Page 20 of Drift
The club. The danger. The violence that came with our brand of justice.
At the time, I’d agreed with the sentiment. The sweet little girl I remembered didn’t belong in our world.
Not even if every fucked-up part of me wanted to pull her closer to it—and to me.
I’d seen too much to pretend otherwise. I wasn’t built for soft things—especially not her.
Growing up in the worst part of Gainesville, I was neck-deep in the kind of streets that ate kids alive. Racing was my way out. At least, that was what I told myself. But those tracks weren’t about trophies or glory. They were run by a local dealer, Mace, who treated us like disposable entertainment—fast cars, high bets, and blood on the asphalt when someone didn’t make the turn. He took most of my winnings and called it “protection money.”
I’d scoffed at first, insisting that I fought my own fucking battles. But Mace’s guys taught me a lesson really quick after that. It was protection from him. I was paying for my life.
By the time I was nineteen, I’d built a name as the kid who didn’t crash and didn’t talk. That was when Kane showed up at one of the midnight races and stood out like a wolf among strays. He saw me run, pulled me aside, and said he could give me something better. Real teams. Money that didn’t reek of blood. The races were still illegal, but they had rules, safety, and no one was gonna break my kneecaps if I came in second.
But I was too deep in by then and forced myself to say no. Too many “debts.” Although what and why I owed the dealer had never been fully explained, and too many eyes were watching. Kane looked at me for a long moment, like he already knew how it was going to end, and said, “You call me when you’re ready.”
When, notif.
Didn’t take long.
A few months later, a girl I knew disappeared. Shy thing who sold beer out of coolers at the finish line. When I started asking questions, the wrong people noticed. Eventually, I suspected the answer had something to do with trafficking, and like the hotheaded, overly confident asshole that I was, I confronted Mace.
After I got out of the hospital—where I’d almost died as a warning “not to be nosy” since I was too much of a cash cow for him to kill—I vowed to take him down.
One night, the dealer’s mansion went up in flames.
No one ever saw his crew again.
The cops said it looked professional—like someone had wired the place to blow. The kind of job that didn’t leave survivors or evidence. But there had been bullets in some of the charred bodies, and others showed evidence of physical violence.
People whispered that I’d gone in myself—that I’d tortured them, then locked the doors before I lit the fuse. Others swore I just disappeared for two days and came back with blood under my nails and eyes that didn’t look human anymore.
It seemed everyone was certain I’d done something, but no one’d ever been brave enough to ask which version was true.
Only Kane, Edge, and Jax knew what truly happened. I hadn’t wanted to patch with the Redline Kings without being fully honest with the prez and VP. And Jax…well, we knew the best and the worst about each other. Mutual destruction, somemight say. To us, it was friendship and loyalty. We were brothers long before we wore our cuts.
After that, the street crowd gave me space. Fear has a way of clearing a room faster than fists. The scar across my brow didn’t help—split open by the fist of someone who knew they were about to die. But the silence did more damage than any blade could.
When I patched, Kane gave me the road name “Drift.” He said it was from the way I drove and the way I lived.
I didn't follow the line; I slid through it. On the track, I could drift a curve that would send most drivers into the wall. Off it, I’d slid out of hell and into the Kings, cutting loose from the past that tried to own me. Now I drifted between light and shadow, law and outlaw, calm and carnage. And when the formation rode, I was the last man you saw in your mirror—and the one you didn’t see after that.
That was who I was before the Kings and who I still was under the cut.
Controlled chaos, always on the edge of losing control, but I never gave in because I knew what happened when I did.
And Alanna Bishop…she was the last person on earth who should ever find out what that looked like.
8
DRIFT
The following night, my world was filled with noise, smoke, and speed.
Break Point Run, the Redline Holdings track just outside of Crossbend, was alive with rows of bikes lined up under floodlights. The crowd shuffled to their seats in the grandstands, and engines snarled like caged animals waiting to be turned loose.
I leaned against my bike near the start line, the steel frame humming faintly under my hand from the idling vibration. The heat coming off the engines rolled across the pit, mixing with the humid night air. Nitro crouched beside his Harley, checking chain tension, his knuckles streaked with grease and road dust. Axle stood a few feet away, his helmet hooked on two fingers, that cocky half smile saying he was already running odds in his head.
“Your rookie’s late,” Nitro muttered, tightening a bolt. “If he misses the start again, I’m letting Axle ride him into the guardrail this time.”
