Page 52 of Grave Games

I’d heard that term in movies and video games ever since I could remember, so just hearing it evoked a sense of urgency and danger. Officially the Gravediggers hadn’t yet gotten the word to lock everything down and prep for war, but the sharp, tension-filled tang of it was in the air when Romeo and I returned to Ride Or Die Choppers. For starters, the chain-link gate topped with razor wire was firmly in place when he rode up. The guard at the little kiosk out front made me take off my helmet so he could get a good look at me before he hit the gate’s automated button and waved us through.

Apparently the death of my truck—and the beating Romeo had given Marvel—was being taken seriously.

After dropping me inside my new office—where a wide-eyed Misty was waiting to pounce on me with mugs of coffee and a bag of dark chocolate truffles—Romeo went to the back of the showroom to huddle in Tyr’s office with Tyr and several other high-ranking Gravediggers. I knew they had to be high-ranking, because Misty called them bigwigs, and Arthur, my new shadow and Gravedigger-wannabe, looked at the powerfully built men gathering in Tyr’s office with a mixture of awe and longing. Clearly the guy couldn’t wait to be one of them, and that told me all I needed to know about just how important they were.

Since regular business had ground to a halt at Ride Or Die Choppers, there was nothing left to do but gossip with Misty. After I gave her a detailed description on how my truck had been ax-murdered, complete with the message that I’d be a dead woman if I ever went home, I asked her about the Barracks. Thankfully, Misty was a fountain of information on how that former motor court had actually been the draw for Tyr to settle his base of operations there.

According to her, Tyr had known setting up shop within Chicago’s city limits was a straight-up poke in the eye against Hades. But Tyr was a Colgrave just like Hades, so that hadn’t scared him in the least. Tyr had searched the city over for a place that could be well-defended, and had the accommodations to comfortably house the army he was hoping to build to one day combat his uncle. Eventually he’d settled on that area of town because of the mid-century motor court and an abandoned old bank, both of which shared a common parking lot with a decorative island of trees and landscaping in its center. He paid a maid service for the upkeep of the Barracks whenever it was in use, and he was insane about vetting each and every person who was allowed to step foot inside of it and the compound at large.

The abandoned bank that was situated across the parking lot from the Barracks was now the Gravediggers Clubhouse, which I thought was a brilliant choice. Since it had once been a bank, with its fortified walls and vaults and who knew what else, nothing could have been better as a clubhouse, at least from a security point of view. There was also the large lot where Tyr had built the garages and showroom that had become Ride Or Die. He’d then fenced the whole thing in, before quietly buying up other properties around the area, giving the compound an extra cushion of security. Misty was fairly sure the entire strip mall across the street belonged to Tyr, and it wouldn’t have surprised me. With a tattoo parlor, a vape/CBD smoke shop, a pawn shop and a clothing store that specialized in kitting out exotic dancers, it was a biker’s idea of heaven.

As Misty filled me in on the neighborhood and just how fortified the area was, more bikers roared in on their bikes. Several had women riding on the backs, all of them built and gorgeous, and most of them wearing jackets or cuts that had the Gravediggers emblem on the back, framed with curved patches—or rockers—declaring them the property of some biker. With Misty trying her best to educate me on this new world I was in, I was beginning to see that a jacket like that was the biker-world version of an engagement ring.

Personally I preferred the bling, but at least I now had a deeper respect for the jackets.

As our office area began to fill up with the women of Gravedigger club members, Arthur clearly thought that was his cue to disappear from his guard-duty spot by the door. That made sense. No one in their right mind would try to hit me now when every biker chick on the planet seemed to be trying to cram themselves into my office.

As time went on I began to feel like I was a pledge at some hardcore, leather-studded sorority, with most of them looking at me with interest, and a few with guarded hostility. Apparently it was known that I was somehow involved in this latest call to arms, and the women weren’t all that thrilled with their men being put in the line of fire. I couldn’t blame them when it came to worrying about their men; the last thing I wanted was violence to erupt between Tyr’s Gravediggers and Hades’s mother club. But considering how badly Romeo had beaten Hades’s son, I wasn’t sure how it was going to be avoided.

