Axle Read online

  Damn!

  I guess I had a lot to learn about Rose Wright. I guess I didn’t know her as well as I thought I had.

  But such matters would have to wait for a different time because right now, I was on my motorcycle heading to club headquarters.

  Not the Black Reapers’ headquarters—the Hovas’.

  I hadn’t been there in so long, I wondered if it would even have the same layout as before. I wondered how many of their members and officers I would recognize. I wondered if they would accept me.

  I wondered if they would ambush me.

  But just as we needed the Hovas for their access to guns, they needed us for the cash. And, I suspected, they needed us as a sort of front-line defense against the Fallen Saints. I didn’t know what their numbers or their capabilities were like, but I did know that way back in the day, I was the only club member with military experience. That sort of knowledge of combat tactics was not something that could be taken for granted, especially as the Fallen Saints had become more and more aggressive.

  When I pulled up to their headquarters, the first thing I noticed was how there were no lights on. My headlight was the only thing that lit the way toward the brick, rundown building. I knew full well I had been monitored the second I’d pulled into Compton, but it was still a bit unnerving to see that there was absolutely no light at all.

  I turned off my bike, removed my helmet, and looked straight ahead at the door. There were a couple of windows, but I couldn’t see shit. Had I gone to the wrong place? Were the Hovas actually now at a different location? Was this some sort of test?

  I dismounted my bike, making sure in the process that I had easy access to my gun. I came forward to the door, took a breath, and knocked twice.

  There was no answer. I sighed, grabbed the handle of the door, and started to push.

  “You’re a man of your word, Axle!”

  I whirled my gun around at Jerome, who stood with his hands in his pockets, a smirk on his face, and his right leg forward, almost like he was posing for a magazine cover. He looked far too relaxed for having a gun pointed at him, which led me to believe there were many more pointed at me in the dark.

  “Man, point that thing down, is that really how you want to start things off between us?” he said. “Damn, I have you back for three seconds, and I’ve already got a gun pointed at my face.”

  “I figured you’d know better than to sneak up on someone from the rear,” I said, though I did as he asked. “Didn’t you remember that from before?”

  Jerome just shrugged.

  “Not like you don’t know what you’re walking into.”

  Actually, no, I don’t.

  “So, what’s the deal?” I said. “Why send me to a place like this?”

  “What, our HQ?”

  Jerome said it so seriously, I wondered if I was being set up on some high-level joke that I wasn’t aware of yet.

  “This abandoned building?” I said.

  Jerome nodded.

  “We don’t meet up anymore, at least not in a public place like this, not at night. We’ve gotten hit so many times by the Saints that it’s not safe for us to be together anymore. It’s fuckin’ bullshit if you ask me, which is why we asked Little Lane for help.”

  “Lane. Not Little Lane.”

  Jerome snickered.

  “He ain’t even here, and you're defending him,” Jerome said, almost in admiration. “Shit, I guess you really are a Black Reaper through and through. Well, guess that just makes your presence here all the more valuable.”

  “You gonna tell me what I’m doing here, or was this just a big setup to see where my loyalties lay?”

  “Damn, you always were good for gettin’ right to it,” Jerome said. “Alright. Follow me. I’ll pull up my bike.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Jerome smiled.

  “Considering I’m unarmed, you really think I’m going to take you into the fuckin’ Saints’ land right now?”

  Just because you’re unarmed doesn’t mean you aren’t protected.

  But fair enough, Jerome. Just don’t play games with me much longer.

  Ten minutes later, Jerome had led me to a private house. Inside, about half a dozen Hovas waited. The street was in an actually pretty quiet part of town. Our motorcycles were the only vehicles making noise, to the point that I felt uneasy about riding one in the area.

  “This is Ty,” Jerome said, introducing me to the biggest man in the room. “By day, Ty works as head of security for the Staples Center. At night, he’s at the games, but when there’s nothing goin’ on, he comes here. This is his home.”

