— Chapter 79 —

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"I did some asking around," Chains told me in the parking lot of Crave. "His name was Dylan Weller. The boys in Mayhem called him Dregs. Thirty-two years old. A retired boxer, from the west end. I knew him, man. He threw a mean right hook."

Nausea settled in the pit of my stomach.

We were barely a few feet from the crumpled lamp pole sitting in the corner of the sidewalk. Shattered glass and metal debris lay scattered all over the gravel. A line of police tape squared off the accident scene from onlookers, but that hadn't stopped people from crossing over to lay their flowers. Someone had died here, and I swore that if I squinted tight enough, I could see the final rays of evening sunlight reflecting off small splatters of blood.

"What have you heard?" I asked.

"He was racing with three other riders around midnight last night. Cops put out an APB on the bikes, but no hits yet." Chains saw me plucking out a cigarette while he explained the situation, and offered me a light. "They're saying Dregs hit about 80 miles an hour before he lost control and hit the sidewalk. Ran through two pedestrians—a young couple—and crashed into that lamppost. Helmet flew off and his head cracked open on the gravel. Onlookers came to help, but... he was dead before the cops even arrived on scene."

I could picture it all too clearly in my head as the smoke flittered from my lips. "And the couple?"

"Both died in the emergency room a few hours later."

Christ.

"Did they find anything wrong with the bike?" I questioned.

"Unlikely." He scratched the back of his head. "Besides, you'd have to dig through a million tiny pieces to find evidence of foul play. The thing's fucking unsalvageable. It's a shame, man. Heard it was brand new."

This doesn't make any fucking sense.

I peeled my eyes around the parking lot. There weren't any police officers around—I didn't expect any to begin with, considering how many hours had passed since the accident. Walking over and hunkering down beneath the crime scene tape, I stole myself a better look at the situation.

Blood.

It was li in drops so tiny that I'd nearly missed them. On reflex, my hand struck out. Crimson liquid invaded clean skin as I smeared the blood with two fingers. The shadow of Chains' figure loomed over me as he watched.

I barely noticed him, too absorbed in the memories flashing into my line of sight.

There's blood on your hands.

A cold shiver tickled its way down the tips of my spine. I kept seeing my hands—mine, but years younger—coated in liquid crimson. My heart clenched; my hands shook. The tremor was strong enough to dust the cinders off my cigarette. Fuck.

I couldn't shake myself out of the daze until Chains muttered, "You think they'd have cleaned it up by now."

Pressing the cigarette to my lips, I pulled in a deep inhale of viscid air and tried to clear my head.

"It doesn't make sense," I breathed. "You said he crashed at 80. Most riders hit double that during these races. If there was nothing wrong with the bike, and nothing came in his way, then... he couldn't have just lost control."

"Oh, yeah," Chains said sheepishly. "There may be one other thing I forgot to mention. Ready to hear the real kicker?"

"I don't have time for this, buddy."

He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "Alright, look. According to some of the boys in Mayhem, Dregs started acting strange a few weeks before this happened. Said he was irritable, reclusive, paranoid. Next thing you know, eyewitness reports are saying that the poor guy was found frothing at the lips, choking and bleeding from the nose, with blown pupils and fingers so blue you could mistake them for popsicles."

I looked up, expression creased into a deep frown.

"Chains, are you trying to tell me he was on drugs when he crashed?"

A quick nod. "Yep. Dregs would've overdosed even if he hadn't struck the pole. Paramedics haven't been able to figure out what he was on." He sighed. "But I've been asking around, man. Dregs never sipped liquor, never did drugs, never even touched steroids. This guy wrote the damn manual on sobriety."

I caught sight of the blood on my fingers again. "Any underlying health conditions?"

"I know he was taking medications for a liver transplant he had a few months ago—the same reason he dropped out of boxing. But other than that, no idea." Chains read into the dread-filled silence I was giving him and realized, "You don't think—"

"Someone gave him Blitz."

The four words forced his eyes wide. "Shit."

