Page 26 of Legacy

Legacy

The fans in thegarage are spinning at full speed as I wipe the sweat off my forehead. It’s dripping down the back of my neck and under the collar of my shirt. Without any natural breeze in the garage, it’s nearly unbearable. The sweltering heat of summer is starting to taper off, but in Vegas, that means the high nineties, which is nowhere close to comfortable.

The muggy heat is still in the open bays, and if I stare across the pavement, there’s a ripple of warmth making waves in the air. It baffles me how Havoc spends most of his time at Kings Auto by choice, especially in the middle of summer.

My T-shirt sticks to my back as I slide my cut over my shoulders. I took it off when I was under the hood of a customer’s truck, but now that I’m done, I slip it back on.

The only upside to a blistering morning at the club’s auto body shop is that it gives me a chance to move mybody for once. It helps work out the tension of sitting in front of a screen for too long, and the relief of my blood free flowing through my veins makes up for the ache in my hands and suffocating heat.

I pop my knuckles and stretch my fingers, working the tension out of them as Havoc tosses a wrench into the toolbox beside me. He just finished an oil change for a customer, and now he’s moving on to rebuilding another client’s Harley.

Snatching my phone off the nearby workbench, I tap the screen, but there are no messages. The same as it’s been all day.

“You’re staring at that thing like you’re expecting something.” Havoc shoves the lid to the toolbox closed. “Or someone…”

My gaze moves in his direction, and I find him grinning. “Bea’s with Reagan, so I’m just making sure they don’t need anything.”

At least, that’s what I tell myself when I tap the screen for the hundredth time.

Reagan has been here for a week and is doing fine so far, so I have no reason to think she wouldn’t be today. Still, I can’t help holding my breath, waiting for something to turn on its head.

“Reagan seems capable.” Havoc leans against a large concrete pillar, wiping his hands with a rag. “Margaret trusts her.”

“Yeah, but she’s young.”

Too young.

Twenty-one and barely the legal drinking age. Something made clear by how much of a lightweight she was after one margarita. One drink and Reagan was an open book.

It probably should have made me feel guilty for using that against her by trying to get information, but I couldn’t help wanting to know what was behind those mile-high walls of hers.

I wanted to know what in her life made her so resilient that not even my club seems to scare her off.

Reagan offered me a hint of her history, and I wanted to know it all. To understand how her experiences seem to run so deep but still leave her that innocent. And the longer she talked, the more it made sense.

She’s spent her life sheltered and controlled. Playing the good girl and pacifying everyone around her.

Which is why it’s so interesting that I manage to fluster her. To bring out her bite. Fuck if it doesn’t make me want to rile her up.

“Reagan’s twenty-one.” Havoc watches me. “Don’t seem to recall you having an issue with that before.”

“Fucking isn’t the same as sticking around this place. She’s too young to be tying herself to the club.”

“Maybe.” Havoc rubs his thumb over the hourglass tattooed on the back of one of his knuckles, like he often does when he’s lost in thought. “That’s for her to decide. We were all young at some point, and we survived.”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

Like me, Havoc was born and raised on the compound. Tearing up the dirt and popping wheelies beforewe could legally drive. Lying on the lawn chairs in the back, wasted long before we could legally drink.

That land exists as its own world.

A wild west.

Something both our fathers taught us to appreciate.

But unlike me, falling into the ranks the second I turned eighteen, Havoc actually tried to escape. He enlisted in the military and swore he was going to become something more than his father—than this club—would ever allow him. And it wasn’t because he didn’t respect or care about the Twisted Kings; he just wanted to make his own decisions.

To carve his own path for one reason or another.

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