1. Vex

1

VEX

" U ncle Vex?"

I look down at Avery, my Iron Outlaws brother Bates's little girl. "What's up, peanut?"

She climbs up onto the barstool next to me, ignoring the New Year's Eve party swirling around us.

The clubhouse is full, the rock music is loud, and the single brothers have been put on notice by Niro that if he sees any of them doing any shit that's even PG-13 with club girls in front of Avery, he'll slit their throats.

"What are invest-i-ments?"

I grin. "Investments?"

"Yeah. Those."

"It's when you take a hundred bucks and use it to buy into something, like a company. And if the company does well, they give you more than a hundred bucks back."

Her eyes narrow. "How much more?"

I shrug. "That's the problem. You don't know. They might even make a loss. So, they only give you ninety of your hundred bucks back."

Her mouth opens, and little lines form across her nose. "They steal your money?"

"No. It's like, they used those hundred bucks to make more money and it didn't quite work, so they can't give it all back. Or, sometimes, it works so well, they give you lots of money back. Why do you ask?"

"I overheard Uncle Switch tell Uncle Clutch that you're really good at making him money."

She's not wrong. Neither is Switch. I'm a goddamn genius. Plus, I wrote and run a little code to trade foreign currencies off against one another. "That's fair. I am."

At this, she grins and shrugs her panda backpack off her shoulders. "Is there a hundred bucks in here?"

We all know what the panda backpack holds. Every time Niro swears around her, he pays her five bucks. At one point, she was saving for a dog. Don't know what the fuck happened to that, but I heard Bates's old lady, Vi, is allergic.

And Avery never lets anyone look inside her backpack. Bates is worried it's going to need its own security detail eventually because of how much cash is stuffed into it.

"You want me to count it for you?" I glance around to see where Bates and Vi are and find them dancing together, but Bates's eyes are on his daughter.

"She okay?" I can't hear his words over the music, but I catch his drift.

I nod. "I got her."

Bates grins and looks back at Vi, causing a ripple of envy to pass through me. Those two have something real fucking special. The kinda special that keeps you warm on a winter's night and lasts forever.

I suppose the benefit of being single is knowing no girl can ever break your heart.

"Okay," I say, grabbing a cloth that sits on top of the bar. "Lesson one about money. You gotta respect it and be grateful for it." I wipe the bar top down until it's dry.

"I said thank you to Uncle Colton for the money."

"Good girl. Now, open panda up."

When she does, fives spill out all over the bar top. Some are crumpled, some folded, all are bent. "Ave," I say. "Girl. We gotta take better care of the notes than this. Let's unfold them all and lay them flat, yeah?"

Avery kneels up on the stool. "I have so much money, Uncle Vex."

"I can see." I mean, there might even be a grand here. Maybe more. I slip my glasses on so I can see what I'm doing. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm gonna buy my own bike and start my own clubhouse where boys aren't allowed and only girls make the rules."

Her answer makes me chuckle. "You're gonna need a bit more than this."

She turns and points secretively to my brother Niro. "Do you think Uncle Colton is gonna stop swearing anytime soon?"

"Definitely not."

She claps with glee. "I know."

"Oh, you're gonna be a troublemaker when you're older."

I glance up at the mirror that frames the bottles behind the bar and see club life playing out behind me.

Couples kiss, voices rise, women hug.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

If my life were a movie, this would be a montage: Beer spilling in slow motion. Happy faces. A room full of hope and potential for the next three hundred and sixty-five days.

Another three hundred and sixty-five days of…

I draw a blank.

I've got no New Year's resolutions. Don't even know what I'm going to do tomorrow. My life plays out no more than a few hours in front of me. I'll turn and hug my best friend, Switch, I'll message my mom, I'll drink a few more beers, then I'll find a club girl to take back to my room for some…

What? Fun?

I glance back down at the growing piles of notes as we straighten and unfurl them. This is more fun.

"You know, if I invest this for you, it means you'll have to give all these notes over to me. And we'll have to get you a little book called a ledger, where we write down how much you gave me, and I write down where it's all invested."

Avery bites on her lip for a second. "It won't be in your office?"

I shake my head. "It will be in a safe place, though." I'm not gonna explain to a kid how internet banking or trading platforms work. Not when I've already got too much whiskey sloshing through my system.

"I trust you, Uncle Vex."

Okay, so maybe there is a girl in the world who could break my heart.

When it's all unfolded, we put them into piles of twenty notes. "So, if each pile is one hundred dollars, how many piles do you have?"

Avery taps the top of them. "Nineteen."

"So, what's nineteen times one hundred?"

Avery laughs. "I can't count that big, silly."

"It's nineteen hundred dollars, which is a lot of money. Bet I can double it for you."

Her jaw drops wide open. "You can do that?"

