Everything I Left Unsaid(45)

Layla: What kind of party is it?



DON’T. The word was loud and clear in Dylan’s brain. Do not do this thing.

But in the end, because he was bored, because of the way the people at that party made him feel like an animal and not a man—and because somehow she’d cracked a hole in his life that he kept trying to stuff more work into, more deals, more money—his warnings were to no avail. He turned the phone around and snapped a picture of himself. From the chin down.

And sent it to her.

Her response came back fast and in all caps.

Layla: IS THAT YOU?



Such a f*cking mistake. What happened to cross-contamination? What happened to the rules? His life worked because everything was controlled. He knew this, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Dylan: Me and my monkey suit.

Layla: send me another

Dylan: Can’t. Have to go. Call me tomorrow night.

Layla: boooooooo

Dylan: tomorrow night.



Dylan put his phone back in his pocket. The rules he was breaking were piling up around his feet like metal shavings, razor sharp and about to cut the both of them.

Inevitably, someone was going to get hurt.

—

An hour later he managed to make his goodbyes and leave the party. He ignored the valet and went to get his own car. His F-150, the same truck they used to tow the 989 trailer, looked like a giant beast among all the sleek European cars and the refurbished American muscle cars that surrounded it.

This parking area was a gearhead’s wet dream.

He climbed into his bare-bones pickup and pulled off his tie. The engine, one he’d rebuilt himself, roared like it couldn’t wait to get off this damn property too.

The back roads leading from the house to the highway were dark and still. He was alone on the road, except for the sound of the engine on a distant motorcycle.

A Harley Fat Boy, if he heard it right.

A Harley Fat Boy that needed a tune-up.

It was the sound of his youth, one that used to wake him up in his bed at night. It was the sound of his father and his brother, coming home or leaving.

Outside the dark trees blurred and he kept his speed, enjoying the night and the open road. He unrolled the window, and the smell of the road and the forest filled the cab. He’d be home soon and then…Layla.

The motorcycle showed up in his rearview and Dylan put his hand out the window, indicating the guy could pass if he wanted.

The biker flashed his lights.

And then again.

The f*ck?

They were entering the suburbs, and Dylan slowed down for a stop sign at an intersection and the motorcycle pulled up alongside him.

Out in this neighborhood he wasn’t much worried about being mugged. Probably a guy looking for the highway.

“You need something?” Dylan asked. The murky light from a distant street lamp picked up the flash of a dirty white badge on black leather.

A cut.

The rider was in an MC.

“I guess you could say that.” The guy rolled forward until his face was in the light.

It took Dylan a second to place the man, who seemed vaguely familiar. And then the guy grinned, revealing the two, rotting front teeth that bent inward, tilting toward each other.

“Rabbit?”

“Hey there, son.”

“Holy…” He couldn’t deny the fact that for a heartbeat he was happy to see the man. Rabbit had gotten Dylan started in racing, supported him, found him races. Illegal backwoods races, but it was a start. He’d also fed Dylan to the dogs when the time came.

The heartbeat of happiness stopped. Immediately.

“I tell you what,” Rabbit said with that crooked grin and his dark eyes. “You don’t come down off that mountain of yours very often, do you?”

“You’ve been looking for me?”

“Fuck. No one needs to look for Dylan Daniels, we just need to wait for him to show his face—” Rabbit blanched a little in the strange light. The guy always had been a little squeamish.

And his face was exactly why Dylan didn’t come down off his mountain.

“What do you want, Rabbit?”

“I need you to talk to your brother.”

Dylan laughed and began to roll up his window.

“Hear me out,” Rabbit said, putting his hand over the escalating glass. Dylan could ignore the guy’s hand. Close the window on it and drag the guy behind him for as long as it took for Rabbit to pull himself free.

And once upon a time that was exactly what he would have done.

He lifted his finger from the window button.

“I haven’t talked to my brother in years.” Nine to be exact. He remembered the day in absolute clarity. “If the club is having trouble with how Max is leading it—”

“He’s gonna get us all killed.”

Dylan shook his head.

“You don’t believe me?” Rabbit asked, those dark eyes getting sly. Mean.

“No,” he said. “I believe you. There’s just nothing I can do to help you. Max has been trying to get himself killed since the day he was born.”

Dylan rolled up the window and roared away, leaving Rabbit and the past in his rearview mirror.





ANNIE


When I was little, Smith had a dog. A pretty shepherd with one blue eye and one dark one. And that dog loved dead things. If there was a rabbit or a squirrel or a bird that died somewhere on the property, Queenie would find that thing and roll around in it. She’d roll around in it in ecstasy. Like her dog life was made. And then she’d eat it.