Chapter 7

Threats and Confrontations

"Is this what you do on your break, lay on the roof and cloud watch?" Maddox asked as he stepped over the lip of the ladder that led up onto the roof of the garage and approached his mechanic.

"It is when I've got a problem to solve."

"Please tell me it isn't about my baby."

When silence followed, Maddox knew his Harley was the reason Haven was up here this afternoon and he dropped down to sit on the roof beside him.

"So what's the issue and how much is it going to cost me?"

"A detective showed up today wanting to get paint samples off some of the damaged parts," Haven admitted. "He wasn't impressed when he saw that I'd already stripped the bike down to the frame. He claimed he had no way of knowing where the transfer spots were, then he accused me of tampering with evidence. I locked up after he left ‘cause my hands were shaking too bad to hold a wrench. Now I'm terrified that he's gonna come back and shut me down. What if he shuts the whole building down?"

"Haven!" Maddox attempted to interrupted when it became clear that the young man was working his way towards a panic attack.

"What the fuck are River and Meadow gonna do? Meadow has kids. And she's already sunk a lot of money into this place. If I fucked it up for them in less than a month, I don't know how I'll ever fix that. I've already got so much to make up for."

"Haven!"

"I can't fuck up again. I've been working my ass off to show them that I can handle running the business without Pops, only what if I can't? What if I screw up so bad we have to sell the place and go out of business? What if…"

Maddox threw an arm around him, hugged him tight to his side, and growled out an order. "Stop right now and breathe!"

He felt Haven gasp, his breathing rapid, his body ridged, but he wasn't struggling to pull away.

"Enough with the worst-case scenarios, none of that is going to happen, I won't allow it," Maddox declared, keeping his voice firm and low. Haven seemed to be listening to him now. At the very least he hadn't started rambling again.

"I need you to breathe for me and when you're calm, I'm going to call the cop shop and talk to this detective," Maddox assured him. "It's my machine and I moved her. All you did was what I asked you to. If they'd wanted to examine the damage and take samples of something, they should have done it the day she was hit, not four days later. They dropped the ball on that. You and your siblings won't be taking the fall for their mistakes."

"I didn't even know that was a thing they did," Haven explained, "collecting paint chips and shit. I even told the detective that I hadn't done anything to your paint job, that all I'd done was take the Electra Glide apart."

"And what did he say?"

"A whole lot of stuff about chain of custody and there being a felony involved because of injury to people and property. He said that any evidence he collected now would be considered tainted. I don't think he liked me telling him that your bike didn't hit itself, which should be evidence enough that something hit it."

"If the bastard who damaged my bike hadn't gone on to hit a person, I doubt they'd even be out looking for the damned vehicle," Maddox grumbled. "The least he could have done was examine the scrapes all along her side and document that shit so the insurance company can get the accident report they've been bugging me about."

"Does it ever make you wonder what you're paying insurance for?" Haven asked.

"Every damned day."

"It's kind of a fucked-up system, isn't it?"

"All of its rigged," Maddox snarked and rested his chin on top of Haven's head.

Not only wasn't the man trying to get away, but he leaned into the embrace, his heartrate already beginning to settle down the longer Maddox held him.

"When I first started learning the ins and outs of how insurance worked and what I had to carry in order to legally operate a shop, I was blown away by how much it favors the customer in almost every situation," Maddox explained. "Some clumsy bastard could drop a bottle and slip on the contents and I'd be liable for any injuries he sustained unless I could show proof of why the store wasn't responsible. I've spent a small fortune on video security systems over the years but it's worth it to know we'd be protected if anyone ever tried to come after us for some bullshit, like that damned hot coffee lady. Coffee is hot, for fuck's sake, if you spill the shit on yourself it's going to burn. If you don't know how to handle a cup, then don't order the shit, especially from a fuckin' vehicle, that's a recipe for disaster. I bet she stuck it between her thighs instead of in a damned cupholder. I can't tell you how many idiots I've seen drive around with their coffee cups like that. At that point, you're asking to scald extremely sensitive areas and deserve any discomfort you wind up with."

"All the more reason to keep people from coming back into the shop area," Haven muttered. "At least in the office, the worst thing that can happen is they prick their finger on a staple."

"Or slip on a paperclip," Maddox tossed out there just to give him shit.

"And now you have me seriously considering a metal and liquid free office, thank you very much."

"You're welcome."

When Haven let out a long, ragged exhale, Maddox knew he was finally calm enough that Maddox could turn his focus towards fixing things.

"Do you really think you can fix this?" Haven asked.

"There's nothing to fix. My bike was the victim of a crime, it wasn't used in the act of committing one," Maddox said as he pulled his phone from his pocket while Haven scooted away a little and fished a vape out of the pocket of his jeans.

From the scent of the first puff, it was only nicotine, which made sense, considering it was the middle of the day. He wouldn't have blamed Haven in the slightest if he'd gone for the weed under the circumstances. No one fresh out of jail wanted to have the cops show up on their doorstep. It was a wonder Haven hadn't barricaded himself inside and unleashed a revved-up pink-haired chihuahua on the unsuspecting detective.

The bastard would have deserved it for upsetting Haven the way he had.

