Long Way Home

  “I’m only giving them to Justin and Skull. They started this. They’re the only ones I trust.”

  He leans into me and I turn my head because I don’t want his face so close to mine. “This is not a negotiation.”

  The Riot believe they have all the power, but I’m the one holding the cards. “I’ll meet them tomorrow night at the place where we were kidnapped. I give the numbers to them and nobody else. You want Eli, I want peace. Tell me, how happy do you think Justin is going to be when he finds out you’ve shoved me against a tree. According to him, this isn’t how our clubs are playing anymore, or is he reneging on our deal?”

  As if my words were acid, his grip on me weakens, and as he goes to step back, there is a snapping of a twig to the right. It’s Razor and he pauses long enough to blink and then he’s a freight train.

  “Duck,” the guy says. “They’re going to shoot.”

  Shoot. My heart stutters. “Get down! Razor, get down!”

  The guy runs, Razor is barreling toward us, his hand going to the gun he keeps at his back and his eyes widen when I throw myself at him. A bang, Razor collides with me and we’re rolling until we stop. His body over mine, gun in his hand, a hand over my head as if he could keep me safe.

  “Violet!” Chevy yells.

  “Are you okay?” Razor asks.

  I press at his chest, but he’s solid rock. “Yes, let me up.”

  “Not until I know you’re safe.”

  I punch at his chest. “They aren’t going to shoot me. You, yes. Me, no.”

  Razor leans up on his knees and draws me up with him. I try to ignore the gun in his right hand and how my hands shake. Oz slides on the leaves in front of us as he tries to stop. He’s also holding his gun, but with both hands. “Which way?”

  “The guy who had Violet by the throat ran to the right. Shot came high and from the left. That bullet was meant to keep us in place so they could escape.”

  “Violet, why the hell do you keep running in the direction of bullets?” Chevy’s voice curls into a dangerous tone I never wanted to hear again and his form appears out of the darkness. It’s eerie how he goes from shadow to being in the moonlight.

  “Because I don’t want the people I love to get shot. That’s why. What else do you expect me to do? Let you get shot?”

  “Yes!” all three of them shout.

  Idiots. Every single one of them.

  “I need to go home.” I’m pleading with Chevy to rein in his temper and get us out of this situation without alerting the Terror we have problems. “Just take me home.”

  “Take you home?” Oz’s expression says he’s about ready to turn the gun on me or himself at the idea of how insane I sound. “Someone just shot at you.”

  “At me.” Razor’s extremely calm and that causes my head to tilt. “They were shooting at me. For the same fucking reason they shot at me before.”

  Chevy swears under his breath and Oz is the only one scanning the trees, scanning the horizon. “What the hell is going on?”

  Chevy and I share a look. Razor’s gone internal again. We had a few minutes of happiness, but our weights returned, crushing us.

  “What the hell is going on?” Oz yells this time.

  Nothing from any of us. I know what’s trapping me and Chevy, but I have no idea what’s bogging down Razor. Before the kidnapping, he had reached out to me, helped me with a problem with guys from school. Now he’s drowning and I’m doing nothing but watching him sink from the shore.

  But that has to be how he feels about me and Chevy. He asked me to come to him the night I stayed at Chevy’s. I think of the pain in Oz’s eyes and the pain that’s still etched on his face as he waits for one of us to crack.

  “We’re a family, dammit,” Oz says. “When are we going to start acting like one?”

  “Now,” I whisper, and I flash two fingers before standing. From the way Oz’s head straightens and the narrowed way Razor’s studying me, they both caught it. “I don’t feel good and I don’t think I can ride on the back of a bike.”

  We aren’t safe out here and we need someplace safe to talk.

  “You can crash at the cabin,” Oz says. “Cyrus won’t mind.”

  If you don’t feel safe at home, the club will protect you.

  “You look pale, Vi,” Chevy pipes in. “Maybe we should get you something to drink first. I think I saw some Sprites in the kitchen in the clubhouse.”

