Page 11 of Iron Hearts

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Fuckin’ count us in,” he said. “What were you guys thinkin’? Tonight?”

“Tonight,” I affirmed. “We wanna be fashionably late, add a little insult to injury by whooping their asses when they think they got the high ground. Y’all have been to the Iron Horse, right? You know how it’s set up?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Kash affirmed. “We got you. Let’s fuck some shit up! Text you when we roll out, dude.”

“Keep the shiny side up, brother.”

“And the dirty side down,” Kash quipped, and the line went dead.

Shadow came out of his office, and I gave him a thumbs-up. He threw me some chin and called out, “Jacksonville is mobilizing.”

Renegade came out of his office, and I asked, “How’d it go?”

“The usual,” Renegade said. “Jameson told me to do it his way. I asked him if I’d ever let his ass down before, and he told me to fuck off and get it done and don’t fuck it up.” Renegade gave a shrug.

Shadow and I laughed.

Renegade and Jameson had a…contentiousrelationship sometimes.

Jameson wasn’t exactly known to be the trusting sort, but if there was any president of any chapter of this fuckin’ club that was trustworthy – it was fucking Renegade.

Ren had taken up for Jameson under Rancid’s rule as far as he could without getting out bad under that fuckstick’s megalomaniac charge.

Of course, Renegade always did shit his own way and in his own time, and damn if he didn’t have a knack for coming up roses. It tended to gripe Jameson’s ass, who was particular and liked shit done his way or the highway. It caused Ren and Jameson to lock horns on more than one occasion, but Jameson had to grudgingly admit Renegade had it going on. Slowly but surely, Jameson’d learned to loosen the reins.

Funny thing was, the more he unclenched his fist around Renegade, the better Renegade brought the kind of results and then some to lay at our king’s feet. Now, Jameson begrudgingly let Renegade have free rein, and yeah – that’s how Renegade had gotten his name. It was more than fitting and a badass honorific.

When Jameson had looked at the map of North Florida for a strategic place to fortify our club’s holdings, Renegade, who was already a local for St. Augustine, had been Jameson’s choice to anoint as president of the St. Augustine chapter.

The rest, as they say, was history.

Now it was just a bunch of hurry-up-and-fucking-wait for Jacksonville and Ocala to show up. Since our chapter was hosting this run, I had my work cut out for me to put it together and lay out the ride’s master plan. I got on Google Maps and busted out the graph paper to put down the formations.

Truth be told, I was jazzed. It sure beat the fuck out of the boredom and staring out the alcoves wishing something would happen.

Of course, the phrasebe careful what you wish forcertainly entered the back of my mind while I worked.

CHAPTERSIX

Rarity…

All I wanted was some goddamn sleep when I got off work at the craft store, so I went home to get a nap before getting ready to work my shift at the Iron Horse.

The house was blessedly quiet when I went in. Mom was out with the boys, probably at the beach, and Grandma and Grandpa were up in Tennessee for a weekend getaway in the Smoky Mountains.

Worked for me.

I set my alarm and lay down.

My eye had purpled up, but the swelling had gone down. Still, I’d been chastised by my manager at the craft store for being “clumsy.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her, “Wanda, I got clocked in a bar fight – I couldn’t avoid that. Clumsy had nothing to do with it.”

Of course, Wanda came from a time and place when a woman was “clumsy,” it was because her husband had swung on her. Typically, divorce wasn’t an option, but oopsie, her hubby would go on to die doing something stupid, like falling off a ladder, or would simply go to sleep one night and not wake up. A tragic turn of events… and yeah, I’m rolling my eyes so hard, I just checked out my own ass.

It is what it is, or rather,it was what it wasback then. Nowadays, if a man laid a hand on me, I’d do exactly what my daddy taught me to do. I’d mace his ass, get him right in the balls, or break a damn bottle over his head.

My father had taught his only daughter to breathe fuckingfireand it was a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget.

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