Axle Read online

I checked my phone. LeCharles had not yet replied.

  But because I was in the area, I wasn’t lying to myself.

  I had hope.

  Axle

  It was an early Monday morning, just when Carter’s Auto Repairs had opened up, and I was busy changing the oil on an old Ford when I heard the sound of motorcycles approaching.

  Motorcycles which were not ours.

  Bikers never came in packs back to our headquarters, and when they did, we knew they were coming, like when they finished a run. It was also far too early for the Fallen Saints to be awake—ten in the morning, to be exact—so this led me to believe that the police or a SWAT force of some kind were coming. But for what?

  I rushed to the front of the building, my gun on my hip, ready to hide it the second I heard a blue siren or saw a navy blue uniform. But when the motorcycles came into view, they were not law enforcement.

  But they weren’t the Fallen Saints, either.

  It took me a few moments for them to draw closer before I realized that this wasn’t some new club trying to establish itself. It wasn’t the Gray Reapers and Cole, a group I hoped we could merge with but one which I didn’t have a lot of faith would be joining us. It was, however, someone we knew well.

  It was the Hovas, the group that had supplied us guns a month or so ago in exchange for a few thousand dollars cash.

  But their unannounced presence raised several questions that superceded any goodwill.

  What the fuck were they doing, driving all the way from Compton all the way up here on an early morning? And for that matter, why were there about a dozen of them? What point were they trying to make?

  I folded my arms, stepped forward, and let Jerome, their leader, come to me. He tried to intimidate me by maintaining his speed all the way up to the point of nearly hitting me, but he slammed on his brakes at the last second. I knew him better than anyone else in the Black Reapers. I knew damn well that man liked to do things for appearances, but that was a far, far cry from doing something that could get him in trouble.

  And nothing would lead to a very early shootout faster than for a trespasser to run over a Black Reaper.

  “Axle, Axle, Axle,” he said after he and the rest of the Hovas had killed their engines. “Little Lane couldn’t be here today, huh? He put the black man in charge to meet the black club?”

  “I’m the VP of this club, Jerome, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jerome said with a snicker. “Shit, just couldn’t cut it with us, huh? Had to go join the pussy boys up north?”

  I ignored that comment.

  “Still prefer to be silent, huh?” he said with a chuckle. “Would you like to take a guess for why we’re here?”

  I didn’t say a word. I would not bow to pressure, even if it came from one of my former friends.

  “For real,” Jerome said, snickering. “You ain’t never learn to talk, huh, Axle?”

  “That’s because he knows I would come.”

  I tried not to show the crestfallen feeling I had when Lane showed up. It wasn’t that Lane couldn’t succeed here—he had the last time we’d met up with the Hovas—but it was a very delicate dance that he had to play to make sure we didn’t get run over, metaphorically or literally. I could play it. His father could play it.

  I didn’t know if he could play it consistently.

  “Ah, Little Lane—”

  “Lane, Jerome, Lane,” he said firmly.

  Jerome stared at him as if he’d been gravely insulted. But to Lane’s credit, he did not flinch under the pressure. Instead, like me, he stood arms crossed. If I had been thinking more lightheartedly, I would have thought it looked like a movie showdown.

  “Gotta admit, didn’t think your sorry ass would be up this early,” Jerome said. “I guess what they’re saying is true. Lane Carter actually gives a shit now!”

  He laughed, joined seconds later by the other Hovas. Theatrics, theatrics, theatrics.

  “We don’t know why you’re here,” Lane said. “And for the sake of our business, I suggest you start telling me why now.”

  “For the sake of your business,” Jerome repeated, sounding incredulous. “You hear that, y’all? For the sake of your business. Man, why the fuck else do you think we’d be here if it wasn’t for our business?”

  Lane betrayed nothing, but I was sure he had the same thoughts I was having—that neither of us had any idea what the hell Jerome was talking about.

  “Oh, don’t be acting all stupid here,” Jerome said. “You know why we’re here with the sun in our eyes, right? Cuz we come down here at night, take your bullets—”

  “The fuck you talking about?” Lane said, finally betraying some hint of confusion.