  She’s not safe at the cabin.

  Razor finally rises to his feet and offers me his hand and helps me up. “Want us to take you home? I’m sure Chevy can lift someone’s car keys.”

  Are you safe at home?

  That gets forced chuckles as they’re all trying to play along.

  “I’d like that Sprite and I told Mom I’d be staying with Chevy.”

  No, I’m not safe at home and Chevy knows what’s going on.

  Razor leans in, pats leaves off my back and whispers, “Stay in the middle of us and do not break rank. Oz will take point, Chevy at your side, I’m taking your six. We stay that way through the woods, we stay that way through the party. I don’t fucking care if God comes down and calls your name, you stick with us, do you understand?”

  I nod and whisper back, “Where are we going?”

  His blue eyes go ice-cold. “To the only place it’s safe. We’re going to Church.”

  CHEVY

  TOOK RAZOR “ACCIDENTALLY” bumping into one of the food tables and flipping it to cause a diversion, but Oz, Violet and I made it to the stairway undetected and headed up. On the second floor, Razor leans against the wall and watches to make sure no one’s coming up the stairs, while Oz watches the hallway to confirm no one is leaving the bedrooms. I pull the pick out of my belt and within two seconds the door’s open.

  I tilt my head and Violet walks in. The brace is still on her knee, but a slight limp replaces the severe drag of her leg. The running in the forest didn’t help—at least not her knee, but for a few minutes, Violet had a light in her eyes and color in her cheeks.

  Oz flicks on the light as he enters, and I close the door, relocking it once Razor strides in. When we were kids, Oz, Razor and I broke in here. Cyrus caught us and busted our asses. We were breaking rules and we knew it, but even back then, we didn’t consider bringing Violet. A girl in Church was unheard of and we weren’t willing to cross those lines.

  Violet does a slow spin as she takes in the view. She didn’t have much time to check out the decor the last time she was here. For all I know, Violet was the first woman to be in this room when she kicked down the door a few weeks back. Seems like a shame. There are some damn good women related to these men and she’s one of them. I can see where she feels like not being able to be in here is, to her, a disrespect.

  “Sit,” Oz says to Violet. “Get off your leg and prop up your knee.”

  He drags a chair around for her once she does sit and I hand her a bottle of water I swiped on the way here.

  “They’ll kill you if they knew we were in here and more specifically if they knew I was in here,” she says.

  On the other side of the table, Razor flips a chair and straddles it. “Considering I’ve already been hit with a bullet and just had another one shot in my direction, I’m not worried about death. I’m feeling invincible.”

  Violet squishes her lips. “Fantastic.”

  Razor only grins, but it’s short-lived. He lifts his finger and circles it as he points at the wall. “Soundproof. Whatever we say in here stays in here.”

  In case either my or Violet’s cells have been bugged, Razor took our phones and left them in the kitchen. We’re technology free and breaking rules. Oz takes the seat at the head of the table as I sit next to Violet. “I don’t care who goes first, but someone needs to tell me what’s going
on.”

  Squeaks in the chairs as we shift and I meet Violet’s eyes. She nods. Damn, this is going to suck. “I have a brother and he lives in Louisville. He’s maybe a year older than me and looks exactly like James.”

  Razor’s and Oz’s heads snap in my direction.

  “The Riot are trying to use me to put Eli in jail,” Violet says within a heartbeat of my news. She knows me. Knows I haven’t processed having a brother yet and knows I’m not ready to talk. “I broke into Dad’s office, swiped account numbers, and I have to give them to the Riot tomorrow night so they can frame Eli, but I’m working with that Louisville detective, wearing a wire for them, so the plan is for the Riot to go to jail.”

  Razor and Oz are now one million percent focused on her and so am I. My heart beats so slow it hurts. “Tomorrow night?”

  “Yeah.” She bites her lower lip. “We didn’t get around to naming a time, since Razor came racing over, but we have a place.”

