Page 6 of Fallen Angel
Chapter Three
“Hey, boss…boss?” a voice insisted.
Ethan looked up from the tablet he was holding.
Lucky, his bike shop manager, took off his backward baseball hat and scratched his thick mop of flattened red curls. Giving Ethan an expectant look, he said, “You okay, boss?”
“Yeah, sorry, I guess I zoned out just now,” Ethan lied. He hadn’t zoned out. He knew exactly where his thoughts had been—out on the Zakim bridge with the girl with big, amber-brown eyes.
He shook his head, trying to chase her from his thoughts. He had offered to help her, and she refused. What else could he have done—forced her to get into his car? There was one word for that type of action, kidnapping. He did time once already in his life. He had no plans to go back to jail. Ever.
He gave his attention over to the newly produced custom motorcycle that was awaiting his final inspection. He stroked the sleek tank, but then the loud beeping of a big truck backing up pulled his gaze away from the bike to the windows on the far side of the room. He crossed to the window and looked outside at the tow truck backing up toward one of the open bays. A rush of adrenaline shot through him. He would recognize that heap of rust anywhere.
His receptionist, Brooke, appeared in the doorway. “Hey, boss, they’re bringing in a roadside call.”
A slight smile curved his lips. The wisp of a girl he had offered to help on the way had no choice but to accept his help now. He typically would not have spared a second glance at someone broken down on the side of the road. After all, it was the age of cell phones and roadside assistance. But when he saw the wreck smoking on the bridge and realized when he passed that inside was a young woman, he had to stop and try to get her off the road before someone rear-ended her car and sent her careening into the Charles.
He handed Lucky his tablet with the design specs. “Finish the inspection. Then make the call. Let’s get paid.”
Lucky looked up, his red brows raised with surprise. “But we’re not done. You always do the final inspection.”
“I’m working in the garage today,” Ethan called back. “You got this, Lucky. Do me proud.”
Ethan pushed open the aluminum door, leaving the bright custom bike room for the dark, greasy garage. He inhaled the scent of exhaust, oil, and tires. Man, he loved that smell. It had been a few months since he spent the day wrenching on cars…too long. Once upon a time, he never would have missed a day in the garage. It had always been his escape.
The first time he had stared down at an old, rusted engine, he felt a thrill. An engine was something that could be fixed and restored, no matter how old or broken, which had meant something to him after his father died. For that was what he and his mother had been—broke—in all senses of the word, broken hearted and overdrawn.
The bank repossessed their house three months after the nails were hammered into his father’s unfinished pine coffin. At first, he and his mom moved in with his mother’s parents, but his grandfather was a prick, always putting his mother down, which caused her to sink further into depression. She started drinking and popping pills. Then she met Eddie, who did nothing but dump on her. Despite Ethan’s protests, she married Eddie, and they moved into his rundown trailer in a park on Staten Island. Ethan had been thirteen at the time, and suddenly, he found himself living with a new dad who walked around in his stained white briefs and tried to tell him what to do—which was why Ethan spent most of his time away from home.
On most days, he could be found in an abandoned warehouse with his best friend, drinking a forty from a paper bag. Like his mother, he turned to alcohol and drugs to dull the ache. But numbness was fleeting and quickly wore off, leaving the ache worse than before. He was only a kid, but life had already knocked him down hard enough that he was ready to give up.
But then he met Carl.
Carl was in his late twenties and lived in a trailer on the other side of the park. He was always out in his yard, fixing cars. On his way home one evening, Ethan walked by Carl’s trailer. Carl peered out from beneath the hood of a car and asked Ethan to hand him a socket wrench.
And that was it—the moment Ethan was hooked.
Carl insisted Ethan go to school, but after the school day was over, Carl welcomed his help fixing up old beaters to sell. Ethan learned quickly, and soon Carl started to pay him for his time. Everything was turning around for him. He had met a girl at school, and with money in his pocket, he could take her out and treat her right. His mother was still a mess, but at least he knew if shit hit the fan and his stepdad walked that Ethan could support them. And it was all because of Carl. More than that, Ethan could talk to Carl. He talked to him about his father, and Carl would listen and offer advice.
But Ethan soon learned that nice guys weren’t always good guys.
Almost a full year after he met Carl, Ethan was helping him install a new timing chain when Carl got a phone call.
“Hey, I have to run out for a few minutes. You okay here?” Carl said after pocketing his phone.
“Yeah, I got this,” Ethan said, feeling pleased that Carl trusted him to finish the work on his own.
“All right. Cool. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Carl drove off and not two minutes later, three cruisers raced up the narrow park road, flashing blues and blasting sirens and stopped right in front of Carl’s trailer. Before Ethan could blink, guns were aimed at him, and he was cuffed and shoved in the back of one of the cruisers.
Turns out, Carl had been fixing cars he had stolen off garage lots. A cop-buddy who Carl had grown up with had tipped him off. Carl left so that Ethan could take the fall. In the end, Carl was caught and sent to prison, but with Ethan’s fingerprints all over the cars, the judge didn’t believe Ethan was as innocent as he claimed. He was sentenced to two years in juvie. After he did his time, the state ruled his druggie mom an unfit parent, and so he got caught up in the system and was placed into foster care for another two years.
But when he turned eighteen, he became his own man. He left New York behind and moved to Boston where he got a job wrenching and vowed not to look back and never to trust or rely on anyone else ever again.
And he had kept that promise to himself, except at night when his dreams took him back to those dark places.
But like his father, he had other dreams. He had vision. When he first moved to Boston, he rebuilt bikes in his spare time, and soon, he started designing his own custom bikes. At twenty-two, he sold his first few bikes and invested the money in his own garage. Soon he was winning awards for his designs. Now, at twenty-nine, his bikes sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he had a waiting list for a decade.