  “The fuck you talking about?” Jerome snapped right back, mockingly imitating Lane’s voice. “Shit, did that attack at our little transaction erase your memory? Well, in case it did, ya dummy, let me remind you what happened. We traded guns for cash. All good. We were happy with that deal. And then bullets came reigning the fuck down on us. You think we’re supposed to trust you then?”

  He’s testing Lane. He knows full well we weren’t the ones that shot at them. We depend on them too much for weapons to pull some shit like that.

  “We ain’t got no trust in any of y’all,” Jerome said. “None. If you want to continue our gun and drug deals, then you need to earn your trust.”

  “Okay, hold up just a second,” Lane said. “Jerome, you knew my father going way back. I know you don’t know me as well. But you’re fucking crazy if you think I’d ever order a hit on you guys. Today aside, you don’t encroach—"

  “You just call me fucking crazy?”

  Shit. We’re about to lose all control of this situation.

  “Boy, do you know who I am?” Jerome said, coming up right to Lane’s chest. “I am the motherfucking king of the Hovas. You think I got this far by being fucking crazy? Huh? You think I did something stupid? Or you think I’m smart?”

  Lane didn’t back down, but I could sense, like Jerome probably could, that he was feeling a bit uneasy about the situation. I didn’t like taking the place of Lane and speaking for him, especially since Jerome would probably crack a few lines about who was really in charge here, but I felt it necessary.

  “Jerome.”

  He turned to me, cocked an eyebrow, and then turned back to Lane.

  “Let’s go talk. You and me.”

  “Little Lane can’t handle his shit, can he?” Jerome said.

  “Come on, Jerome.”

  Jerome faked that he was going to hit Lane. To Lane’s credit, he did not flinch, but I knew he’d have a lot of steam to blow off later. Jerome walked over to me, and I took him out of earshot of everyone—Lane, his fellow Hovas, any other Reapers nearby who had been watching.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I whispered. “Don’t bullshit me. I know you all hate me. Fine. But I also know that you need the relationship as badly as we do. So do yourself a favor and don’t lie to me.”

  It was like I’d snapped Jerome out of a drunken stupor. Gone was the man who had threatened to hit Lane and had mocked me, and in his place was a man who looked like he sincerely wanted to work something out. It reminded me of something a commander had once told me—two people in a room will solve more in one hour than two committees will in one month.

  “We keep getting potshots from the fucking Saints, man,” Jerome said. “They’re trying to claim it’s y’all. They’re pretending to be you in battle. I’m not stupid, and you know that. I know it ain’t y’all trying to do that, but some of my club members are starting to think you’re behind it somehow. They think you set something up last go around.”

  As much as I wanted to consider that bullshit and ridiculous, I needed to only turn the clock back a couple weeks to remember how my own club had nearly accused me of being a rat, with only Patriot’s quick thinking preventing things from turning far uglier than this situation would ever get. Violence and confusion coul
d make the most rational of men into the most insane of conspiracy theorists.

  “I’m one man, Axle,” Jerome continued. “There’s only so much shit I can do before my club starts demanding action. So that’s why I come here. Little Lane—”

  “Lane.”

  I was emphatic on this point. I may have thought Lane handled the situation poorly, but to the outside world, I was the most obedient VP a President had ever had. Jerome would have a better chance of me literally shooting myself in the foot than metaphorically doing so by criticizing Lane.

  “Whatever, man.”

  “Listen. He may have called you crazy, but we don’t have a derisive nickname for you. So cool it.”

  If there was a spot where I thought I might have lost Jerome, this was it. But he got it back together shortly after.

  “Regardless of whatever the hell you wanna call your boy, I got an image to uphold, man. I can’t be sitting here and letting us take cheap shots like that. We gotta flex muscle at some point. You know what I’m saying?”

  “So, you want us to come defend you?” I asked.

  Jerome snorted.