  Oz leans forward on the table. “You were the one the Riot were after?”

  “Shocking, right?”

  Oz doesn’t listen to her as his questions have taken over like a steamroller. “Did you say you’re wearing a wire with the Riot? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Yes,” she says plainly, “and yes. And before you think you’re going to run off and tell Eli what you know, you should keep in mind I’m being watched and have been approached by the Riot at this clubhouse, Cyrus’s cabin and my home. The only people I trust right now are in this room. If you tell on me, you’re signing a warrant for my death and that’ll sort of piss me off.”

  She’s being lighthearted, but how the hell should we be handling this? She and I—we’re beyond anger and sadness and tears. Maybe she’s right. We have lost our minds.

  Violet takes the bottle of water, opens it, then tosses the cap in Razor’s direction. “Your turn, and I’m going to be honest, you’re going to have to dig deep to beat my problems.”

  I laugh. It’s bitter and short, but it happened. “I’ve got a long-lost brother.”

  “Yeah, but in the end, that’ll be good news. You know, once you get past the whole my-father-slept-around-a-lot thing.”

  True on that.

  Razor rests his arms on the back of the chair. “Dad’s found someone willing to defect from the Riot to the Terror to testify against the Riot on how they killed my mom, and if we accept, it’s going to start a war. It’s my decision if we press forward or not. I already lived too many hours thinking I lost the two of you. I’m not sure I can stomach knowing my decisions were the ones that hurt people I love.”

  All joking and lightheartedness crashes to the floor as if someone dropped a glass figurine. Razor, because of his mother’s death, is scarred eternally in ways none of us will ever understand.

  “If you go forward with the defector, maybe Violet doesn’t have to wear the wire,” suggests Oz. “We bring the Riot down that way, because from what I’m hearing, we’re already in danger.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m on a deadline and my time is almost up. The Riot has threatened me, my mom and my brother if I don’t see this through. My part is a go regardless.”

  I pull a coin out of my pocket and begin to flip it over my knuckles. Doing this helps me think, helps me focus. “We want the Riot shut down for good, right?”

  Agreement from all involved.

  “The Riot’s a big club,” I say.

  “But if the wire goes right,” Violet says, “we take down not only all the guys involved in our kidnapping, but we also get their top two guys.”

  “With a huge amount of men behind them searching for retribution,” Oz says.

  Violet slams her hand onto the table. “So we lie down and do nothing? I’m tired of this bullshit, Oz, and you have to be, too. I see how freaked out you are every time Emily steps on Kentucky soil. Her grandfather is Skull, the bastard who is the head of this. I can take him down. We need to show the Riot we aren’t scared and that each and every time they come at us, we will throw their asses in jail.”

  “If what the defector told us is true,” Razor says, “then the guys involved in my mother’s death are big players. Big players who aren’t Skull and his son. If we wipe out their board, if we wipe out their decision-makers, the Riot could fold.”

  “I think you’re talking fairy tales,” says Oz.

  He’s probably right, but Oz wasn’t in a basement and I can’t allow Violet to live in fear anymore. “What other choice do we have? Our fathers spent over twenty years dealing with the Riot and in the end not a damned thing changed. We’re not kids anymore and this fight is on our doorstep now. I say we turn the tide and start causing problems for them. This is our time. I say we blow this shit up.”

  “Me, too,” says Violet. “We do the wire, Razor gives the green light to use the defector and we bring down as many of them as we can.”

  Razor rolls his neck, then massages the muscles there. “How do I keep Breanna safe? She’s a long way from Snowflake. Even better, how do we keep anyone safe? To say there won’t be fallout from what we do is naive.”

  I understand how he feels. Understand the bitter taste of fear in his mouth, understand the nagging of the loss of control in his brain, but... “Do you want a phone call telling you Breanna’s been locked in the basement with the Riot? I’ve lived that basement and it’s going to haunt me forever. Not doing anything—it’s not the solution. It’s what our parents did and we need to be better.”

