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when
a couple of newbies had come in, and as I was leaving I'd run into Dixon.
    Jesus H. Christ.
    The more I thought about it, there were other indicators, too:
the odd way Carter had looked at me when I'd refused to explain why I drove a
nice bike; the way his body had cringed when I'd mentioned that I had “friends
in high places,” or whatever damn fool thing I'd said. Then there was the fact
of the man himself, a lone rider, driving around the Miami-Dade highways midday
like some kind of... scout.
    Carter Knox was a member of the Knights of Styx. I knew this
suddenly, and unavoidably, in my gut. The only real, live adult man I'd ever
even begun to like was a kinsman of my greatest enemy. He'd been a member of
the MC that had murdered my father as he slept in his bed.

Chapter Six
    * * *
     
     
    When life gets too confusing, sometimes the only thing to do
is go to a fabulous...bar. Sure, I wasn't much of a drinker in my free time,
but without Tati there to plan with and a whole queue of riders already
knocking down my door with “questions for the Den Mother,” I had to get out. I
tossed off my flannel and took my Street Bob to the streets. I let my headlamp
fill up the fast-darkening road, and neatly sidestepped Dog when he tried to
flag me down before the moat.
    Everything was happening too fast. How come things never
happened at the right speed? This is what I liked about bikes: you always knew
what you were getting. You wanted to go fast, you could go fast. You wanted to
go slow, you went slow. But life had no regard for pedals—good things flew at
you in one go, and bad things took their time. There was no pacing in any of
it.
    I yearned for my little family — my
twin, my father, even the mother I'd never met. It was hard to think about
“honor” as an effective orphan. I was loyal to the MC because my father had
been loyal to the MC. And I'd been born a Coffin Cheater, I'd had no choice in
the matter. But did I really owe them my allegiance, when all was said
and done? I didn't want to help anyone fight a war. I wasn't even sure I wanted
to help anyone deal with their old lady troubles or their stolen goods or
whatever else a Den Mother was supposed to do.
    Then again, my father hadn't been given a choice when a
malicious dirtbag had killed him in bed. Jesus...it was one thing for
casualties to occur in an open shoot-out. It was one thing for casualties to
occur on the road. It was quite another for a man to shoot another man—his
sleeping twin daughters in the next room—in cold blood. My father hadn't died a
“hero's death,” as I so often liked to tell myself. He'd died alone, and
unarmed. He'd probably been so afraid.
    And what about Carter? He'd seemed so kind and warm and just
slightly goofy by the roadside. His touch had felt so good. But where had he
been that fateful night, the night when my whole life changed? “Living by his
code?” If his code had played any role in the destruction of my family, well,
there was no question: any blooming feeling I had for him needed to be stamped
out, quick.
    For no good reason, I found my bike snarling in the
direction of Casablanca—a place I hadn't expected to visit until (or, if...) my
loverboy had found some way to contact me again. It almost seemed unlikely that
the little midsummer garden could exist outside the events of a memory that was
already feeling more and more like something I'd invented, but sure enough:
here was the long winding road, spinning away from the gravelly shoulder. Here
was a trail of hastily parked bikes and scattered cars, framing the little
lean-to shack. It was a Thursday night. The place was bound to be hopping.
Perhaps I ought to have brought Dog, if a bar was really where I wanted to go.
I already knew that this was a club for couples, and lonely women would either
be made prey or objects of pity on the inside.
    But it felt too late to turn around now. I shook my hair out
of my helmet and tromped along the cobbled path. I