Burn Up (Steel Veins Book 2) Read online

  I was invincible back then. A big, swinging dick that could do no wrong. I was in my late twenties with more money and women than I knew what to do with. I was arrogant and reckless. I guess it was bound to come crashing down eventually.

  Eighteen months turned into five years awfully quickly. Prison had a way of taking the fun out of things. Shit that happened outside sometimes needed retaliation inside. Just the way it was. I knew they were going to add time to my sentence when my club needed me to send a “message” to some newly incarcerated Russians about a bad deal.

  Just because I wasn’t wearing my cut, my club’s vest with patches, didn’t mean I couldn’t still feel the weight of the leather on my shoulders. It was a heavy, angry weight that I wasn’t sure I wanted anymore. All that “changed man” shit was just so much parole board review hot air. I knew who I was. Who I’d always be. With so much time to think, I began to wonder if it was all really worth it.

  Lately, it felt like I was jogging up sand dunes. Every step I took was on shifting alliances. It was the same in prison. Make a deal with black, then brown wanted to gut you. Smooth shit over with the Chinese, and you had problems with the Puerto Ricans. It took a fuck ton of maneuvering and effort to stay roughly in the same place.

  Yeah, I was good enough at the game, but I didn’t need it like some of the other guys. I had skills and connections that went beyond the club. I went down this road originally because I loved the thrill of it all. We were bangers. The killings were part of it, a tool like a needle for a junkie, but that wasn’t what got me off. It was everything else. The power. The speed of it all. Fucking heroin to me. Of all the drugs that were available in prison, that wasn’t one of them. And five years was a hell of a detox.

  I coped mostly by reading and working out. I’d packed on a bunch of muscle since getting here. I was stronger, meaner, and way more connected than I’d ever been on the outside. I’d become a monster, a force to be reckoned with. Our prison system at work.

  “Cedro! It’s your lucky day. Let’s go!” The guard stood in the doorway, impatient and pissed off. I paused then finished my last set of pushups. “Before I change my mind!” he spat. Half these sadistic fucks would be on the other side of the bars if they hadn’t been hired as guards.

  Fuck him. I’d waited five years for this. I’d take as long as I damn well pleased. Don’t get it twisted. It wasn’t that I wanted to stay. I was beyond ready to get the fuck out. The thing that no one tells you is that it’s not the confinement that’s the worst part. It’s the lack of control. All the power I had before coming in... it was hard not to feel like that was a different guy. For half a decade, I jumped when they said jump, moved when they said move, ate, slept, bathed, and shit when someone else told me to.

  When that door swung open for me to leave, my sentence fully served, goddamn... that feeling was indescribable. I felt a little like the old me. Like I just woke up from another coma. I was free! Not just from this windowless iron box but free from other people telling me what to do and how to live every second of the day. It was my time now. I was in control. I would always be in control from now on.

  “Later, Junkyard. Be seeing you, man.” My cellmate saluted me lazily from his bunk.

  I looked around the cage one last time at all my worldly possessions. I had a couple books, an additional blanket, and some other odds and ends. I wouldn’t take anything I didn’t have to. My hand absently drifted over my stomach to the three raised scars. I had enough things to remember prison by.

  “Nope.” I cracked a long-overdue smile and lazily saluted back to my roomie.

  With every step down the long, concrete hallways and stairwells, the weight of my obligation became lighter and lighter. I didn’t mind furthering the club’s agenda while inside. I didn’t even mind the added time or the three shivs to the gut that came in retaliation for what I had done. The eye-for-an-eye shit never ended. What killed me was that I was out of the loop completely. Despite all the sacrifices I made, I rarely had visitors to let me know what was up with the club. Not that I was sentimental, but when you got soldiers inside, they gotta know what they’re fighting for.

  I didn’t know if I was ready to hang up my colors for good. Though after this last stint, I was certainly ready to have that conversation. If I decided it was time to leave, it wouldn’t be easy. My lifestyle wasn’t one I could just bounce from without consequences. I knew too much about all the crimes we’d committed. As with everything we did, there would need to be a vote. They could force me to stay.

