5. Ranger

[ 5 ]

RANGER

Violence came as easy to me as breathing. I bodied the old git into the ground, stomping on his chest, aware of other people filling the space behind me. Shouts. Threats. Hands grabbing for me and missing, which was annoying. I honestly didn’t give a fuck if ten other people jumped in. Bad odds didn’t scare me.

I got low in the motherfucker’s face. “I saw you.”

He was ripped away from me before his fucked-up lips formed a response, and it was my turn to be propelled backwards, my feet touching air, until a brick wall hit my back.

There were only a few men who could move me like that and not die, and Locke Halliwell was at the top of that list. Big. Blond. Handsome as hell when he wasn’t frowning up a storm. “Goddamn it, brother.” He restrained me, pinning my arms at my sides. “Calm your tits. It’s broad fuckin’ daylight.”

My brain had already checked out.

Adrenaline pumping, it took my body a minute to catch up, fighting Locke’s hold on me. Losing, cos this lovable prick was strong.

I simmered down.

He got in my face, gripping my chin. “Take a breath before you kill someone.”

“If I wanted him dead, he would be.”

Truth, and Locke knew it. We’d been friends and brothers a long time. He knew killing didn’t bother me, and he let me go, still crowding me, in case his assessment of me was all wrong. “What the fuck was that about?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, but footsteps sounded beyond him and top-level Rebel Kings descended on us.

Nash.

Rubi.

Folk.

I swallowed the truth. “Didn’t like the look of ‘im.”

Scepticism creased Locke’s face, but he kept his opinions to himself and stepped back, leaving me at the mercy of the inquisition barrelling towards me.

Rubi reached me first and poked my chest with a finger as inked as the rest of him. “Oi, Rambo. We’ve talked about scrapping in front of the kids before. It ain’t fucking on.”

“Easy.” Nash caught up with him and knocked Rubi’s massive arm aside. “That shit was months ago, and it was my fault. Let him speak before you condemn him.”

I eyed the limp holding Nash up. “Stub your toe?”

Nash gave me a mellow grin. “Fuck off. And explain yourself before the grapevine goes fucking nuts and half the Doherty clan come down here wanting blood because you decked their patriarch.”

Doherty. The name meant nothing to me. I hadn’t been around for a while, and even when I’d spent endless months kipping in the bunkhouse, I’d taken little to zero notice of any King I wasn’t riding with. Cos I was done making friends that I didn’t get to keep. “He’s a dick,” I said to fill the weighted silence.

Nash’s fair brow ticked up. “That’s a given. But he’s an old timer with three sons who’ve been in the club since they were kids. This isn’t going to blow over.”

I shrugged, not giving a fuck.

Folk came closer, approaching me with a stare that crumbled every guard I had, flaying my soul wide open. “What did he say? Before you jumped him?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what did you see that I didn’t from the other side of the yard?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying.” Folk stopped in front of me. “You want to talk in private?”

“No.”

Folk’s stare intensified. “Who are you trying to protect?”

You. Cos I knew him. He was the calmest, most level-headed bloke I’d ever met, but Decoy was his whole world and Ivy was their kid. If I told him that Doherty scumbag had raised a hand to his pretty little girl . . . nah, it would be a massacre, and my brother didn’t need more blood on his hands. He needed peace—he’d fucking earned it—and I’d wage every war on earth to make sure he got it. “I’m protecting myself. In case dickhead round there is your new best friend.”

Irritation flared in Folk’s deep blue gaze, the same emotion he’d sent my way when he’d caught me banging his sister and lying about it. When he’d been trapped between resignation and the urge to throttle me. “I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”

“I don’t need fucking help.”

Folk gave me his best disappointed-dad frown and walked away.

Rubi called after him. “Take the kids home. It’s gonna get lairy tonight.”

Folk kept walking and I felt bad for pissing him off, but I’d have felt worse if he’d found himself compelled to finish what I’d started. Cos that’s where this was going. A good old-fashioned biker brawl, and I was here for it.

On cue, the night lit up with the sound of incoming bikes. Lots of them.

Nash sighed. “That’s our evening fucked. Go to the bunkhouse and get your shit together. I’ll find you when it’s time.”

He shuffled away, moving slowly on his bad leg.