  “Show me—show us—that we can still work together. Show me I still mean something to you, LeCharles.”

  It wasn’t often I heard my real name used around bikers. It was much rarer, in fact, that I ever heard it for Jerome.

  “Show me that there’s just enough there that we didn’t come hunt your ass down for leaving us. Show me that this isn’t some long con. Understood?”

  I understood well enough. Leaving one club for another was oftentimes akin to asking for a hit on your head. It had taken a lot of behind-the-scenes work to make this happen peacefully, and the existing relationship that we had played an awful large role in allowing me to leave that club in peace.

  But that didn’t mean it was without consequences.

  “I understand.”

  Jerome smiled as he nodded.

  “I thought you might,” he said. “Keep in mind, one brother to another. I like you guys. I want to work with you guys. But like any other time groups get involved, it’s not up to the individual. It’s up to the group. Figure out a way to make the Hovas happy, Axle.”

  And with that, we were back to normal names. Jerome didn’t say another word as he slowly turned, taking the time to give Lane one last glare. He headed back to his bike, ignited the engine, and led the rest of the Hovas out without any further incident. I walked over to Lane, who finally let his guard down and let out a long sigh.

  “I really thought some shit was about to go down,” he said.

  “It was much closer than you realize,” I said. “We gotta talk.”

  I sat in the church hall with Lane, the one place where I knew we’d be afforded some privacy. The last time he and I were in this room, I was about to be accused of being a spy. It was comforting to know we were building toward a common goal this time.

  “The Hovas think we’re attacking them,” I said. “And while that’s clearly bullshit, it’s also true we haven’t done anything for them since the ambush.”

  Lane let out a long sigh.

  “I get it,” he said. “I’ve been trying to pull the club back in. I felt like, under my father’s reign, we were branching out too much. The Blood Knights, the Hovas, the Street Men… The Hovas are really the only group we trade with now.”

  “Hate to say it, Lane, but they’ll be the last group we trade with if we don’t do anything.”

  Lane grimaced.

  “Can we trust them? Wasn’t exactly a friendly sign for them to ride up—”

  “Disagree.”

  Lane pursed his lips, keeping the retort just barely sealed in his mouth.

  “How do you think it would’ve looked if they’d come up to our place after sunset? Do you know how likely it would’ve been that gunfire would have erupted, whether by accident or on purpose? You know not everyone in this club is as, let’s say, open-minded as the officers are.”

  Lane knew I was right. He’d heard the comments from some of the club members. He’d overheard the insults directed my way—insults I was able to ignore, but I knew the Hovas would not.

  “Fair enough,” Lane said. “So what do they want? What sort of an olive branch do they want?”

  I shrugged.

  “Time will tell. I need to talk with them more. But for right now, I would say if they need help with a counterstrike against the Saints, we give it to them.”

  Lane nodded, but there was something about how he didn’t look me in the eye that suggested there was something he hadn’t yet said, something that had crossed his mind he hadn’t articulated yet.

  “Do me a favor, Axle,” he finally said. “Keep what I’m about to say quiet. Don’t tell anyone else except Patriot. I’m doing a test.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, even though as soon as he said, “except Patriot,” I already knew exactly what he was referring to.

  “I’m doing a test to see who the rat is,” Lane said. “I’ve got to start taking some risks. I know that the more I act, the more things might get ugly, but they’re ugly enough already.”

  At least he was coming at a place of far more calm than he had when he was about to accuse me. But I still didn’t get the sense Lane understood the risks involved and the need to be airtight about everything, even from me and Patriot.

  “Don’t make any presumptions before it’s appropriate,” I said. “Keep in mind, even those who would die for us may not be able to keep their mouths shut. You tell something to Father Marcellus, testing him. He’s clean. But then he makes mention of it to Butch or Red Raven. And then what? Or you tell something to someone else, and word gets out. Or, even then, people see that some officers are going on missions, and they aren’t. People are going to start to figure things out, Lane, and if you’re not careful, they will come back to bite you. And those bites will be fatal.”

