Chased by the Biker Shadow novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Back Room
A text sends Roz to the clubhouse back room, where Bronco is with the girl he swore was only a groupie. She throws his necklace on the floor in front of the party and rides north, and a headlight stays behind her until the silent road captain speaks.
At nine-forty on Saturday night, with sixty bikers drinking around me, my phone lit up with a message from a number I didn't know.
Back room. Now.
I figured it was a prank from one of the prospects.
I almost didn't go.
Bronco had kissed me twenty minutes earlier, hard, in front of the whole bar.
"Misty's nothing, babe," he'd said against my mouth. "She's a groupie. You think I'd waste a night on that?"
I had told him I believed him.
I wore his necklace, the silver one with the little letter D on the clasp, and everyone in the Iron Saints knew what it meant.
Roz Burnside, Bronco's old lady, fourteen months and counting.
The text buzzed again.
Back room. Now.
So I walked down the hall past lane twelve of the old bowling alley, with a bottle in my hand and a smile I didn't feel.
The back room door stood open about two inches.
I pushed it with one finger.
Misty was on top of him, naked, her bleached hair swinging down her back.
Bronco's hands were locked on her hips.
"Harder," he said. "Come on, harder."
The slap of skin filled the room.
I stood there with my bottle sweating in my hand and I could not make my feet work.
Bronco turned his head and saw me.
His eyes went wide.
He didn't stop.
He didn't push her off.
He didn't even say my name.
Misty looked back over her shoulder and gave me a slow, pleased smile.
Then she kept going, and he let her.
Behind me the music from the bar was still thumping.
Fourteen months, and this was what I was worth to him.
My whole body went cold, then hot.
I put my bottle down on the hall table, very gently, because the alternative was throwing it.
I reached up and unhooked the necklace.
The clasp was so small I had to work it twice.
I held it out in front of me, and it swung in the red light.
"We are done," I said.
Bronco finally shoved Misty's hip aside, and she slid off him laughing.
"Roz, wait. It's not what it looks like."
"It looks like what it is."
I dropped the necklace on the floor between us.
It landed with a tiny sound and lay there.
"I am no one's side piece," I said.
That was when I noticed the hall behind me had filled up.
Half the bar had followed the music to the door, and they were all looking.
Nobody said a word.
At the far end of the hall, by the old pinsetter, stood the one man in the club who never spoke.
Ronan, the road captain.
Everybody called him Shadow, because he rode last in every line and nobody had ever heard him say more than a nod.
He wasn't looking at me.
He wasn't looking at Bronco, either.
He was looking at the necklace on the floor.
His jaw was so tight I could see the muscle jump.
I didn't have time to think about it.
Bronco was off the bed now, yanking up his jeans.
"You're not leaving this clubhouse," he said, loud enough for the room. "You're mine, Roz. You know the rules."
"Watch me."
I walked through the crowd, and the bikers moved out of my way one by one.
Misty called after me in a sugary voice. "Bye, Roz. I'll take good care of him."
I did not turn around.
Out in the lot, the night air was cold on my wet face.
My Sportster sat at the end of the row where I always parked her, black and low and mine.
I had rebuilt that engine with my own hands the year my father died.
Nobody had ever given me a thing I loved more.
I swung my leg over and hit the starter.
The engine caught on the first turn.
Behind me, Bronco was shouting from the doorway, and I could hear half the club laughing, and half of them not.
I didn't look back.
I pulled out of the lot with the throttle wide open and took the north road toward the state line.
Tears were running into my ears under the helmet.
I let them.
Twenty miles up the highway I noticed the headlight.
One single beam, sitting steady in my mirror, never closing, never dropping back.
I sped up, and it sped up.
I slowed, and it slowed.
Forty miles, and it was still there.
By the fiftieth mile my hands were shaking on the grips.
Bronco would never come after me alone, which meant this was somebody he had sent.
I swung off at a dark truck stop, cut the engine and yanked a wrench from my saddlebag.
The other bike rolled in behind me and stopped.
A big man swung down, black helmet, black Road King, no club colors showing.
He pulled his helmet off.
Dark beard, a scar through his right eyebrow, grey eyes that did not blink.
Ronan, the road captain, the man who never spoke.
I raised the wrench.
"Did he send you to drag me back?"
He looked at the wrench, then at me.
His voice was low and rough from years of not using it.
"Don't take Exit Nine," he said. "Bronco sent two men to wait for you there."
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