  From under the table, Violet squeezes my knee and the irony isn’t lost on me. I went from being the boy who didn’t make the decisions to being the man leading the charge.

  “At the end of all this,” Oz says, “Cyrus and Eli will say it wasn’t our decision to make. That we should have included them.”

  “We will,” Violet says. “But after the wire. There’s the possibility that someone is a traitor at the clubhouse and I can’t risk anyone else knowing until that wire is done.”

  Surprise prickles along the back of my neck. “You’re going to let the club in?”

  She’s slow to nod, but she does. “Oz is right. There’s going to be backlash and we’re stronger together than we are separate. It’s time I start relying on my family.”

  Stunned silence. All of us are. I take her hand and wonder how many rules I’d be breaking if I picked her up, propped her up against the wall and kissed her until we couldn’t breathe.

  “Then let’s take a vote,” Oz says. “Let’s make this official.”

  Violet gives a hesitant smile. “We aren’t a real board.”

  “No, but we’re family and that’s what matters. Everyone for taking down the Riot?”

  All hands in the air.

  “Anyone opposed.”

  Not a one of us.

  “Then let’s take these bastards down.”

  Violet

  THE AIR I inhale feels very cold in my lungs, but my skin is hot and clammy. After a hundred abrupt U-turns to make sure we weren’t being followed, and the switching of cars and routes and a million other things, I’m in what would be the back bedroom of a white trailer in the middle of a trailer park in the south side of Louisville.

  This room is a makeshift office for the police department. It contains two chairs and a desk pushed against the wall. Like the other rooms, it also contains fancy computers and electronics.

  I widen a hole in my jeans with my finger and wonder if this was the best outfit to pick. The detective said to wear whatever I’d normally wear, so I pulled my favorite pair of jeans and a purple T-shirt out of the dryer, then put on my tennis shoes, my bracelets, Dad’s watch and his cross.

  After I returned home from the party, I found another note from the Riot in my English notebook. It had a time for the meet and they selected a new meeting place. Guess the
y feel like their safe house is a loss now that the police are aware of its existence.

  My skin crawls and I rub at my arms. I hate that these bastards were in my house, in my room...obviously in there while my mother and brother were sleeping. They were in my home.

  My home.

  Sorrow fills me and it’s so heavy that I gasp as if I’m drowning. I didn’t get to say goodbye to Mom and Brandon. They left the party with waves from across the crowd and they were still asleep when I left this morning. I had no idea when they left last night that I’d be meeting with the Riot so soon today.

  I wish I could have seen them this morning. Hugged them both a little tighter and told them that I loved them. My knee begins to bounce. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t get to say goodbye. They’d know something was wrong.

  “Tell me where you’re meeting the Riot,” Chevy says for the millionth time.

  And for the millionth time I answer, “No. The detective and I agreed that telling you that information is futile. It’s only going to cause you to want to go and your being there jeopardizes me and this plan.”

  “I just want to know,” he says. “I’ve already promised to stay here. When I give my word, it’s a done deal.”

  “Do you take me for a fool? If I tell you, you’ll stay because you promised, but then you’ll tell Oz or Razor and then they’ll show.”

  Chevy only scowls.

  “We have to trust the police on this. Period. Now, how are the Riot getting into my house?” I ask to change the conversation.

  In the chair next to me, he’s acting like he’s relaxed with his legs kicked out and arms sprawled along the chair, but there’s an underlying current of anger that’s just as powerful as a live electrical wire. “We only have someone watching your house from the front. Once the club finds out about the wiretapping, we’ll have them watch your mom, brother and house twenty-four hours from all sides.”

  “The club has holes.” Black holes where the Riot is slipping through.

  Chevy folds his hands over his stomach. “I know, and that’s not going to go over well. Regardless, the safety of you, Razor and anyone close to the two of you will be the priority.”