It had been a long time since Maddox had felt the sort of protective urges surging through him now, but hearing Haven so upset and knowing that he'd had a small part in causing it, left Maddox's guts tied up in knots. He needed to make this right and he needed to do it now where Haven could hear it and know he had nothing more to worry about. The last thing the young man needed was to be working with tools and metal while he was anxious and ill at-ease. One little slip and he could hurt himself badly.

Just the thought angered him and left him extra snarly when the dispatcher answered the phone, and he asked to speak to the detective on the hit and run case. He was treated to a burst of elevator music while he sat on hold, then a gruff voice came over the line, announcing his name as Detective Florez.

"This is Maddox Balfor, the owner of the bike you came into Twisted Chassis asking about," Maddox announced. "I've been informed that you were threatening my mechanic for doing the job he was hired to do. If you have an issue with the bike's location, then you should take it up with the officer who arrived on the scene, saw my Harley on the ground, and barely got my name, let alone a statement before she roared off. Once she did that, your chain of custody was broken, since me and three other guys lifted the bike into the back of a pickup truck in order to transport her to the shop."

"Mr. Balfor, I'm sure you're aware of the extenuating circumstances surrounding the subsequent incident that took place."

"Which has nothing to do with Twisted Chassis, or it's owners," Maddox replied. "If you continue to harass them, then I'll be forced to speak to my attorneys about a class action lawsuit against you and the rest of your department. If those paint chips mattered so much, you should have collected them at the site of the accident, not waited for days before trying to throw your weight around."

"We were more concerned about the human lives that were nearly ended."

"Which still isn't Haven's problem," Maddox declared. "Leave him alone or you won't like the consequences. I took pictures of the accident site before scraping my Electra Glide off the sidewalk if you'd like to see those. That's about all the evidence I can offer you."

"Then I'd appreciate you forwarding them to me," Detective Florez said. "You realize that if we do find the vehicle, it may be impossible to prove that it was the one that dealt the damage to your motorcycle without those paint chips."

"Which will give me even more reason to sue your department for fucking the whole process up. Take responsibility for your failures and leave innocent people alone. I'm not going to tell you that again. I don't want to hear about you popping back up at Twisted Chassis to take another look at my ride either, not without me being there to keep an eye on things. You should have done me the courtesy of contacting me this morning before you popped up at the shop. I'd appreciate you not making the same mistake again. You can expect those photos in the next few minutes, and I expect my insurance company to receive the information they've requested from your department sooner rather than later."

With that he hit the disconnect button, not wanting to hear any more of the detective's bullshit excuses for why procedure hadn't been followed, he knew why it hadn't been followed. The paint chips hadn't been important until they'd been necessary to help identify the vehicle that had struck those pedestrians.

"If anyone from the police department shows up wanting to mess with my bike, you call me right away next time," Maddox told him, having to work not to snap at Haven the way he'd just done with the detective.

Haven didn't deserve to be spoken to that way when all he was trying to do was get his baby back on the road again.

"I'm sorry I didn't do that this morning," Haven said. "I was so thrown by his presence and his questions that I just blurted out what I'd done to the bike, hoping he'd get what he needed and go away."

"It's okay. You did nothing wrong," Maddox soothed, moving to sit beside him again. He took the vape from his hand and tucked it back in the front pocket of his jeans, Haven's eyes going a little wide as he tucked it as deep as it could go.

For a moment, they just stared into one another's eyes, then Haven blushed, ducked his head and squirmed away from Maddox.

"I should probably get back inside and get to work," Haven muttered. "Thanks for handling shit with the cops, that wasn't the way I'd intended to start my day."

"I'd have been worried if it was."

Haven snorted at that, his head jerking up so their eyes met again. He was still a bit red in the face, but now he was laughing. "Could you imagine writing that shit in the appointment book? Eight AM: Pontiac Sunbird, nine forty-five, Buick Envista, eleven thirty: cops arriving, make sure you're not high as hell."

Doubling over, Maddox laughed harder than he had in a long time. Every time he was in this young man's presence he eagerly awaited the snark, and plotted how he could give him shit for it.

"You sure you didn't have a prison comedy act?" Maddox asked, laughing more when Haven flipped him the bird.

"Yeah, I had a whole bit about hot bikers behind bars," Haven replied. "I'm sure I could have fit you, and that wreckage you brought to the shop, in somewhere."

"Dude, that's fuckin' cold right there. Baby doesn't deserve that."

"No, but you probably do."

"Uh-huh."

Maddox let him have that round, while he took a moment to send the photos to the number the detective had texted him. At least that meant the man had been given the contact information Maddox had left with dispatch at least a dozen times.

"Thank you for helping me get my head together," Haven murmured. "I was really spiraling and freaking the hell out. I'd started to think about hitching the hell out of here, but all that would have done was left my siblings to deal with the fallout. I can't do that to them again."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that to me and my ride either," Maddox said as he turned and held his gaze. "We'd like to get to know you better, which would be impossible if you took off and left me to find another mechanic who knows classic motorcycles as well as you do."

"I mean, I know a couple I could send you to that are probably better than me," Haven admitted. "But there was really no reason to do that when I'm capable of doing the job.

"How is that anyway? Did your old man ride?" Maddox asked.

"No, but my best friend's father did. When he saw how interested I was in the way those machines went together, he startled letting me work on his classics with him and taught me what it meant to respect the legacy and history of each bike.

"Sounds like my kind of guy."