Gray
Gray unfurledthe heavy wool blanket and watched it flop against the grass at his feet. The moon was full, and the silver light was bright enough that he could see the expression on his friend Raiden’s face, his brows furrowed in concentration as he listened to the wind. Beside them, a chain fence with barbed wire across the top stretched along the hillside, and beneath, a sprawling mansion sat in the moonlight, waiting.
“You ready?” Raiden asked quietly, cocking his eyebrow.
By way of answering, Gray hurled the blanket upward with a grunt, sprawling it across the barbed wire. He offered Raiden his hand, and his friend stepped right in it as he flung himself over the fence, then leapt to the lawn beneath.
“Come on!” he hissed. “We don’t have all night.”
“You weren’t in such a damn hurry when we stopped at Taco Bell on the way here,” Gray grumbled as he climbed the fence.
The mansion belonged to an asshole they’d been scouting for weeks. Their buddy Horatio had spotted the man at the park, where he had smacked his dog, something that made Horatio mad as a snake tied in a fucking knot. Naturally, he trailed the guy, learning that not only was he loaded with cash, but that he also cheated on his wife like it was his day job, and with girls who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. After that, it didn’t take more than some quick googling to put the rest of the pieces together. From his career ripping off poor immigrant tenants in New York City to his college yearbook reputation as “The Pounder,” the guy had target written all over him.
“Where did you say this guy went for the weekend?” Gray asked. “Florida?”
“Miami,” Raiden answered as they approached the big brick garage, down at the other end of the driveway from the main house. He immediately headed to a gray box by the side door, then pulled out a small device, which he used to connect his phone to the box. “There’s like a convention or whatever down there,” he mumbled as he typed into his phone. “He actually brought his wife for once.”
“A convention,” Gray mumbled, suddenly remembering to lower his voice. He rocked back on his heel and then glanced around the property. He and Raiden were each wearing plain black jackets, black leather gloves, and black wool caps, and they’d positioned themselves right at the edge of the shadow the garage cast.
All the exterior lights flickered; then Raiden disconnected his phone from the box. “All set,” he grinned. “Security system powered down.”
“I’ll text Horatio,” Gray nodded as he pulled out his phone.
Raiden punched a button on the gray box, and immediately, the garage door rolled up with a whirr. He hurried around the corner to pound a switch, and the garage was bathed in a bright white light.
“Holy shit,” Gray said, stepping forward. “You weren’t kidding. That’s a lot of fucking motorcycles.”
“He calls it hismanhood,” Raiden said, spitting the word. “Once I heard that, it was like, what the hell else were we going to do, you know?”
Gray grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Exactly. Let’s go bike shopping.”
The bikes were set up in long rows, each one gleaming its own silver, red, blue, or black. There were choppers with their raked forks, power cruisers that were heavily customized, and sport bikes that looked hungry for the road.
“Which one do you think is his favorite?” Gray asked, tapping his chin.
“That one is from a movie,” Raiden said, pointing at a vintage cruiser.
“What movie?”
“I don’t know. I think it was set in outer space?”
Gray furrowed his brow. “What? Why would there be an old cruiser on a spaceship? There’s no room to ride it!”
“I don’t know, man,” Raiden grunted. “I haven’t seen the movie.”
“Well how am I supposed to know if I want it if you can’t even tell me what the movie was? What if it’s a movie I hate?”
Raiden frowned, then pointed at a sports bike. “If you’re going to be so fussy about it, I guess I should let you know now—that one’s from a TV show.”
“A TV show?”
“Or maybe it was a music video. Did Jay-Z ever ride a motorcycle on a spaceship?”
A rumble interrupted their banter, and a moment later, an old truck with an open bed rolled down the driveway and backed up to the garage. Horatio jumped out, the motor still humming, then shoved his gloved hands in his jacket pocket as he wandered over, cloaked in the same generic disguise as the rest of them.
“Any trouble up front?” Gray asked.
“Nope, all smooth,” Horatio answered. He was taller than Gray, even taller than Raiden, and he cast a shadow out across the driveway as he peered in on the bikes. “We can probably only fit two bikes on the back of this thing, maybe only one if it’s a bigger ride.”
