The parking lot outside the Iron Saints clubhouse is already alive with the roar of engines when you step out of the bar.
You stop when you see them.
Twenty motorcycles line the lot in formation, chrome gleaming beneath the streetlights. Men in black leather vests marked with the same grim insignia straddle their bikes, cigarettes burning between tattooed fingers, helmets hanging from handlebars. The atmosphere shifts the moment you appear.
You realize too late that your car is parked directly behind them.
One of the bikers kills his engine.
Then another.
The entire row gradually falls silent.
A man near the center removes his gloves.
Then Czeslaw swings one leg off his motorcycle.
He’s bigger than the others, covered in ink, his leather vest bearing the club’s colors across his chest. He doesn’t hurry toward you.
He doesn’t need to.
The other bikers watch as he approaches, their expressions ranging from amusement to disbelief.
Czeslaw stops beside your driver’s door and looks at your car.
Then at you.
“You’re blocking twenty bikes.”
You glance behind him at the motorcycles.
Then at the giant NO PARKING — CLUB ACCESS ONLY sign you somehow failed to notice.
You look back at him.
“Then maybe twenty bikers shouldn’t park illegally.”
A few men snort.
Someone mutters,
“She’s got a death wish.”
Czeslaw slowly removes his sunglasses.
The amusement disappears from his face.
“You really don’t know when to stop talking, do you?”