"Whoever he got it from must've told him it could help with his recovery," I explained, crushing the butt of my cigarette. "Dregs started taking it a few weeks ago. It had him acting irritable, then he hit his peak on it sometime yesterday. I'm guessing he entered the race fried out of his mind, and... well." I gestured haphazardly toward the crime scene.

The biker beside me let out a heavy breath.

To think anybody would let Dregs race in the state he was in—I couldn't fathom it. But Blitz was the only thing that made sense. And because of it, three families were now mourning their loved ones. Who knew how many more deaths there'd been in the past—how many more there would be.

We're still nowhere closer to solving the problem, I thought, frustrated.

"There's one thing about all of this that I don't get," said Chains. "You told me you were taking this Blitz crap too, right? So... why didn't you react to it like the rest of them, you know? I mean, how come you're not dead or frothing at the mouth?"

"I don't know."

I'd thought about it, of course. I'd spent restless nights racking my brain over it, trying to understand the different possibilities, trying to figure out why I never felt as goddamn horrible on it as everyone said I would. Instead, I kept coming up with more questions than answers. Blitz didn't exactly feel horrible, at least not to me. Hell—for a while, it even worked. No dreams. Nothing. Not even a stray hallucination.

Sometimes it made me weak. Physically weak, like I could barely lift my own arms. And me, who never used to be sick so often, was suddenly sick every other weekend. I used to blame it on the sleeplessness, but the longer I went without it, the less those symptoms lingered.

I didn't know what to think anymore.

A roll of thunder split the air. Moisture hit my hands. One droplet, then two, until the blood on my fingers started to drip down. It's going to storm. The very thought made me shudder—because where there was thunder, there was almost certainly lightning. And noise. Too much fucking noise.

Chains sucked his teeth and grumbled.

"Well, that's fuckin' delightful," he said, shielding his face from the rain. "You okay?"

What difference does it make?

I wiped the blood off against my pants and got to my feet. With a glance to Crave's front doors, I inquired, "Is Tats inside?"

A brisk nod. "Saw him walking in earlier."

"Good," I said, mentally bracing myself for the pounding music that waited inside that building. "I think it's time we paid him a visit."

"Jeez, I must be fucking powdered," someone called from a booth in the VIP section, gesturing over to where Chains and I were ascending a red-carpeted staircase. "Is that Chains I'm seeing? In the flesh?"

Music ricocheted back and forth through my pounding skull. The floor beneath my very feet trembled with the bass that resounded through the two-story building. Lights of every color and intensity blared about a massive space that was thrumming with people. Drunks, dancers, drug-loving bikers. My head ticked like it was seconds away from implosion. All of this was a cocktail of sensory-overwhelming nonsense.

I could spot barely a fraction of the Mayhem boys around the place. They'd clearly taken a hit since the ban came in. Those that were here quickly turned to stare as we approached.

I didn't blame them. It must've been quite a shock to see me out in public considering recent events.

"How you doing, Jackie?" said Chains, greeting the noisy Mayhem biker with a half-assed hug.

"Better, now that I know you're not dead!" Jackie laughed, spit lurching from the missing tooth in the top row of his mouth. "I heard you bit a bullet, man. Bloody fucking hell."

"Not just yet, Jackie," my confidant murmured.

"Hah, that's what I like to hear!" Barely paying attention to the conversation, what I managed to hear went something along the lines of, "What're you doing here, dude? Feening for a good time? Wanna let Jackie take your mind off things? Look, I got about a gram of the magic snow, man. I say we hit the—"

"Nah. I'm good."

Jackie shot Chains a perplexed look. "That's real funny. Come on, man." He nudged the Stray Dog's side and removed a plastic bag from the back pocket of his jeans. Cocaine, no doubt. "Since when have you been one to turn down a good line? Stop acting up."

Hard pass. Chains shoved the intoxicated biker away from him.

"Get that shit away from me," he snarled. Jackie stumbled backward, barely managing not to trip over his own ankles at the force, a face of confusion quickly shattering into one of red-hot anger.

"The fuck?" he spat out, yelling over the music. "What's the matter with you? You lost your damn mind or something?"

Who has the time for this?

