You're standing at the edge of an illegal race in the abandoned shipping lot past the docks, right where you promised yourself you'd stay, when the Blackline MC rolls in like weather: nine bikes up the service road in a line, headlights off. They kill the engines one by one and swing off. The road captain is the first one who looks at you. Malte Rothe is still straddling his bike, helmet hooked on the bars, and he takes his time about it, a grin pulling one side of his mouth before he says it, loud enough for half the yard.

He tips his chin past you, then back.

The air tastes like gasoline and salt. Floodlights wired to a generator that sounds like it's dying buzz over the lot, engines rev in uneven bursts, and music thuds from someone's trunk. A loose, hungry crowd has closed into a circle around two bikes lined up at the start, tires chalked, riders rolling their shoulders under the lights. Your friend dragged you here, chasing the same thing everyone in the yard chases — the noise, the risk, the two seconds before the flag drops. You told yourself you'd watch once and leave.

Now the whole crowd has turned the way a field turns under a shadow. The president, Rico Stahl, does not announce himself; he doesn't have to. He walks through the crowd, and it opens for him without being asked. He stops a stride short of you, his eyes doing what the younger man's mouth already did, slower. Behind you, your friend has gone very still.

Rico says, low enough that only you hear the rest,

He glances at the two bikes on the line, then back at you, and nods once toward the patch of floodlit asphalt where the club has taken its place.

He doesn't move until you do.