The bartender's words rang in his ears. They rang in his heart.
"Somebody's gonna need a doctor. I just hope it's not Brad."
He fucking hoped so too.
He bit down on his lower lip, tearing down the road in Lipski's Jeep, chasing the group of bikers. There were only four of them, but every single one looked like the kind of guy you really didn't want to meet alone after dark. Stone clenched his jaw. Brad Lipski was one of them? No. Impossible.
And yet…
The moment when he'd shielded Colin with his own body from the bottle. When he'd turned around and grabbed Steve by the throat. Pinned him to the wall and held him there…
Stone shook his head.
Lipski was dangerous. The facts spoke for themselves. Mayor Bartez, the old lady at the store, Anders—they all talked about his past like he'd barely dodged prison. And today's Brad fit the image of a hard biker, too… but not completely. The way he treated his nieces. The fact he worked in some crappy diner wearing that ridiculous apron…
No. Someone like that couldn't belong to a gang.
Couldn't… right?
Maybe not now—but in the past?
Stone swallowed hard.
How much of the old Brad was still in the man he knew today?
Knew?
Colin tightened his grip on the steering wheel again.
Red Sculls.
Lipski's old gang. The one he'd broken away from.
Because he had broken away, right?
He seriously shouldn't be getting involved in Lipski business. The guy belonged to a goddamn gang. A gang. In the ER, Stone had seen way too many gang members—stabbed, shot, overdosed, or cuffed by the cops. People who were victims of pointless, brutal violence and dealt just as much of it themselves.
And yet…
Brad's not like that, something whispered in his chest, weirdly firm. You've seen him with the girls. In the house. At the diner. Would a hardened gangster wear a stupid kitchen apron like that?
Lipski with his hand around another man's throat. Slamming him into the wall…
Colin shivered.
Which Lipski was real? The brutal one? The protective one? Both?
He didn't have time for this.
Something loomed on the side of the road. A shed? And people. People with bikes.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
This was it.
There were probably twenty bikers pulled over. No, less. Ten bikes? About that many men and a few women. Too far away to make out faces.
Was Brad among them?
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
The Red Sculls riders rolled closer, slowed down. The ones already there turned toward them like Dobermans guarding their yard.
Fucking shit. They're not about to start a bloodbath out here, are they?
The cops. He should call the cops.
He pulled over onto the shoulder. Reached for his phone—
—and froze.
Brad couldn't afford another run-in with the sheriff. Not if he wanted any chance of keeping custody of his nieces.
Ah, to hell with all of them.
Colin clenched his teeth, killed the engine, and stepped out of the car. Cold wind hit his face, but his cheeks burned anyway. Why was he here? Why was he getting involved when he was supposed to keep his distance?
He started walking toward the bikers.
The two groups faced off like rival packs.
Dobermans and pit bulls.
Shit, what am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?
But he kept walking. Straight at them. Until he heard engines roaring in the distance.
He hesitated for half a second.
Then kept going.
Brad should be here somewhere, he thought, instinctively scanning the crowd. He saw a lot of faces—almost all of them—but none belonged to Lipski. His fists clenched.
Where the hell is he?
The engines growled somewhere behind him, and before Colin even reached the gathered bikers, they all turned their heads toward the sound.
Stone started reading the air—and his heart jumped up into his throat.
Was that…
…a race?
He moved between the bikers and stopped level with the front line. He was looking exactly where the others were—at the empty road, from which came the ominous roar of engines pushed to the limit.
"Who…?" he asked quietly. His throat was tight, dry. "Who's racing?"
"Two biggest hotheads around here," someone explained without turning their head.
"Oh… yeah…" He swallowed hard. "You mean…?"
"You seriously asking? Our lieutenant, Dylan Svenson. And that Red Sculls bastard, Lipski."
"Bastard…"
Something boiled in Colin's blood. Only now did he notice the patch on the man's jacket—blue flames and a Viking helmet. West Vikings. Stone was standing with the group opposing Brad's former crew.
"Bastard, huh?" he growled. "But good enough to race your lieutenant?"
The biker looked back at him. His eyes sparked. He frowned—and then smiled, mocking.
"You the new doctor in town?" he asked.
"I am. So?"
"So nothing."
The man turned back to watch the empty road.
"So nothing"? Nothing?
He felt it snap inside him. Why was he even here? What for? Between Dobermans and pit bulls, practically asking to get hit by both sides. And yet he couldn't leave. He stared at the road, ears straining for the engines.
A race. Fuck. Brad Lipski was in a street race.
"What for…?" he asked. His voice shook a little. "What are they racing for?"
Silence answered him—dark and deep as a void.
"What, no stakes?" he scoffed.
"If the lieutenant wins," a very young guy started, "he'll take care of—"
"Shut your fucking mouth," the first biker cut him off, throwing him a murderous look.
The kid—barely an adult, maybe not even that—fell silent. Dropped his eyes. No one said anything else.
Shit. So there were stakes.
A shiver ran down Colin's spine. He scanned the crowd and… didn't see the red-haired biker Lipski had been talking to outside the diner.
Is he racing… him?
Suddenly the scene outside the diner shifted, took on a different shape, a different meaning. That tension he had felt back then—the whole situation—was it a challenge? Was that all it was? Nothing erotic. Just this.
A touch of relief and a pinch of regret seeped into Colin's chest. Relief that there hadn't been anything between those two—and regret that Brad Lipski wasn't gay.
Fuck. Did that even matter right now?
He looked toward the four Red Sculls bikers. Sean might not have been the tallest among them, but he clearly radiated authority. He was talking to someone on his smartphone, his men standing around him like a personal guard—alert, ready to act the second an order was given.
Was this Sean planning to do something to Brad? Because Lipski was taking part in this race?
Shit. Damn it. What the hell had Colin gotten himself into?
He didn't have time to think. The crowd rippled. The tension inside him surged, went rigid. The roar of engines grew louder, and Stone looked down the road where two motorcycles were racing toward them…
Neck and neck. Black machines, black riders. Colin's mouth went dry. Which one was Brad?
"Damn, he's good," someone muttered in the crowd. "All those years off, and still…"
Colin clenched his fists. A pulsing urgency ran through his body, flooding it with heat.
It was too far away to recognize colors—on the bikes, on the helmets—but he could see how close they were. Too close. One careless move, one twitch of a knee or elbow, and they'd collide…
He couldn't watch. He couldn't look away. There was something hypnotic about those speeding machines, about the men riding them—men for whom speed was an obstacle to overcome. And one of those men was Brad.
The bikers were flying.
The crowd surged again, excited.
They were so close now…
The bikers stepped back a pace.
The scream of engines, the rush of air, and two black streaks shot past, almost fused into one.
A murmur went through the crowd.
Who won?
For some reason, the answer to that question mattered like hell.
For God's sake—who won?