Ava set a deliberate path to her own office. Her mind fractured and fragmented.
One foot in front of the other.
One foot in front of the other.
By the time she pulled her purse from her desk drawer, she was shaking. Tears blurred her vision. When she straightened, Matthew was in the doorway.
“Please, Ava. Don’t do this.”
“I’m not the one doing.” When he didn’t move out of her way, her fury returned. “Do I have to remind you of the cameras?”
“You’re not leaving until we straighten this out.”
“That sounded like a threat to me.” She tipped her head, pretended to consider. “Yep, I feel threatened.” She pulled her knee up sharply, slamming it into Matthew’s balls.
He grunted. His eyes crossed. He dropped to his knees, then rolled to his back, holding his junk. And in this case, it truly was junk. “Holy…fuck…”
Ava paused, standing over him, and pointed her keys at his face. “You’d better think about moving to Iraq to look for a new job, because you will never work in this industry in the US again. I’ll make sure of it.”
2
Isaac Banks dropped to his work stool in front of the vintage Suzuki Intruder. He’d been promising this carburetor rebuild to a high-ranking member of the Steel Warriors Motorcycle Club for a month. Grim had been patient, but Isaac couldn’t put it off any longer. Aside from being his biggest and most regular client, the Steel Warriors were also a one percenter motorcycle club. Isaac had no reason to fear the group, and he wasn’t about to create one.
So, here it was, nearing nine p.m., and after a full day of work—his tenth in a row—Isaac was still in grease up to his elbows. But Connecticut’s cool spring night blew in through the open bay door, and Breaking Benjamin reverberated against the building’s exposed brick walls. His walls. His shop. No bosses demanding project reports. No father looking over his shoulder. No board member telling Isaac which jobs he’d take on.
Without a doubt, the very worst day at Revival was ten times better than his very best day at the engineering firm he’d shared with his father.
Isaac rested his elbows on his thighs, pulled the cover from Grim’s carburetor, and smiled. All he needed was a beer and a babe, and his life would be perfect.
Not true.
Isaac’s chest took on a familiar heaviness as he surveyed the inner workings of the machine. The truth was, he’d need a beer, a babe, and his brother to make his life perfect. But he hadn’t been able to handle a babe since his brother had died, and Jeremy wouldn’t be coming back from the grave. Isaac would have to settle for a beer.
But only after his work was done.
To ease the ache that always came with thoughts of Jeremy, Isaac focused on the here and now. He took comfort in carefully positioning every bolt, every spring, and every plate precisely on newspaper at his feet. For the last year, this was the only place Isaac had found a sliver of peace—in his shop, with the bikes. Order had become Isaac’s best friend, distraction his playmate, and silence his lover.
Just as he started cleaning the metal, the phone rang. Isaac let the machine pick up. “You’ve reached Revival. I’m up to my nuts in bike blood. I’ll call you back when my patient is out of surgery and stable.”
He continued to scrub crud from steel while he listened with a mix of hope and dread. Hope this was a call about his help wanted ad. Dread that even if it was, the applicant would be as wretched as the last dozen.
He needed help with the relentless phone. He needed a receptionist to answer questions, schedule appointments, and show the bikes he was selling, not a brain surgeon. But finding someone even halfway reliable in this backwoods area of Connecticut had proved impossible so far.
“Hi, handsome,” the woman said into the recorder. “I’m sure you remember me. I interviewed for your receptionist position a few days ago. Tammy. Blonde. Killer body. I got to thinkin’…”
“Oh God,” he muttered. “Here it comes.”
“If I could bring my kids to the shop before and after school, I could work longer hours. I mean, there are only four of them, and the older kids are real good about takin’ care of the young ones.”
Isaac’s hands froze. “Seriously?”
“And, you know,” Tammy went on, “with all the noise you make in the garage, you won’t even hear them fightin’ none. I can even send the fourteen-year-old out for drinks, snacks, and smokes. Taught him to drive when he was twelve, and he’s real good…”
Isaac huffed a laugh and returned his focus to work.
Within the next twenty minutes, he’d received two more calls—one from a customer wanting Isaac to pimp out a Harley and the other one a request for service.
The phone rang like this all day, which allowed Isaac not only to pick the most interesting, challenging, and enjoyable jobs, but to name his price. But dealing with the details took a hell of a lot of time away from what he really loved—manhandling the bikes.