  The guard had to stop at every pod door, show his credentials, and have me look up at the camera before the buzzer would sound and the door unlocked. With every thick-ass metal door that slammed behind me, my resolve doubled.

  All in all, it took a few hours to go through out-processing and listen to the various threats disguised as encouragement to not come back. They were preaching to the choir. Motherfuckers would see me dead before they saw me in a cell again.

  They threw me some clothes that I’d never seen before. I tried to remember what I was wearing when they picked me up. I remembered and laughed. I was naked. I thought of the two girls, and my balls ached. That was a fun night.

  The door to the control building finally slammed shut behind me. I could see my club brother, Skids, through the two razor-wire topped fences, sitting on his bike, struggling to figure out what looked like a new phone. He had these shitty flip phones for as long as I had known him. Guess he finally joined the twenty-first century.

  I stepped through the side door of the front gate, the last barrier between me and the rest of the world, and beelined for my friend. A sunbeam split the overcast sky and caught me square in the face, stopping me dead in my tracks. Skids was distracted so I took a moment to take it all in, my first deep breath not surrounded by walls or a fence of any kind.

  I howled as loud as I could! Skids was caught so off guard by my yell that he juggled the phone clumsily before it slipped from his hands and smashed onto the ground. He shot up off his bike and cursed like only an old man with a vocabulary coming from years of experience could. Then he realized what had happened and that it was me who had hollered. His dark, wrinkled face lit up into the biggest grin that I’d seen in as long as I could remember.

  “Junk, my boy!” The old man threw me my vest. I barely had time to catch it before he caught up and crushed me in a big, ol’ bear hug. “Jesus, boy! You’re enormous! What the hell were they feeding you all this time? Smaller inmates?”

  “Skids, you beautiful sonofabitch!” I clapped him a few times hard on the back. “Maybe. I was too afraid to ask what the fuck was in that Salisbury steak, man.”

  Seeing my vest again actually made my heart skip a beat. In prison late at night, I often wondered what this moment would feel like. It was the longest I had ever spent without it since the cut was given to me. The top rocker was a white patch with black letters that read “Coffin Eaters.” I’d given so much for those two words and the crossed pine boxes pictured below it. I honestly hoped I wouldn’t feel anything when I saw it again. It was a part of me though, like a limb. I sighed. Sometimes limbs had to be amputated.

  Still, it was damn good to see Skids. He was one of my closest friends in the club. He vouched for me and mentored me all throughout my prospect days. He was old, “always right,” and ornery as a sonofabitch when crossed, but he always had my back.

  “Where’s my bike?” I asked him while looking around. Riding was an addiction I could never kick. It was up there with blinking—it was just something I did. Hardwired into my DNA.

  “You’re riding bitch because you just broke my brand-new phone!” Skids picked up the gadget and shook it at me.

  “Fuck you, old man. I’m bigger than you are.” I smiled and brought my arms up in a flex, showing off my biceps.

  “Put the guns away. We’re still in front of a prison, and we’re two hours late.” Skids checked an antique pocket watch he’d always carried in his vest. “Th
ey couldn’t bear to see you go, huh?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I was a model inmate.” I slapped my hands together in mock prayer. “Pray to Jay-sus!”

  “Oh, I’m sure the Mikhailov brothers would’ve disagreed with you. Put your hands down. Don’t go getting yourself struck by lightnin’ till you buy me a new phone.”

  “I’ll buy you a dozen phones with my cut of the deal with the Russians.” It’d be nice to have a little spending money again. Or a lot. We made a lot of money off that deal, and I was definitely looking forward to my portion. “When we get back to the clubhouse—” I stopped, seeing Skids jovial face turn regretful. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my gut. “Robbie... please tell me we didn’t get burned on this. Not after everything that’s happened.”

  “It all fell apart after your scuffle with the Russians on the inside.”

  “What? Tex told me Miles ordered that hit because the Russians were threatening to back out of the deal.” He told me it was a power play to show them that we weren’t messing around.”