Locke stayed with me, but every part of him that mattered followed his fella into the night.

“You can go.” I discarded the crushed rollie I found in my fist, ignoring the scorch mark on my palm. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

Locke dragged his pretty gaze away from Nash’s retreating back. “Coulda fooled me. You’ve been here less than a day and you’re already tearing the place up.”

“He deserved it.”

“I believe you, but I don’t get why you wouldn’t give it up to Folk. He’s got your back more than anyone.”

“I don’t need him to have my back.” I fished my baccy out of my pocket and rolled a fresh smoke. “It’s not like he’s never twatted anyone for no good reason.”

“You just said Doherty deserved it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I lit my smoke.

Locke cast it a longing stare, then sighed like his man before him. “Come on. Let’s get you sobered up and ready to fight for real.”

“I’m not drunk.”

Another truth, but Locke wasn’t listening. He led me the back way to the bunkhouse, gave me a bear hug to mark our sweet reunion, and sent me packing into the bathroom.

I stripped and turned the shower on, bracing myself for the arctic blast I’d grown used to the last time I was here.

“Fucking-A—” Volcanic spray blew me backwards, scalding my skin. “What’s with the mardy plumbing?”

Locke reappeared, giving zero fucks that I was bollock-naked. “It’s cold?”

“If Krakatoa was fucking cold.” I eased the temperature to a setting that wouldn’t singe me alive. “You been fixing the place up?”

“Not me.”

Locke spoke with a fond grin.

I rolled my eyes, not giving a shit what that was all about, and dunked my head under the water, scrubbing a hand through the shortest hair I’d had since I was sixteen. Recalling the day I’d hacked it off, then shaking the memory free, forcing myself not to drift.

Get clean.

I found some soap, but it smelt of orange blossom—of him—and I didn’t have the infrastructure for that right now.

Fuck it, I’d stay feral.

I tossed the soap and stepped out of the shower.

Locke handed me a towel, his gaze never leaving as I dragged my clothes back on. “You’re really not going to tell me what that was all about?”

I stole a Rebel Kings crew neck from a pile in an open locker and yanked it over my head, buying myself a moment before I met his curious concern again. Keeping shit from Locke wasn’t my favourite thing. He was my friend and I loved him. But these days, he was as emotionally invested in the Kings as Folk was. He’d die for those kids—but he didn’t have to. Cos I was here.

“Dude.” Locke got in my face. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Anything. Everything. You’ve been gone a long time, and this is the first thing you do when you come home?”

“Get off my dick.” I craved Locke’s big arms around me again. His familiar embrace after being alone for so long. But I stepped out of his reach. “This isn’t my home.”

My old friend heaved a world-weary sigh. “If you believed that, your nanna wouldn’t be here.”

I cut him a sharp glare that he didn’t deserve. Remembered he’d spent more time with Jean than I had these past few months and that he’d recruited his lovers to take care of her too.

Being nice didn’t come easy to me, but for Locke, I made the effort to un-arsehole myself.

I softened my features in time for Nash to limp up on us.

Locke immediately forgot about me. He steered Nash to a bunk and bullied him into taking a pew.

Nash let it happen, a grin lighting his pretty face, but his gaze hardened when it landed on me. “Doherty’s oldest boy wants you in the ring.”

I shrugged, expecting it. “Give a shit.”

“There’s a problem, though.”

“How do you work that out?”

Nash leaned back, stretching his crocked leg. “He lost his last bout. Club rules means he has to fight a council brother before he’s allowed in the ring again.”

I pictured some of the men who sat at the Rebel Kings’ table—Saint, Mateo, Alexei—and laughed. “That’s a stupid fucking rule unless one of you plans on getting KO’d tonight on purpose.”

“No chance.” Nash grinned again, but it was all menace this time. “They don’t fight us to win. They fight so they learn how to lose.”

The philosophy made no sense to me, but I wasn’t as clever as these boys and I didn’t fucking care. I was keyed up to fight. And I knew Nash understood that cos he’d seen it in me before, when he’d let me goad him into thumping the shit out of me.

Didn’t help.

Not permanently, anyway.

Still, I wanted this fight. I needed it. “So what you’re saying is I have to wait my turn to kick his head in?”

“Not necessarily.” Nash pushed himself off the bunk and came closer, discomfort cinching his brow. “You want this bout? Give me a reason to bend the rules and make it happen.”

