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ChapterOne
Saturday…
Devil’s Seed Motorcycle Club member, Mad Dog, hoped the answer to his dilemma lay at the end of moonlit Mountainview Road. He cruised his Harley toward his destination, the barely-there center line highlighting his twisting route through the valley. The motorcycle thrummed between his thighs, the vibration calming his troubled thoughts. The bike responded to his slightest movement. That was a good thing. He had way too much on his mind.
Dog leaned into the tight mountain curves with two club members, brothers he would trust with his life and often did, in close formation behind him. The air was muggy from a brutal June day but smelled of honeysuckle and cooled his sweat-slicked skin. The roaring engine drowned out the sounds of the night and soothed him. His bike was the only thing he could control in an out-of-control situation. No one should lose a child, even when that child wasn’t theirs by blood.
After many miles, the cracked pavement ended at an abandoned textile mill. Set alongside the French Broad River, the mill was a reminder of better times in Buncombe County. Before companies moved overseas. Before jobs became scarce. Before people had to rely on the feldspar mine and its hazards for income.
It was a perfect place for the night’s events. Broken windows, brick walls wrapped in graffiti, and a bleak air of desolation and despair.
Only, tonight the building wasn’t abandoned. It was fight night. Illegal bare-knuckle brawling at its finest. There was a great turnout. The organizers had done good.
Dog circled the broken asphalt and searched the fifty-plus cars and bikes parked there for ones he recognized. He needed staunch fans with deep pockets who’d show up if he took the fight he’d been offered, a fight that would raise money to help his club brother with a sick little girl whose hospital bills were more than most mortgages.
A fight with an asswipe, Nate Burgess, the competitor he’d come to watch.
Shit. It should be a no-brainer. Accept Nate’s offer to fight next weekend. Beat his ass and take home the high five-figures of cash. End of storyanddilemma. Only, something didn’t feel right. Nate was rising through the fight ranks too fast, defeating opponents he shouldn’t. Dog needed to find out why.
Satisfied the lot held the rides of flush bettors, Dog backed his bike into an empty spot. His brothers, Cutter and Luke, the one with the kid, moved in beside him and killed their engines.
Cutter shed his helmet. A jagged scar on his cheek blazed red from the heat. “You see Hamilton’s car? And Carmichael’s? You know they’re betting on Nate.”
“Who are they?” Luke asked.
This was Luke’s first bare-knuckle match. The man was a computer genius and only fought firewalls around servers, but his five-year-old stepdaughter, Jessie, who was adored by all the brothers, had lupus, some rare shit where her body attacked itself. Her hospital bills were gutting Luke, and she couldn’t get the treatment she needed without an infusion of cash. Dog was considering fighting Nate, for the enormous purseandthe satisfaction.
Dog shucked his helmet and hung it on his handlebars. “I saw ’em. They’ve got deep pockets and love to bet.”
And a good sign for what Dog needed.
It figured there’d be a crowd. Nate brought people in. The spectators didn’t know he was as violent out of the ring as in it, and they wouldn’t have cared if they had. Once fans caught a whiff of blood, they were all in. And bare-knuckle brawls were all about blood—the more, the better—with few rules and no repercussions for a ‘mishap’ that cost a man his life.
Dog cracked knotty knuckles, grateful the warm air kept their near-chronic ache away. “Let’s go see if Nate’s as dirty as they claim.”
He navigated through the vehicles toward the mill, his brothers at his back. Like always.
As they neared the building, the crowd let out a roar. Dog shoved open the door, and the stench of cigarette smoke and body odor stung his nose. Trapped in the room, the heat of the sticky day was causing more than competitors to sweat.
Leftover textile wreckage, bits of rusty looms and wooden pallets, lined the brick walls. At least a hundred men and women, crushed together and craning their necks toward a make-shift ring, were shouting.
“Get up! Get up!”
“Kill the fucker!”
Inside the ring, Naked Snake, a bare-chested contender with a cobra tattooed around his neck, danced foot to foot as the referee crouched beside a downed man. When the ref stood, he snagged Snake’s wrist, shoved a wad of cash in his hand, and raised it.
The spectators’ responded with howls and boos.
The corners of Dog’s mouth tipped up. He’d just won a little cash.
Cutter pushed his way through the throng with Dog on his heels. Nobody touched Dog. He’d made that clear early on. No one touched him except his opponent. If he could.
Tonight, in particular, he wasn’t feelin’ any contact. The heat, the smell—he wanted to see what he needed and get out as quick as possible
The onlookers called out, “Mad Dog! Mad Dog’s here! Why aren’t you in there, Dog? Not the same without you!”
Cutter moved in close. “They’d rather see you than Nate.”
