Ride Steady (Chaos, #3)(11)

“We’ll see,” Tack replied.

“We will but we got problems, Tack, the kind that get solved with loyalty, balls, and fire. Lived a fair bit a’ life. Done a lot. Seen a lot more. Still, I’d check I had my blade and my gun, I ran up against that guy in a bad mood in a dark alley. So I reckon he’s got the balls. But not sure he’s got the other two in him.”

“Time will tell,” Tack muttered.

“Boy’s got secrets,” Dog muttered back.

“Boy’s never had one thing in his life he wanted,” Tack replied. “We’re givin’ him that. First time. He’s twenty-f*ckin’-five. First time, Dog. Now, we’ll see how that plays.”

“Brother’s got dark in him he don’t bother to hide, secrets he doesn’t share. With the problems we got, Tack, that makes me uneasy,” Dog stated.

“Had the vote, Dog, you had a problem, you should have opened your mouth,” Tack returned.

Dog shook his head. “Saw that kid watch us, just like you. Shoulda done something then. Don’t have it in me to turn him away now.”

“No one who doesn’t have fire walks three miles to watch men work on cars, Dog. And he wasn’t at that fence watchin’ men work on cars. He was at the shop window, empty pockets, face pressed to the glass, starin’ at what he wanted but couldn’t have. I’ll wager, to survive, he’s banked that fire. We gotta help him direct it and make sure if it flares bright, it doesn’t burn him out.”

Dog held Tack’s eyes. Then he nodded sharply and looked away.

The rest of the Club came in, had words, and voted.

It was unanimous.

Carson Steele was a recruit. A recruit that would shortly after be christened Joker.

And if he did his time, took his shit, proved his mettle…

He’d be Chaos.

*

It took him a year and three months.

And he did.





Chapter Two




All I Wanted





Carissa

“AARON, REALLY, I’M in a bind.”

I tried not to sound like I was begging. It didn’t feel good to beg.

But he’d heard me beg and I’d learned begging didn’t work.

“You bring Travis to my house in forty-five minutes or we’ve got problems, Carissa,” Aaron said in my ear and then disconnected.

I stood there in the filthy grass on the verge, looking down at the phone, my baby boy at my hip, the crawling rush hour traffic of Denver on I-25 in front of me? along with my old, ugly, worn out, mostly kinda still red Toyota Tercel with its flat tire.

Aaron, my ex-husband, drove a black Lexus SUV.

Aaron, my ex-husband, had also just refused to come and help me change the flat tire even though I had our son with me and I was on a stupid interstate during rush hour traffic.

I couldn’t believe this.

I should, with our history, all he’d done that I’d turned a blind eye to and all he’d done that I eventually couldn’t. Nothing should surprise me. And I was hanging on to a slim thread of hope that it still did. That I could be surprised. That I hadn’t lost that ability. That I still believed that people could be decent. Even Aaron.

I hated to admit it but I figured I would soon lose the ability to believe Aaron could be decent. Especially after he just hung up on me.

I couldn’t reflect on this.

My lip was quivering and I bit it to make it stop, but I didn’t try too hard to hold back tears as I stared at my car.

I’d cried a lot the last year and a half. And I will admit, no matter what this made me, I often cried to try to get my way. This always worked with my dad. For a long time it had worked with Aaron.

A year and a half ago, it stopped working. At least with Aaron.

But I needed to cry. I had my little boy with me, his little fist twisted in the platinum chain of the necklace my dad gave me the Christmas after Mom died, his other hand banging my shoulder, completely oblivious (thank goodness) to our dire situation. I didn’t know what to do with him if I tried to change the tire myself. I didn’t think it was safe to leave him in the car. Traffic was crawling but I was still on a busy interstate.

What if something happened?

I fretted, bit my lip and blinked away tears as I ran through my options.

My dad was in Nebraska looking after my grandma. He, obviously, couldn’t come and help.

He also didn’t need added evidence that I’d made a hideous mistake spending ten years of my life at Aaron Neiland’s side, eventually accepting his ring, his vows to honor me in sickness and health until death did us part (all lies, obviously). All this before finding myself pregnant with Aaron’s child while he was cheating on me (again), this time with a model. Then me confronting him, after which Aaron told me we were through and he was marrying his model.

No, Dad didn’t need that.

Further, I didn’t have any friends. I’d never truly had any real friends, but I hadn’t known that until it was proved true when Aaron and I fell apart and they (all of them) went with Aaron.

And I didn’t have any time to make new ones. I had a baby. I had a full-time job as a grocery store clerk. And I had an ex-husband who was a lawyer who seemed, along with his father and all their colleagues, to have made it his mission to make my life a misery.