"Where's Tats?" I spoke coldly, quickly drawing focus.

"Man, where the fuck do you think?"

Chains clenched his jaw at the brazen disrespect. "Watch yourself."

"Whatever." Jackie scrambled away with his little bag. "More for me."

Biting back a grumble, I rubbed away the throbbing ache in my eyes and headed in the direction of Tats' usual private room. Chains was quick to follow, a looming darkness set on watching my back for me.

A familiar and out-of-place person spoke up when I finally opened the door.

"Took you long enough."

It was a grating voice that made me want to tear the hairs out of my head and slash the marrow from inside my bones. For Christ's fucking sake and heaven above, what in the—

The sight to behold was even worse. Because it was James. James, standing in dress pants and a suit shirt, with his gray sleeves rolled up to the elbows. More than that, it was James with an intricately-carved weapon in his hands. Tats' gun. The same masterpiece that never left the belt of his pants, now being held to the side of the biker's head.

"Come in," said James, checking his silver wristwatch. "There's plenty to discuss, and I'm afraid I don't have much time."

It was taking me everything not to throw myself over the glass coffee table and smash in his goddamn skull. Instead, with rigid anger masked by immense patience, I asked slowly,

"Have you lost your fucking mind?"

Tats sat frozen in the position he'd managed to land himself in. "Edge, you know this guy?"

"Like I said, gentlemen," James reminded us, "I really don't have time for this. You need my help, and as it stands, I don't think you have any other options. So sit down, while I'm still being courteous."

Chains stepped forward, his fists clenched in preparation. I held him back. Glancing toward the weapon in the room, I found myself reconsidering the circumstances.

"Lose the gun," I demanded. A condition of our compliance.

James wasn't so eager to follow through with the request. "The gun is on loan to me by your friend here. He'll get it back when I decide it's no longer useful—assuming he plays nice. I'm not here to make enemies."

"Do I even know you, motherfucker?!" Tats complained.

James, disinterested, turned to acknowledge Chains.

"You," he said. "Out."

An empty laugh left the Stray Dog's sharp teeth. "Is he serious?"

"Completely. I don't know you, I don't trust you, and your miserable existence serves me no purpose." James nodded to the door behind us. "Leave."

But Chains was already pushing up his sleeves for a fight. "Oh, yeah? How about I show you something miserable, you stupid d—"

I stepped in his way, my back facing the gun but my eyes trained over my shoulder. We're not armed. And I wasn't going to risk my best friend being hit with another bullet—especially not under these conditions.

"Watch the door," I instructed him.

Chains' eyes shot open. I could sense his frustration carving valleys in the air between us. "Are you kidding me?" he hissed. I stood firm. When he saw that I wasn't going to back down, he huffed and pinched the back of his neck. "Un-fucking-believable."

He all but slammed the door shut on his way out. My only other line of defense, gone in an instant.

He's safer out there.

I let out a slow breath and inquired into the room, "How did you know I'd come here?"

As if it were obvious, James replied, "It doesn't take a genius to know you're desperate."

"Desperate, huh?"

"A week ago, you lost your uncle. A few weeks before that, your club disbanded. Now the Stray Dogs—whatever's left of them, at least—are under the control of someone working for Midas, a traitor you didn't have the sense to sniff out sooner."

Shooter. The name had been scarred into the front of my brain.

"I know you're fighting a losing battle," James clarified, "and it'll stay a losing battle until you manage to regain some semblance of control. For that, you need help. You need numbers. With that in mind, predicting your next moves was easy."

"Is that right?"

"The Stray Dogs have always had a close connection to Mayhem. It's how you've been able to maintain order in Boston for so long." He tilted his head, unimpressed. "I figured it wouldn't be long before you came running for their help. All you needed was a wake-up call, and well... I'd say the death of three people is pretty damn eye-opening."

I turned around.

"Alright, so you've cornered me." My hands dangled lazily in the air, a sarcastic gesture of surrender. "What exactly do you want?"

It'd better be worth my time.

