Page 1 of Riot

Chapter One

Riot

Community service.What a fucking joke.I appreciated the fact I needed to pay my debt to society.I did bad shit and deserved everything the judge gave me and then some.Knuckles pulled some strings and got me out on parole three years earlier than expected, and it had come with mandatory community service.My lawyer told me Knuckles had friends in high places and not to look a gift horse in the mouth.I understood.I also knew how to keep my mouth shut so I had no intention of finding out anything more.

I’d only been out of prison three days.Now they expected me to go back to the courthouse.Voluntarily.I didn’t know why, only that it had to do with the aforementioned community service.

It was three o’clock on Friday afternoon.My instructions were to wait outside in a specific area.Which wasn’t suspicious at all.I parked my bike under a tree at the back of the building and waited.As a condition of my parole, I had to carry a cell phone on me at all times.I had no trouble keeping a phone on me.The last thing I wanted was to go back to jail, so if being tied to the fucking phone meant the powers that be could track my every move, so fucking be it.

I had to chuckle.I wanted to stay out of prison, yet I was all in with Knuckles and Kiss of Death MC.An outlaw club by their own admission.Yeah, I was new and didn’t know all the guys yet, but there were two things we all had in common.First, we’d all spent time in Terre Haute.Some more than others.And second, we all knew and trusted Knuckles with our lives.Knuckles had the keys to the yard in Terre Haute.He’d been the shot caller on the inside.I thought he probably had more power in prison than most people did on the outside.If he said he could keep me safe from the probation officers with an axe to grind, I’d do what he said, when he said do it, and count my blessings.

The point being, Knuckles was the one who set me up with this particular lawyer.She’d represented me at my parole hearing, and she was the one who demanded my presence at the courthouse today.Knuckles said do what she told me to the best of my ability and without objection.The details were supposed to be given to me when we met up.Apparently, this was a rush job or something.Knuckles said she’d made a point for me to wear my colors and ride my bike.Jeans, black T-shirt, motorcycle boots, and my cut proudly proclaiming I was a member of Kiss of Death MC and that we were a one percent club.I personally didn’t like this idea, but Knuckles told me not to worry.He’d kept my ass alive in prison.Just like he had most of the other guys.No way would he toss me to the wolves now.

I glanced at my watch.Five after three.She’d told me three o’clock sharp, but I’m just the ex-con biker.What did I know about being on time?

At ten after, a little white Ford Fiesta pulled up next to me.I was leaning against the seat of my parked bike, my legs crossed at the ankles and my arms crossed over my chest.Classic badass biker intimidation pose.The windows were tinted on all sides except the front.I couldn’t see the passengers, but I recognized the woman who got out of the driver’s side.

“Ms.Thompson.Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”I wasn’t lying.Knuckles had explained everything to me on the way to Nashville from Terre Haute, but I thought I’d have a little time to process life on the outside before I got shoved back into the legal system.

“Nothing’s free in this world, Riot.You know that.”Lana Thompson was an in-your-face powerhouse.She wasn’t the sneak attack you didn’t see coming.She was the mortar fire you heard half a mile away warning you to get the fuck out of the blast zone.

“And it shouldn’t be.I ain’t complainin’.I just wasn’t expecting my point of contact to be you.”

She gave me a superior smirk.“Oh, you and I will see a lot more of each other, I assure you.I’m the reason you’re out, you know.Well…” She shrugged.“Me and my other employer.He pays me.Knuckles gets his people.”

“Impressive.Do I want to know who your other employer is?”

“Probably not.In any case, I wouldn’t tell you.You want to know shit like that, talk to Knuckles.”

“Yeah.I’m good.”I rolled my eyes and sighed.“When I asked my parole officer about my community service, he said someone would contact me.No one has.You sure this is countin’ toward my community service?”

“Who told you to meet me here?”

“Knuckles.”

She grinned.“Looks like you have your answer.”

“I’m not sure Knuckles counts.”

“You said your parole officer told you someone would contact me.He say who?”I could tell by the look on her face she knew the answer to this question, but I was committed now.

“He said to do whatever the fuck Knuckles told me to.”

“Uh huh.”

“You know, people would like you better if you weren’t so smug.”I wanted to be irritated at the woman, but really, her making fun of me was my own fault.The joke practically wrote itself.I raised my hands defensively.“Knuckles told me to be here and I’m here.I was told three o’clock sharp.”I gave her a pointed glance, then down at my watch.

“Yeah,” she breathed with a sigh.“Sorry about that.Poor thing’s balking hard.”She nodded to the vehicle and her passengers.“Her son and I had to coax her into letting him do this, and we still had to practically drag her into the car.”

That got my attention.“What’s going on?What is it I need to do?”Something inside me coiled tight.I knew without a doubt something was about to happen that would change my life.Every instinct I had was screaming at me to pay attention, because I was about to get knocked on my ass.

“My client is about to testify that his father beat his mother.Kid knows his mom is the underdog in this fight.His father’s a big shot with a whole team of lawyers and she’s got me.”She grinned, but that feeling in the pit of my stomach was getting stronger by the second.“Caleb is a good kid.He’s so protective of his mother it almost hurts.If his father gets Caleb alone, Caleb will do his level best to kill the guy.”

I gave her a hard look for long moments, replaying her words to make sure I’d heard her correctly.The weight of everything she was saying was hitting me like a wrecking ball to the fucking head.This woman had chosen me for more than one reason.“You fuckin’ bitch,” I bit out.“Only reason I don’t kill you right here is because it’s not worth goin’ back to prison.”

“Good!”Bitch Thompson, as I would now refer to her, said with wide-eyed enthusiasm.“You don’t want to go back to prison.That’s great!But the only way you stayoutof prison is by doing your community service, big guy, andthisis it.”

“Why?Why me?There’s got to be hundreds of other people you could use for this.”

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