AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I made my way out of the garage, eyeing up the bikes as I walked down the front yard.
I could have taken the SUV.
A part of me wanted to.
And it would have been a fuckuva lot easier to hide the gun in an SUV.
But I hadn’t been on my bike since the attack, and I would be fucking damned if I let some fuckheads scare me off of it because of one bad night.
I’d been riding bikes since I was literally a fucking toddler. A fact I had to swear to my father that I would never tell my mother.
Just like she wasn’t supposed to know he’d given me my first beer at fifteen, toasting me with his own beer for beating the shit out of a guy at school who wouldn’t stop running his damn mouth.
I’d been gentler in those days than my brother, a guy who never missed a chance to escalate a side eye or snide comment into a full-on brawl. And once he was out of school, there was no one threatening everyone away from me anymore. I had to stand up for myself.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to get to doing it. And if the bastard hadn’t started in on my big sister running away, I might have kept letting it slide.
But I’d still been raw about her leaving myself, so I took all that hurt, turned it into hard, and leveled that asshole.
Pops was proud.
And it was the first time I ever thought that maybe I could be a biker after all.
I didn’t thrive on the chaos like Fallon did, but some part of me had enjoyed the fight. Even if I lost a permanent tooth in the process. Dental implants could be acquired. The pride of that fight would live on forever.
And no one ever fucked with me again.
I didn’t like the way my stomach tightened as I sat on my bike, the way adrenaline started to flood my veins.
So I went ahead and allowed my mind to wander to before the attack. To having Lexy wrapped around me on the bike, the feel of her pressed up against me, those stirrings of interest that had been buried for so long.
By the time my mind was drifting toward the couch, to her lips on mine, the soft sounds of her sighs in my ears, I realized I was already pulling past that bar from my birthday, having made the twenty-five minute drive completely on autopilot.
Not smart.
When I was driving with a fucking illegal gun strapped to me.
How many cops had I passed on the way?
I slowed and glanced around, but saw no one following me.
Taking a deep breath, I turned into the lot of the bowling alley.
If it weren’t for the cars in the lot, I’d have thought it was still abandoned as fuck. Because the outside was a disaster. The pavement was cracked, weeds peeking out of the spaces between. The parking space lines were bleached away by the sun ages ago. The stucco on the building itself was uneven and crumbling.
But the open sign was on.
And, clearly, people were around.
Likely a bunch of parents sick of their restless kids at home during their summer vacation, and wanting a break from outdoor summer activities.
At least with bowling, they had air conditioning.
Taking a deep breath, I dropped my helmet on my seat, then made my way toward the door with so much privacy film on the glass that you couldn’t see shit inside until you pulled the door open.
It was dark inside like all bowling alleys are, the lights mostly of the neon track variety, the carpets and walls dark, and the only real light coming from the lanes.
There was the crash of balls hitting pins, some random pop station bumping from the speakers, and squeals of contented children all around.
The odd mix of popcorn, hotdogs, and shoe disinfectant lingered in the air as I stopped to look around, having no fucking idea where I was supposed to be going.
“Yo,” a voice called, making me turn to see a guy emerging from a door to the side of the main entrance.
Nice suit.
Red hair.
That aura of confidence that came from being involved with an established criminal organization.
This had to be one of Cian’s guys.
“Got something for Cian O’Donovan,” I said, patting the area under my arm where the gun was situated in its holster.
He glanced to my hand, then my cut, and nodded.
“Follow me,” he said, leading me along the line of the lanes, past the shoe rental, concession stand, then into the square nook where a mini arcade was set up. Pinball machines, foosball, table hockey, a ride-on motorcycle game, one of those dance machines, and a photo booth were all occupied by kids with lots of energy and their parents’ money.
