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CHAPTER 1
Ronnie
Sonofabitch!I internally scream. My chest tightens, my lungs burning with every breath as my sneakers slap against the slick, uneven sidewalk, splashing filth onto my pants. The stench of rot clings to the air—definitely not water soaking my shoes. No puddles in the Vieux Carré are ever just water. I veer around the corner, my ankle twists, a sharp, hot pain shooting up my leg, but I don’t slow down. The pounding footsteps behind me grow louder, closer. No matter how fast I move, they’re right there, breathing down my neck.
All these funky-ass drunk tourists stumble in front of me, laughing and swaying, oblivious to the chaos I’m in. I dodge one and nearly crash into another, cursing under my breath as I hit Toulouse Street. A quick right on Royal, but it feels like I’m running in circles, trapped. I’m gonna have to stop soon, whether I like it or not.
If I hadn’t taken up jogging when I moved here, I’d already be done for. My legs are burning, but I keep going. Then I see it—a bar ahead, packed with people spilling out onto the street. Butit’s not the crowd that grabs me—it’s the gleam of a motorcycle parked outside.
I squint through my smudged glasses. The key is in the ignition. A spark of hope ignites in my chest. Not a Harley, either. No pissed-off biker to deal with. I zero in on it as I make a straight shot for my escape.
I throw my leg over the bike, turn the key, and fire her up. It purrs between my legs, and I hear someone yell,Hey, someone is stealing your bike! Great,now I’ll have a wannabe biker chasing me, too. I take off, hauling ass out of the Quarter. Almost two years! I have been here for almost two fucking years undetected, and everything changed in a few short minutes. I zip through the street, bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic, all the while sending up a prayer of thanks to my Uncle for preparing me for this life, much to my mother’s chagrin.
I rev the engine and aim the bike toward Metairie, my heart racing faster than the wheels beneath me. The city lights blur as I silently beg for a few days of peace, just long enough to disappear. Once I’m over the bridge, I ease off the throttle, letting the bike melt into the flow of traffic. I’ve got the advantage now—wheels. I figure they’d have to either double back for their cars or steal some, both of which buy me precious time to put more distance between me and them. I pull to the side of the road once I get past the congested traffic and get off of the bike. I squat down, looking at the bike from every angle, until I find what I am looking for; the GPS tracker near the battery. Carefully, I remove it and toss it off the overpass on the top of a tractor-trailer truck before getting back on the bike. I stay on I-10, eyes flicking to the rearview, until I hit the Bonnabel exit. A sharp right, then another on Live Oaks. The tension in my shoulders eases as I pull onto Pier Boulevard and turn into the driveway of one of my houses—the first one I bought after I bolted here. I always loved this place, tucked away likea secret. This place—my sanctuary— hidden under my uncle’s grandmother’s maiden name. The garage door creaks open, and I pull the bike inside, shutting the engine off as silence swallows me whole.
My hands shake as I disarm the alarm, grateful I had the sense to ditch my phone in one of those Quarter puddles earlier, smashing it against the wall as I ran.
Kicking off my soggy shoes, my feet squish uncomfortably against the cold floor, but I don’t let it slow me down. I head for the stairs, my legs aching with every step. By the time I reach my room, exhaustion clings to me like a second skin. I strip as I go, clothes hitting the floor in a trail behind me until I reach the bathroom. The shower’s knobs turn easily, releasing a burst of steaming water that I step into, letting the heat wash over me. The grime of the night—sweat, dirt, and who knows what else—swirls down the drain, and for a moment, my muscles loosen.
When the water runs cold, I shut it off, grab a towel, and wrap it around myself before padding into the bedroom. My eyes land on the mini fridge, and I yank open the door, grabbing a bottle of water. The first one disappears in seconds, my throat burning from the cold. The second I sip slower, pairing it with a quick snack—cheese, an apple, yogurt, and pepperoni. Tossing it all on a plate, I slide into a pair of pajamas, the fabric feeling foreign against my skin. Normally, I’d sleep naked, but if I have to run again, I don’t plan on having my naked ass running through the streets of New Orleans.
With the plate perched beside me, I settle onto the bed and dig in, hunger gnawing at my stomach. Once I’m done, I rummage through the nightstand drawer, pulling out a phone box and tearing it open. The SIM card slides into place, and within minutes, the phone lights up. I log into my house security, making sure I wasn’t followed and I am safe—for now.
Setting the empty plate on the floor, I slip under the covers, my body sinking into the mattress. Sleep claims me almost instantly. Tomorrow, I’ll figure out the rest.
