Skulls Region

Deke leaned against the tool chest near the office, broad shoulders filling the doorway. He had ridden with Rafi’s father for eighteen years and had the pale scar across his throat to prove it. The gang respected him because he never wasted words and because he had buried men without blinking.

Rafi had respected him too.

That was before the old leader’s funeral. Before Deke had spent three days telling anyone who would listen that a rider was not the same thing as a leader.

Deke’s mouth bent slightly. “Nice speech.”

Rafi closed his fist around the keys. “It wasn’t a speech.”

“No?” Deke glanced at the room. “Sounded like one.”

“You got something to say, say it.”

A few heads turned. In the back, Rafi’s cousin Mara shifted her weight, one hand near the pistol tucked behind her belt. She had warned him not to bring everyone into the garage until he knew who was standing with him.

He had brought them anyway.

The territory needed to see its leader. The crew needed to hear his voice. If they left the meeting uncertain, uncertainty would spread faster than a police siren.

Deke pushed away from the tool chest. “The Harborline run is ours because men like me held it when your father was still learning how to stay upright. The cannery blocks are ours because we bled there. You don’t take a ring of keys and turn history into law.”

Rafi stepped closer. The concrete was slick beneath his boots. “I’m not taking history. I’m taking responsibility.”

“Responsibility?” Deke gave a low laugh. “You mean control.”

“I mean nobody moves through our streets without answering to us.”

“Who’s going to answer them?”

“I am.”

The word landed hard. Even the rain seemed to pause between drops.

Rafi felt every eye in the garage. He could hear the faint electric buzz of the lights and the scrape of a boot near the loading bay. He wanted the room to believe him. More than that, he wanted himself to believe the promise.

His sister and her two children were sleeping six miles inland, in a narrow house with a broken porch rail and no protection except the name Rafi had inherited. If the gang split, enemies would find that house. If the gang looked weak, enemies would come to the garage first.

Deke pointed toward the map nailed to the wall. Red lines marked the streets, alleys, and access roads claimed by the Skulls Region. “Then prove it. The east boundary has been tested twice this week. Trucks are cutting through the old ferry road. Somebody’s charging them, and nobody here knows who.”

“I know,” Rafi said. “We check it tonight.”

Deke’s eyes narrowed. “With who?”

“With everyone who needs to see what belongs to them.”

“That’s not a check. That’s a parade.”

“It’s a warning.”

“It’s an invitation.”

Mara stepped in before Rafi could answer. “Enough. The east boundary is already hot. We go quiet, we go fast, and we don’t advertise the route.”

Deke turned his head toward her. “You taking orders from him now?”

“I’m taking orders from whoever keeps us alive.”

A murmur moved through the garage.

Deke smiled without humor. “There it is. First night, and the family starts closing ranks.”

Rafi saw the trap. Deke wanted him angry. Wanted him to make the decision personal, so the others could call it pride instead of leadership.

Rafi walked to the map. The paper was stained with grease and pinned beneath a cracked skull emblem. He took one of the keys from the ring and pressed its blunt end against the east boundary.

“We ride to the ferry road,” he said. “We inspect the gates, the warehouse lots, and the river access. No guns unless somebody draws first. No side deals. No collecting tolls. We show the district the Skulls Region still has one voice.”

Deke folded his arms. “And if that voice is wrong?”

“Then you can tell me after we get back.”

“And if we don’t get back?”

Rafi looked at him. “Then you’ll have plenty of time to explain why.”

The garage went still.

Deke’s expression changed by a fraction. There it was - the thing beneath the challenge. Not doubt. Calculation.

Rafi turned to the others. “Mount up.”

The room broke into motion.

Chains rattled. Boots crossed the concrete. Someone slammed a locker hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Mara came to Rafi as he pulled on his gloves.

“You should leave Deke here,” she said.

“No.”

“He wants the ride.”

“He wants witnesses.”

“Same thing.”

Rafi looked toward the office. His lieutenant, Soren Vale, stood there with a ledger tucked under one arm. Soren had served as his father’s right hand and had been the first man to place a knee on the garage floor when Rafi accepted the cut. Quiet, careful, impossible to read when he wanted to be.

Soren caught Rafi watching him and raised the ledger. “Territory records. Gate payments, warehouse contacts, names of the people using the ferry road. You want the check done clean, you’ll need this.”

“Bring it.”

Mara’s jaw tightened. “He keeps those records locked.”

“Not tonight.”

Soren looked at Mara, then at Rafi. “I’ll be ready.”

Outside, the rain had thinned to a cold mist. The bikes rolled from beneath the underpass one at a time, headlights cutting through steam rising from the drains. Rafi took the lead, Mara behind him, Deke at the rear with six others spread through the line.

Harborline District watched them pass.

The cannery walls sweated rust. Freight containers stood stacked beside the rail spur, their painted numbers shining wet beneath the lamps. Men in yellow rain jackets paused beneath awnings as the bikes went by. Nobody waved. Nobody looked away.

