I dropped the wrench. I threw my injured leg over the leather seat of the motorcycle and turned the key.
CHAPTER 4
The V-twin engine of the 1998 Cruiser erupted with a deafening roar that shook the dust from the garage rafters. I kicked the gearshift down, ignoring the sharp, stabbing agony that shot from my shin straight into my jaw.
I dumped the clutch and shot out of the garage, the rear tire spinning on the asphalt before catching traction.
The wind hit my face like a physical blow. Ahead of me, Evelyn’s black Range Rover was already fifty yards down the steep incline of Crestview Drive, accelerating rapidly. Three tons of uncontrolled steel hurtling backward toward the ocean.
I leaned over the handlebars and twisted the throttle wide open. The motorcycle surged forward, eating up the distance. The pain in my spine was absolute torture as the bike absorbed the bumps in the road, but I forced my mind into the cold, calculated space it hadn't visited in decades. The Black Dragon mindset. Mission first. Pain later.
I caught up to the front driver’s side of the SUV. The vehicle was moving at forty miles an hour and climbing. Through the glass, I saw Evelyn. She was weeping hysterically, her hands clawing desperately at the jammed electric door locks. She looked out the window and saw me riding beside her—the man she had called a bottom-feeder, bleeding from the beating she ordered. Her eyes widened in absolute shock.
I looked past her. The wooden guardrail was less than two hundred yards away. Beyond it, nothing but blue sky and the fatal drop to the rocky surf.
There was no time to pull her out. There was only one way to stop the momentum.
On the right side of the road, a sheer wall of jagged granite rose up, carving out the canyon. I accelerated, pulling the heavy Cruiser entirely ahead of the rolling SUV.
I took a deep breath, braced my shattered leg against the engine block, and aggressively swerved the motorcycle into the narrow gap between the front bumper of the Range Rover and the granite wall.
The impact was catastrophic.
The rear fender of my bike slammed against the heavy steel bumper of the SUV, while the right side of my handlebars scraped violently against the rock face. I became a human wedge.
Metal screamed against stone in a deafening, high-pitched shriek. A massive shower of bright orange sparks erupted into my face. The handlebars shook with a violent, terrifying vibration, threatening to rip my arms from their sockets. The massive weight of the three-ton car pushed against my rear tire, trying to crush me against the granite.
I leaned all my weight into the rock, squeezing the front brake of the motorcycle to the absolute limit.
“Hold!” I roared, the sound swallowed by the grinding metal.
The friction was immense. The smell of burning rubber, vaporized brake fluid, and sheared steel choked the air. My injured shin was crushed between the gas tank and the rock wall, the pain so intense my vision blurred at the edges.
Fifty yards to the cliff. Twenty yards. Ten.
With one final, desperate surge of strength, I threw the balance of the bike completely sideways, forcing the right front tire of the SUV to mount the granite wall. The Range Rover’s axle snapped with a sound like a cannon shot. The heavy front wheels locked instantly.