Crest Tolleson told me a story once. About two boys who’d come of age in fearful shadows with only each other to cling to. One gloomy afternoon after another miserable day at school where they were taunted and abused, the two boys navigated the grimy alleys of their dingy city. The three kids who followed them silently through the bleak landscape had violence on their minds. They figured the two lonely outlanders would be easy targets. But the smaller of the two was frightfully quick and had a knife in his pocket. The other was already strong and was learning daily how to make his body into a weapon with deadly effect.

That was the day they figured out how invincible they were when they stood together. They watched in triumph as their tormentors fled in
shock and terror.

That was the day they gave themselves new names and acknowledged that they were brothers in every way that counted.

That was the day which was responsible for everything that came later…

Chapter One

The keys were nowhere in sight but it didn’t matter. Crest had taught me how to hot wire a car when I was ten. He didn’t usually approve of me learning anything which remotely smack of criminality, but he must have figured it was a useful skill to have. He was right.

My shaking fingers breathed life into the sputtering engine and I was suddenly consumed by the soul-rending loss of my father. I jammed a fist into my mouth and bit down, welcoming the pain as a distraction from
the new memory of his brutal murder. My father’s body would still be lying on the floor of the clubhouse with the rest of the Warlocks, their blood drying on the cracked leather of their cuts. I hadn’t had time to do anything about it. The police sirens were already audible and the SF’s were everywhere. And anyway, the dead didn’t care about their remains. Only the living cared.

I couldn’t begin to guess what had provoked the
SF Outlaws. It might not have been much. They were a brutal club run by a man called Ruger who was the biggest blonde son of a bitch on the west coast and more vicious than Vlad the Impaler. I knew Crest was involved in things which weren’t aboveboard but for the most part he kept me at school in Berkeley and out of central San Fran, away from the Warlocks and the world they inhabited.

He’d been surprised to see me when I showed up in the late afternoon. Amy was an acquaintance who lived on my residence hall floor and when she mentioned she was driving to town for a cousin’s wedding, I asked if I could tag along.

When Amy dropped me off in the fabled Tenderloin section of the city, she peered doubtfully at the graying warehouse and then scanned the row of bikes lined up in front of the building. “Here? You sure, Kira?”

“Yes,” I said cagily. “My dad uh, works here.”

Amy shrugged. “Okay. I’ll call you on Sunday to let you know what time I’ll be by to pick you up.”

“Sounds great. Hey, t
hanks for the ride.”

I waved to Amy as she sped out of the city’s sketchiest neighborhood and toward the serene comfort of Pacific Heights.
I didn’t turn to the building until she was out of sight and I couldn’t have said what filled me with disquiet even then. I’m not a believer in mysticism but the chill which washed over me was at odds with the balmy spring air. I knocked on the door a little uncertainly, suddenly regretting my impulsive surprise. Crest Tolleson was not a man who liked to be blindsided.

“Shit, Kira! It’s Kira,” grinned a man named Dice as he greeted me at the doorway. He was a collection of sinew and bones and although he was older than dirt he’d always followed my father with faith since the Warlocks were first imagined twenty years earlier. The meth habit had taken a couple of Dice’s teeth and a chunk of his cerebral p
ower and he only smiled vaguely at my happy greeting before retreating into the depths of the clubhouse. Mario and Ford, a pair of tough angels I’d known since infancy, nodded at me from a card table which was littered with the shot glasses which had made them visibly piss drunk at four in the afternoon.

The regular girls I knew could look back on golden childhoods populated with friends from next door or across the street. In my earliest years I didn’t have pool parties and play dates. I had these men. The Warlocks.

“Your daddy’s in the shitter,” said Mario helpfully as I squinted at the sorry mess inside the clubhouse.

“Thanks,” I answered, settling into a smoky reclining chair and trying to believe the air of tension in the room was only my imagination.

I hadn’t been back here since last fall. In fact the older I got the less comfortable Crest seemed in having me around. He preferred to visit me at UC Berkeley where we could pretend we hailed from the mainstream. I had the fair looks of my mother and learned early on how to make the role believable. As for my father, he could clean up when he wanted.

