“Fuck you,” Jinx says.
“Careful,” Kai says. “There’s a line between a difference of opinion and blatant disrespect for an officer of the club. You don’t get to sit on your ass and do nothing because you turned fifty and got bored. You don’t get a payout of money that other men stepped up and earned. You want the patch, you continue to earn it. Every month. Every year.”
I cross my arms. “You miss a shift in the next thirty days, you’re going onto a six-month probation.”
“Probation?” Jinx asks, his eyes wide.
“You heard him,” Kai says. “And it’s generous, because I’d vote to yank your patch in a heartbeat for your disrespect alone. Your salary will be halved.”
Jinx lowers his face into his hands. “And what if I don’t show up at all?”
I grab his chin and force him to look at me. “Then you got a week to pack up and get the fuck out of here before I come looking for you with a blowtorch to burn that ink off your fucking body.”
Jinx shoves out of my grasp. “Fine. I’ll show up.”
“It starts now,” Kai says. “Get your ass dressed and get yourself over to the clubhouse for your shift.”
“Catfish is standing in for you until you get there,” I say, taking a step away from him. “And you’d better be fucking apologetic when you see him because he was pissed at you when we left to come find you.”
Kai taps my shoulder, the sign that we’ve done enough, and we walk back to our bikes. “You think he’ll show?” he asks.
I throw my leg over my bike. “Kinda hoping he doesn’t. Might be fun to have someone to torture.”
“I haven’t forcibly removed someone’s ink in years. You remember Jonathan Paltrow? Sidekick?”
“That sick fuck crossed lines even bikers never cross,” I say, thinking of the loner biker and former friend of Kai’s who deceived everyone. “You shouldn’t have had to do that on your own.”
“It was before I met you.” Kai looks at me, and I can see the uncertainty in his eyes. “Are you ready to talk to me, now?”
“Let’s take a ride, first.”
Kai looks back over to Jinx’s house, and when he realizes Jinx can’t see us, he reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “Okay.”
We head back to the clubhouse, the road winding between the pine trees and scrub. It’s cold. Probably too cold for my knuckle joints. But I’ve been hankering for a long ride since the first real snowfall last year.
“You wanna go for a ride up Heeney Road to the reservoir?” I ask, thankful our helmets are mic’d up. “See how far we can get if the snow’s gone over there.”
It’s one of the things I love about mid-April here. It feels like spring in town, but it’s still winter up in the mountains.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Kai says.
It’s gonna take us at least an hour, maybe longer, depending on how the conditions change and whether the road has been cleared.
I can’t explain what being on my bike does for me. It’s like freedom and exhilaration seep into my chest, making it feel as expansive as this fucking beautiful view. Hugging the bends, watching the white lines in the middle of the road fly by—all of it is meditative.
Pushing the accelerator, we fly, riding side by side like we have a million times before.
We’re almost there when I see an alert pop up on my phone and notice it’s from the camera software.
“Shit,” I say, pulling over to the side of the road.
“Everything okay?” Kai asks, pulling in next to me.
I take off my gloves and grab the phone from its holder to open the camera app. There are two people, and one of them launches a rock from the front of the property through the window.
“Motherfuckers. We gotta turn around, someone’s breaking into our house.”
“Isla,” Kai says, concerned.
