He was way off-balance, having put everything he had into that charge. I was forced into a spin, my own twist taking me around a full three hundred and sixty degrees to land outside of his range; my baton swinging, hard. It was a black blur, my foot stomping to plant a blow to his head.
I hit his temple with the baton.
He collapsed, instantly.
It was over—with Yak down, the fight was over.
I staggered to my bike. Braced my hand on it, tossed the baton to the ground and pressed a hand to my bleeding ribcage.
I saw Charlie tear herself away from the bartender. “Stay over there, Charlie,” I called. “Don’t need to see this.”
She ignored me. Stepping over bodies, blanching at the sight of limbs bent the wrong way, blood everywhere, she prepared to take her shirt off, grabbing it by the hem.
I snagged her wrist with my good hand. “Much as I’d appreciate a gander at your big ol’ titties again, Charlie, this ain’t the time.”
“For your wound, you idiot.”
I pointed at the saddlebag. “In there. Got a spare T-shirt. Use that, not your own.”
She fished it out and pressed it to my wound, holding it tight. She pulled it away to peer at the damage. “You need stitches.”
“Nah, fuck that.”
She was shaking all over. “Crow, you’re very badly cut.”
“Stitches mean questions.”
Leif was on the phone as he stood in front of the door, barricading it to keep onlookers inside.
“What are you going to do, then, just bleed everywhere?”
I moved around to the other side of the bike, dug in my other saddlebag, and found the roll of duct tape I keep there. I folded the T-shirt into a thick rectangle and pressed my hand against it, and had Charlie wrap the duct tape around my middle, tight and bracing.
“There. Good as new,” I said when she was done. I faked a breezy grin and tone I didn’t feel—that shit hurt like a motherfucker, but I wasn’t about to show that to her, though. “Come on, babe. Let’s ride.”
I popped my helmet on my head, clipped it. Plopped hers onto her head, clipped it on. Collapsed my baton, tossed it into the saddlebag, and swung on. Dug my key out of my pocket and started the bike.
She was staring at me, and then she turned to look at the pile of limbs and bodies. “Crow…”
“We gotta go, babe.”
“What about them?”
“He’s got it,” I said, gesturing at the bartender.
“What about the authorities? Shouldn’t we wait to make a statement?”
I shook my head. “Not how shit like this works, babe. Not in this world. Not for me.”
She swung on, hesitantly. I could tell she was scared. Shaken by what I’d done. By the whole scene. She glanced at Yak, who wasn’t moving. At all.
“Is he…?”
I twisted the throttle more aggressively than I needed to. “Don’t know, don’t care,” I shouted over the roar of the engine and the screech of the tires. “Not my fuckin’ problem.”
Not sure she heard that last part, drowned out as it was by the noise and the wind. She held on tight, and I put the hammer down, hauling ass back to the freeway and hitting it at about Mach one. She was shaking, her fingers digging into my chest.
“C-Crow?” Barely able to get a breath out. “Please. S-slow down.”
I glanced at the speedometer and realized I was doing ninety-five, and this was her first time on a bike. I slacked off on the accelerator. I had to make a call anyway.
I slowed, pulled off onto the shoulder, leaving the engine idling and propped us up with both feet as I tugged my helmet off and pulled my phone out of my jeans. I dialed Tran’s number—which, a long time ago, I’d hoped to never have to call again.
It rang, once, twice, three times. “Crow.”
“Hey, Tran.” I swallowed hard. “How ya doin’, bud?”
He snorted. “Only reason you’d call me is because you’re in some shit. So cut the crap and tell me what you need.”
“I fuckin’…I messed up, man.”
“Again?”
“There was eleven of ‘em, and my old lady was watching.”
“You got an old lady?”
“It’s recent. And she ain’t from the life, you know?”
“Shit. She saw it?”
“Yeah.” I growled. Then I paused as I waited for a bunch of traffic to pass. “It was bad, man. Eleven of ‘em.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Fucker creased my ribs, but nothing some duct tape won’t fix.”
