“Hear, hear,” rang out in the room, and everyone drank in honor of Harvey and Creed. The bag of badges made the rounds.
“Now let’s turn the music up, keep the liquor flowing, and celebrate a job damn well done. Because every one of you deserves it,” Dare said to a round of raucous cheers. Music, conversation, and laughter filled the room once more. Stopping to talk to everyone as he went, Dare made his way across the room until he finally found Phoenix, Maverick, Caine McKannon, and Jagger Locke hanging out near the pool table. These four men made up most of the club’s executive committee, with Phoenix serving as Road Captain in charge of all club runs and travel, Maverick running the club’s chop shop, Caine serving as Sergeant-at-Arms in charge of rule enforcement and threat assessment, and Jagger serving as Race Captain in charge of organizing and running the club’s racing activities.
“Hey, D,” Maverick said, an approving look in his eye. “Good speech.” He lifted his beer in salute.
Dare gave a nod, but he didn’t want to put any more focus on their losses. Not tonight. And the look Phoenix wore said he felt the same way. Dare’s gaze landed on Caine. “I want us to keep our ear to the ground for a while. Make sure nothing’s coming back on us, given everything we’ve been involved with the past few weeks.” Namely, taking down Baltimore’s Church Gang, their longtime enemies, and helping expose a major military conspiracy. Officially, the authorities proclaimed that they’d rounded up all the conspirators, but you could never be too careful.
“Agreed,” Caine said, answering in the fewest possible syllables, just like he always did. Scrubbing a hand over the dark scruff on his jaw, his gaze was calculating and filled with lethal intent toward anyone looking to harm them. From his six-four height, to his shaved black hair, which he always covered with a black knit cap, to the all-black ink covering a lot of his skin, to the small, round gauges in both ears, everything about Caine read intimidating—which often suited their purposes well. The only spot of lightness on him were the blue eyes so pale they didn’t look real. “I’ll make contacts on it in the morning.”
“We have a run on Friday,” Phoenix said, his voice flat and so unlike his normal smart-ass self. “I’ll do some quiet asking while we’re out.”
Dare nodded. “Sounds good.”
With his wavy mess of dark brown hair, his ability to play the hell out of any guitar, and his habit of humming under his breath, Jagger had come by his handle honestly. The guy took a swig of his beer. “I think I’m gonna need two weeks to get the races running again. We’d cleared the calendar when we didn’t know how long the shit in Baltimore would take. That work for you?” Hosting stock-car and dirt-bike racing at the racetrack they owned was their main business, along with more occasional demolition derbies and less formally organized quarter-mile drag racing at a strip constructed on their property for that specific purpose. Three-hundred-plus acres gave them all kinds of room to move.
“Sounds good. Let’s make sure Ike’s in the loop so he can open betting again.” As his day job, Ike Young was a tattoo artist at Hard Ink Tattoo in Baltimore, not to mention the guy who did most of the club’s official ink when he was here, but he was also the Ravens’ longtime betting officer and their point man in the city for racing bets and debt collection. Ike made the Ravens lots of coin. Dare did a quick sweep of the room but didn’t see Ike around.
“Will do,” Jagger said, his fingers moving with the chord changes in the rock song that was playing. The guy was brilliant. He could equally pick up an unfamiliar instrument or take apart an engine and perfect either within a day. Two at most.
Dare put in another hour of face time at the party and didn’t feel bad for cutting out as people passed out, couples paired off, and the whole shindig started to wind down. Sometimes he felt like the years he’d spent alone and drifting had transformed him into an incurable loner. Because there were moments when he could stand in a roomful of people and feel totally alone, and other times when being social took more effort than he had to give and he absolutely craved his solitude. Like now.
On the way back to his office, Dare heard voices coming from the small room Ike used for his studio. Dare knocked.
A pause, and then, “Come in.”
Dare opened the door to find Ike sitting on his stool, a tattoo machine in his hand and the tattoo on his bald head visible. Jessica Jakes sat in the chair next to Ike, the red skin on her neck revealing where Ike had been working moments before. Dare didn’t know much about Jess besides that she worked at Hard Ink with Ike. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Dare said, before looking to Jessica. “How are you, Jess?”