.
Violet hugs herself and she looks so damn pathetic that my chest aches. I swear under my breath, then wrap my arms around her. Her shoulders shake and each deep breath she takes to keep from crying causes the anger inside me to build. My heart breaks for her, for the friendship that’s been floundering this past year, and for how Breanna must also be emotionally crumbling.
“I’m going to fix this,” I say as I hold my best friend. “I promise I’m going to fix this for both you and Breanna.”
Breanna
I AM NEVER using public Wi-Fi again. I researched what Razor told me last night after we hung up and it’s frightening how unsafe technology is. Razor divulged his scheme and I’ve been worrying since over this insane plan. He has the simple part. He sits back and types. I, on the other hand, have to speak with the devil.
Nervous adrenaline leaks into my system as the bell to the diner rings. I walk in and, as he promised, Razor’s in the corner working intently at his laptop and, like clockwork, Kyle is on the opposite side of the diner eating lunch with his friends.
This is what Razor has been doing for the past couple of weeks—following Kyle. Understanding his routines and rhythms. Kyle doesn’t seem to know that Razor has his life dissected and documented to the minute.
My cell vibrates. It’s Razor. Don’t look so terrified. He touches you and I’ll stick this dull steak knife through his skull.
Me: It’s not him touching me I’m afraid of.
Razor: Is it me you’re afraid of touching you? If so, I promise you’ll like it.
My temperature jumps to triple digits. Razor touching me. It hasn’t happened yet beyond a few careless brushes of his body against mine while in physics. Regardless, my imagination goes to places beyond him caressing my face or holding my hand and beyond PG-13. I suck in a
breath to regain a logical train of thought. Me: I’m afraid he’ll find out what we are about to do.
Razor: All the same. You say the word, I’ll use the knife. Or say the word, we leave now and I’ll give you that ride we keep talking about.
I never know if he’s joking. Me: Let’s stick to the plan.
Razor: You’re no fun. All work and no play...
I smile, and when I peek at him, his eyes are still glued to the screen, but he’s grinning, too. Digging deep for courage, I choose the side of the diner Kyle and his friends are at, select a booth by myself and study the menu. There’s no way I could eat anything without regurgitating.
“Hey.” Kyle slithers into my booth. Per part of the plan, I texted Kyle last night and asked if we could meet to discuss his paper, and like Razor thought he would, Kyle suggested the diner. It’s scary how everything Razor said would happen is coming to fruition.
“Hi.” I make a point of looking over my shoulder at Razor. “I didn’t know Thomas would be here.”
Razor’s real name feels weird on my tongue.
“He’s been coming here for a few weeks. Waitress says he comes for the Wi-Fi, which makes sense. I heard he lives in a box of a place in the middle of nowhere.”
Reception is sketchy for everyone in town, which is why Kyle doesn’t question a thing—whenever any of us comes into the diner, we switch to the Wi-Fi because it’s reliable.
I fiddle with the napkin. Razor said to act as if I’m terrified of him and I thought it would be hard to do. But it turns out it’s easy to act afraid, because I am—of Kyle.
“Are you sure we should be in the same place as him?” Razor’s suggestion for me to say. Reverse psychology.
“It’s good for him to know he’s not in control. Besides, I thought you two were best friends.” Kyle extends his arm along the back of the seat.
“He’s too intense, plus he’s mad at me.” I glance over my shoulder again like I’m worried.
“Are you okay?” His question is part concern, part confusion. Like he actually cares about my well-being.