“So. Shiloh, right? I’m Mabel.” A woman with bleached blonde hair, boobs as big as my head and legs that went on for days zeroed in on me where I perched with my butt on the edge of my desk. “Am I hearing this right? You’re the troublemaker behind all this crazy-ass hubbub that’s got everybody in a twist?”

The chatty volume in the room took a noticeable nosedive, and it took all my strength to not stutter and look around for a lifeline. There wouldn’t be one. These ladies all knew each other. They had men they loved who were now stepping up to the front lines of what could be urban warfare. Lives could be lost, and their worlds could be ruined. I understood that, and felt it with all my heart.

But I wasn’t the problem.

“You think I have the power to pit a whole bunch of tough-guy bikers against each other? That would make me pretty freaking scary if it were true, but it’s not. It’s not true because of one obvious fact.”

Mabel folded her arms. “And what’s that?”

“No one on earth can tell those men what to do. Or at least that’s what I’ve found with Romeo.”

Mabel narrowed her eyes before a faint scoff escaped her, and a corner of her mouth curled. “Romeo’s a lot like my Ashtray—hard-living, hard-talking and hard-headed.”

“So basically, you’re saying he’s hard,” another woman called from across the room, and the tension evaporated under a wave of laughter.

“I wouldn’t have my man any other way,” Mabel announced with a bawdy laugh before glancing back at me. “And you’re right, new girl. No one can tell those men what to do. But that’s not going to stop us from trying, is it?”

“Never.” I smiled at her while trying not to gape. Apparently Ashtray’s old lady was the key to my survival among the Gravedigger women, so if I wanted to survive this leather-studded sorority, I’d have to keep my cards close to the vest. “Ashtray, huh? Interesting road name. Do you know how he got it?”

“Oh, do I.” Mabel rolled her eyes while a couple women, including Misty, chuckled. “Some men like to golf. Others have a thing for cars. My man’s favorite pastime is getting into bar fights. If bar-fighting were an Olympic event, he’d get the gold every time. He’s a true master of the game.”

I couldn’t even. I just couldn’t. “I suppose everyone has to have a hobby.”

Mabel burst out laughing. “Oh, new girl, I like you! Yep, bar-fighting is his hobby, and a long, long time ago when Ashtray was just a kid and there were still smoking-designated areas, he snuck into a bar and ordered a beer. Well, of course he was too young for alcohol, so a bouncer tried to throw him out.”

“Bad idea,” Misty said from her place in a visitor’s chair, shaking her head.

Mabel nodded at her. “Damn straight it was a bad idea. That was when my man decided to indulge in his favorite hobby. At some point, he picked up one of those heavy glass ashtrays full of ash and butts and whatnot, and started wailing away at anything that moved. When the cops finally Tased him and he went down like a fallen tree, he was still holding on to it. There he was, half-conscious, yet they had to pry his fingers open just to get that damn ashtray away from him. After something like that, his road name couldn’t be anything else but Ashtray.”

I couldn’t seem to stop shaking my head. “I don’t envy the worry his pastime must give you. Hopefully as he’s gotten older, your man doesn’t feel the need to indulge in his hobby like he did when he was a teenager sowing his wild oats.”

“That was the hope.” Mabel sighed, coming to perch next to me and grabbing up a chocolate truffle Misty had left on my desk. “But I’ll be damned if that idiot didn’t come home just last week with a busted nose and a pair of black eyes. Apparently he took on a couple assholes trying to force a drunk girl out of a bar and into their ride. Fuckers.”

Oh, Ashtray, really?“Wow.”

“I know, right? That’s my man.”

And she was so proud of him. No need to take that away from her. “I’m glad he was there for that girl when she needed him the most. It’s true what my friend Heather says—some heroes don’t wear capes. Sometimes they wear cuts.”

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