Crest seemed disconcerted to see me. “You should have called,
dammit,” he said gruffly, before hugging me with a painful squeeze.

I stared at my father. He had always looked the part he played; tough leader of a tough club. He
and his best boyhood friend had founded the Warlocks two decades ago, right before I was born. My mother, a tightly strung girl from Riverside, was never able to adapt to the life. I knew that about Anne Marie Carter before I knew much else. I remembered the shouting and the persistently sour look of her face as she tried to blend into a world she wasn’t made for. It only lasted as long as it is did because of me. And because, despite their opposite natures, she loved my father and he loved her on a level he hadn’t loved anyone since. Still, it wasn’t enough. Anne Marie took off with a naval pilot when I was five, leaving me in the care of Crest Tolleson. I’ve rarely heard from her in the fifteen years since then. I tried not to think about that because when I thought about it I was angry.

Crest didn’t get over it. He had all kinds of women sifting in and out but he could take or leave every one. It was like when my mother walked out she took a piece of him with her and he wasn’t eager to find it again. That was all I saw of love and it looked awful.

Things turned out for me all right anyway. Crest turned out to be a capable father and even though I screamed like hell when he started shipping me off to boarding school at age twelve, now that I was older I understood. It would have been too much of a distraction, keeping all the eyes, not to mention the hands, away from a growing young woman. I tried not to let on that I saw the way some of the men looked at me now, though it went without saying that the daughter of the Warlocks President was untouchable.

“Everything all right, Daddy?” I asked and it wasn’t for nothing. The indomitable Crest Tolleson appeared haggard and slumped, as if something awful was weighing down his strong shoulders.

His lips parted, showing a flash of white in his dark beard. “Of course, kid.” He swung an arm around my neck and led me toward the back office. “Just some club shit.” Crest gave my arm a little squeeze as a few of the other Warlocks wandered in and hailed my arrival.

“What kind of club shit?” I asked my father in a quiet voice.

But he only shook his head with a small smile. I shouldn’t have even troubled to ask. Crest was smart and above all he was guarded. The things he did with the club weren’t things a man talked about with a nineteen year old coed, blood bond or not.

“For tonight,” Crest said
in a tired voice, “I’m just a dad happy to see his daughter.”

He took me out for a steak dinner but drove the old Malibu. Ever since I hit puberty Crest Tolleson didn’t want his daughter on the back of anyone’s bike. Not even his.

We chatted lightly about school. Crest listened carefully when I described my classes and nodded approvingly when I said I planned to remain in Berkeley for the summer and acquire some extra credits and keep my job at the library.

“Grades?” he asked sternly
, cutting up his New York strip steak with characteristic care.

“
Expecting a 4.0 this semester. Of course. Like you even have to ask.”

He smiled. “And boys?”

I wrinkled my nose. “No one worth mentioning.”

“And why is that?”

I didn’t know how to tell my father what was wrong with the guys I met school. They seemed lacking, uncertain, a uniformly distant second to a good book or a hot daydream.

“Too busy, I guess,
” I finally said.

Crest grunted. “You ought to have some fun here and there.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Actually I think you’re supposed to think up all kinds of reasons why I shouldn’t have fun. That’s what a good button up father would do.”

He chewed his steak, winking. He drummed his thick rings on the table. “
You ought to be grateful. I’m a colorful guy. Not some wet mop in a BMW.”

“Ha! Don’t I know
it.”

My father’s smile faded and he looked at me seriously. “No shitting, Kira. Sometimes I’m afraid I may have scared you off life for good.”

“What the hell do you mean by that? I think I turned out pretty okay.”

He laughed lightly. “I think you’re not done turning out.”

“Bullshit, Daddy. I’m just so frighteningly awesome you can’t stand it.”

He tilted his head and stared at me fondly for a long time. “You’re right.”

Later, I wondered if someday I’d be able to look at the last hours I spent with my father and be glad. That I had the chance to see him one more time, that he had a few moments of happiness before all hell broke loose. But as I hurtled out of the city in a stolen vehicle, all I felt was agonizing pain, for that memory was tied to the terrible things that followed.

