Chapter 2

The key felt heavier than it should have. It was a single piece of brass and as I put it in my pocket, the weight caused it to sag a little. 

Just as I was about to turn my eyes fell on Luca’s right hand and I froze. 

“Is that… is it…?” I tried to ask by the words stuck in my throat. But I was too sure of what that was. The president’s ring sat on his thumb like a verdict. Silver and thick and the Saints’ crest made it easy to not ignore. I saw him fighting to keep a straight face as I tried to get a hold of myself. 

 “Does that mean you’re the one who gives orders now?”

Luca’s fingers curled, metal flashing like a blade. “It means I know exactly what I can make the boys do to you if you mess this up. One word from me and you’re not riding out. You'll literally be carried out. Remember that.”

His voice was steady, but his eyes weren’t. I saw the kid who used to beg me to stay up late and tell him stories about the road now holding the power to end me with a nod and the reality of it made me uneasy. 

“Then I won’t mess up,” I said.

He didn’t answer. He simply just turned back to the bottles, shoulders tight under the leather cut and me? I left the bar through the side exit, the key burning a hole in my pocket.

………… 

I was under the first bike by 5:47 a.m., before the sun had made any signs of even showing up. The garage bay doors creaked open to gray light and the air felt salty. Oil pans reflected the ceiling like black mirrors and the red Panhead sat in the corner, waiting like a trap. 

The bike in front of me was a ’98 Fat Boy, clutch seized tighter than a fist. I lay on my back on the creeper, prosthetic hand steadying the damage while my right worked on the bolt. The metal was cold but the work warmed me and with every turn of the nut was a muscle memory, the same rhythm Saint had drilled into me at sixteen. 

“Feel the metal, boy. It only talks if you listen.” he had said. 

Jude leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, patch on his chest still stiff with new thread. “I thought ghosts had no importance. Are you gonna make her come alive or just ruin the floor with oil?”

I didn’t look up. “Give me twenty minutes, then come back and decide if you want to pay me or pray for me.”

He snorted, but he stayed to watch. I felt his eyes on my back as I worked on the clutch, replaced the plates and adjusted the cable. When I hit the starter and the engine jerked. I tried again one time and it coughed to life. I absolutely loved the way Jude’s jaw went slack.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Guess the ghost still got hands.”

I wiped my fingers on a rag and moved to the next bike. Word spread faster than smoke and by the time the sun cleared the roofline, three more patched members had drifted in, pretending to check tools while they watched me work. I didn’t behave like I noticed them and I just kept moving, bike to bike, fixing what was broken. Moreover I was told to not speak unless I was spoken to. 

As I bent over my work, something about the air changed. I felt him before I saw him and when he finally came into plane sight, I tried to steady my breath. He stood at the railing with a cup of probably cold coffee in his hand, the ring cutting into his palm hard enough to leave a mark. Sunlight sliced through the dusty windows and caught on my prosthetic, turning it into a blade of light. I didn’t look up, but I knew he was remembering the night he taught me how to torque a head bolt, his small hands guiding mine, Saint laughing in the background.

Two prospects below me whispered loudly. 

“Prez so you’re letting the traitor touch our things?”

“Bishop’s budget again. Prez don’t have a choice.”

Luca’s grip tightened on the railing. I saw it from the corner of my eye. He almost left. Then he stayed, arms folded, watching me like he was waiting for me to fail.

I didn’t. By noon I’d rolled the red Panhead into the sunlight. The paint was faded, but the chrome still winked like it remembered better days. I ran my fingers along the fuel line, tracing the rubber like reading braille. There, under a strip of electrical tape, a hairline slice. It was clean and deliberate and had the kind of cut that would leak gasoline until a spark found it.

My throat closed at the familiar sight. It was the same cut that had killed Saint.

The sound of footsteps as Luca descended echoed the whole garage.. “That bike’s off-limits.” He called. 

I didn’t look up. “Then why is it where I can reach it?”

He snatched the tape from my fingers, peeled it back and took a look at the cut and instantly, his face drained of color, just the way it used to when Saint caught him sneaking cigarettes.

“You’re seeing things,” he said.

“I’m seeing the truth. Same as the night your dad burned.”

He stared at the line, then at me and something cracked behind his eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was grief or rage but he shoved the tape into his pocket.

“Stay away from it.” And he stormed out, the door slamming hard enough it shook the windows.

By midnight, I sat in the tool shed behind the garage, cataloguing spark plugs under a single hanging bulb. The air smelled of gasoline and I could feel my grief staring at my face.  

The door was suddenly kicked open and agitated, I turned to tell whoever the fellow was off but Luca stared at me with wide eyes.

“Bishop says you ran with the cash.”.