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Chapter 1
Ajax
The casino is electric. The dressed up warehouse might as well be the Bellagio gaming floor the way our patrons are enjoying themselves. From the sidelines, I survey the action before diving in. A crowd buzzes around the craps table, excitement centered on a local realtor throwing hot dice, one of our top customers. A more laid back hand of poker unfolds at the far end, a cloud of cigar smoke hovering above the table. I spy our prez, Tate, seated there, his new fiance at his side. Over at the bar, Wolf’s sister Stacy keeps the party lubricated, adding panache to her bartending duties with hypnotic shaker spinning.
You’d never guess from the inside that our casino is illegal, operated by the Devil’s Right Hands motorcycle club. The warehouse sits on a quiet, industrial block shared mostly with abandoned factories and storage facilities. On the outside, it’s a dilapidated pile of bricks and dusty windows. Yet, make it past Braddock at the front door, and you enter gambler’s paradise.
An arm drapes itself across my shoulders. “What’s the game plan tonight?”
I turn my head to see Rocco grinning beside me. A smattering of stubble dots his jawline. I rub my finger along his cheek. “What’s this? Trying to look like the rest of us?”
He brushes my hand away. “Thought I’d try a new look tonight. What do you think?”
I chuckle. “I think clean-shaven works best for you, but I’m sure you’ll still pull tonight.”
“Bet your ass I will.” He scans the room. “Plenty of fine women around.”
I nod, tracing the same path his eyes took. He’s not wrong, we always manage to populate our casino nights with gorgeous women. They dazzle in their short, colorful dresses, all dolled up and ready to mingle.
Any other night, I’d get a little charge out of their display, but something in me isn’t feeling it tonight. Which is weird. I’m usually the life of the party. I’ll be expected to inject a critical dose of energy as the vibe in the room flags closer to morning.
Right now, though, I feel like I need a little myself.
“Rocco, why don’t you get us a couple drinks to start off, huh?”
He nods and dutifully runs off to the bar. Rocco’s like my little brother, the two of us cut from the same cloth. At twenty-six, though, he’s got a ways before our party lifestyle catches up to him. At thirty-two, I think perhaps I feel its attraction waning. That would explain my slump this evening.
“Not feeling so perky?” Wolf appears beside me, having just entered from the parking lot. I want to ask him two things. First, how he always manages to sneak up on me; and two, if it’s that obvious.
Instead, I lie. “Feelin’ alive, Wolf, ready for another raucous night of high stakes and no limit gambling.”
He smirks down at me, the tallest member of our MC. It serves him well as our chaplain, too, imbuing him with a fatherly presence. Wise but not wizened. “Bullshit,” he says. “How long have I known you, Rocco? Since before you joined this MC, that’s at least a decade. Haven’t you figured out you can’t hide from me by now?”
“Maybe I thought I could summon the excitement if I sounded like I already had it.”
“Bit of a pattern lately, huh?”
I suppose it has been. I think back to nights in the preceding weeks, occasions I would ordinarily have reveled in the carousing atmosphere of our clubhouse, or our bar, the Rusty Chain. Instead, I wound up more like Hunter, the introverted intellectual, who I notice presently occupying the stool at the farthest reach of the bar, alone. Perhaps that makes him happy. It makes me anything but. “I don’t know what it is, Wolf.”
“I could wager a guess.”
“Start your wagering here, then, before you hit the tables.”
“You’re getting older. A playboy’s prime years are his twenties, and you’re thirty-three now.”
“Thirty-two,” I correct.
“Close enough.”
“If I’m thirty-three, you’re fifty.”
He cracks a grin. “I’ve still got two wonderful years of my forties left to savor. But you know what? When fifty rolls around, I’ll embrace it.”
“Even as your knees start to ache, your back screams out in pain, and your mind starts to go, old man?”
He chuckles. “Each one of those arrives in tandem with a gift from age. The trick, Ajax, is that you have to learn to accept them together.”
“Like so many of our chats, I’m sure your words will echo between my ears until they make sense, but right now, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