In the time it had taken him to cross the small space, I’d rolled another smoke. I stuck it between my lips and lit it. “Sounds like a manipulation.”

“What do you care if you get what you want?”

“What do I care?” I blew smoke to the ceiling. “It’s nish to me, but I don’t like being fucking handled.”

Nish. Nothing. But I meant what I said. If Nash wanted me to spill, he’d have to do better than that. Or he’d have to bring some other cunt in to talk for him.

“Nomad.”

My body went cold. For months now—years, a lifetime, it had to be—I’d imagined the moment the Russian voice in my head became real. How I’d feel. If I’d survive it. But not this Russian voice. Not the one that usually meant endless nights of silent stake-outs before we got to the brutal violence.

I miss him.

Viktor.

Not Alexei Ivanov who stared at me like I was fucking fish food.

I nodded a greeting.

He kept staring. “You’re home.”

“I’m here.”

Alexei stared some more, and I wasn’t immune to his unnerving attention. I felt like an insect under a microscope and it sobered me up faster than I was prepared for.

I turned back to Nash. “I’m not spitting why I decked Grandad Doherty. It stays with me.”

“Then you can’t step in the ring.”

“Suit yourself. You know I’m gonna fight anyway.”

Nash eyed me, steady, calm, and fucking lethal if you’d seen him fight as many times as I had. “You don’t make the rules, bro.”

“Not trying to. I’m telling you where I’m at.”

“And I’m telling you that’s not how it fucking works. Unless you want a promotion.”

“Eh?”

Nash took a breath, but Alexei spoke over him. “To the council, nomad. Is up to you if what happened here today is worth that commitment.”

He smirked like a haunted fucking corpse, but something else laced his expression—a deathly aggression he made little effort to hide from me, and it slowly dawned on me why.

He knows.

How, I had no clue, but at this point, it didn’t matter. I had an ally in the room and I was all over that shit.

I tipped Nash the nod. “Stand me up, brother.”

Nash frowned. “This ain’t a joke.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“This prick has pissed you off enough to take a seat at the table?”

“Yup.”

“And you’re not going to tell me why?”

“Nope.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Nash scrubbed a hand down his face. “I was in the market for an early night.”

Lucky him, and for a brief second, I felt bad about ruining his good time. Then Alexei stole my attention before he abandoned his post at the door, and my path solidified.

Fuck it.

I took the extra patch for the leather cut I never wore and stuffed it in my back pocket. No ceremony. Zero fucks given.

Nash shook his head and followed Alexei out into the chaos of the yard.

Locke remained, gawping like he’d never seen me before. “You been snorting fuckin’ monkey dust again?”

“That was one time. Five years ago. Don’t go on.”

“If you take a seat at that table, they’ll expect you to sit in it.”

Fuck my life. “I know.”

“And I know you’ve spent the last decade telling me you’d rather set yourself on fire than have any kind of responsibility. What gives?”

“You’ve asked me that three times already. You’re not getting a different answer out of me.”

“What if Cam asks you? Or Saint? They’re not as nice as Nash.”

“Leave him alone, Mishka.” Alexei reappeared in the doorway. “Find the nomad some food he will eat so he is not fighting on an empty stomach.”

Locke was one of the bravest souls I’d ever met. He cemented his boots to the floor, prepared to go toe-to-toe with the maddest, baddest Russian hitman for me. But I shut that shit down. “I’m fucking starving, bro.”

That earned me a daddy growl, but I could take it.

Locke left.

Alexei came closer. “I saw what you saw.”

“I figured.” I dropped my spent rollie in a nearby beer bottle. “You should’ve let me kill him.”

“I would have.”

“For real?”

“I do not joke about murder. Perhaps it is as well that Locke got to you first.”

I peered at him, trying to read the cryptic bastard. I’d heard rumours that Alexei could be low-key hilarious when his mood was right, but I’d never seen it. My experiences with him had all been like this: baffling and boring. And violent when he let me loose, but apparently that wasn’t happening.

“You cannot kill anyone tonight,” he clarified. “We do not have the time or energy for bodies right now, and I am trusting you to control yourself.”

“Sounds like a gamble to me.”

Alexei leered. “Make it a good one.”