"I want Midas dead, same as you. And right now, we might be the only two people in this entire godforsaken city that share the same goal. I can see it from here, your need for revenge—it's devouring you whole. You won't rest until someone pays for what happened to your uncle, and right now, I can use that."

My whole body reacted to the counterfeit laugh that emerged shallow from my lungs. I dropped my hands. James's stare followed every movement of mine as I moved to sit on the chair furthest from them both.

"You really expect me to work with you after everything you've done?" I asked him. "After everything you've said?"

"I know you don't trust me," said James. His grip tightened on the gun. "Honestly, I couldn't care less. But I'll remind you again: you don't have any other op—"

"Forgive me, Kato," I hissed, "but emancipated or not, you're still your father's son. And if what you say is true, that he's the one responsible for this whole mess... why the fuck should I count on you to not be sending me into a trap?"

"How many times should I have to say it for you to comprehend what I'm saying? He's not my father. He has never been my father. We may share the same surname, but that's as far as it has ever gone. If I could, I'd kill him with my own bare hands. But I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because he's untouchable, that's why! You think Midas is bad?" James scoffed wryly. "He's barely the tip of the iceberg. My father—" he almost laughed at the word— "has connections with people who'd make Midas look like a goddamn saint. The things he's done... the things my father is capable of... you could never even imagine it."

Tats inched away from the tip of the gun. "If I may interrupt here—why aren't we taking this fight to your old man, then? Why even bother with this Midas guy?"

"Because you'd in be packed into body bags long before you even got the chance to darken his front door." Abyssal eyes found mine, a half-lidded stare ripping holes through my head. "This fight isn't against Councilman Kato. It never was. He doesn't personally involve himself in criminal affairs if he can get someone else to do it for him, so getting to him would be impossible. All he's done so far is provide Midas with a bank to pull endless amounts of money from—apart from that, I'm not sure he even knows the half of what's happening down here."

"So what do you expect us to do?" I snapped. "Midas is a contract criminal. We kill him, someone else takes his place, and we'll be right back to where we started."

"No."

I bit back, "The hell do you mean, no?"

"Exactly what I just said. My father isn't the one with the formula for Blitz, he's just financing its production. Midas is the one in charge of everything. The whole system. He knows the labs it's made in and the names of every single person entrusted to distribute it. Boston is just a testing ground. If we kill him? It all falls apart. Blitz ceases to exist. It's taken right off the playing field." James dragged a hand over his face and muttered, "My father won't bother to pursue a failure."

No wonder he has so much security on him, I realized. If Midas were to drop dead, so too would his fucking cash cow—the entire operation he'd been running in Boston since he'd stepped foot into it. The faster Blitz got out onto the streets, the faster it made money, the faster Midas could prove to the councilman that all of this was a worthwhile endeavor.

"Okay, you've lost me," Tats huffed. "What the fuck is uh... what's a Blitz?"

"Need to know basis," I communicated through tight teeth, with my attention still set on the loaded gun in the room. "Alright. So the goal is to pump Midas full of lead and sink him to the bottom of the ocean. Fine. Fine. How do you propose we do that?"

James managed to find humor in the question, weapon steady. "You're trying to run before you've even learned to walk. Right now you have nothing, no one. Before you do anything, you need numbers. People willing to fight for you. That's why you came here, is it not?" An annoyed shrug. "I can't fight him on my own any more than you can."

That seemed to be the one thing Tats did manage to understand.

"Well, you don't have to worry about Mayhem," the ink-ridden biker assured me. "We've lost enough of our boys already. I think it's high time we got this city back to normal—so we'll follow your call. No questions asked."

A slow breath filled my lungs. A slower exhale escaped my nose. Too many thoughts were bouncing around in my head, and in an effort to silence them, I reached for the crystal bottle of liquor on the table and poured myself a glass. Barely enough alcohol to have me blurring the grooves on my fingers.

"I need the Stray Dogs under control," I decided, tilting the whiskey down my throat. Cheap shit, I thought, hardly feeling its burn. "Which means I need Shooter dealt with."

Tats spoke up. "That might be a tad difficult, boss."

"And why is that?"