“This wasn’t just fists, then.”
“Had my baton, just because there was so fuckin’ many of ‘em. I tried to keep it from going that way, man. I did.”
I heard him sigh. “I know it.” A pause. “Where?”
I pulled the phone away, put it on speaker, and digitally shared my location with him. “Little dive bar off the freeway. Not sure what it’s even called.”
“Denver area, though.”
“Outside it, yeah.”
“Myles got a show there, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, well, I know some folks. I’ll make some calls, get this taken care of so it don’t blow back on you. With a previous manslaughter on your record, you can’t afford to get made for this.”
“No shit, Prez.”
Fuck, it was still on speaker. Fuck, fuck, fuck. No point in turning it off now that was out of the bag. I felt Charlie stiffen behind me. But I had to finish talking to Tran. God, this was bad. End of the road for Charlie and me, that kinda bad.
I was silent too long, apparently. “You’re awful quiet, Crow.” Tran was wicked smart. “She didn’t know, did she?”
“Not yet, no.”
“And she’s on the back of the bike, listening, ain’t she?”
“Yep.”
“An’ if she ain’t from the life, that shit is probably not gonna fly over too great, is it?”
“Probably not.”
“Name?”
“Charlie Goode.”
Tran raised his voice. “Listen to me, Charlie Goode. Crow is a good man. One of the best I’ve ever met. Don’t let this shake you. He does what he gotta do, but it ain’t all of him, okay? So try not to hold this against him.”
Charlie nodded.
“Tran can’t hear a nod, babe,” I murmured.
“Yes, I hear you,” she said. “Thank you.”
“She’s freakin’,” Tran said.
“It was a mess, and this is a shock,” I said.
“Go. Deal with it.” A pause. “Word of advice from your ol’ Prez, Crow-bro?
Crow-bro. Haven’t been called that in a while. “Sure.”
“Take it off speaker.”
I did. “All right.”
“She’s gonna run, brother, and you just gotta let her go. If she ain’t from this life, she won’t get it. She’ll need time to process it. And you can’t force it. Don’t mean you gotta let her go forever, but you gotta give her time.”
“That what happened with you and Mahalia?”
“Sorta. She wasn’t from the life, but she wasn’t soft, either.” A moment of silence. “How soft is she?”
I laughed. “She’s from Connecticut. She’s got a double major from Harvard.”
“Yale,” Charlie corrected from behind me.
“Yale, my bad. This is the first time she’s been on a bike, and she was raised not to curse.”
He laughed again, whistling. “You snagged yourself a real nice piece of silky soft, didn’t’cha?”
“Yes, sir, I did.” I sighed. “Hopefully that’s not past tense.”
“All right. I gotta make those calls. Just be cool, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you, Tran.”
“You’re family. You may be out, but you’re still Coyote’s boy, and you still earned your patch and your tattoo. You got no worries, my man.”
We hung up, and I pocketed the phon
e, sat in silence for a moment, the bike rumbling between my thighs.
I didn’t try to look at her, couldn’t. “So.”
She had her hands on my shoulders. Wrapped them around to hold on to my chest. “How far to Denver?”
“An hour or so.”
“Just…go. I need to think.”
“Okay.” I hesitated. “Remember the second thing I told you back there, yeah?” I paused. “Don’t be scared of me, no matter what you see me do.”
She didn’t answer.
I put the bike in gear and pulled away, heart thumping.
Knew we shoulda toughed it out instead of stopping. But then, I also knew that record of mine was gonna make trouble. A sweet, soft, smart, sexy, safe woman like Charlie Goode, and a hard-ass orphan biker with manslaughter on his rap sheet, and nowhere to call home…I didn’t stand a chance.
We reached Denver late, well after sunset, found the venue, and pulled up near the tour bus. I shut the engine off, put the kickstand down, and swung off. Charlie already had her helmet off and was sliding off.
“Charlie.”
She shook her head. “I need some time, Crow. I’m sorry.”
“Knew this would fuckin’ happen.”