The way she looks at me like I'm a superhero says I'll do even better or pay her the difference myself. "Sure thing, kid. What kinds of things do you like so I can decide on good investments for you?"

Avery drums her fingers on the top of the bar. "I like Daddy's motorcycle. And princess movies, but only if the princess fights. I like Uncle Colton's pancakes. And Mommy's face when she wears make-up, and sometimes she lets me wear lipstick. And Mac, Auntie Iris's service dog that I'm not allowed to touch. And I liked when we went on an airplane to Mexico for Uncle Colton's wedding, and I got all this money that had different coins. Oh, and I want my ears pierced, but Daddy said no, then even Uncle Colton said no. And if Uncle Colton says no, it must be a really bad idea, because usually he says we can do anything."

I smile at the innocence of her answers. "Okay, I got a plan then. Let's invest in jewels for princess sparkle and possible future earrings. We could invest in currency, because that's what all the coins and notes are called. And I'll see where airlines and bikes and cosmetic manufacturers sit on a price-to-earnings ratio and see if we can find one of each."

She climbs up onto her knees, cups her hand to my ear, and whispers, "I only understood the jewels."

I put my hand around her waist so she doesn't fall off the stool. "I'm gonna invest in the things you like. Jewels. Money. Airplanes. Makeup. And bikes."

Avery grins at that. "Yes. Make me enough to buy a clubhouse."

"I'll do my best."

She zips up her panda backpack and drops off her stool. "I love you, Uncle Vex."

But she runs off before I have time to reply. "Yeah, love you too, sweetie."

Everyone turns their attention to the flatscreen TV. There's a scramble as people find the one they want to be standing next to when the ball drops. Quickly, I stack the notes and shove them in my pockets.

"Ten," everyone calls out.

Bates lifts Avery into his arms and sandwiches her between him and his pregnant old lady.

"Nine."

Avery stretches out her hand behind her father's head so she can reach Niro, who has his arm around Cat. He holds her hand.

"Eight."

King wraps his arms around Rae's back, pulling her closer.

"Seven."

Halo lifts Ari into his arms, and she wraps her legs around him, kissing him as if the ball already dropped. A baby monitor hangs off the back pocket of his jeans.

"Six."

Clutch thrusts a champagne glass into Gwen's hand as she laughs.

"Five."

Spark places his hands on Iris's very pregnant stomach and whispers something that makes her place her hand over his heart.

"Four."

Saint fists his hands in Briar's hair and studies his woman intently.

"Three."

Catalina slides her hand into the back pocket of Niro's jeans.

"Two."

Switch cups Sophia's cheeks and kisses her like a starved man.

"One."

I'm all alone on this fucking stool, wishing I were anywhere other than here.

"Happy New Year," Clutch booms, and the clubhouse explodes around me.

More hugging. More backslapping. More shouts of making this year special.

"Happy New Year," Switch shouts in my ear as he finally lets go of Sophia and pulls me into a hug. "Let's make it a fucking good one, yeah?"

I admire his optimism. The last twelve months were rough on him and his woman. But they're both tan, having just returned from vacation where Sophia met Switch's parents.

"To better things," I say.

I hug Sophia and kiss her unscarred cheek. "Happy New Year, sweetheart."

She grins. "Thank you. Do you have any resolutions?"

"Meh. Not really," I say. "You?"

Switch leans against the bar. "She's got a color-coded list."

"But the biggest one is I want to ask the club to let me build a real estate portfolio for them," Sophia says. "It's an easy way to wash cash."

"I like the way you think," I say. "I'd be interested in hearing more."

"Good," she says. "Because I have a whole presentation that?—"

"It's New Year's Eve, Sparrow. Well, New Year's Day. It's a party. No presentation talk tonight."

She looks up at Switch. "You're no fun." She looks back to me. "I suppose he doesn't want me to tell you I was talking about you yesterday morning."

"You were?"

"My brother is having some issues with someone trying to hack into their system."

I love the way she says it so nonchalantly. Like her brother isn't Alessio Viscuso, head of the New York Cosa Nostra.

"Pretty sure you shouldn't be telling me that," I say.

Switch pulls Sophia against him and nuzzles the back of her ear. "I said no work, babe."

"Meh," Sophia says. "I told him I'd ask you if you'd come take a look at it for him. It appears his tech team isn't as capable as you are, and I think that might piss him off a little."

"Pretty certain my president might have an issue with me helping out another criminal enterprise, but I'll run it by him."

Sophia places her hand on my arm. "Thank you. I'll make sure he owes you for it."

And there's the natural shrewd businesswoman. Sophia may have lost her memory, but she knows at a visceral level how this game is played.

The two of them head off to grab some food and I'm reminded again that I'm alone. Even as the noise in the clubhouse escalates and patched-in members and prospects celebrate, I feel isolated. Everything starts to irritate me.