  “Yeah, well something got lost in translation.” Skids pulled out a pack of smokes, packed it, and offered me one. “There was a beef between us and them because of it, and things got bad for a while. We lost some good men.”

  “No.... Who?” I waved it away.

  “J-Rock, Trainwreck, and Smokey.” All three of those guys were in favor of the guns deal we’d put together.

  “Fuck....” I’d keep my suspicions to myself, at least until I was absolutely sure. The word “betrayal” was a loaded gun, one you’d better be damn sure was aimed at the right person.

  “The C.E. is a skeleton crew now. We’re looking to get affiliated with the Iron Legion as a support club!” Skids barked the last few words with no small amount of disdain as he lit the cigarette. He didn’t like the idea at all, and neither did I. The Coffin Eaters came together as a charter because we didn’t want to be anyone’s bitch.

  “Why would Miles let that happen?”

  “It ain’t Miles’s show anymore. Tex forced him out after the deal soured.”

  Skids’s words dropped in my gut like I’d swallowed a fishing hook. “Tex is running shit now? Fuck me.”

  “He saved us. As much as I hate it, his connection with the Legion is the only thing that can pull our asses out of this fire—”

  “The fire everyone thinks I lit....” My mind reeled. Everything seemed to fall into place. There was no message from Miles. I struck first. It explained why I lost my protection inside. It also explained the Russians’ retaliation that landed me in medical for a month.

  Tex, you set me up, you slimy fuck.

  The old man sighed. “Nah, we all knew it was self-defense. Shit just happens in prison. A man’s gotta do whatever it takes to stay alive in there. That’s why we never pulled your patch.”

  “Yeah.” That’s why no one but Skids came to visit. They didn’t trust me. Skids’s usually sharp blue eyes looked a little distant like something else was bothering him. “Something else on your mind?”

  “No more bad news with the club, I promise.” He chuckled, putting his hands up. “Just reconnected with some family recently. Got a lot on my mind is all.”

  “You good?” I gave him a look that said I was listening if he needed to vent.

  “I’m all right, son. It’s nothing but ghosts.” He exhaled smoke from the side of his mouth.

  “Okay,” I replied somewhat hesitantly as I clasped him on the shoulder.

  “It’s good to have someone I trust back on the outside.”

  “About that, Skids. I did a lot of thinking inside, and I need a favor from you. I’m looking for a way out of the C.E.” I watched his expression carefully.

  “What? Junkyboy—” He choked on a cloud of smoke, the cigarette nearly falling from his lip in surprise.

  “I know, I know. I’ve given the Coffins more than my fair share, and I’m young enough that I can still make it work as a civvy.”

  He stared hard at me but didn’t say anything.

  “Robbie, I need to know, man. Will you back me if I bring it to a vote?”

  “You’re breaking my heart, son, y’know that, right?” He put a hand on my shoulder, but he could see my resolve. There was no changing my mind. “Yeah. I’ll back you.”

  “Thanks, Skids. Tell me there’s at least a homecoming party tonight. They don’t hate me that much, do they?” I cracked a light smile, trying to lighten the mood.

  Shit might be fucked up back home, really fucked up, but I was wearing real clothes outside in the sun as a free man! That was a powerful feeling. I would have plenty of time later to work out the Tex thing completely. Right now, all I wanted to do was go home and live. Regardless of what state the club was in, today was a damn good day, and I felt like celebrating.

  “Like they need a reason to get loaded and make a lot of noise? Of course, there’s a party.” His gruff voice started slow and stern, but quickly his demeanor cheered up. A brother getting out of jail, no matter the circumstances, was always a win.

  He tossed me my keys with a grin. “Your bike’s around back, I had Moll drop it off. You need to stop anywhere before we hit the clubhouse?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I called back to him on my way to the parking lot. “I just spent five years in a little box with a bunch of guys, and there’s a party tonight. Take me to a place that sells condoms by the case. I am fucking murdering me some pussy tonight!”