“Planning on it.” I paced the open space of the bunkhouse. “It’ll be all three of those cunts, won’t it?”

All three Doherty sons.

“I’d imagine so.” Alexei leaned casually against a bunk. “You will defeat the sons in age order until you reach the youngest, and he is the strongest fighter. His left hand is fast, like his father before he became an old drunk who swings at little girls.”

The air deadened. I stopped pacing and faced Alexei, meeting his flinty gaze head on. “He might not have hit her.”

“He thought about it, nomad. That is enough. And even without that, this . . . lingering dissent about you and Locke, and Folk. It needs to end. Tonight. So do what you need to make it happen.”

He left. Suddenly. As if he’d never been there at all, but his words stuck. I wasn’t around enough to give a shit that some old time Kings didn’t like me. But Locke was. Folk. And they had better things to do than fight it out every time some lippy cunt opened their fat mouth. Better lives to lead than mine.

Make it happen.

The tsar had spoken, and he’d get no argument from me.

Locke brought me a paper bag of magic from the McDonalds up the road. I ate it while he grumbled about me looking fuckin’ thin. Then I took a nap, sleeping off the grease and beer while the world kept turning around me.

It was late when I woke up.

Saint stood over the bunk I’d crashed out on. “I’ll wrap your hands.”

Yawning, I let him do it, waiting for the inquisition. But it never came. Either he already knew or he didn’t care about my motivations for beating the shit out of a bunch of fucking idiots. “Folk’s gone, right?”

Saint nodded and raised his fists, gesturing for me to warm up with him. There wasn’t a lot of space in the bunkhouse, but for whatever reason, he didn’t seem to want me to leave it just yet.

We sparred, Saint keeping me on my toes, as fast with his feet as I was.

It got my blood pumping. I had a lot of love for Saint—I’d never want to hurt him, but the kicks I didn’t land pissed me off enough that I was buzzing by the time Rubi called us out.

I followed Saint into the yard. Packed and rowdy, it was a different place to what it had been a few hours ago and I could dig it. Fight nights were one of my favourite parts of biker life. When the noise drowned out the shitty music and the ring became the road.

And this ring belonged to Nash McGovern, had done for years, but as I reached the raised canvas, it wasn’t him waiting for me. It was Locke, and my brother stood tall beneath the fairy lights that canopied the mat—all six five of him.

I rolled beneath the ropes and sprang to my feet. He grinned as a shout from the crowd reached us.

“Dirty Crow bitches.”

Locke’s smile widened. “We’ll see.”

He wasn’t worried.

Neither was I.

I stood to the side, leaving Locke to manage the crowd while Rubi took bets and Nash watched on from a seat further back, letting Locke speak for him. Deliberate, or was he just fucking knackered?

No clue, and I didn’t care enough to ponder it long. The Kings could pantomime this as much as they liked, the outcome would be the same.

I dragged my stolen crew neck over my head and leaned against the ropes, sizing up my opponent. Same height but wider. Puddle-blond hair, like the water at the bottom of a broken dishwasher. Punchable face. He wasn’t going to last long, so I let my gaze skip over him to his brothers waiting in the wings.

The middle one was fucking massive. On a par with Rubi, but without the athleticism that made the Rebel Kings’ road captain so dangerous. This dude was ’roid central—arms too big for his jacked-up body, little chicken legs floating underneath.

Twat.

I moved on, appraising the third brother who was already staring me down, confirming Alexei’s prophecy that he would be the real fight. All for the sake of his pisshead idiot of a father. Why were the dads that lived forever always the shit ones?

Melancholy squeezed my heart. I tried to think of Decoy, Folk, and Locke. Mateo and Embry. They were good dads and they were still here, but it had been close, for all of them, and their faces gave way to my father’s. To his bloodied, boot-stomped⁠—

“Hey.” A fresh brother popped up in front of me, and by chance, or maybe not, it was Embry—the only King who had any clue what had happened to my dad all those years ago. Cos he’d caught me at a bad moment once upon a time, and I’d told him some dark shit so he wouldn’t make me talk about Rocco. “You okay?”

I tuned back into the present. “Yup.”

“Need a smoke?”

“Yup.”