  “Pleasure,” I said, although neither of us was exactly warm to each other. Ty didn’t even say anything as he shook my hand.

  “Here’s the deal,” Jerome said. “We're rollin’ out of here in about fifteen. We’re gonna go up to the Saints’ HQ. And we’re gonna give them a fucking taste of the medicine that they’ve been given us for some time. I’m sick of their fucking nonsense, and I think everyone else is in here.”

  “Damn right,” numerous voices said at once.

  “Some of the club members think it’s the Reapers after the gun exchange,” Jerome continued. “Axle, this is your chance to prove that’s not the case. Show us you can be trusted.”

  “Wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t be,” I said.

  Jerome shrugged.

  “Ty’s got weapons and body armor galore in the basement of this house. Feel free to grab whatever you need. We leave at the top of the hour. Until then... make yourself at home, brother.”

  I thanked Jerome, but I only took a seat on the back porch of the house. I already had everything I needed. I had a pistol, I had body armor, and tucked into the seat of my motorcycle, I had a submachine gun. There wasn’t anything that I lacked for, and besides, taking things from the Hovas would put me in their debt. While I didn’t mind the occasional helping hand, I didn’t need a handout.

  I had left this club long ago for a reason.

  I sat in silence outside, trying to clear my mind as I often did before runs. I didn’t suffer from PTSD like Patriot obviously did, and I didn’t try and hype myself up like Lane did, but that didn’t mean that my mind didn’t wander from time to time in preparation for these missions. I considered clearing my head as essential to a good mission as bringing the right equipment.

  About five minutes before we were scheduled to roll out, I heard the sliding door open. I turned and saw Jerome, then looked back away as he approached.

  “How’s life in the Reapers, man?”

  There was no way that such an innocuous question was meant to be just that. But Jerome wasn’t an interrogator or an enemy.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Good,” Jerome repeated with a chuckle. “Man, you always were one for not saying much, were you?”

  I just shrugged. I even let a bit of a smile slip, knowing that I was only reinforcing Jerome’s beliefs of me.

  “So by good, I mean like... you getting pussy? They treating you well?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “You’re just deliberately being coy to toy with me, aren’t you?”

  I looked over at him, arched an eyebrow, and let out a short laugh. Jerome responded in kind.

  “Good man,” he said. “Look, I ain’t gonna beat around the bush no more. What’s it gonna take for you to come back?”

  That got my attention. I looked right at him and dropped all pretense of humor.

  “You know we had a deal, Jerome,” I said. “You know that the partnership with the Reapers exists because of my departure.”

  “Of course, I know that. I ain’t stupid. I got a memory,” he said. “But it ain’t like if you left, things would just go sour. I like Lane. I may give him shit, but I’m just testin’ him. He’s got a good enough head on his shoulders to grow into. We could keep it goin’ without you.”

  I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Lane takes too much personally, and my leavi
ng would turn back the clock real fast.

  “Look, let’s just keep it real, okay?” I said. “I didn’t leave the club because I wanted to make an alliance between the Hovas and the Reapers. That was just a nice side effect. I left because the lifestyle you guys lead, that’s not for me.”

  The flash. The glitz. The showmanship. None of it appealed to me.

  I preferred the subdued manner of the Reapers. Granted, I wasn’t above a little indulgence—the women and the alcohol of both clubs appealed to me. But when it wasn’t a Friday or Saturday night? It wasn’t even close to which lifestyle I preferred.

  “We were young, we were stupid. Hell, we are still stupid, but at least we’re a little less stupid now.”

  I chuckled a bit. Yes, we were quite stupid ten years ago. And the fact we were meeting at a house in a quiet neighborhood versus a strip club or nightclub was light years better.

  “We were so focused on looking like the shit, we didn’t think about what it meant to be the shit, you know what I’m saying? Now, we know what matters, and it ain’t the cars or the girls. It’s brotherhood. It’s what we do, man.”

