Page 32 of Brazen Being It

Three bikes. Two trucks. I’m leading the front with Toon riding to my right, and two patched brothers, Mack and Bishop, rolling tail in the rear behind the box trucks. The shipment’s split between the trucks—small crates, all marked with bullshit labels. No one’s saying exactly what’s inside, which tells me all I need to know.

Rex trusts me to deliver, but he’s not about to hand over all the cards. He didn’t say it was a nine-one-oh which is an off the books club run. Either way, I treat them all that way. As for him not telling me. Good. I don’t want to know. I just want the win. Truth is, Rex may not know if the transport came down from Tripp, the Haywood’s Landing President.

This is club life, don’t question, trust your brother, period.

The road stretches long and empty ahead of us. Miles of hot Carolina asphalt bleeding into Tennessee hills, the kind of ride that makes a man feel free and trapped all at once. There’s no traffic, no cops, no bullshit. Just us, the hum of engines, and the distant promise of Memphis on the horizon.

Toon pulls up alongside me at a rest stop outside of the state line. We park behind the gas station, where the scent of diesel and old coffee hangs in the air.

“You’re quiet,” he says, flicking his kickstand.

“Thinking.”

“Dangerous habit.”

I smirk. “You ever think this is it?”

“This run?”

“No. This life.”

Toon lights a smoke. “You regretting it?”

“Not yet.”

“But you’re wondering.

“Always.”

He hands me a bottle of water. “You’re just feeling the pressure. It’s normal. Comes with responsibility.”

“I didn’t think it’d feel like this.”

He nods. “Because it’s real now. You’re not just earning the patch—you’re wearing it. Means you don’t get to mess up.”

We ride another hundred miles in near silence. The sun beats down hard, the kind of heat that sticks to your bones. I keep my head on a swivel. Can’t afford surprises.

We meet the supplier just outside the Memphis city limits. Industrial zone. Empty warehouses and busted chain-link fences. The contact is a guy called Rizzo—short, twitchy, too many rings on his fingers for someone who claims to keep a low profile.

We trade boxes, swap paperwork, pretend this is all legit.

But I clock the tension in Bishop’s shoulders. The way Mack keeps his hand near his vest.

Something’s off.

We roll out without incident, but the feeling follows me all the way to the hotel on the east side of town. Two rooms, two double beds, thin walls, and one vending machine that eats your dollar twice before it blinks out.

Toon sprawls across one bed and cracks open a beer. “You pacing all night, or you gonna sleep?”

“I’ll sleep when we’re home.”

He grunts. “Cambria get in your head?”

I shrug. “She’s there. But that ain’t what’s got me twisted.”

He nods toward the window. “You think Rizzo’s dirty?”

“I think we’re gonna find out.”

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