Embry stuck a cigarette between my lips, a Marlboro Light, all posh and shit, as the wind picked up, whistling through the packed yard. I cupped my hands around it and lit up, anchoring myself in a burn that held half the potency of the rollies I’d grown hooked on in the past year.

It’d do, though. Most things did.

Embry finished what Saint had started, warming me up, using his speed to kick-start mine. This brother was quick. I only ever got the best of him cos my legs were longer.

I bounced on the balls of my feet, fists raised, muscles bunched, but chill. My limbs fluid. Ready.

Embry caught my gaze and nodded. “Rinse those cunts, but don’t murder anyone.”

Always with the murder. I grinned. “Consider it done.”

He melted away, leaving me with my thoughts for the brief moment it took Locke to call order. I turned my face to the sprinkle of rain hazing down from the clouds above, eyes open, taking it all in, my brain, despite Embry’s best efforts, still clinging to the past. The sky looked different when someone you loved was up there. Lots of people round here knew that, but for a heartbeat in time, I was alone with it.

“Step up.” Locke’s deep voice broke the quiet I’d imagined. He beckoned me forward. Doherty Number One too. “Corner toss. Call it.”

“Heads,” Doherty growled before I could speak.

I let it happen. Let him lose, and I called north side solely to let him think I didn’t know that the south corner had better odds.

Smirking, Doherty strutted to his harem. “Thick-as-shit Crow bitch.”

Bitch.Man, I was getting sick of that word. I moved to my corner where Saint waited, silent and still. No pep talk or final words of advice. “Can I ask you something?”

He tilted his head.

I faced him, turning my back on the ring. “Who killed Priest? Was it you?”

Cos I knew Locke, and it wasn’t him. And Nash and Cam had been hit by that lorry just a few weeks later, and there’s no way anyone who’d done the world that big of a favour got karma served to them like that. So who was it, Alexei? Mateo? Saint? Couldn’t say why it mattered—or why it mattered now, but I asked the question all the same, and all I got for my trouble was a slow blink.

“Time.”

Locke called the bout. I spun away from Saint and met Locke in the middle, making eye contact with Doherty, dancing on the balls of my feet.

Buzzing.

Restless.

Eager.

The ring had rules.

Locke rattled through them and Doherty spared him a sneer.

“I don’t need a Crow to tell me how this works.”

“Nah, you need your fuckin’ head read if you think you’re gonna put this nutter down.” Locke jerked his thumb at me.

Then he stepped back. “Fight.”

My pulse thudded a single beat, loud and deep, clattering against my eardrums. Doherty twitched.

I flew, feinting with my fists, forcing him to dodge before I got low, swinging my leg, and smashed his face with my boot.

The impact was brutal for me, rattling my bones from my ankle to my fucking jaw. For him, it was an instant KO, and I danced away with a loud whoop.

The crowd reaction was mixed. Nash and Rubi had my back, loud as fuck, but there were plenty of Rebel King brothers here tonight who didn’t want to see me win.

Doherty Number Two ducked under the ropes. The yard noise grew louder and he smacked his fist to his palm. His eight-kilo kettlebell-sized paw. And witnessing what I’d done to his older brother, he was ready for me, jerking out of my reach with surprising balance, given that his top half weighed six times as much as the rest of him.

Careful. Rocco’s voice echoed in the blank space behind my eyes. Whatever you see, look again.

Fucking-A, even dead, he was annoying, but I missed him too. What we’d had before. Those long summer days, sparring in the fields around Folk’s family farm. Simpler days, before Rocco’s mum had moved to the shittest part of Devon for a fresh start that had, in the end, killed her and Rocco both.

Fucking Crows. I’d been one—for more than a decade. God, I wished I’d burned them to the ground the first dreary night I’d set foot on their compound.

In the time it took me to drown in regret, the second Doherty brother had found his juice. He lunged for me, his pupils as overgrown as the rest of him, and caught me with a glancing blow, a scuff of a hit that sent just the right jolt of pain zipping through my blood.

My adrenaline amplified.

I moved fast, a kick connecting with a wide, rock-hard gut. Another catching the side of Doherty’s neck. But this dude was big. I wasn’t going to put him down with a couple of lucky hits. I had to deck him where it hurt.

My boot found his round face. His fist my fucking kidney, knocking the breath from my lungs while he spat blood.