  I heard Jerome, and I believed it. But...

  “Look, man, you don’t belong over there,” Jerome said. “Let’s call it for what it is. You are the only black man over there. Alright? I’m not sayin’ you’re dealing with a bunch of Klansmen over there, but you know they ain’t your crew. They’re not who you belong with.”

  I wasn’t anywhere close to admitting this out loud, but Jerome wasn’t exactly wrong. The only person that I really connected with to any degree was Patriot, and even that was as more of a big brother. It wasn’t like I could say I had any true friends. I had people I’d kill for and die for, but in a weird way, because of how I felt about them, I didn’t feel like I could be friends with them.

  But if I was going to make any such decision, it wasn’t going to be something that happened tonight.

  “I appreciate the love, Jerome, but it’s all good,” I said. “I’m happy with the Reapers.”

  “Fair enough, brother,” he said. “But the offer is there, and I promise we would welcome you with open arms.”

  He rose from his chair.

  “For now, let’s go kill some fucking Saints, shall we?”

  There was one thing that Jerome had said that was absolutely true.

  The Hovas were no longer interested in the glamour, the glitz, the excessive bling that had defined them when I had been a part of the club way back when.

  Gone was all of that. Gone was the jewelry, the chromed-out bikes, or anything else excessive. In their place was just, well, normalcy. If not for the symbol of the Hovas—two hands held up, with the thumbs and the first two fingers touching each other—it would have looked an awful lot like the Black Reapers coming in.

  And with any luck, we would inflict the same kind of damage that my current club was so good at.

  The ride was much further than the one I was used to, but that was probably for the better. It gave us a greater chance to escape any retaliation, and it gave us more time to account for any unexpected developments along the way. The strategy we had outlined was simple enough—we were literally to do nothing more than take shots at the Saints’ HQ as we drove by. We were going to make at least one pass, maybe two if the Saints were confused, but it was meant to be the kind of signal that would say “the Hovas know you’re behind this, and this shit is going to stop.”

  We reached their base without any trouble. Jerome, at the front, cut off his bike when we made the turn in. There was one Saint outside smoking a cigarette, who peered into the darkness, trying to see what was going on.

  “Light these fuckers up!” Jerome yelled, loud enough that anyone who was within earshot could have heard him.

  A stream of bullets landed onto the Saint smoking and the building outside. The man fell dead instantly as we emptied our clip. It was impossible to say if we were killing anyone else within, but any other deaths were nice, not necessary. The Saints were clearly not expecting an assault because we didn’t even have a need for a second pass. We used up all the ammo we had brought before we drove off in a triumphant roar.

  Granted, on the way back home, we were very cautious about making sure that we were not being followed. We kept a tight circle, with me and Ty dropping to the rear frequently to keep an eye out, but the Saints didn’t follow us. I think we had struck them so viciously and so unexpectedly that they were more concerned with regrouping.

  Retaliation would come. It always did. But it was nice to land a blow that the Saints didn’t have prior intel on. Perhaps next round, I could let Lane inform one of the members and see if anything got leaked.

  When we returned, the Hovas there broke out bottles of vodka to celebrate. But I used that as an excuse to slip out in a way that I thought was undetected. I got to my bike before Jerome stopped me.

  “Hey, man, hey,” he said. “We appreciate your presence tonight. You need any help, you got it.”

  I nodded and clasped his hand with a tight grip.

  “Ditto,” I said.

  “You think about what I said.”

  I didn’t say a word as I drove off.

  Which Jerome knew well enough meant that I wasn’t saying no to his offer. Not yet, at least.

  Rose

  Two Weeks Later

  I think I had overestimated how LeCharles had felt after our meeting.

  He had never sent me a message. He had never said a word to me since. If I didn’t know any better, it would have been as if LeCharles didn’t exist anymore.

