I didn't answer because he already knew I didn't. The garage was my domain, the one thing in this club that was fully mine, and Tony knew exactly how to threaten it. God, I wanted to punch him so badly.
"Nine a.m.," he said again. "Suspension, front and rear. She's pulling left and the rear shock is blown."
I held his stare for a long second, then looked away. "Give me your keys."
He dug them out of his pocket and dropped them on the bar next to my glass. They landed with a rattle as I reached for mine and slapped them in his palm. "Don't disappoint me, Crank."
Then he grabbed his beer and walked off toward the back room where a few other brothers were playing cards. The bartender watched him go and then looked at me with his eyebrows raised.
"Don't," I said.
"Wasn't going to say a word." He picked up a glass and started drying it, but I caught the look on his face. Everybody in this bar knew the dynamic. Tony wasn't in charge or anything, but he liked to make trouble when we didn't do what he said. And trouble was the last thing I wanted.
I closed out my tab, pocketed Tony's keys, and left before I did something I'd regret. The one good thing that'd come from that interaction was that I was able to put that argument with Sara out of my mind for a few minutes because I was so pissed at Tony, it didn't occur to me that I should be sulking again.
His bike was parked out front, a blacked-out cruiser with custom pipes and a paint job that was scratched up now. I threw a leg over and kicked it to life, and right away, I could feel what hewas talking about. The front end dipped too far when I touched the brake, and the rear shock had no rebound at all. It felt sloppy and loose like he'd taken it on a jump or two. The moron didn't have the sense to respect his own steel.
I rode slowly through town toward my place, and the more I paid attention, the worse it got. The suspension wasn't just worn out. It was beaten to hell, like he'd been running this thing over rough terrain at speed. No road in Grove Hill would do this kind of damage under normal riding conditions. This was what happened when you ripped through fields or unpaved back roads where the ground was uneven and full of ruts.
I pulled into the gravel lot outside my trailer and killed the engine. The sudden quiet was almost louder than the pipes had been. I sat there for a minute, just listening to the ticking of the cooling metal, and then swung off and crouched down next to the rear wheel, almost losing my balance as the whiskey started to really kick in.
There was grass tangled in the spokes and not a little bit. Thick clumps of it, wound around the lower spokes and packed into the gap between the rim and the brake caliper. I pulled some of it out and rolled it between my fingers. It was green and fresh. I checked the front wheel and found the same thing, grass jammed into the brake pads and threaded through the spokes like he'd been riding through a field at full throttle.
I stood up and stared at the bike under the yellow glow of the porch light.
This wasn't like him. Tony didn't go off-roading. He babied this thing like it was made of glass. I'd seen him threaten a prospect for leaning against it wrong. So what the hell was he doingtearing through grass hard enough to shred his suspension and pack his wheels full of debris?
I wiped my hands on my jeans and headed inside. The trailer was dark and quiet, same as always. I dropped Tony's keys on the kitchen counter and stood there in the silence, thinking.
Something wasn't right.
I didn't know what it was yet, but the feeling sat in my gut, and it wasn't going anywhere. Much like the gnawing reminder that Sara had dumped me. I needed to go to bed, and I needed to forget about her.
I just didn't know how yet.
5
SARA
I'd been trying to true the front wheel on my dirtbike for the better part of an hour, and every time I got the spoke wrench lined up, my fingers slipped. Three of the spokes were bent from where I'd clipped a rut tearing through the back field last night, and the rim had a wobble now that would make it dangerous to ride until I fixed it. But fixing it required steady hands, and mine were anything but.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it. Tony's hands wrapped around Mandy's throat, her feet kicking against the gravel behind the dumpster, and the sound she made when she tried to scream but couldn't get the air… I shuddered to think what had actually happened to her. The way Tony came after me, I knew he knew I'd seen it.
They didn’t call him Lightning in vain, either. I had a good mile headstart and he was on me like flies on dog crap while I took off across that field. If I'd have been on a hog, he'd have pinned me down.
The spoke wrench slipped again and I dropped it on the concrete, then I pressed my palms flat against the workbench and leaned into them, trying to breathe through my nose, but it wasn't working.
"Sara," Dad called, and I spun around so fast, I knocked a wrench off the bench. My dad was standing in the doorway of the shop with his arms folded and that look on his face that told me a lecture was imminent.
"You want to tell me why your racing bike looks like you ran it through a corn field last night?"
I picked up the wrench and set it back on the bench, but I avoided his eyes. "I took it out on the back trail. It got a little rough." If I told my dad what really happened, all hell would break loose. It was scary enough to know Tony did something. Dad knowing only put him at risk too.
"A little rough?" He walked over and crouched next to the front wheel, running his thumb along one of the bent spokes. "This isn't trail damage, sweetheart. This is what happens when you're riding too fast over terrain that bike wasn't built for. Those spokes are twelve gauge. You don't bend twelve gauge hitting a few bumps."
"I know. I'm sorry." My cheeks burned, and I pressed my cool fingers to them to hide my shame.
"You were off roading on your race bike."