She stopped, spun around on a dime. “You killed a man, Crow.”
“There were fuckin’ eleven of them. He had a fuckin’ knife, Charlie, and he wasn’t plannin’ on fuckin’ ticklin’ me with it.”
She gulped. “I know that, but—”
“You’d rather I let him stab me? You think you’re shaken up now? If I’d gotten stabbed in that fuckin’ rathole, and you were there on your own with a pile of fucked-up bodies and no way to get anywhere? That would have really messed up your day, sweetheart.”
“I know, I know. I just…” A helpless shrug as she ran out of words. “I don’t know anything right now, Crow. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, it’s not that. I’m just…” She trailed off, shaking her head, swallowing hard.
I glanced to the left, where the bus was. We had an audience: Myles, Lexie, Jupiter, and a cluster of road crew—they all must have only recently gotten here, since they hadn’t scattered for free time yet; the show wasn’t till tomorrow, so everyone got tonight and part of tomorrow off, until set up and sound check.
“Ya’ll enjoying the show?” I snarled. “Fuck off.”
The crew vanished, but Myles, Lexie, and Jupiter remained.
Myles caught me in a hug. “You okay, bro? You look like you took a walloping.”
I shook my head, pushed him off me. “I’m fuckin’ fine.”
Lexie stared at me, at Charlie. “What the hell happened?”
“There was a fight.” Charlie was whispering. “It was my fault.”
“The fuck it was,” I growled. “It was that asshole, Yak.”
Lexie snorted. “Yak?”
“You’d be proud of your sister, Lexie,” I said. “The dude was shit-talking her, called her sweet tits. She slapped him so hard his mama probably felt it, and then kneed him in the balls, not once, but three times. Took down a six-foot-six dude who weighed more than both of us combined.”
“Wish I’d been there to see it.”
“That part was pretty awesome,” Charlie agreed.
“What came after was pretty awesome too,” I murmured, low enough only she could hear me.
She blushed. “Stop,” she hissed.
I laughed. “Not what you were sayin’ then, baby.”
She stiffened, and I knew then that I’d lost her. “Crow—”
I remembered Tran’s words. “Charlie, what was I supposed to do? That wasn’t a situation I could walk away from. They had my bike surrounded.”
“He’s dead, Crow.”
“Better him than me,” I snapped. “And it was him or me. You were there, darlin’. You know that.”
“I just don’t know if I can do that life, Crow. I’m okay being a little on the wild side.” She was facing me, suddenly forgetting our audience or her embarrassment, gesturing angrily. “Sex in a public bathroom? Sure. It was the most fun I’ve ever had, and the best sex I’ve ever had, by several orders of magnitude. I’d do it again. In fact, I kind of want to. But brawls and knife fights? Watching you get beaten up by almost a dozen men? Watching you…just destroy them like they’re little children? Some of those men will never walk without a limp again, will never be the same. One of them has permanent brain damage, I guarantee you. And Yak is dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish, sure. He was bad man, and he would have killed you and raped me. Again, I get that. I do. But that’s way far beyond being a little on the wild side.”
“Charlie—”
“And you have a record? Manslaughter? When were you going to tell me that?” She paused. “Did you go to jail?”
I sighed. Paced away. Stuffed my fists in my jeans pockets. Braced a shoulder against the side of the bus, leaning against it. I felt her behind me. Waiting.
“Two years at Florence. Maximum security prison in Arizona.” I rubbed my scalp, felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. “Manslaughter.”
“So this is the second time.”
I nodded. “The first time…” I sighed. “Don’t really wanna tell that story. Not sure I can.”
Myles spoke up, “Charlie, listen to me, please. Crow is more than my best friend. He’s more my family than anyone blood ever could be. Don’t make him tell that story. It was…bad. And not his fault.”
She was silent a while. “Myles—you tell it then.”
I looked at her.
“Sure,” I growled. “What the fuck ever. But on the bus, not out here.”
Myles groaned. “Shit, I don’t wanna relive that either.” He met her eyes. “Not gonna change anything, Charlie. He’s still the man you know.”