  Lane nodded, but there wasn’t anything he could do to make me believe he fully understood. Which, truthfully, was fine. I didn’t need him to comprehend what I’d said. I just wanted him to fear it enough that he didn’t do anything stupid.

  “We’ll keep things tight,” he said. “Everything will be on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Good.”

  With that, we left. I intended to eventually reach back out to the Hovas to make things right. Lane agreed to keep me abreast of anything else that happened with the Hovas, but otherwise, I was part of the need-to-know operation. If something didn’t apply to me, I didn’t need to know about it.

  I got outside just in time to see a text message pop up on my phone. I rolled my eyes. Rose, again?

  Shit, maybe I should just be the rat.

  At least that way I won’t have to deal with whatever drama and bullshit she wants to stir back up.

  Rose

  It was before sunset when my alarm went off.

  Shiloh, of course, let me know about it as soon as he heard the alarm. He got out of bed, sniffed me, and then gently batted me with his paw. I told him to give me a couple of seconds, but he wouldn’t have been my Shiloh if he hadn’t demanded that I wake up on his terms.

  I quickly threw on a T-shirt and gym shorts, leashed him up, and took him for a walk. Outside, I saw a few people passed out by the entrance to their apartments—or what I presumed were their apartments. I didn’t want to think about how depressing it might have been for someone to be so drunk or so high on a Sunday night that they wound up waiting outside the wrong apartment.

  Shiloh didn’t take kindly to their presence, either. What started as a whimper slowly turned into a growl, and I had to hold him close to me to prevent him from acting as a sort of natural alarm clock this early in the morning.

  “I know it sucks, buddy,” I said. “But we’ll get through this. Six months and we’ll find someplace else where we can have a real life.”

  Assuming I don’t get mugged or killed here first.

  I didn’t walk him more than a block down and bac
k. The whole area just gave me a skeevy vibe, and even at this hour, I could hear motorcycles patrolling nearby. I couldn’t imagine that anyone riding a motorcycle before six in the morning was someone I would want to encounter, and though Shiloh made it clear that he wanted a longer walk when we got back to the apartment, I could do nothing more than assure him that I’d find him a place we could do a longer walk at some point.

  I opened my pantry door to grab some cereal, only to let out a yip of surprise when I saw a cockroach skittering inside the cabinet. On the first morning! Jesus. I’ve really sunk to a brand new low, haven’t I?

  “Shiloh!” I said, half-laughing, half-crying at the state I had found my life in. “You hungry for a morning snack? Huh? Huh?”

  Shiloh, of course, was a far smarter dog than I wanted to give him credit for. Sitting on the floor, he perked his ears up and looked over but made no motion. It was if he was saying, “I hear your problems, but deal with them yourself, human.”

  With the cockroach gone from view, I made myself a bowl of cereal and sat on the ground, still without a couch or a kitchen table. In some ways, it just felt like I was eating as ancient people did—on the ground, surrounded by their loved ones. I was probably trying to justify it too hard, but I had to do something to get through the day.

  Finally, I finished, put on some jeans and a button-down shirt for work, and went to the front door. Shiloh picked up on my departure, letting out a painfully pitiful whimper.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” I said. “This is what I need. I’ll get money, which can pay for a better place, which will mean longer walks for you. So just trust me, okay?”

  Shiloh started to pant, but it gave him the appearance of a nice smile. I wanted to believe that his smile was just his way of encouraging me to go and get my life in order. I kissed him on the top of the head, stepped back outside, and headed to my car, praying he wouldn’t start howling at my absence.

  Somehow, even with the sun closer to rising, with the first light of the morning sky beginning to brighten, I could still hear motorcyclists in the distance. I recalled one group of bikers in Springsville from the last time I was here—LeCharles, in fact, had spoken often about joining—but they were a relatively peaceful group, keeping their biking activities to normal evening hours during the week and saving their crazy for the weekend. Of course, they weren’t angels by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure beat having to begin a Monday morning with the loud popping of biker engines.