We walked out into the yard together.
Bikes waited. Engines were cold for now, but not for long.
As I swung my leg over the saddle, I caught Liberty watching from the doorway, arms folded, her club at her back.
Two clubs now. Soon, a family’s small army, if Roman decided he was smarter standing with us than alone.
Bolivar and Vincino and Serpents on one side.
Devil’s Aces, Shore Vipers,Giorlandos—whatever the hell we were becoming—on the other.
I slipped my helmet on, started the engine. Valkyrie did the same beside me. For a heartbeat, our eyes met through smoked visors.
Ledger buried. War above ground. Name traded for name.
“Let’s go,” she said.
We rolled toward the gate.
The world outside had no idea yetjust how bad it was about to get.
Fourteen
Valkyrie
By the time the Devil’s Aces compound came into view, the sky over Atlantic City looked bruised.
Not pretty purple-and-gold sunset bruised. Just that flat, exhausted gray that meant night was coming whether you were ready for it or not.
The Aces’ clubhouse sat off the main drag, tucked behind old warehouses and dead lots, close enough to taste the ocean and far enough the tourists never saw it. High chain-link fence topped with razor wire. A heavy gate. Cameras. Dog of a building sitting squat behind it, low and wide and waiting.
Very different from our old factory with its ghosts and graffiti.
Same feeling in the air, though.
Territory.
Jersey Boy rode point, my front tire steady in his mirror the whole way down. We’d barely spoken on the trip. Didn’t need to. The road noise and the war in both our heads did the talking for us.
As we rolled up, two Devils were already at the gate.
One with tattoos creeping up his throat like ivy, patch on his cut said Spade. The other had a smirk built into his face. His patch read Mirage. Both had their guns just low enough to be polite but just high enough to remind you where you were.
Mirage lifted two fingers in a lazy salute when he saw us. “Open up,” he said.
The gate groaned open, and we rolled in.
The yard was full of bikes. Some lined up neat, some abandoned at angles that said their owners had come in too fast and were too focused to care about symmetry. The Devil’s Aces patch was everywhere—on their signature red leather cuts, on walls, painted huge on the concrete as a reminder you were walking on their hallowed ground.
Dozens of heads turned as we pulled in. Conversations stuttered. Tools paused mid-turn.
Jersey’s engine cut out beside mine. For a heartbeat, the sudden quiet around us felt like a held breath.
Then he swung off the bike and there he was again—Evan, Jersey Boy, whatever name you slapped on him—back where he belonged.
Blackjack was waiting.
He stood near the clubhouse steps, boots planted, hands loose at his sides. 8-Ball at his shoulder, arms folded. Behind them, Turnpike, Snake Eyes, and Raptor the baby prospect hovering with too-wide eyes. All the teeth. Jersey—Evan, had given me the run down on everyone in the club. Most were easy to spot before I even read the names on their cuts fromhis descriptions. Turnpike I met already, along with 8-Ball their VP.