Crest had tried to put me up in a hotel but I wouldn’t have it, choosing instead one of the sparse but comfortable back rooms
of the clubhouse. He was reluctant but I insisted, pointing out that I’d be gone in less than 48 hours. The hour was just past midnight and I had already said my goodnights, changing into a more comfortable tank top and shorts as soon as I had closed the door. I lounged on the narrow bed and tried not to consider what else had happened on its scratchy surface while I idly watched YouTube videos on my phone and waited to feel sleepy.

The house was qu
iet for a Friday night, perhaps on my father’s orders due to my presence. Or perhaps for another reason. Regardless, I didn’t believe there was anything too terribly wrong. I enjoyed being back. No matter how long I was away, this was my family. This was home. My eyes began to feel heavy as I clicked through clips of movie trailers and outrageous marriage proposals.

The first scream brought me to my feet. It was a woman’s voice and I thought it sounded like Tami, a blowsy blonde who for as long as I could remember b
elonged to Talon, the current Warlocks Vice President.

The scream ended in a disturbing gurgle and was fol
lowed by a series of pops which I recognized as gunshots. There was shouting, cursing, more screaming and in the midst of it all my father burst through the door of my room.

“Kira!” he shouted in
agony. He had been shot through the right shoulder and a jagged wound bled down the right side of his face. Crest’s eyes closed with relief when he saw I was unharmed. With a mighty lunge he kicked the door closed and folded me into a desperate embrace.

I was terrified. “What is it? Who are they?”

My father coughed. “SF Outlaws,” he said simply.

I knew the name. They were the boogeymen, the worst of the worst, the ones who would slaughter not only whatever man offended them but the man’s family, his friends, everyone who he might have loved.

“No time,” Crest gritted his teeth, pulling me to the small window. The room was far in the back of the building. The SF’s might not have the perimeter circled. At any rate, outside seemed a better bet than inside. I could hear the struggles. And the moans of the dying.

Crest wrenched the window open and picked me up as if I were a child. He dropped me on the other side and as I struggled to my feet my father looked at me sadly. The blood ran freely down the side of his face.

“Come on,” I whispered, glancing fearfully around in the darkness.

“No,” he said tersely. “S
tay low, Kira. And get the fuck out of the city, as far away as you can go tonight. The club is gone. There’s not a damn thing here for you.”

My heart was breaking. “Daddy.”

“Love you, kid,” my father said softly and closed the window.

It wasn’t a moment too soon. I heard the door break open and I crouched beneath the window sill
in terror.

There
was the sound of cruel laughter. Ruger had a long, unpleasant history with my father and he wouldn’t leave this task to anyone else. “Crest Tolleson, cowering back here like a fucking woman.”

“
Get on with it you shithead.”

More laughter. “Oh, I will. No bullet for you though. I’m gonna bash your fucking brains in. And
you ought to know that after I finish I’m going on a road trip. Berkeley, right? That’s where you’re stashing that luscious little piece of ass you fathered. She and I are gonna have a good goddamn time before I stick her twenty ways to hell.”

The primal roar which came out in my father’s voice was like nothing I’d ever heard. I knew he came at them with every grain of strength he could muster. It wasn’t enough. They killed him easily.

The pain in my heart was more unbearable than any I had ever known. When I was eight a stray dog had followed me home. He was obviously sickly but Crest gave in to my pleas and allowed me to keep him. The animal died of convulsions early the next morning, before we could get him to a vet. Crest had held me as I sobbed until it hurt to breathe.

It hurt to breathe as I sat underneath that windowsill and listened to my father’s death rattle. And I thought for a moment I would die myself.

Then there were sirens, and the tense shouts of men as motorcycle engines roared to life. I raised my head and gritted my teeth, thinking of Crest. No, this wouldn’t be the end for me. It couldn’t be. I kept close to the building and found the alley which ran parallel, removing my flip flops and running barefoot until I reached the parking lot of a crowded bar.

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