Lion
I swear to God, I am going to kill the dead mother fucker who took my fucking bike! By the time I made it outside, all I saw was the back of my motorcycle barreling down the street. Zydeco was only able to tell me it was a woman. A woman! A fucking woman stolemybike. Everyone in the quarter knows who that bike belongs to, and no one has ever dared breathe on it, let alone attempt to steal it! I snatch my phone out of my pocket so forcefully I practically rip the pocket off. I jab at the screen as soon as I put the security code in.
“What?” comes the clipped response.
“Come get me,” I reply without preamble, completely ignoring Bones’ obvious irritation. He is probably knee-deep in some random pussy. Well, he can just crawl up out of it and come get me.
“Where the fuck is your bike?” he asks, a hint of concern creeping in as I hear the rustling of fabric in the background.
“I’ll explain when you get here. I’m at the Crescent,”
“Crappy ass drink you like got you in trouble, huh?”
“I am not in the fucking mood, Benjamin!” I snap, calling him by his given name.
“I see that. I’m on my way,”
“Bring Rage and Fury with you,” I tell him, getting more pissed off the more I think about the situation, and I can literally hear him pause.
“Are, are you sure?” he asks, his concern clearly ratcheting up a notch.
“I said what I said,” I grit out through clenched teeth, tired of repeating myself, and hang up before he can ask another dumb ass question. I’ll apologize later. It has been a shit show for the past five years, ever since our father went missing. I have been looking into his disappearance night and day when I am not on club business, and I have gotten nowhere. So either my dad decided to just up and leave us without a trace, or he’s dead, and the person who killed him is either very skilled and powerful or an idiot that got lucky. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he would never leave me and Bones, especially since we have been all we’ve had since our mother died when we were teenagers. Well, each other and the club, Sin City MC. A lot of people had a lot to say about Dad raising us in an MC clubhouse and living in the little house on the wrong side of the tracks, but he didn’t give a damn about what they had to say, and neither did we. In the end, Bones and I both graduated top of our classes and got full scholarships to the top business and medical schools in the country. Bones graduated Summa Cum Laude fromHarvard Medical School,and I also graduated Summa Cum Laude fromStanford. He quickly got a job as an anesthesiologist. I grabbed a PhD in Business Administration, taking a job as a CEO for a startup company before being recruited to aFortune 500company, working a few years before starting my own. We never moved out of that little house in Harvey. As a matter of fact, Bones and I bought the houses flanking Dad’s. We renovated the hell out of them but stayed in the same neighborhood we grew up in.
Dad struggled to take care of us, and the Club pitched in as much as possible, but a bunch of hardened Bikers and patch bunnies could only do so much. A few of the ol’ ladies helped when they could , but in the end, it was just us and Dad.
When the Club finally started to make money, things got a little better, so Bones and I made a vow to get an education andmake a shit ton of money, and that is just what we did. The only person my dad relied on, probably more than the Club, was our Uncle Lennon. My dad grew up in Harvey, one of the few white boys being raised in a predominantly black neighborhood and school. His parents lost their house in Riverside and were forced to move to a cheaper neighborhood.
His first few months were pretty uneventful, but one day, a new boy came to school and set his sights on my dad, and the bullying began. For the most part, my dad held his own, but once it spilled out of school and into the neighborhood, things quickly got dangerous. He started shit with my dad one day in front of known gang members, literally putting my dad’s life in danger when he fought back. No way were these black men going to sit back and let a white boy beat on a black boy, so when they stepped up to intervene on the ass whooping my dad was handing out, it didn’t look good until one of them got in between, telling them to back off.
“I don’t care if he is poor enough to live over here with us, he’s still a white boy, and if you hurt him, you can bet we’ll have the police coming around here, and that’s some shit none of us need. He’s off limits!” he declared. My dad later found out he was the brother of the leader of the Delta Kings. Eventually, they became friends, Lennon, aka Uncle Len. He was my dad’s best man and both mine and Bones' Godfather. He was there every step when my mother got sick and eventually died. His stepmother cooked for us, nursed us when we got sick, and comforted us when our mother died. When she died, it was like we lost another mother. Uncle Len died a year before my dad went missing, or he’d be here tearing up Nola, looking for him. Uncle Len had a great mind and even better instincts and advised my dad on a lot of ventures. He helped my dad broker an alliance with the Sin City MC, making them both a lot of money. What I never understood was why he never married or had anychildren. He had a niece who lived in DC or Maryland that he loved to distract. He was always stayed pretty tight-lipped about that side of his family, at least with us. My dad knew about his niece from his only sibling. I don’t think there were any secrets between my dad and Uncle Len.
CHAPTER 2