“One who’s killed two people.”
Oh, sweetheart. If only you knew. The one-percent tattoo on my arm isn’t about the manslaughter charge. That’s a tattoo I had to earn the hard way.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well scare her all the way gone.
I stomped up onto the bus, yanked a bottle of Johnnie Blue from the cabinet, and cracked it open. I swigged long and hard, till it burned, and then some more. Plopped down on a couch, popped open my guitar case and gingerly drew out my guitar—the one River Dog and I had made together.
I began plucking strings, fingering a melody, something I’ve had floating around my skull for days, now.
Myles, Lexie, and Charlie followed up onto the bus, and I knew Jupiter was going to park his ass outside the door and stand guard.
I paused in my playing, took another drink. I’d need it to get through this.
Charlie didn’t sit by me—she sat next to Lexie, facing me, eyes sad and scared and confused. Watching me play.
“Did River Dog make that guitar?” she asked.
I nodded. “Me and him. The last thing we did together before he died.” I traced the grains in the wood. “This is Brazilian Rosewood. Super rare, super exotic. Him and Mammy traveled to Brazil and bartered services for enough wood to make one guitar.”
“I know nothing about guitars, but it’s beautiful.”
I laughed. “He wasn’t famous. But in custom guitar circles, he was well-known. Getting your hands on a River Dog Custom is the holy grail for high-end collectors.” I patted the guitar. “This one? I mean, to me it’s invaluable because of the memory, the sentimental value. But to someone else? Shit, this thing could go for…thirty grand, easily, probably closer to forty.”
She blinked. “Wow. I had no idea.”
“He’ll never make any more, obviously, and their quality is second to none.”
Myles laughed. “I’ve known Crow my whole life, and was half raised by River Dog, and I don’t have one of his guitars.”
“Oh.”
Gesturing to Crow, Myles said, “I been after his ass for years to try his hand at making one, but he won’t.” He sounded easy breezy, but his eyes were shuttered. “You want a drink, C
harlie?”
She shook her head. “No. I want the story.”
“Why?” Myles asked.
“I need to know.”
“You won’t sleep for a week, I’m warnin’ you.” He stared her down, gave her a rare glimpse at serious Myles. “And it won’t change anything. He is who he is. It’s history.”
I took another pull. “Just tell her, Myles.”
“Everything?” He sounded skeptical.
“Everything.”
“You had enough?” he said to me, gesturing at the bottle.
“Hell no.” I handed him the bottle. “I’ll share, though.”
He accepted the bottle and took a swig, handed it back. “All right, well, here we go. I’m guessin’ he’s given you the broad outlines of his life. Dad and Uncle founded AzTex MC. Those two were matches and dynamite, Coyote and Na’ura. Your mom was a badass bitch, man.”
Lexie bristled. “Myles.”
I cut her off. “That would have been the greatest compliment you could have given my mother. Don’t go taking offense on her account. She’s dead anyway.”
Myles chuckled. “One time, we were, what? Eight? Nine? She’d brought you and me and Tania to a pizza place. Had her leather on with the club patches an’ everything, but since she had us, she was driving a truck. No clue where she got it. But anyway, she had us, the three of us, loud and wild youngsters all crazy on Cokes and gummy bears. And these four college douchebags started talking shit about us for being out of control brats or some shit. Na’ura didn’t like that.”
I had to laugh. What a memory. “Mom gave those assholes a thrashing I guarantee you they never forgot.”
“With a pizza tray. One of those metal ones they serve pizza on, you know? She whupped ‘em up one side and down the other, till the manager begged her to stop. Those little bitches ran off crying. The manager probably would’ve tried to kick us out, if not press charges, but he’d seen Mom’s colors and knew better than to fuck with the old lady of an AzTex patch.”
Charlie offered a small smile. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was,” I said.
Myles sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about this, Charlie. I had to do Skype sessions with a therapist for weeks to get past this shit. I do not want to unbox it all.”