  For the first long weekend, I just figured he needed time to process everything. During the weekdays, I distracted myself enough with work and imagined he had his own club commitments that I didn’t mind it as much, though it was starting to wear on me. Once the prior weekend had come without a reply, though, I got so stressed that I felt no choice but to give up what we could have had.

  It didn’t feel possible to recoup it. For over a week to go by and him to say nothing? LeCharles wasn’t someone who went slow when he needed to think on something. He acted decisively and with vigor. So if he hadn’t said anything by now...

  By Monday, although a small part of me still held out hope, I ultimately gave up the notion that he was going to reach out. I didn’t know how I was going to date in a town this small, so instead, I decided to look forward to, corny as it sounded, dating myself. And that started with checking my bank account Friday morning to relish the first paycheck that would hit my bank account.

  I didn’t have to work today, so I didn’t set an alarm, but even so, I still found myself waking up just at the crack of dawn. Immediately, it was time to see what had hit my bank account, which could finally give me some relief. I could go furniture shopping, I could go clothes shopping. I could get Shiloh some better food and equipment... I could do so many things that I hadn’t done yet! I could make it so that my life wouldn’t be a complete and utter shit show!

  That was the hope, at least.

  I held up the phone to my face, confirming visual identity. I opened my bank app and reconfirmed it. I waited for it to load.

  And there it was.

  A deposit for…

  Under nine hundred dollars.

  Had I done my math right? I hadn’t put myself down for any 401(k) withdrawals, as I needed money more than I needed retirement. I thought I’d put myself down for some federal withholdings, but...

  I stared at the number—eight hundred eighty-six dollars and twenty-three cents.

  What in the actual fuck?

  I knew money would be tight. I knew that I wasn’t going to have a lot of room to operate.

  But considering I was only going to make just over seventeen hundred dollars for the month, and nearly eleven hundred of that went to rent, and then I had debt to pay off…

  How the fuck was I going to make this work? It wasn’t just a matter of “oh, I need to be more careful with how I spend my money.” I ba
rely had any money to be careful with! And now it was even less than I had anticipated!

  This was an unmitigated disaster. I had gone from someone in her early twenties who dreamed of making six figures as a doctor someday to someone who was now in her early thirties, making a joke of an hourly figure as a vet tech. I was horrified. I had hit some emotional rock bottoms before, but this was pretty damn well close to financial rock bottom.

  How was I ever supposed to make myself stable? How was I ever supposed to be in a spot where I could save money and not have to live paycheck to paycheck? And I wasn’t even fucking living in a good place! I was in a small town on the outside of Los Angeles in a crappy apartment that probably had more actual convicts than a local prison did.

  What. The. Fuck!

  Was my life that much in a shithole now? Was I reduced to... to this?

  I tossed my phone away from me. It sounded like it flipped a few times on the floor, but what did it matter? I didn’t deserve a phone like that. I was too poor and undeserving of it.

  “Goddamnit,” I muttered. “God fucking damnit.”

  Shiloh peered into the room, gently pushing the door open with his face. He looked at me with concerned eyes and perked up ears.

  “I can’t, Shiloh, I can’t,” I said, feeling tears starting to form in my eyes. “I’m sorry. I failed. I fucking failed, okay?”

  I felt tears streamind down my cheeks. Everything I’d touched in the last decade had, instead of turning to gold like the Midas Touch, had turned into rotting decay. The only thing that I hadn’t touched with that effect was this wonderful dog, and at the rate things were going...

  I refused to allow myself to think like that. It was too hard. I didn’t want to imagine a world without this beautiful boy. He was really all I had left.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said through sobs.

  Shiloh, though, seemingly knew what to do. He jumped up on the bed, crouched into a forward lean, and pressed up against me. I kissed him and gave him a belly rub, but it didn’t stop the tears. I didn’t know how a dog like him could have such unshakable faith in me when I didn’t even have faith in myself.