  And there she was. The girl of my dreams. Black and red and chrome and rubber. Heaven on two wheels and manufactured by Harley. I couldn’t stop myself from breaking into a run toward her.

  “Oh Nikki....” I kissed the cool, metal gas tank of my Harley. “Oh, baby, I missed you as much as I missed pussy.” I kissed the tank again and lovingly rubbed a hand over the leather seat. I slid the key in the ignition. My girl eagerly started right up and purred for me.

  “Unhhh! That’s my girl!” I yelled again and kicked the stand back, letting the shocks take my full weight, then revved the engine, making my bike talk to me. “I know, baby, I know. Daddy missed you too.”

  Skids nodded to me, making sure I was good before he took off.

  I threw it in first gear, jacked up on the clutch and brake, and did a burnout with the back tire. The smoke show coming off my rear tire forced a few guards to run out of the control building and yell at me. Maybe that old reckless me wasn’t completely gone after all.

  Before they reached me, I eased off the breaks and clutch, twisted the throttle, and brought the old girl up on just the back tire for a second as I took off.

  “Thanks for everything, Pondville!” I flipped them the bird.

  Today was a good day.

  The familiar compound was setting up when we pulled in, and the party looked like it was just about to kick off. The prospects and hang arounds were filling the coolers and prepping the grills, which were old, metal, oil drum barrels sawed in half with legs welded to them. There were mamas, a few old ladies, and friends of the club already here or pouring in behind us. Despite the lack of familiar faces, as a lot had changed since I was gone, I still missed the hell out of the atmosphere.

  “Junkyard! Back from the dead! Lookin’ good, killer,” Miles called out while he was outside smoking a cigarette when we parked the bikes. He was about ten years older than me, stocky with a light beard and salt-and-pepper hair. He bumped fists with Skids, and we exchanged hugs.

  “Good to be out, Miles.”

  A Toyota Corolla pulled in the lot, idling indecisively as if not sure where or how to park as each club was organized differently and had their own lot rules. It always made it easy to spot someone who’d never been here before. When it finally parked, a conservatively dressed girl, at least for this crowd, stepped out.

  “I’ll catch you boys inside. I’m gonna enlighten the lady as to where she can park her cage. Will be inside inna minute,” Skids quickly excused himself and rushed off to the gir
l, waving off the hang around that had approached the car.

  “You’re too old to fall for jailbait, Skids,” Miles jokingly ribbed the man, getting only a middle finger in reply.

  “Who the hell is that?” I asked. It was hard to make her out in the low light, but as she drew a little closer, I could tell she was cute—very cute.

  “No idea.” Miles offered a light smile then shook his head. “But nothin’ that pretty comes around that ain’t trouble.”

  Radically different than the townie, junkie girls that hung out at the clubhouse, this new girl was something else entirely. Dark hair, light olive features, big almond-shaped eyes, and a tame but exotic flare. She wore a loose, white, silk blouse over a pair of tight jeans that showed off the small curves of her hips.

  She wasn’t a knockout in the traditional sense—all big tits and curves that went on for days. She was compact, tight, and toned like a runner and had an air of confidence that was hot as fuck. I couldn’t contain my budding smile.

  I was looking forward to meeting this girl.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll card her when I get her back to my room.”

  Miles chuckled scurrilously. “Took us a week to clean that room the last time you brought friends home.”

  “I hope you used fire. Otherwise....” I shook my head in feigned fright. “Hey! Speaking of rooms, do I still have one here? What’s the climate like for me these days?”

  “Hate to say it, but you don’t have a lot of friends around here right now.”

  “Figured as much. Tex told me that the order to take out the Russians in prison came from you. After all that we went through putting that together, I’d have never set fire to it intentionally. I’m sorry about how it all went down. I had no idea.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Miles didn’t appear surprised. “It was tense for a few months after the new blood was patched in. When Tex got their support, it was only a matter of time till somethin’ popped up so that he could challenge me. I was pushed out right before you were put in medical. I don’t hold any of it against you. You’ve always done right by me.”