I'm happy my club is happy, but I retreat to my office, an old pantry, in the back of the kitchen.

I know they all think I'm just a nerd who wanted a cubby.

But the truth is so much more than that.

First, no wall is an exterior wall. If anything happens to the exterior, like when the Italians fucking bazookaed us, nothing will happen to my setup.

Second, if by some miracle someone manages to break into the clubhouse, they'll start with the offices on the other side of the club. Church, maybe. The treasurer and club secretary offices. By then, I'll have been notified through all the alerts I set up, and help will already be on the way before they have the time to find all my computers.

And third, it's fucking quiet most of the time. But when it's not, I hear the wildest shit. People forget I'm in there.

I know Ari and Halo have secretly started treatment at a fancy clinic in New York to see if they can have kids together, but it looks like their chances are slim from the early findings, and I heard Halo hold and reassure Ari he was going to love her whether they had biological kids or not. That they will always have Lola to love and protect as their own.

I heard Rae ask King what it would feel like if he weren't president of the Iron Outlaws. And for a sweet ten minutes, they pretended he wasn't. He said he'd go into the carpentry and construction business with Niro because his dad would have liked the idea of the two of them looking out for each other. And Rae told him she'd love him no matter what he did, because any life would be better with him in it.

Clutch was devastated one night because Gwen safe-worded on him, and I heard Switch pick him up and put him back together, reminding me all over again why Clutch is a good man and why Switch is my best friend.

Still puzzling over why the fuck Gwen's safe word is flounder , though.

And I know Niro sees Avery as a do-over for his little sister who was murdered. One very drunken night, I overheard him telling Bates that he wonders why hanging out with his sister when she was young was such a chore, because having Avery in his life is such a blessing. And he's angry that Bates has, in Niro's words, one point seven babies and Niro has none. The man is so fucking in love with his wife that he's putting what he wants on hold so she can have what she wants: Freedom. A crack at becoming a brother. Something more than being an old lady. But that man needs babies of his own someday like a biker needs the road. Through the crack in the door, I saw Bates hug the shit out of his best friend.

Observing is what I do.

Through the security feeds to everyone's home and the trackers on their phones and vehicles, I keep watch.

It's how I keep everyone safe.

I flip my screen to the cameras around my folks' place. The lights of a flickering TV tell me they stayed up to watch the ball drop. No sign of a party, though.

But there is a strange car lingering outside their neighbor Mrs. Moray's drive.

I zoom in on the plate, my heart skipping a beat as I think through the possibilities.

Mrs. Moray only has one child.

A daughter.

Calista.

And once upon a time, she was my best friend.

We met when I was seven and moved in next door to her. She barged her way into my life before I'd even stepped foot inside my new home. Heck, I'd not even gotten out of the car before she climbed in to see what I was reading. All braces on her teeth and hair the texture of straw. We ended up in the same class and used to hang out on the front porch at night. Neither of us were considered "the cool kids". Mom used to say what we lacked in common sense we made up for in brains. As we grew older, we'd hack shit together. We watched an old school movie about hackers. It seemed easy enough, although the reality was a little harder. But we were both smart kids, and we learned. Started small. Once, we hacked our high school and changed our grades. Then, we started stealing small amounts from big companies. Nobody paid attention. Two hundred bucks here. Five hundred bucks there. Suddenly, we had some cash in our pockets.

Until she wanted more money and risk, yet failed to understand that if we got caught, a Black man would never be treated the same way as a white girl in the justice system.

And while I was trying to figure out how to rein her in, she started to fuck with the kind of people you really don't fuck with.

She planned to hack the Outlaws.

She'd heard they made good money and was intent on taking a piece.

I might not have been able to protect her from the rest of the world, or even from herself, but I knew I could protect her from the MC. So, at eighteen years of age, I made a deal with Camelot, the then president, that even though it was the best choice at the time, is a decision I've regretted for fifteen years.

I'd protect the club, to protect her. I'd secure their cyber-defenses. If she never stole from them, they wouldn't need to kill her for fucking them over.

Didn't know I'd find loyal friends and a home here—more than I expected as a Black man surrounded by white men.

Nor did I expect that she'd hack me and steal all my money to teach me a fucking lesson. To show me how furious she was with me.

The last time I saw her fifteen years ago, she told me she'd kill me if she ever saw me again.

I run the plate. It's registered as a fleet vehicle for a company that does private rides from the airport. But just as I'm about to follow the trail to see where it leads, a tall woman dressed in black and wearing a long ponytail steps out of the rear passenger door of the car. She stands there for no more than a few seconds before she climbs back inside, then is driven away.

And even in the shadows of night, Calista Moray has never looked better.

I think back to what Sophia just told me.

About the Italians and how they're being hacked.

"Fuck, Calista," I mutter as I slip my glasses off. "If that's you, I don't know how the hell I'm gonna save you this time."