Rafi kept his eyes moving. Windows. Rooflines. Parked vans. The dark mouth of every alley.

At the turn toward the ferry road, he saw a white delivery truck parked crooked beside a shuttered fish market. Its windshield was black with tint. The engine ran.

Rafi raised a fist.

The line slowed.

Deke came alongside. “Problem?”

“Truck.”

“Could be nothing.”

“Then it won’t mind us checking.”

Rafi swung off his bike. The others followed, metal stands snapping down against the pavement. Rain ticked over helmets and leather. The truck’s engine note deepened.

Mara drew her weapon.

“Hold,” Rafi said.

The truck lurched forward.

“Now.”

Three riders moved into the street. The truck swerved, clipped a stack of plastic crates, and smashed through the market’s chain barrier. The crash echoed between the warehouses. Men shouted. A rear door flew open, and two figures jumped out running toward the river.

Deke started after them.

“Leave them,” Rafi ordered.

Deke stopped and looked back. “They’re on our ground.”

“And they’re leading us where they want.”

The truck’s tires spun against the wet pavement. It tore away through the broken barrier, leaving a trail of water and shattered plastic.

Rafi approached the rear of the truck. The doors hung open. Inside were empty crates, a coil of rope, and a black canvas bag soaked through at the bottom.

Soren reached in and pulled it free.

Something inside clinked.

He opened the bag. Brass tokens spilled into his palm, each stamped with the skull-and-river mark of the Skulls Region.

Deke came closer. “Those are gate tags.”

“Somebody’s been collecting them,” Mara said.

Rafi took one. The metal was cold against his glove. Each tag belonged to a payment, a shipment, a name. The gang’s territory had been turned into a ledger somebody else carried in a truck.

Soren looked toward the river. “They knew we were coming.”

Rafi felt the words settle behind his ribs.

Deke turned on him. “You wanted a show. Now look at it. You dragged half the crew into an exposed street and let somebody walk away with our business.”

“You were in the line,” Rafi said.

“I was watching the rear.”

“Then tell me who passed the route.”

Deke’s face hardened. “Careful.”

“No. Answer.”

The crew gathered around them, rain sliding from their helmets. Rafi saw doubt moving through the ranks, quick and ugly. This was what Deke wanted. Not the territory. The fracture.

Soren stepped between them. “We take the tags back, lock down the ferry road, and review the records at the garage.”

Deke glanced at him. “You volunteering to count what he’s broken?”

Soren’s eyes stayed flat. “I’m volunteering to keep this from becoming a street argument.”

Rafi turned to the crew. “Back to headquarters. Nobody leaves alone. Nobody talks to outsiders. The ferry road is closed until I say otherwise.”

Deke scoffed. “You hear that? He’s closing roads now.”

Rafi faced him. “Yes.”

“And if the people who work those roads object?”

“They can object to me.”

He climbed onto his bike. For one second, nobody moved.

Then Mara started her engine.

The others followed.

The ride back was quieter. Rafi kept checking his mirrors. Deke remained behind him, never more than three bike lengths away. The garage appeared beneath the underpass, its lights burning through the mist.

Soren entered first with the ledger beneath his jacket.

Rafi dismounted and followed. “Lock the east door.”

Soren nodded and crossed the room.

The moment the bolt slammed home, a gunshot cracked outside.

Everyone dropped.

The sound punched through the garage. A round struck the steel door, leaving a bright scar. Mara dragged Rafi behind a concrete pillar as the crew scattered among the bikes.

Deke drew his weapon. “From where?”

Another shot rang out, farther off this time. Then an engine screamed down the service road.

Rafi rose just enough to see through the narrow window beside the office. A black motorcycle vanished beneath the rail bridge, its rider carrying something long and rectangular beneath one arm.

Soren was gone.

The office door stood open. The ledger was gone with him.

Rafi ran.

He crossed the oil-slick floor, shoved through the office, and found the back window broken. Cold rain blew across the desk. Soren’s coat hook was empty. The records cabinet hung open, its lock torn out.

Behind Rafi, Deke entered with his gun lowered.

“Who was that?” he asked.

Rafi stared at the empty cabinet. The keys in his fist cut deep enough to draw blood.

“You tell me,” he said.

Deke looked past him at the broken window. For the first time that night, the old rider seemed genuinely surprised.

Mara appeared in the doorway. “The crew’s still here. Nobody ran.”

Rafi looked at the faces gathering behind her. Fear. Anger. Suspicion.

He had claimed the garage. He had closed the road. He had kept the gang from breaking apart in the first test of his command.

But Soren Vale had taken the records, and with them every name, payment, route, and weakness the Skulls Region had trusted him to guard.

Rafi slipped the keys into his pocket.

“Seal the garage,” he said. “Nobody leaves.”

Deke raised his brows. “You planning to lock us in?”

Rafi looked at the blood on his palm.

“I’m planning to find out who opened the door.”

End of chapter one. 19 more chapters in the full book.