I wheeled into my corner, taking water, absorbing Saint’s encouraging silence, his rare touch as he dropped his palms on my shoulders. Keep going.

Keyed up as I was, something in me settled. I sprang from my corner at lightning speed and nailed my opponent in the ribs, following up with an elbow to the side of his head, and a fist to his solar plexus—a triple combination Folk had drilled into me when I was sixteen years old and he was already a fucking marine.

Like him, it had never failed me, and it was lights out for Doherty Number Two. The warm-up was over.

Locke called a time-out.

I staggered to my corner, the hit to my side making itself known now I had time to think about it.

Like I’d summoned him from God, Folk appeared and pressed a cold sponge to my heated skin. “You dizzy?”

“Nope.”

“Breathing good?”

“Yup. Thought you went home?”

“Ivy ditched me for a sleepover. Then I got a call to say one of my oldest mates was triple-billing a fight all by himself, so here I am.”

Folk scrutinised my torso, then moved on to check my vision while I made a show of looking around him. “This old mate of yours. He hotter than me?”

He laughed, gripped my face, and pressed a fraternal smooch to my forehead. “Definitely cleverer. Now put this to bed so we can all go home.”

“Sergeant.” I tipped him a dry salute and pushed off the ropes, energised by his unshakeable faith in me.

The third Doherty brother waited, and this one wasn’t a stranger. Pretty sure I’d called him a cunt before, across a battlefield of King and Crow. Back then, he’d have been on the winning side, and I wasn’t sad about it. But he’d picked the wrong team tonight. If the Kings had taught me anything, it was that family meant more than blood.

We collided. Hard. Flesh and bone. A crash of violence that happened too fast for me to feel much about it.

Survival mode kicked in.

I liked fighting. I was good at it. But the best brawls were always the closest. The ones that nearly killed you. And this dude . . . he was fitter than his brothers. Sharper. And fresher than me. He came at me like a possessed beast and I took the blows, feeling him out, sensing his desperation to win.

His weak point. Folk had taught me to search them out, and that I wouldn’t always find them in a man’s punch. Doherty flew at me again, aiming a savage hit at my temple.

I ducked and nailed his thigh, spinning away as he staggered, and he charged again so fast that I knew I was right. This dude was good, but subtle panic laced his every move, growing starker as his killer blows struck out.

He has to win.

Cos he knew the consequences if he didn’t. Cos he knew. What his dad did. He fucking knows. A glance at Doherty Senior confirmed my theory. The old man looked nervous, despite the edge his boy had on me, cos he knew it would be the fucking end of him if I survived this fight and opened my big fat mouth.

Man, what a clusterfuck this shit had become. And apparently they hadn’t got the no murder memo either.

Lucky me.

And the truth was, I felt fucking lucky—cos I wasn’t scared of living or dying. I was scared of feeling too much. Of letting it hurt, and nothing about this fight had anything to do with that.

Doherty’s fist caught my gut, knocking the breath from me a second time.

I doubled over, lungs burning, but not for long. I didn’t have that fucking luxury. As he came for me again, I found a burst of agility and pole-axed that fucker back to his corner.

Respite. Thank fuck. However brief, I needed it to fix the urgent lack of air moving through my chest. I took water from Folk. Spat it out, evading his probing hands, Locke’s concern, and a penetrating stare from Saint that I couldn’t weather as the attention on me began to fester. I didn’t mind putting on a show, but the sheer number of eyes on me made my skin burn. Like there was someone I couldn’t see staring right through me.

Don’t look. I couldn’t. Doherty was out of his corner and barrelling towards me. But my head swivelled of its own accord, searching the crowd surrounding the ring and beyond, to the bar steps where the king of all Kings stood.

Cam O’Brian. Good-looking bastard, imposing as fuck. But it wasn’t him who sent my pulse skyrocketing to the fucking moon. It was the tall man next to him. Brown hair, brown eyes, a beard that was all angles and no scruff. An all-seeing Russian gaze that threw me off balance enough that I was too slow to dodge Doherty’s well-aimed jam to my already throbbing ribs.

Motherfucker.

The pain pissed me off and I unleashed hell on him, but my brain kept spinning, spiralling into a vortex of bewilderment.

Jacob.

Jakov.

Jake.

Whatever the hell his name was, what the fuck was he doing here?